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This took me almost two hours to compile. You guys don't know how good you have it. Anyway, here's the moderately organized summary of the last week and a half of terrain discussion. Enjoy!
THE SYSTEM
Wheathin: Public works system is less hassle than engineers. But “terraforming” is an anachronism in the present. Glaciers-to-grassland should require heavy future tech, maybe weather control. Terraforming must be appropriately scaled. Forest-to-plains and forest-to-grassland should come early, but swamp-to-mountain should come much later.
For TI’s, having an older TI in a square should reduce the cost/build time of upgrade, but should not be a prerequisite. I.e., building a railroad from scratch would take longer and cost more, but would not require a road in the square.
Kris Huysmans: Public works isn’t as fun as using engineers.
Wheathin: At the beginning of the game, yes. But with 30 engineers, the fun is gone.
Theben: All construction costs should vary by government type. Transform terrain should bring up a menu listing possible terrains and transform times/costs.
THE MAP
Kris Huysmans: No 3-D terrain; without 3-D units it’s useless, and 3-D units rule out customization.
Climate modeling issues: more attention to water modeling, climate changes over time, long-term effects of irrigation, effects of deforestation in late game
NotLikeTea: Would like to see gradual climactic change, deserts expanding/receding, swamps forming/drying up.
JT: Altitude should be an aspect of terrain, as in SMAC.
Rathenn: Better resource seed, something more random than Civ II without regular patterns.
EnochF: There’s potential for continental plates, but it would be hell to program.
NotLikeTea: But some geological realism would be nice. Volcanos and faults could be logically placed, and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge might make a nice geographical landmark.
DickK: Dynamic maps, global climactic change, rivers changing course, new resources uncovered, old resources peter out, areas get wetter or dryer, and all this reacts to the human interaction with the environment. Or the whole climate of the planet may change, temperatures rise or fall, humidity increase or decrease. All over the course of the game and very, very slow.
DickK: Also, random maps seem too random. Deserts don’t occur in 1-2 square patches. Mountains should divide forests from plains. Terrain should be 3-D in the SMAC sense.
Theben: I want a round planet. Keep the square/diamond tiles. Less importantly, the computer could generate a tectonic plate map, with volcanic activity, etc. The player won’t see the tectonic map until the proper tech is developed. Windward mountain or hill slopes are forested and receive +1 food and +1 shield.
Harel: Bigger maps, 1000 x 1000.
THE GRAPHICS
Eggman: Avoid terrain types that look alike. Make sure jungles don’t look like forests. In SMAC, “rolling,” “rocky” and “rainy” all tended to blend together.
NEW IMPROVEMENTS
Theben: Important: Build Canals. Upgrade Fortress (from Fort to Keep to Fortress to Castle/Base). Aqueduct as tile improvement: mountains with aqueducts generate +1 food. Naval Base, extends range of ships. Mountain Pass lowers movement cost, allows mounted units to cross a range.
Kris Huysmans: Animal Farm, +1 food, +1 trade when you have discovered… sigh… Fast Food and have a Free Market (as in SMAC social engineering).
Harel: Agriculture improvements. Irrigation (+1 food, +2 for deserts), Fields (+1 food, +2 for plains), Farms (+1 food), Fertilized Crops (+1 food), Industrial Farm (+1 food). Transport improvements: Path (1/2 movement), Road (1/3 movement), Railroad (1/4 movement), Monorail (1/5 movement), no unlimited movement. Add deep-core mines to upgrade mines. Wall TI’s, which can surround a city or a civilization.
Mzilikazi: National parks. Any tiles within your borders can be designated a national park (with an advance, say, Conservation). No roads may be built there or other improvements. There are benefits to the nearest city in gold and happiness. Moving units through national parks would cause unhappiness.
Theben: Those national park rules seem harsh (and unrealistic). Plus, you’d have to have roads there anyway.
NEW TERRAINS
Harel: Lush land, a rich form of plains, found around volcanos or like in the Nile delta. Areas of nutrient-rich soil.
