TERRAIN & TERRAIN IMPROVEMENTS (ver 1.0): Hosted by EnochF

[EnochF]

Player-specific railroads shouldn't be that difficult to implement. After all, the game already includes messages such as "Do you really wish to destroy your own improvement?"

[wheathin]

Another idea (this thread should have been around a while ago )

NUKE IT!

When a city gets nuked, it should not only have all the surrounding squares in the city radius polluted (all 20, not just the close 8), it should lose all TIs on the surrounding 8 squares. WHAM... Even though in reality the surrounding farms and such would be only minimally affected by fallout, they would have ZERO ability to tranport their food to the city, a process the game does automatically.

wheathin

[Harel]

Here are my ideas: haven't read any thing yet, so sorrt if I double post something

* Bigger maps, 1000x1000 are a must.

* A mine should only get a bonus from the road if it connect to the origin town.

* Near-by tiles effect one another.
Mines cause negative impact of near-by farms ( more metal in the land ) but gives a small bonus to near-by mines. Same thing will farms ( if all the near-by area is becoming fertile, that will also effect the specific tile )

* You should have the following food-production tile improvments:
1. Irrigation ( +1 for the rest, +2 for deserts )
2. Fields ( +2 for plains, +1 for the rest )
3. Farms ( over fields, +1 food )
4. Manuring ( 1 turn, +25% food )
5. Industrial farm ( over farms, +1 food )

* You should have following movement tile improvments:
1. Path ( Basic tech, 1 turn, 1/2 movement )
2. Road ( Roman roads, like civ )
3. Railroad ( like civ, only 1/4 movement )
4. Monorail ( super-conductors techm 1/5 movement )
You shouldn't have unlimited movement.

* You can only put roads over mountians ( railroad/monorail ) with the tech explosive.

* You can only put any roads over rivers with bridges tech.

* Have deep-core mines, which generate much more. Refitment or replacement of old mines?

* Add lush land, a rich form of plains. found in: around volancos, and like in the nile delta.

* Instead that the city will be a one-box unit, have city tiles. The tech will decide how many every tile can house.
Using civ pop numbers:
Huts - 2 pop per tile.
Tit houses - Old Egypy, 3 pop per tile.
Masonary houses - Minoun? era, 4 pop per tile.
Concerte houses - Roman vila, 5 pop per tile.
Urban zone - 19th housing, 8 pop per tile.
SkyScrapers - 10 pop per tile.
Argocologies - 15 pop per tile.

* Cities that will merge ( atleast two squares are one-by-one, and the various cities are atleast 4 squares apart ), the two cities will form a metropolitan, when:
The biggest city will the be the name of the metro, which will be written in big letters in the center, and the two cities will be written in smaller letters, like in SimCity. The metro will include any new cities that will also merge.

* Have support cost of tiles, when good roads cost the most. That way, people won't over-flood the area with roads/railroads.

* RailRoad shouldn't give a bonus to farming. Can anyone explain for me the reason they did it in the first place?

* Artilery and missiles can attack tiles and destroy them from afar. Not only military discarding units.

* When an engineer "strip" down an enemy farm or mine, you get a small token from it.

* Walls shoule be tiles, which can surround a city ( blocking expansion ) or in far-out areas ( the big wall, or England roman empire wall ).

That's my list for now.

[Kris Huysmans]

idea:
Building a railroad can't be faster then 2 turns and the artilery in a enemy city will shoots every engenier deadth that is in a radius of 2. But one artilery can only shoots one time.

[DaBods]

There should be many types of roads, because roads got better as time went on. roads should give extra trade, because they encourage trade in real life. one of the main reasons of the lack of progress in the middle ages was because people never moved and the average person died w\in 8 miles of where they were born. there should be some limitations on the number of roads in a city radius that produce trade. maybe only roads going to another city produce extra trade. rr's should NOT have unlimited movement because killing an empire in one turn was way to easy in civ2. it should be like 1/5 or 1/6 movement. also movement should be cut down in place where you haven't been in a while or can't see from a city radii or unit.

[DaBods]

There should be many types of roads, because roads got better as time went on. roads should give extra trade, because they encourage trade in real life. one of the main reasons of the lack of progress in the middle ages was because people never moved and the average person died w\in 8 miles of where they were born. there should be some limitations on the number of roads in a city radius that produce trade. maybe only roads going to another city produce extra trade. rr's should NOT have unlimited movement because killing an empire in one turn was way to easy in civ2. it should be like 1/5 or 1/6 movement. also movement should be cut down in place where you haven't been in a while or can't see from a city radii or unit.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Okay, here's me list of possible improvements to a tile or hex. The exact Improvment per tile depends not only on the advances and technology available, but also on the type of terrain in the tile.
Idented Improvements are Progressive: they add to or supplant the original (non-indented) Improvement:

Land Improvements

Roads
Permanent Roads
Railroads
MagLev Line
The initial roads merely allow City Radius to be extended slightly. Permanent Roads are Roman-type hard surface roads: faster movement but require maintenance. Railroads and MagLevs extend city radius to Regional distances and allow much faster transportation - they also allow Bulk Goods to be moved, like Food
Farms
Factory Farms
There should also be numerous Incremental Improvements to Farms: Moldboard Plows, Improved Grains, Crop Rotation, Artificial Fertilizers, etc. in the Advances
Irrigation
Canals
Canals allow you to extend irrigation away from the sea/river tiles, and also provide transportation: slow as roads, but you can move Bulk Goods like Food
Terraces
Irrigation turns desert/plains into grassland-equivalent tiles for farming. Terracing turns Hills into grassland-equivalent tiles for farming when combined with Irrigation
Mines
Deep Mines
Open-Pit Mines
Deep Mines require Steam/Powered Pumps. (Modern) Open Pit Mines require major machinery, are a 20th century development.
Fortifications
Fortresses
Fortresses are the detached 19th century concrete and steel structures, Fortifications date back to Oppidum hill-forts of wood, stoe, and turf.
Airfield

Sea Improvements

Fishing Boats
Fishing Trawlers
Factory Ships
These are Mobile Improvements: they can be moved to where the fish are, and become useless if there are no fish within their range - which increases with each successive Improvement.
Fish Farm
Aquaculture Station
These are Stationary Fish (food) sources, usually in coastal/offshore tiles
Offshore Platform
(Resource) source from the sea: currently only Oil, but they could also extract other Minerals and reseources
Mine Belt
Mine Array
SONAR Array
MAD Array
Defense Improvements for the sea tile: Mines to attack ships, SONAR and MAD (Magnetic Anomaly Detector) to find Submarines

I'd also like to put in a plug for more visible Improvements on the map: Farms and industrial farmland, detailed roads (stone versus dirt surfaces) irrigation ditches, canals with boats, fishing trawlers off the coast, offshore platforms that really appear offshore, etc. There's a whole range of Eye Candy that has barely been scratched in the games so far - and after pillaging, the effect of Ruined Improvements showing on the landscape would be just as impressive!

Certain Improvements should also be attackable with Barrage or Bombardment factors from the sea or air: Railroads, Canals and roads can be bombed, Offshore Platforms destroyed by air or sea attack - or by Mother Nature, for that matter (we need Natural Disasters in the game anyway, make them affect the Tile Improvements, too - flooding the farmland along the river, for instance, complete with graphics).
Other Improvements cannot be so attacked: bombing farmland is pretty much worthless - it has to be pillaged by a Ground Unit (Army) taking its time to carry off or burn down everything - same with mines, Unimproved Roads, or Irrigation.

[Theben]

Color-coded rails: To take ecce homo's idea (6-17) one step further, on the turn that you remove control from the enemy the RR/maglev has no color- no one owns it. At the beginning of next turn if your unit is still there (hasn't been destroyed) you gain possesion of the RR. If you're destroyed it remains unowned until someone can take it, or until peace breaks out, it goes to the person whose territory it's in.

Da Sicilian,
It seems that many of those TI could be advanced techs, granting small % bonuses to overall food/shield/trade production. This can be accomplished by combining the various percentages and THEN figuring out how much production the city gets. I'd make an exception for roads because the game is unit-intensive (and I agree rr/maglev should not give unlimited movement).

The fishing boats, etc. sound like they should be units, akin to supply crawlers in SMAC.

"Irrigation turns desert/plains into grassland-equivalent tiles for farming."
Are you saying that irrigation will only allow water to be moved, while farming produces the extra food? If that's the case there should be a limit to how far you can extend irrigation, with advanced tech extending that limit. Grassland should always be able to be irrigated, but plains/desert shouldn't. You may also wind up losing part of your river if you divert too much water (random event). Lastly terraforming desert/plains to grassland should require maintenance, and if it's not paid then at some future point it will revert to normal.

I'm glad you see that not every tile should be subject to aerial/ocean bombardment, although I'd go farther than you did. The German rail system in WWII wasn't affected by allied bombing that much, despite the allies best efforts. Give the bombers a very low chance of success, made greater with tech (specifically laser-targeting, maybe future techs).


<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited June 30, 1999).]</font>

[mzilikazi]

A new idea - apologies if it's already been covered...
In the Modern Age, civilisations discovered the advance of Conservation. Areas of virgin territory within their borders were set aside in perpetuity as National Parks, (from Snowdonia to the Serengeti) boosting both the happiness of environmentally conscious populations, and bringing in tourism-related income. In game terms, tiles (any terrainj type)within a Civ's borders may, as long as they have never had any improvement of any kind built on them, may be designated as National Park land (perhaps gaining an attractive Lion or Redwood icon!). This land must then remain untouched - no units of any Civ, friendly or otherwise, may then pass through the National Park, not may any roads or other improvements be built on the tile, or the Park designation is lost. Harsh rules, but the benefits to the nearest city of having National Park land nearby should be large: in terms of both gold and happiness. Equally, the consequences of desecrating National Park land, either by passing friendly units through it or building on it would be severe - civil unrest and demonstrations as the population objects to the destruction of natural beauty. If a Park is destroyed by enemy units passing through, I suggest that the home city or capital of the offending unit suffer from unrest, as the population looks beyond the present hostilities and sees the destruction of something more important.

Any thoughts?

[Theben]

Kind of harsh, considering how most people react to environmental destruction these days (that's terrible! what's on the other channel?). And you'd need roads into the land in order to generate any bonus in revenue, or else how will people get there?