EC3 New Idea #24 - Expanding City Radius

[korn469]

by Gearyman

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</font>Expanding City Radius
As a city grows in way of population and improvements, the radius of the city itself should grow too. Instead of only occupying one of the squares, it could take up 2, 3, maybe 4 as the city grows. As this happens, maybe include more squares that the city can use for food, shield, and trade production.

Maybe also as cities grow, if two cities were close together, they might grow together (e.g. Dallas/Ft. Worth).

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[Father Beast]

I second this. make it possible for massive cities

[Matthevv]

I like the idea of the city radius growing. I had an idea that perhaps the city radius could be linked to the actual rivers, roads and railways. So when you found your city, it has access only to the immediately adjacent squares and those up to say 3 along the river if it is built on one. Then, if you build a road from a city you could have access to squares up to say 3 away, but only if they are on the road. Railways would give you an even greater distance, maybe 6. This would allow more realistic city locations (most cities are on rivers because in ancient times these were the most effective way to move goods), and road and rail networks would be built to connect places together, which they aren't usually in Civ2.

[Stefu]

This would spoil the "city planning", ie building networks of cities with radiuses planned so that as little as possible land is left unused and cities don't overlap. Here's my suggestion instead: Cities could, by means of production, "join" squares to their city radiuses. I mean, if city is too large, it could produce additionall and claim. After this is done, you get the normal map which shows the city radius and other city radiuses, and free squares. You can then choose one of free squares that is linked directly to the pre-existing city radius, and this square would become part of that radius. Much better for filling those annoying "unused" square in between your cities, and good way to get rid of supply crawlers of SMAC (I never build them) and still have theri effects.

[korn469]

Gearyman

if asked why out of the five things to put on the new ideas thread why would this idea belong? what are the greatest strength in adding this idea? and what if any weaknesses or exploits does this idea have?

what would happen if two cities grew into one? would they still be able to produce two units or could they now only produce one? what about the city infrastructure? what if they sharnk in size? would it once again be two seperate cities? is this another version of the regions idea? check new idea #4 and #12 to see if these ideas could be amalgumated into one idea

[Matthevv]

Stefu

I don't think my idea gets rid of city planning, just makes it more like the real world. In the real world cities are not evenly spaced like that. You would still have to plan where to place your cities, because of the cost of building roads and railways.

[S. Kroeze]

Dear Matthevv,

I absolutely agree with you! This was just another of your many great ideas, which always make sense and would add realism to this game.

The problem is that most people, like Stefu, are by nature conservative. They are afraid of every inovation and only consider the threats it will present to the way they have played Civ so far.

Many have so far pointed out the weaknesses of the 21-square city system, which in an absurd way favours small cities, while allowing linear growth rates. Yet most posters don's seem to be capable to imagine a Civ-game without the 21-square city structure!

Because in my opinion a rural population (non-existent in Civ so far) has to be introduced!

[don Don]

New York City is over 8 million people but still only 320 square miles. If a tile is a hundred miles across that's only 3.2% of the land area of the tile. The city radius has never been considered the physical size of the city, only the limit of economic and political control.

There is rural population represented, it's just poorly represented in the Civ model.

[Grier]

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</font><font size=1>Originally posted by Matthevv on 02-23-2000 09:52 AM</font>
Then, if you build a road from a city you could have access to squares up to say 3 away, but only if they are on the road.
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The thing with roads improving a tiles resources is that you end up with the problem that civ:ctp solved. All of the squares inside a citys radius end up having a road built on them, the end result is just an unrealistic mesh of roads around every city.

[Grier]

IMO I would love to see an end of the city zone of control and have all resources collected in a similar way to trade in civ:ctp. For example, you could build a mine and then set the destination for that mines resources. Maybe the longer the distance the less of that resource you get (and that distance increases as you go up in tech).

[Gearyman]

Final Draft
Expanding City Radius
As a city grows in way of population and improvements, the radius of the city itself should grow too. Instead of only occupying one of the squares, it could take up 2, 3, maybe 4 as the city grows. As this happens, maybe include more squares that the city can use for food, shield, and trade production.

If the city radius itself does not expand, have the squares that can be used for production dependent upon the population, so the larger the population, the more squares that can be managed/used by the city.

Maybe as cities grow, if two cities were close together, they might be able to grow together (e.g. Dallas/Ft. Worth).

I see the 'expanding' city idea as real life. One of the goals of Civ is to make it real world, and the fact that cities expand is very realistic.

If two cities did become one, the choice could be given to combine the two, at which point the city would cover a large area. If this happened, duplicate improvements could be sold off automatically and all production would go toward one item. However, the city should be able to support 2 times the number of units permitted.

If the player chooses not to combine the two, there could still be a trade bonus because of the close proximity to each other.

[korn469]

Gearyman

good idea except i do not agree with this

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</font>If this happened, duplicate improvements could be sold off automatically and all production would go toward one item. However, the city should be able to support 2 times the number of units permitted.
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Twice the support and only half the improvements? that would make those cities too powerful in some ways...also as cities grow larger shouldn't they be able to produce more items per turn? limiting their productions makes them too weak in other ways...if they are part too strong and part too weak it would probably open them up to explotation and make them unbalanced...that's my opinion take it for what it's worth

korn469

[KoenigMkII]

I think the idea of making it possible to expand a cities radius is great, but it needs carefull implementation.

How about something like this:-

With sufficient technology:-

Automobile + Mass production + Refrigeration + ????? tech.

And the existance of the required buildable improvements:-

Sewer system + Mass transit + Super highways
+ ?????

The gamer can then research a new technology, say call it "Metropolitan expansion"

When this is researched successfully, and all the above prerequisites above are satisfied, the gamer has a new menu option
"pick suburb square"

After this has been selected, the cursor changes shape to a hollow square [] and the gamer chooses a square contiguous to the existing city square and clicks on it.

That square then changes its appearance to that of a city, and overall it looks like the city has literally grown organically, covering 2 squares instead of one.

The new city square now has extra squares within 2 spaces, and these are now available for production.

The extra city square acts as an extra production centre with a separate build queue.

You can distribute squares between the old city and the new suburb as you wish, but can only use squares according to the population currently available in the "production square."

The gamer has the option to move population at the rate of 1 per turn ( 2 turns?) from the old city to the new suburb.

The suburb increases in population also in the old fashioned way of food accumulation.

The new suburb should share some of the improvements of the old city, e.g.

Power station, Aqueduct, Sewer system, courthouse.

BUT you still have to build factory, production plant, temple, market place, bank,
at the new suburb.

I think that this could be a powerfull new way of using up wasted squares, and making advanced cities cabable of "Multitasking" with multiple build queues.

This is an excellent way to punish ICS, as these new super cities become true game breakers.

Does this make the game more complex? more micro-management prone?

Yes but stick a 15 item build queue into Civ 3 and imagine the power!

Now a high tech civ can belt out production in a balenced way, some cheap units at slow production squares and heavy, expensive ones
at the most powerfull cities.

The Industrial Powerhouse of the USA can now be modelled for a WWII scenario.

Stalingrad can be modelled as a 3 or 4 square
giant city complex spread along the Volga..


The exact rule set, required techs would need play testing. Perhaps cities could grow
to two squares in the industrial age and 3 in the early 20th century..

Oh well just a thought..

Ko