CITY IMPROVEMENTS (ver2.0): Hosted by CyberShy

[Ekmek]

VISIBLE CITY IMPROVEMENTS: I kinda like the idea of making city development kind of like Age of Empires, you build, them see them and you can attack or defend them. It would be micromanaging early on but thats how it was in the city state. Trying to build an empire was tough, Alexander's successor's couldn't manage and Rome did it by conquering (and allying) and allowing a lot of local rule (automated governors, and give the automated governors an AI like leaders perfectionist, religious, technocratic, economical, etc.) You could also build more than one. It would be eye candy to see the differnt shapes of cities andchallenging try to control them and connect them from vast areas.

DIFFERENT CITIES: this idea seemed like it was killed quick but its good. Urban, suburban are different and an eskimo igloo city would be a lot diferent and look weird in the sahara (someone else mentioned this idea in the civilizations web). Or atleast have the type of cities change appearance by what is built. (instead of walls just changing, if we have visible improvements they should show up and give us a choice of architecture types, or make archetecture types a technology tree).

TERRAIN AND IMPROVEMENTS: Some cities and improvements can't be built on certain terrain (atleast early on). It was probable a mismatch of terrain resources but it is such a pain how fast the russians develop siberia even though its so undeveloped today.

HOUSING: instead of aqueducts and sewer systems it should be housing so you are constantly challenged at trying to make your city grow by population and also meeting economic demands. CIV3 should be not only a military challenge but a series of challenges of competing demands: economic vs military, domestic vs foriegn policy, national vs local goals. business vs govemnment, leaders vs people. This would guarrantee more that the game is not a few lines to victory (winning the game should be ambiguos and based on what you want not points, conquest, space, when you start you should have a goal and try for it; is there a thread for this?).

DEFENSE IMPROVEMENTS: I think city walls should be on the outskirts like AOE, but as time moves on have your engineers (or combat engineers!) be able to build anti-tank traps, minefields, wire obstacles etc. defense should modernize too.

Some ideas overlap in the terrain and terrain improvements thread.

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"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
- Dr. Johnson, from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

[Alexander's Horse]

A small point: shouldn't most improvements be in the plural? You don't have one factory per city in real cities. Shouldn't it be "City X builds factories/industrial complexes", "City Y builds temples"?

[Theben]

Are you talking about a ST: Birth of Federation-type approach to city structure construction?

[Flavor Dave]

E--your idea would make the map impossible to understand.

"Flav Dave,

I don't know if sitting behind walls should ever be a viable strategy."

I've won a game with only 5 cities. And some have won with only one city, or so I've heard;-) So hell, yes it's viable, and should remain so.

[Guest]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned or if I'm posting this in the right category, but here are 2 ideas:

1) Allow units to target specific city improvements and/or allow structures to be hit inadvertently during an attempt to attack a city. This should be possible even if there is no garrison in the city. The improvement may be destroyed or maybe just damaged, in which case it would not function at 100% (maybe a cathedral would only affect 2 unhappy citizens), until it is repaired either by shield cost or money.

2) City improvements can be placed according to a player's decision (remember the city view screen in CivII?). Structures near the center of the city may have more of an effect and would be harder to target by an outside unit, compared to structures placed near the outer boundaries of the city.

[wonderdog4]

My goodness. Just scrolling down here gave me a headache. I pity the poor fellow who has to read all of this.

Civ2 is a good game; it just needs to be tweaked a little.

Personally, I hope we don't see a lot of new units and improvements in the new game. Civ2 is already so complex that it is nearly incomprehensible.

What I would rather see are changes in the way city improvements work now. Barracks, for example, might work as a police force and keep down discontent (making one unhappy person content) perhaps doubling in effectiveness once a certain tech level (say conscripton) is reached.

All in all, I think I would like to see more emphasis on city improvements and technology and less emphasis on the magical powers of Wonders of the World.

That's all.

[loinburger]

I am for two things...
One: That more than one city improvement/unit(yes, wrong thread, but it has to do with production, after all) can be built at a time. I don't just mean queueing, I mean that you could build both a bank and a courthouse IN ONE TURN by cranking out a little extra cash or having your people work overtime or whatever. The maximum number of units/improvements that could be built each turn would go up as city population went up, and would never get above 3 or 4 (if it even got above 2).

Two: More improvements. MANY more improvements. Many who have posted in this thread are for the KISS method of doing things, but I'm for the opposite. One poster stated that one of the problems with Civ II was that you couldn't easily max out in city improvements; I say, Civ III should be even more difficult to max out. This would REQUIRE that you specialize for maximum effect--something along the lines of there being a library, a university, a research lab, a public school, an observatory, a particle accellerator, etc. that would all increase labs by, say, 25% each, but which would have a synergistic effect with each other (a library or a university would each give a 25% bonus, but together you'd get a 55% bonus, and if you add a research lab you'd get a 90% bonus).