TILE ISSUES
NotLikeTea: Devolution of tiles: Tile improvements might degrade and disappear if not used. Archaeology as a science could uncover “ancient farms.”
Wheathin: TI’s should not be available on all terrains at the same time or cost. Roads on grassland is easy, but roads in forests, mountains and glaciers are different. Mines on hills before mines on mountains.
Wheathin: Maybe maintenance costs for TI’s, higher costs the further away they are from a city.
Theben: Sources (iron, coal, uranium, oil): maybe a source must exist within your borders before you can utilize it; if you don’t have it, you’ll have to trade. Lack of resources might inhibit research.
Theben: Grasslands, plains and hills can always be irrigated unless adjacent to the leeward side of a mountain range. Desert, tundra and glacier cannot be irrigated unless there’s a river in the square or contains a suitable resource (oasis, hot spring) or a certain level of technology has been reached. Jungles and swamps should have at least 1 production for available wood.
Harel: Mines should only get a bonus if there’s a road connecting it to the city. Nearby tiles should affect one another. E.g., mines harm nearby farms, but increase productivity of nearby mines. Roads cannot be built on mountains until explosives or rivers until bridge building.
Eggman: Less tile improvements are better than more. Keep things simple. Five different farming upgrades may be more realistic, but it adds little to the game, and it would get confusing. (The graphics would have to be pretty distinctive.)
Theben: Irrigation: grassland and plains should always be irrigable, but never desert. If a river is over-irrigated, it might dry up. Transforming desert to plains or grassland should require maintenance over time.
GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES
Widowmaker: The player (or computer) should name geographical locations.
Octopus: Take each civ’s starting positions into account, so that the Nile will be near Egypt or the Andes Mountains near the Incas.
Kmj: Whoever is the first to discover a region gets to name it.
Eggman: Natural Wonders like in SMAC. Sahara Desert, Grand Canyon, the Nile, the Amazon, Everest or the Himalaya, the Marianas Trench, etc., could provide small bonuses.
DickK: Major named features with unique benefits or penalties.
MILITARY:
Wheathin: Terrain should limit military movement. Some units get terrain bonuses for certain terrains, others will find certain terrains impassable. Mounted units, siege weapons can’t move on mountains.
Russellw: Armies should be vulnerable while crossing rivers.
Theben: Forts on coasts can incorporate sea defenses or anti-aircraft capability. Important: extreme climate can damage units. Some units (chariots, tank) may not enter swamp or mountain without roads or mountain passes. Other units take damage as they move through swamp or desert or glacier. Some special units would have certain climate immunities (alpine in mountains & tundra, marines in jungle & swamp). Special units would be immune to movement penalties, but would not have road-bonus movement. Some units (explorer, partisan) are immune to all climates.
Alexander’s Horse: City squares should not receive defense bonuses for terrain. Cities are built on plains, near rivers or the sea. Fortresses are built in the mountains, but not cities.
Eggman: Cities do receive defense bonuses. Quebec, built on high ground, was nearly impossible to take.
Wheathin: Nukes should not only pollute the city radius, but also destroy all tile improvements on the surrounding 8 squares.
Harel: Artillery, etc., can “bombard” tile improvements.
Diodorus Sicilus: Certain improvements should be attackable with barrage or bombard from the sea or air. Railroads, canals and roads can be bombed; offshore platforms destroyed from the air (or by natural disaster). However, bombing farmland from the air would be ineffective; it requires a ground unit to pillage.
RIVERS
Russellw: Increase trade depending on number of cities upstream. Increase aqueduct, hydro power, sewer system effects for cities on rivers. Armies should be vulnerable while crossing rivers. Borders should tend to conform to rivers.
EnochF: More rivers. Maybe begin random map generator with river systems.
Diodorus Sicilus: Include a “head of navigation” point on a river. Between that point and the sea, cities receive a trade bonus, but above that point only defense. Canal building could push the head of navigation upward later in the game.
ROADS
Wheathin: Roads are ugly. Don’t link them to trade bonuses, or players will build them in the entire city radius.
EnochF: Roads/railroads provide no trade bonus, but superhighways can still be built, providing +1 trade per road square. Encourages road building near developed cities.
