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Comprehensive revamp of trade and infrastructure
Here are the basic ideas from all of my trade/infrastructure posts, as well as some others....
Basically, I felt that not nearly enough attention was paid to trade in Civ2. In Civ3, we need realistic trade which is important to the players' prospects in the game. A player without a good trade set up should not be able to prosper. Exports and imports should be CRITICAL in the later stages of the game.
First, resources. Resource tiles should produce a fixed number of resources per turn.. For example, a bare iron ore rock could produce 1 iron ore, 2 if connected by road, 3 if a mine is built on it, 4 if the mine is connected by road. Rail and ship should not increase the rate of production though, beyond that of road. For this to work, and be realistic, the 'shield' concept should be done away with. Units will require specific resources (eg. phalanx : 20 bronze, knight : 20 gold, 40 iron, tank : 60 steel, 30 diesel)..
IVANMV had an ingenious idea: the resources are spread unevenly thruout the world. Certain countries get more oil, some get more iron, some more uranium etc.. This will make imports and exports very important. If you do not have the resources you need, say, to finish a nuke (200 uranium, perhaps), you will have to trade to get it.. You could buy it, or exchange it for a price set by the supplier.. If he has a monopoly, he could set the price at 4000 food or something like that. Other countries might set their engineers on building several steel mills. They could then import/mine iron ore, send it to their steel mill, and then export the finished steel at a much higher rate.
Some of the production that each city gets (say, 33% or 50%) goes into the national treasury. This way, parts of your empire don't need to starve while other parts produce excess food.
An important improvement to the infrastructure engine would be totally revamped rail, sea and air routes. These routes would be point-to-point, rather than just to anywhere or nowhere. So, engineers will not be able to build railway tracks wherever they feel like. The tracks will HAVE to run between 'stations' and/or cities. Units will be able to move, in one turn, only as many stations (in any direction) as there are within x no. of spaces, the x being given by the prevalent train technology. This also prevents unlimited movement. For units to use rail, the must embark and disembark only at stations of cities. They are prohibited from using foreigners stations & rail unless the foreigner is an ally, or they pay a fee. If the foreigner is someone with whom you are at war, even that wouldn't be allowed.
Apart from units, resources also use stations and railway lines. A station can be built near a mine that is outside the city radius, and the resources (4 per turn?) are sent to specified city. Perhaps 2 resources go into the national treasury. Also, and engineer can build an oil refinery and a station next to it. Then oil from an oil well can come thru a station and rail to the refinery, which produces diesel from the incoming oil. Track from this station can take the diesel to a city, a port, or a foreign station (for possible export).
The stations could have 'station radii' or catchment areas, specific to their size/status/technology.
Shipping routes can be operated similarly. Port can be built on the coast, preferably on a railway line next to a station (for access to the 'hinterland'), and ships, built at cities or the port, carry goods and passengers to other domestic or international ports, or to offshore establishments (like oil rigs and such). So, from a port, you can build an oil tanker using funds from the national treasury, set up a circuit to and from an oil rig, and make it bring back 2? 4? oil each time it returns (which of course depends on distance). This oil is then taken to an oil refinery (by ship or rail) or exported to another port. Passenger ships also operate between ports, enhancing tourism, migration etc.
You should be able to build port improvements in he port out of the national treasury, like customs houses, immigration control etc., which yield trade, tourism and other benefits.
Airports can also be built by engineers, outside cities. These should also be improvable, with air force or passenger facilities, missile silos, SAM sites etc. Perhaps, if corporations are implemented, the would offer to pay you a fee for their airlines to ply between your airport and another.. Again, tourism benefit. Cargo planes could also fly.
Seeing that rail is so important, they must be relatively expensive to build, requiring funds from the treasury as well as time.
For those fearing too much complexity, the system should be largely automated and intelligent. It should know what to take where, with only minimal input from the user. The user could perhaps control everything from a revamped Trade screen, with special emphasis on imports and exports. From here, tax rates of different commodities could be set. For example, to stimulate the steel industry, iron ore could be made tax free; to increase public health, tobacco could be heavily taxed. For simplicity and manageability, the total number of resources should be kept small, perhaps only to iron, steel, uranium, gold, oil, diesel, bronze(?), food, luxury items(spices?), tobacco (or liquor), electronics.
For those who would rather manage their trade themselves and concentrate less on war, there could be different levels of automation, from almost complete, to minimal.
So, what do you think? Please reply with suggestions, criticism, whatever..
