Poll: City radius

[Adm.Naismith]

Tiberius,

quote: My opinion about the "villager" unit: The "villager" unit can be the settler, but when inside a radius of 2 from the main city (or maybe 2 x road/railroad multiplier x terrain multiplier) you will have (beside the usual b-build command) a v-village command.

I started with the same double use of settler, but a settler cost 1 point of population, so you have more return for your building cost if you use it to (B)uild a new city. No one will use it to build a village instead!
OTOH, if (V)illage is only a kind of work command as (R)oad, i.e. doesn't cost the whole unit in the process, IMO the Village improvement become too much
unbalancing (too much return for the original unit cost).

quote: Oh, one more question: when the city has a radius of 2, but can't gather a behind-the-mountain/river resource, can you send a villager there?

Simply apply movement rules: if a road/bridge/tunnel/mountain pass put the square on admitted radius, then it's ok, otherwise not.

BTW, thank you for your support.
I really hope that some of our ideas, here at Apolyton forum, will ring the right bells to Firaxis, but it's really nice to share ideas here just for the enjoyment of the process

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Tiberius]

Results so far:

Choice____________________________________________ ______ Votes
1.expanding, more than 3 circles radius______________________ 5
2.expanding, max. 3 circles radius___________________________ 9
3.expanding, max. 2 circles radius___________________________ 6
4.fixed style city radius, with 2 circles_______________________ 4
5.I don't know/I don't care__________________________________ 1

Straybow, I counted Grumbold's vote as 3, not as 2. He voted 2 because I've introduced 3 only later in the poll.

[This message has been edited by Tiberius (edited February 26, 2001).]

[Tiberius]

Let's summarize a bit the discussions and ideas from this thread:

A lot of people like the idea of expanding city radius. The size of the city radius is, however, subject of debate. Some people think that 2 circles are enough, others want unlimited, huge cities. I think the most reasonable solution, combining several proposals, is the following:

1. In the early stages of the game, cities start at a size of 1 "circle" radius. Later, when the efficiency of your civ is better, cities could start at a size of 2 or even 3 circles radius.

2. Limiting a city to a size of 3 circles sounds like a good compromise, but the limitation should be not a fixed one, but dictated by efficiency (gathering from a distant tile should be less efficient than from a closer tile). So, if somebody wants a city with 5 circles radius, fine, make it possible, but not worthwhile (at least in terms of resource gathering efficiency; huge cities could have other advantages). Of course, tile efficiency could increase over the time, discovering the proper techs.

3. Cities should grow not in exact "circles", but following some natural borders: mountains, sea, large rivers, desert. Of course, these natural borders will limit the city's growth only until the proper tech is discovered (for ex. bridge building for rivers) or the proper TI or CI is built (road, railroad, harbor, offshore platform).

4. A good method to gather resources from a distant tile (especially when the city has only a 1 size radius) is the "village". (see Adm.Naismith's earlier description ). When a city grows big enough to exploit itself that tile, the village becomes a suburb and joins the city. However, villages could join the city only if the city has a proper "mass transit" or other city improvement.

I wish I had more time or better english knowledge to describe it better and in more detail, but for a tentative model, is it worthwhile for further discussions?

[Adm.Naismith]

Good "digest" of all the proposal!

To be fair (and having mine fingers in both, I hope I am ) idea about available square limited by natural obstacle AND village concept can be too much if mixed.

I suppose for pratical reasons (design, programming and playability) Firaxis should chose one of the two.
Of course I hope they can mix nicely, but I think is better to criticize myself in advance, just in case...

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Tiberius]

Well, I'm certainly not a game designer, so I don't know if these ideas can be mixed together or not, and even if they can, is it worthwhile or not.

I'm just a Civ fan dropping in some ideas (hopefully good ones ). The decision and the implementation is Firaxis' job

Anyway, people, come and vote: expanding city radius or not?

[Demolition]

ehh 1.

I think another question is rising: How big is the whole map.
Let take Earth.
If the big cities idea means that only 2 big cities can be in ex europe, then its a bad idea. But then again I like HUGE maps.

[Tiberius]

No more votes ?

[Tiberius]

Results:

Choice____________________________________________ _________ Votes

1.expanding, more than 3 circles radius______________________ 6
2.expanding, max. 3 circles radius___________________________ 9
3.expanding, max. 2 circles radius___________________________ 6
4.fixed style city radius, with 2 circles____________________ 4
5.I don't know/I don't care__________________________________ 1

[Adm.Naismith]

Small numbers, still...

21 over 4 is over 5:1 (nice attack advantage, still the defensive party must add a +200% for "conservative Firaxis design" )

Ok, expanding radius seem the most wanted; difference between radius must depend from play test, for balancing and playability reason. I can trust on alfa and beta testers for this tweaking.

CTP2 already introduced it (with some unbalancing trouble, it seems), so Firaxis can look and improve from others trial.

Easy task this time, you Firaxis team

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Pingu:]

Option 1 I'd say. I like expanding cities and the limit should be 4... for really, really big cities. Capping it at 3 wouldn't allow for monstrously sized cities.

As cities get bigger some sort of village/suburb structures do need to appear around the city. This can reduce productivity.... Admiral Naismith's idea sounds pretty good.

Pingu:

[Koffe tyrann]

I vote for nr 1

Two big cities should be able to merge , if York and Manchester is near each other it should be new city: "York-Manchester"

or one big city should split into two or three cities if there is to many minorities in the city. If London have 49% english, 40 % russian and 11% german population London should be two cities: "English-London" and "Russian-London".

(These ideas are mayby alittle bit too crazy)

[MrFun]

I vote for number 2.

[Tiberius]

Results:

Choice____________________________________________ _______ Votes

1.expanding, more than 3 circles radius______________________ 8
2.expanding, max. 3 circles radius___________________________ 10
3.expanding, max. 2 circles radius___________________________ 6
4.fixed style city radius, with 2 circles_______________________ 4
5.I don't know/I don't care__________________________________ 1

[wittlich]

I too vote for #2