Eggman: No unlimited movement on railroads. Too easily misused militarily.
Wheathin: Superhighways encourages ugly road building.
EnochF: Roads in the city radius simulate urban sprawl. What about unlimited movement on maglevs for the late game?
Diodorus Sicilus: Roads and railroads should effectively extend the city radius. Maybe after the development of concrete, things like suburbs or hinterland could be built to extend city radii without the ugliness of roads.
NotLikeTea: Railroads should only provide unlimited movement within your own borders. Not in enemy territory.
Ecce Homo: Citizens can work any square within 2 movement points of a city. Production will be penalized for any square requiring more than 1/3 movement points to reach the city. Double this after automobile.
Eggman: There are loopholes in railroad movement being unlimited within your borders. Perhaps combat movement would be limited, i.e. after six steps, a howitzer can no longer attack. And air units should be able to take advantage of the infinite movement as well.
Wheathin: Suburbs don’t reach 200 miles away from a city. Excessive roads ruin the aesthetic experience of the game.
Theben: All civs may use enemy roads, but may not use enemy railroads or better. Noncombat units may use railroads of civs with peaceful relations. All units may use railroads of allies. Rails may be “claimed” by a military unit if at war. Perhaps color-coding would be a good solution.
Eggman: When a city is captured, along with “partisans” there’s a chance that the surrounding railroads are sabotaged. Partisans may also destroy both railroads and roads crossing a river (blow up the bridge).
NotLikeTea: Interesting… maybe give partisans a free pillage on the first turn of automatic creation.
Kris Huysmans: Then you just kill the partisans and bring along 10 engineers. No, you can’t use enemy railroads.
Wheathin: How about player-specific railroads? Color code them to the building civ, like Theben said. There can be only one player’s rails in a square. Building your own rail would destroy the enemy’s rail and change colors.
Harel: Have “support costs” for tiles, with roads being the most expensive, to prevent over-building of roads. Roads cannot be built on mountains until explosives or rivers until bridge building.
Kris Huysmans: Railroads can never be built faster than 2 turns, no matter how many engineers are working. Prevents railroad/howitzer blitzing.
Ecce Homo: Color-coded railroads, but the color changes depending on which unit occupies it. The railroad should be “converted” at the beginning of the next turn.
DaBods: There should be several different kinds of roads. Roads should give a trade bonus. No unlimited movement for railroads.
Theben: Color-coded rails. On the turn that you remove control from the enemy, the railroad (maglev) has no color: no one owns it. At the beginning of the next turn, if your unit is still there (hasn’t been destroyed), you gain possession of the railroad.
THE SEA
Wheathin: “Ocean roads” for sea transport. Shipping lanes, or ferry routes, which increase sea movement for transports. Perhaps late game TI’s would provide instant ocean transport like railroads.
Bridges and tunnels could provide transport across shallow water (one ocean tile).
Eggman: Perhaps increase movement rate of all ships, but increase movement cost when sailing into unexplored territory. Negates the need for shipping lanes.
Diodorus Sicilus: Sea transport was way too slow in Civ II, should be faster. Perhaps sea lanes or trade routes could simulate this, 2 or 3x movement rate.
Bubba: Get rid of nets from Call to Power. They’re ugly.
CITIES
Harel: Instead of a single city square, have “city tiles.” The technology level determines the population a single tile can hold. Huts: 2 pop/tile, Masonry: 4 pop/tile, Concrete: 5 pop/tile, Urban: 8 pop/tile, Skyscraper: 10 pop/tile, Arcology: 15 pop/tile. Eventually, city tiles will become adjacent to one another, and the two adjoining cities will merge to become a megalopolis.
Don Don: A city square is huge. Suburban sprawl in a 50-mile radius is covered in that one city square.
Harel: But if the map were 1000 x 1000, then a city square would be on 20 miles or so. Thus, large cities would be better represented by multiple city tiles.