------------------
-Shiva
Email: shiva@mailops.com
Web: http://www.crosswinds.net/india/~shiva
ICQ: 17719980
Basically, I felt that not nearly enough attention was paid to trade in Civ2. In Civ3, we need realistic trade which is important to the players' prospects in the game. A player without a good trade set up should not be able to prosper. Exports and imports should be CRITICAL in the later stages of the game.
First, resources. Resource tiles should produce a fixed number of resources per turn.. For example, a bare iron ore rock could produce 1 iron ore, 2 if connected by road, 3 if a mine is built on it, 4 if the mine is connected by road. Rail and ship should not increase the rate of production though, beyond that of road. For this to work, and be realistic, the 'shield' concept should be done away with. Units will require specific resources (eg. phalanx : 20 bronze, knight : 20 gold, 40 iron, tank : 60 steel, 30 diesel)..
IVANMV had an ingenious idea: the resources are spread unevenly thruout the world. Certain countries get more oil, some get more iron, some more uranium etc.. This will make imports and exports very important. If you do not have the resources you need, say, to finish a nuke (200 uranium, perhaps), you will have to trade to get it.. You could buy it, or exchange it for a price set by the supplier.. If he has a monopoly, he could set the price at 4000 food or something like that. Other countries might set their engineers on building several steel mills. They could then import/mine iron ore, send it to their steel mill, and then export the finished steel at a much higher rate.
Some of the production that each city gets (say, 33% or 50%) goes into the national treasury. This way, parts of your empire don't need to starve while other parts produce excess food.
An important improvement to the infrastructure engine would be totally revamped rail, sea and air routes. These routes would be point-to-point, rather than just to anywhere or nowhere. So, engineers will not be able to build railway tracks wherever they feel like. The tracks will HAVE to run between 'stations' and/or cities. Units will be able to move, in one turn, only as many stations (in any direction) as there are within x no. of spaces, the x being given by the prevalent train technology. This also prevents unlimited movement. For units to use rail, the must embark and disembark only at stations of cities. They are prohibited from using foreigners stations & rail unless the foreigner is an ally, or they pay a fee. If the foreigner is someone with whom you are at war, even that wouldn't be allowed.
Apart from units, resources also use stations and railway lines. A station can be built near a mine that is outside the city radius, and the resources (4 per turn?) are sent to specified city. Perhaps 2 resources go into the national treasury. Also, and engineer can build an oil refinery and a station next to it. Then oil from an oil well can come thru a station and rail to the refinery, which produces diesel from the incoming oil. Track from this station can take the diesel to a city, a port, or a foreign station (for possible export).
The stations could have 'station radii' or catchment areas, specific to their size/status/technology.
Shipping routes can be operated similarly. Port can be built on the coast, preferably on a railway line next to a station (for access to the 'hinterland'), and ships, built at cities or the port, carry goods and passengers to other domestic or international ports, or to offshore establishments (like oil rigs and such). So, from a port, you can build an oil tanker using funds from the national treasury, set up a circuit to and from an oil rig, and make it bring back 2? 4? oil each time it returns (which of course depends on distance). This oil is then taken to an oil refinery (by ship or rail) or exported to another port. Passenger ships also operate between ports, enhancing tourism, migration etc.
You should be able to build port improvements in he port out of the national treasury, like customs houses, immigration control etc., which yield trade, tourism and other benefits.
Airports can also be built by engineers, outside cities. These should also be improvable, with air force or passenger facilities, missile silos, SAM sites etc. Perhaps, if corporations are implemented, the would offer to pay you a fee for their airlines to ply between your airport and another.. Again, tourism benefit. Cargo planes could also fly.
Seeing that rail is so important, they must be relatively expensive to build, requiring funds from the treasury as well as time.
For those fearing too much complexity, the system should be largely automated and intelligent. It should know what to take where, with only minimal input from the user. The user could perhaps control everything from a revamped Trade screen, with special emphasis on imports and exports. From here, tax rates of different commodities could be set. For example, to stimulate the steel industry, iron ore could be made tax free; to increase public health, tobacco could be heavily taxed. For simplicity and manageability, the total number of resources should be kept small, perhaps only to iron, steel, uranium, gold, oil, diesel, bronze(?), food, luxury items(spices?), tobacco (or liquor), electronics.
For those who would rather manage their trade themselves and concentrate less on war, there could be different levels of automation, from almost complete, to minimal.
So, what do you think? Please reply with suggestions, criticism, whatever..
------------------
-Shiva
Email: shiva@mailops.com
Web: http://www.crosswinds.net/india/~shiva
ICQ: 17719980
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