CITY IMPROVEMENTS (ver2.0): Hosted by CyberShy

[Jimmy]

I strongly support the colonization model for cities:
1) I liked the "city view" where you saw each building with the citizens in front of it.
2) it supports the "recruitment" concept for military units rather than building them, which I think is a must.
3) It was realistic in terms of how cities would work, with the concept of ressource shortages.
4) Larger cities could do stuff that small ones could not. This would work for what Brian Reynolds just said in his post about ICS over at the SMAC site.

[ember]

Here again, I feel that you suggestion would add to much of a micromanagemnt burden. Instead you could use a fully automatic, and simpler system to the same effect.
Make buildings have a minimum city pop to use. A factory can be built in a city of less than 8 pop, but it has no effect. You still pay upkeep though.

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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[Jimmy]

Ember: I agree about the micromanagement: the colonization model unchanged would produce huge micromanagement headaches in a civ3 envirronment where the player might have 20 or 30+ cities. I am not saying that the colonization model should be used completely without any changes. For one, some type of improved governor system and automation must exist to precisely reduce micromanagement. However, The civ2/SMAC model does not have the same benefits as the colonization model, and I wanted to say that whatever the city model is, I hope civ3 will reintroduce the benefits from the colonization model.

[Theben]

ember, why need a minimum pop for a city imp to work? I see no reason why a factory wouldn't work in a small city. Remember factory towns? The inability of factories to produce is inherent in the total production of the city; i.e. small cities don't peoduce much anyway.

[ember]

The idea was to counter the idea of assigning citizens to structures with an easier to manage idea with the smae overall effect

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"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[don Don]

I, too, prefer the idea of special TI's rather than Supply Crawlers. My idea is the Depot Tile Improvement, which could be used to assign the resource to a city if connected via road or rail. Road would offer some partial utilization of the resources, and rail the full value. Could coexist with mine, fortress, airbase, etc. (Just thought I'd mention it here as part of the ongoing discussion.)

Along with that, a Train Station City Improvement would give some trade bonus based on City Size, plus a little trade bonus based on # of that civ's cities connected by rail within some tech-related distance.

Why can't a city build more power facilities? Just because you've got a hydro plant doesn't mean you can't build a fossil fuel plant as well, and a nuclear plant, etc. The surplus electrical capacity will attract industry, effectively multiplying factory output. By keeping it to one of each type the effect would be limited.

By the way, the effect of multiple power facilities should be additive at the power stage of production calculation, but each stage should be a cumulative multiplier (the cumulative effect idea is already in the summary).

Base shields
x(1+n) for factory (n=1 at Ind, n=1.5 after SE)
x(1+#) for # power facilities
x(1+m) for Mfg Plant (m=1 at MP, m=1.5 after Rob)

Note: Ind w/factory would come before SE, Mfg Plant available at MP.

P.S. CyberShy: throw these specifics for production multiplication effects in the summary, please! the two paragraphs above would be enough. They can tweak the numbers as they see fit; I just want the idea presented as completely as reasonable in minimum space. Otherwise it is way too general.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by don Don (edited August 14, 1999).]</font>

[Theben]

There needs to be a standardization of how SE effects, Improvements, and Technology interact. These are my ideas on how they'd work:

ECONOMY would be a % that is added/subtracted from trade.
EFFICIENCY: A % reduction/increase in corruption(/waste?) in the city.
SUPPORT: Each city would have a base SUPPORT % (10-20%?). This % is subtracted (added if a - value) from the combined cost of all maintenance of units (units would have production & money support costs, possibly food too). SE choices increase/decrease the % modifier.
MORALE should different than the EXPERIENCE bonuses provided to units. Morale would be a small % bonus/penalty independent of Experience, but does combine with it to influence combat. FE, in SMAC, if you attack from a city w/ a Children's Creche you get +25% to attack, or you can have your % modifier's halved due to low Morale. This is Morale. Experience is the actual level of troop prepardness, training, etc. Experience affects att/def/LASS strength but Morale affects att/def/LASS AND Experience.
EXPERIENCE: Only a minimal bonus/penalty should be possible with this SE. Most experience should come from training (and this only to a point; maybe up to hardened as SMAC?) & actual combat (all the way to elite status). Again, a % would be applied as in SMAC, but it would be in smaller increments.
POLICE represents the controls you can exert on your people. It adds to your
happiness rating after all other happiness factors have been applied, but cannot increase happiness to a positive rating.
GROWTH is affected by happiness and many other factors, including food. It's a % increase/decrease in the city's growth rate.
ENVIRONMENT: A % reduction/increase in pollution output. At certain (+) levels it can add a % to trade from wilderness squares, however a Environment SE choice should also be accompanied by a loss of Economy & Growth.
SECURITY: A % bonus/penalty to enemy espionage missions that affect you.
ESPIONAGE: A % bonus/penalty to your espionage missions.
DIPLOMACY: A % bonus/penalty to your Reputation vs. other civs.
INDUSTRY is so powerful and easily abused in SMAC it should not have any SE modifiers. It may only be modified by technology & City Improvements, as a % bonus(/penalty?) to a city's Resource and Labor output.
RESEARCH: as SMAC, but with smaller % increments.
HAPPINESS as described by me elsewhere.

These are the Civil Effects-CE (plus any others that you may wish to add). Each +1 or -1 correlates to a +5% or -5% change in the total of the related CE, with the exception of Happiness, +/- 2%, because it is so powerful. At certain levels each category may have other special abilities (like immunity to spy bribes; PROBE in SMAC). How they interact:

Social Engineering: As per SMAC; each SE has +/- to several CEs.
Technology: Usually adds +'s to 1 or more CE's, but may penalize some.
City Improvements: Depends on method used. If like civ2, each building adds a large amount to it's CE(s); i.e. a marketplace would add +10 to Economy & Happiness (+50%). If like Star Trek: Birth of the Federation, each building adds +1, +2, or +3 (or -) to it's given category (don Don, take note), and you build several buildings of each type in each city (obviously at a lower cost than now).

In the SE screen you could see your civ's overall effectiveness in each category (as SMAC). In addition, each city would need a button that would pop up a window, showing what it's own CE modifiers are.
My reason for posting this here is not to influence people to my SE ideas-there are enough posts in the SE thread as is-but to have other's input on how these 3 things should interact, and because it affects CI's.

[don Don]

MOO had each factory or whatever the upgraded type was called adding x amount of production, with certain limits based on mineral resources, population, etc. Then MOO2 switched to a single-improvement-with-big-effect model like Civ.

It is a dilemma, because the former allows for a graduated effect while the latter is easier for gameplay, micromanagement, and probably AI.

[Trachmir]

Since the refered to post is long gone, I'll rewrite it.
BASE SUPPORT STRUCTURES (or Basic Support Structures)

This simply lumps all of the most important city improvements of the previous Tech Age into a single catagory. The reason is simple, I hate having to buy marketplaces, aqueducts, ect. for Modern era cities that I just built. In this case all Critical items from the ancient age to the industrial age (but not the modern age as it is not a "past" age) can be built using just one city improvement (in fact more "advanced" settlers should automatically build this when the city is built). It does NOT take 20 years to bring a newly built city into the modern age, and CIV3 should understand this... especially if more improvements will be added.

Other notes: This does not include any Military/Defence structure, nor anything else that is not of the most basic variety.
Upkeep costs should go down...
When a city advances a tech age and posseses all of the included items that go in the Basic Support Stuctures "Package", those improvements dissapear and are replaced by the Basic Support Structures.
If a city advances a tech age and does not posses all of the componet improvements, they can then build the Basic Support Stuctures improvement at a reduced cost (Based on the % of stuctures needed)


(P.S.: I was Trachmyr, but I'm back and had to change the spelling)

[Theben]

Trachmyr: Hey, long time no see! How you been? Are you sure those ideas are lost? I think I remember writing something about them SOMEwhere in these summaries.