Diodorus Sicilus: All use of resources comes down to roads. Railroads increase food production because they allow farms to move more of their production to the cities. Therefore, I think the city radius should vary according to terrain and transportation. Cities on rivers should have larger radii in the early game because rivers were the only form of long-distance transportation of food. With railroads, the city radius ultimately amounts to wherever railroads connect to. Urban sprawl can only come with superhighways, ocean ports, railroads, etc. Only with modern transportation do we get modern metropoles such as New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Mexico City and Moscow.
Don Don: We may have to move away from the idea that a “city” in civ is in fact a city, but rather consider it a province with a capital city in the middle. The surrounding tiles represent small cities whose names are relatively unimportant.
FOOD
Wheathin: Something should be done to free cities from the limitations of their own farmland. Huge cities should no longer operate on the food-from-city-radius principle.
Don Don: When railroads became a viable economic factor, food allocation ceased to be local.
Alexander’s Horse: Irrigation should be severely limited, to rivers. Only a tiny percentage of land is irrigated in the world today. Then provide several “upgrades” for farmland tiles.
TILE-BASED CITY IMPROVEMENTS
Wheathin: Like harbors and supermarkets. Civ III should have many of these. Or perhaps certain city improvements allow certain tile improvements, i.e. no fisheries without a harbor.
Kris Huysmans: Hates supermarkets and superhighways in Civ II. TI’s should provide bonuses without needing a city improvement.
Theben: Environmentalism tech adds +1 trade to wilderness squares (mountain, jungle, swamps, tundra, forests) with roads in them.
POLLUTION
Theben: Important: Pollution within the city radius should cause unhappiness. Nuclear pollution = twice the unhappiness. Nuclear pollution takes longer to clean. Only engineers may clean (not settlers). Fallout may cause pollution downwind of the target. Nuclear pollution may lower population for X number of turns. Nukes should also damage terrain.
WEATHER
NotLikeTea: Add in random effects, like earthquakes, tidal waves, floods, volcanos, continental drift…
Bird: Natural conditions like those could be random events. Tornados, hurricanes, monsoons, etc., could cause food losses, population decreases, destruction of TI’s, etc. Volcanos could crop up on plate edges, but oil/gas resources would also increase there.
DickK: Random climactic/geographical events with minor effects. Famine (loss of food, though irrigation/farmland lessens the effect), Flood (for cities next to rivers, lessened by sewer system, city walls), Epidemic (lessened by hospitals, Cure for Cancer), Mine Failure (decreases production in tile), Bumper Crop (increased food), Gold Strike (iron, silver, uranium, etc.), Oil Strike.
COMPREHENSIVE LISTS
Diodorus Sicilus: Complete list of improvements. Land: Roads, permanent roads, railroads, maglev line; roads extend city radius 1 tile, railroads and maglevs extend radius to regional distances. Farms, factory farms (along with several incremental improvements to farms, advance-based, like moldboard plow, improved grain, crop rotation, artificial fertilizer). Irrigation, canals (canals allow irrigation beyond rivers; irrigation turns desert/plains into grassland for farming purposes). Mines, deep mines, open-pit mines (deep mines require steam, open-pit mines are 20th Century). Fortifications, fortresses (fortresses are 19th Century concrete and steel). Airfield.
Sea: Fishing boats, fishing trawlers, factory ships (“mobile improvements,” can be moved to where the fish are, but are useless without fish). Fish farm, aquaculture station (stationary). Offshore platform (useable on resources at sea). Mine belt, mine array, SONAR array, MAD array (mines to damage/destroy ships, SONARs to detect them).
Also wants lots of eye candy in the form of visible improvements. Canals with boats, detailed roads, visible harbors, things like that. Pillaged improvements could be just as visually striking.
Theben: Seems like a lot of those TI’s could be advanced techs, granting small percentage gains to overall food/shield/trade production. Fishing boats sound like they should be units (like SMAC’s supply crawlers), not TI’s. Irrigation: grassland and plains should always be irrigable, but never desert. If a river is over-irrigated, it might dry up. Transforming desert to plains or grassland should require maintenance over time.
OTHER STUFF
Theben: An improved, simplified zoom-out feature which cuts down on needless detail like altitude.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by EnochF (edited July 01, 1999).]</font>
THE SYSTEM
Wheathin: Public works system is less hassle than engineers. But “terraforming” is an anachronism in the present. Glaciers-to-grassland should require heavy future tech, maybe weather control. Terraforming must be appropriately scaled. Forest-to-plains and forest-to-grassland should come early, but swamp-to-mountain should come much later.
For TI’s, having an older TI in a square should reduce the cost/build time of upgrade, but should not be a prerequisite. I.e., building a railroad from scratch would take longer and cost more, but would not require a road in the square.
Kris Huysmans: Public works isn’t as fun as using engineers.
Wheathin: At the beginning of the game, yes. But with 30 engineers, the fun is gone.
Theben: All construction costs should vary by government type. Transform terrain should bring up a menu listing possible terrains and transform times/costs.
THE MAP
Kris Huysmans: No 3-D terrain; without 3-D units it’s useless, and 3-D units rule out customization.
Climate modeling issues: more attention to water modeling, climate changes over time, long-term effects of irrigation, effects of deforestation in late game
NotLikeTea: Would like to see gradual climactic change, deserts expanding/receding, swamps forming/drying up.
JT: Altitude should be an aspect of terrain, as in SMAC.
Rathenn: Better resource seed, something more random than Civ II without regular patterns.
EnochF: There’s potential for continental plates, but it would be hell to program.
NotLikeTea: But some geological realism would be nice. Volcanos and faults could be logically placed, and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge might make a nice geographical landmark.
DickK: Dynamic maps, global climactic change, rivers changing course, new resources uncovered, old resources peter out, areas get wetter or dryer, and all this reacts to the human interaction with the environment. Or the whole climate of the planet may change, temperatures rise or fall, humidity increase or decrease. All over the course of the game and very, very slow.
DickK: Also, random maps seem too random. Deserts don’t occur in 1-2 square patches. Mountains should divide forests from plains. Terrain should be 3-D in the SMAC sense.
Theben: I want a round planet. Keep the square/diamond tiles. Less importantly, the computer could generate a tectonic plate map, with volcanic activity, etc. The player won’t see the tectonic map until the proper tech is developed. Windward mountain or hill slopes are forested and receive +1 food and +1 shield.
Harel: Bigger maps, 1000 x 1000.
THE GRAPHICS
Eggman: Avoid terrain types that look alike. Make sure jungles don’t look like forests. In SMAC, “rolling,” “rocky” and “rainy” all tended to blend together.
NEW IMPROVEMENTS
Theben: Important: Build Canals. Upgrade Fortress (from Fort to Keep to Fortress to Castle/Base). Aqueduct as tile improvement: mountains with aqueducts generate +1 food. Naval Base, extends range of ships. Mountain Pass lowers movement cost, allows mounted units to cross a range.
Kris Huysmans: Animal Farm, +1 food, +1 trade when you have discovered… sigh… Fast Food and have a Free Market (as in SMAC social engineering).
Harel: Agriculture improvements. Irrigation (+1 food, +2 for deserts), Fields (+1 food, +2 for plains), Farms (+1 food), Fertilized Crops (+1 food), Industrial Farm (+1 food). Transport improvements: Path (1/2 movement), Road (1/3 movement), Railroad (1/4 movement), Monorail (1/5 movement), no unlimited movement. Add deep-core mines to upgrade mines. Wall TI’s, which can surround a city or a civilization.
Mzilikazi: National parks. Any tiles within your borders can be designated a national park (with an advance, say, Conservation). No roads may be built there or other improvements. There are benefits to the nearest city in gold and happiness. Moving units through national parks would cause unhappiness.
Theben: Those national park rules seem harsh (and unrealistic). Plus, you’d have to have roads there anyway.
NEW TERRAINS
Harel: Lush land, a rich form of plains, found around volcanos or like in the Nile delta. Areas of nutrient-rich soil.
TILE ISSUES
NotLikeTea: Devolution of tiles: Tile improvements might degrade and disappear if not used. Archaeology as a science could uncover “ancient farms.”
Wheathin: TI’s should not be available on all terrains at the same time or cost. Roads on grassland is easy, but roads in forests, mountains and glaciers are different. Mines on hills before mines on mountains.
Wheathin: Maybe maintenance costs for TI’s, higher costs the further away they are from a city.
Theben: Sources (iron, coal, uranium, oil): maybe a source must exist within your borders before you can utilize it; if you don’t have it, you’ll have to trade. Lack of resources might inhibit research.
Theben: Grasslands, plains and hills can always be irrigated unless adjacent to the leeward side of a mountain range. Desert, tundra and glacier cannot be irrigated unless there’s a river in the square or contains a suitable resource (oasis, hot spring) or a certain level of technology has been reached. Jungles and swamps should have at least 1 production for available wood.
Harel: Mines should only get a bonus if there’s a road connecting it to the city. Nearby tiles should affect one another. E.g., mines harm nearby farms, but increase productivity of nearby mines. Roads cannot be built on mountains until explosives or rivers until bridge building.
Eggman: Less tile improvements are better than more. Keep things simple. Five different farming upgrades may be more realistic, but it adds little to the game, and it would get confusing. (The graphics would have to be pretty distinctive.)
Theben: Irrigation: grassland and plains should always be irrigable, but never desert. If a river is over-irrigated, it might dry up. Transforming desert to plains or grassland should require maintenance over time.
GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES
Widowmaker: The player (or computer) should name geographical locations.
Octopus: Take each civ’s starting positions into account, so that the Nile will be near Egypt or the Andes Mountains near the Incas.
Kmj: Whoever is the first to discover a region gets to name it.
Eggman: Natural Wonders like in SMAC. Sahara Desert, Grand Canyon, the Nile, the Amazon, Everest or the Himalaya, the Marianas Trench, etc., could provide small bonuses.
DickK: Major named features with unique benefits or penalties.
MILITARY:
Wheathin: Terrain should limit military movement. Some units get terrain bonuses for certain terrains, others will find certain terrains impassable. Mounted units, siege weapons can’t move on mountains.
Russellw: Armies should be vulnerable while crossing rivers.
Theben: Forts on coasts can incorporate sea defenses or anti-aircraft capability. Important: extreme climate can damage units. Some units (chariots, tank) may not enter swamp or mountain without roads or mountain passes. Other units take damage as they move through swamp or desert or glacier. Some special units would have certain climate immunities (alpine in mountains & tundra, marines in jungle & swamp). Special units would be immune to movement penalties, but would not have road-bonus movement. Some units (explorer, partisan) are immune to all climates.
Alexander’s Horse: City squares should not receive defense bonuses for terrain. Cities are built on plains, near rivers or the sea. Fortresses are built in the mountains, but not cities.
Eggman: Cities do receive defense bonuses. Quebec, built on high ground, was nearly impossible to take.
Wheathin: Nukes should not only pollute the city radius, but also destroy all tile improvements on the surrounding 8 squares.
Harel: Artillery, etc., can “bombard” tile improvements.
Diodorus Sicilus: Certain improvements should be attackable with barrage or bombard from the sea or air. Railroads, canals and roads can be bombed; offshore platforms destroyed from the air (or by natural disaster). However, bombing farmland from the air would be ineffective; it requires a ground unit to pillage.
RIVERS
Russellw: Increase trade depending on number of cities upstream. Increase aqueduct, hydro power, sewer system effects for cities on rivers. Armies should be vulnerable while crossing rivers. Borders should tend to conform to rivers.
EnochF: More rivers. Maybe begin random map generator with river systems.
Diodorus Sicilus: Include a “head of navigation” point on a river. Between that point and the sea, cities receive a trade bonus, but above that point only defense. Canal building could push the head of navigation upward later in the game.
ROADS
Wheathin: Roads are ugly. Don’t link them to trade bonuses, or players will build them in the entire city radius.
EnochF: Roads/railroads provide no trade bonus, but superhighways can still be built, providing +1 trade per road square. Encourages road building near developed cities.
Eggman: No unlimited movement on railroads. Too easily misused militarily.
Wheathin: Superhighways encourages ugly road building.
EnochF: Roads in the city radius simulate urban sprawl. What about unlimited movement on maglevs for the late game?
Diodorus Sicilus: Roads and railroads should effectively extend the city radius. Maybe after the development of concrete, things like suburbs or hinterland could be built to extend city radii without the ugliness of roads.
NotLikeTea: Railroads should only provide unlimited movement within your own borders. Not in enemy territory.
Ecce Homo: Citizens can work any square within 2 movement points of a city. Production will be penalized for any square requiring more than 1/3 movement points to reach the city. Double this after automobile.
Eggman: There are loopholes in railroad movement being unlimited within your borders. Perhaps combat movement would be limited, i.e. after six steps, a howitzer can no longer attack. And air units should be able to take advantage of the infinite movement as well.
Wheathin: Suburbs don’t reach 200 miles away from a city. Excessive roads ruin the aesthetic experience of the game.
Theben: All civs may use enemy roads, but may not use enemy railroads or better. Noncombat units may use railroads of civs with peaceful relations. All units may use railroads of allies. Rails may be “claimed” by a military unit if at war. Perhaps color-coding would be a good solution.
Eggman: When a city is captured, along with “partisans” there’s a chance that the surrounding railroads are sabotaged. Partisans may also destroy both railroads and roads crossing a river (blow up the bridge).
NotLikeTea: Interesting… maybe give partisans a free pillage on the first turn of automatic creation.
Kris Huysmans: Then you just kill the partisans and bring along 10 engineers. No, you can’t use enemy railroads.
Wheathin: How about player-specific railroads? Color code them to the building civ, like Theben said. There can be only one player’s rails in a square. Building your own rail would destroy the enemy’s rail and change colors.
Harel: Have “support costs” for tiles, with roads being the most expensive, to prevent over-building of roads. Roads cannot be built on mountains until explosives or rivers until bridge building.
Kris Huysmans: Railroads can never be built faster than 2 turns, no matter how many engineers are working. Prevents railroad/howitzer blitzing.
Ecce Homo: Color-coded railroads, but the color changes depending on which unit occupies it. The railroad should be “converted” at the beginning of the next turn.
DaBods: There should be several different kinds of roads. Roads should give a trade bonus. No unlimited movement for railroads.
Theben: Color-coded rails. On the turn that you remove control from the enemy, the railroad (maglev) has no color: no one owns it. At the beginning of the next turn, if your unit is still there (hasn’t been destroyed), you gain possession of the railroad.
THE SEA
Wheathin: “Ocean roads” for sea transport. Shipping lanes, or ferry routes, which increase sea movement for transports. Perhaps late game TI’s would provide instant ocean transport like railroads.
Bridges and tunnels could provide transport across shallow water (one ocean tile).
Eggman: Perhaps increase movement rate of all ships, but increase movement cost when sailing into unexplored territory. Negates the need for shipping lanes.
Diodorus Sicilus: Sea transport was way too slow in Civ II, should be faster. Perhaps sea lanes or trade routes could simulate this, 2 or 3x movement rate.
Bubba: Get rid of nets from Call to Power. They’re ugly.
CITIES
Harel: Instead of a single city square, have “city tiles.” The technology level determines the population a single tile can hold. Huts: 2 pop/tile, Masonry: 4 pop/tile, Concrete: 5 pop/tile, Urban: 8 pop/tile, Skyscraper: 10 pop/tile, Arcology: 15 pop/tile. Eventually, city tiles will become adjacent to one another, and the two adjoining cities will merge to become a megalopolis.
Don Don: A city square is huge. Suburban sprawl in a 50-mile radius is covered in that one city square.
Harel: But if the map were 1000 x 1000, then a city square would be on 20 miles or so. Thus, large cities would be better represented by multiple city tiles.
Diodorus Sicilus: All use of resources comes down to roads. Railroads increase food production because they allow farms to move more of their production to the cities. Therefore, I think the city radius should vary according to terrain and transportation. Cities on rivers should have larger radii in the early game because rivers were the only form of long-distance transportation of food. With railroads, the city radius ultimately amounts to wherever railroads connect to. Urban sprawl can only come with superhighways, ocean ports, railroads, etc. Only with modern transportation do we get modern metropoles such as New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Mexico City and Moscow.
Don Don: We may have to move away from the idea that a “city” in civ is in fact a city, but rather consider it a province with a capital city in the middle. The surrounding tiles represent small cities whose names are relatively unimportant.
FOOD
Wheathin: Something should be done to free cities from the limitations of their own farmland. Huge cities should no longer operate on the food-from-city-radius principle.
Don Don: When railroads became a viable economic factor, food allocation ceased to be local.
Alexander’s Horse: Irrigation should be severely limited, to rivers. Only a tiny percentage of land is irrigated in the world today. Then provide several “upgrades” for farmland tiles.
TILE-BASED CITY IMPROVEMENTS
Wheathin: Like harbors and supermarkets. Civ III should have many of these. Or perhaps certain city improvements allow certain tile improvements, i.e. no fisheries without a harbor.
Kris Huysmans: Hates supermarkets and superhighways in Civ II. TI’s should provide bonuses without needing a city improvement.
Theben: Environmentalism tech adds +1 trade to wilderness squares (mountain, jungle, swamps, tundra, forests) with roads in them.
POLLUTION
Theben: Important: Pollution within the city radius should cause unhappiness. Nuclear pollution = twice the unhappiness. Nuclear pollution takes longer to clean. Only engineers may clean (not settlers). Fallout may cause pollution downwind of the target. Nuclear pollution may lower population for X number of turns. Nukes should also damage terrain.
WEATHER
NotLikeTea: Add in random effects, like earthquakes, tidal waves, floods, volcanos, continental drift…
Bird: Natural conditions like those could be random events. Tornados, hurricanes, monsoons, etc., could cause food losses, population decreases, destruction of TI’s, etc. Volcanos could crop up on plate edges, but oil/gas resources would also increase there.
DickK: Random climactic/geographical events with minor effects. Famine (loss of food, though irrigation/farmland lessens the effect), Flood (for cities next to rivers, lessened by sewer system, city walls), Epidemic (lessened by hospitals, Cure for Cancer), Mine Failure (decreases production in tile), Bumper Crop (increased food), Gold Strike (iron, silver, uranium, etc.), Oil Strike.
COMPREHENSIVE LISTS
Diodorus Sicilus: Complete list of improvements. Land: Roads, permanent roads, railroads, maglev line; roads extend city radius 1 tile, railroads and maglevs extend radius to regional distances. Farms, factory farms (along with several incremental improvements to farms, advance-based, like moldboard plow, improved grain, crop rotation, artificial fertilizer). Irrigation, canals (canals allow irrigation beyond rivers; irrigation turns desert/plains into grassland for farming purposes). Mines, deep mines, open-pit mines (deep mines require steam, open-pit mines are 20th Century). Fortifications, fortresses (fortresses are 19th Century concrete and steel). Airfield.
Sea: Fishing boats, fishing trawlers, factory ships (“mobile improvements,” can be moved to where the fish are, but are useless without fish). Fish farm, aquaculture station (stationary). Offshore platform (useable on resources at sea). Mine belt, mine array, SONAR array, MAD array (mines to damage/destroy ships, SONARs to detect them).
Also wants lots of eye candy in the form of visible improvements. Canals with boats, detailed roads, visible harbors, things like that. Pillaged improvements could be just as visually striking.
Theben: Seems like a lot of those TI’s could be advanced techs, granting small percentage gains to overall food/shield/trade production. Fishing boats sound like they should be units (like SMAC’s supply crawlers), not TI’s. Irrigation: grassland and plains should always be irrigable, but never desert. If a river is over-irrigated, it might dry up. Transforming desert to plains or grassland should require maintenance over time.
OTHER STUFF
Theben: An improved, simplified zoom-out feature which cuts down on needless detail like altitude.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by EnochF (edited July 01, 1999).]</font>
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