End result? City improvements define your cities, they just aren't something you build in every single city you own (oh sure, you'll build a sewer in every city, and probably a SAM site, but you won't be building particle accellerators in every city). A rich civilization, or a civilization with a huge industry bonus, could max out its cities by buying off multiple improvements every turn. And finally, if the AI were done correctly (not like SMAC's governors), then you truly could leave your cities to auto-improve. Tell a governor to build you a research city, and he will do just that. Tell him to build a money city, and that's what you'll get. If the governor ever finishes he'll give you a message, or if you're having happiness/population/pollution problems then he'll let you know well in advance.

Are there a lot of city improvements as it is? Yup. Should there be many many more? Yup. Cities, in my opinion, should NOT be maxing out (unless the king is rich as Croesus).

[loinburger]

Two city improvement ideas I've always liked are:

1. Disruptor Field Generator (or some such Nanotech mumbo-jumbo name that makes sense). This little ditty would automatically have a chance of damaging any enemy unit within the city's production radius. Damage inflicted would be done on a turn by turn basis and would be affected by a. the unit's distance from the city, b. its morale and c. the ratio of living flesh to metal in the unit (the more flesh, the more damage-it's easier to disrupt a water molecule than it is to disrupt a steel plate). Would not affect air units (they're too high up, let's say). This would make siege warfare much more difficult to wage and would give poor Builder civilizations a little breathing room. However, it might tilt the balance too far in favor of the defenders.

2. Temporal Manipulator. Any unit attempting to enter one of a city's production squares would have a chance of failing in its attempt and losing a movement point instead. Units with multiple move points could make multiple attempts at entering a square. Chance of success depends on a. the unit's morale, b. the unit's proximity to the city, and c. the direction in which the unit is moving (it is easier to move away from the city than towards it). This would help prevent enemy civs from using your own road and railroad network against you, and would provide the defender a few more precious turns in which it could get its defenses together while the attacker attempted to penetrate the city's temporal shield. Any attacks made in the city's radius are completed successfully. Air units have a higher chance of successful penetration.

Both of these improvements are geared exclusively towards the defender, but I think that they would help more than hurt the game. They would both require extremely high technology levels, so they would not come into play after the attacker has units that would not be eradicated by these improvements. Mainly these would be used as delaying tactics, as the first improvement would hinder a siege (the attacker would need to constantly stop for repairs) and the second would hinder an enemy from using your railroads against you in a blitzkrieg.

[Ecce Homo]

Could the distinction between City and Terrain improvements be removed?

They could all be built with the Public Works system and require gold for maintenance. The religious and economic ones could only be built in the cities.

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The best ideas are those that can be improved.
Ecce Homo

[Theben]

You could combine that idea w/ variable maintenance for units and settle many problems. One problem I have is a suggestion in UNITS about a mobile SDI: why build one in the city that you must maintain (and possibly more expensive) when you can build a cheap mobile one? It's worth considering.

[Theben]

I realized I never posted this here. It is also on the OTHER thread:


STRUCTURE DAMAGE
This supercedes my post on the "suggestions" page.

Structures have hit points= to the cost of building them. Certain units
(spies/saboteurs, catapults, cannons, sappers, bombers) and random disasters(floods,
fires), riots/rebellion, nukes, and actual conquest thru military action would inflict
damage upon the structures. You would pay gold or you may allocate a portion of your
city's shield production for repairs. Any number of structures can be repaired per turn.
Effects would be:

0-49% damage=no effect on structure, 1 gold repairs 2 damage or 1 shield repairs 4

50-99% damage=structure disabled. Gives no benefits to city, x2 repair as above

100%=structure destroyed. Must be rebuilt.

A disabled structure will start functioning again once it has been repaired to the 0-49%
range, but cost of repair will stay as 50-99% until completely repaired.

How I see it function in the game:
Spies/saboteurs/sappers: These would inflict random amounts of small damage to one
structure at a time, based on the total hp's of the particular building. Sappers would be
limited to city walls. However the successful act of sabotage would prevent the
structure from working for, say, 1-3 turns, or 1 turn after the minor damage is repaired.

Catapults/cannons/artillery/howitzer + bombers: Inflict minor amounts of damage to a
few structures during bombardment. They may specifically target city walls to do
medium amounts of damage, to that structure only. Bombers may specifically target
any city building, but may be repulsed by AA fire, fighters, bad weather, etc. Prior to
laser targeting their chances of success will be low.

Floods, fires, riots, cause low/medium/high damage to some/many structures depending
on the city's preparedness. Fires would be limited by aqueducts, wells, etc.; riots by
police station &/or barracks. You get the idea. This would also be based on each
building's total hp's.

Nukes: Depends on power of nuke. All structures take damage, most in the high range,
some will be destroyed. The rest would take medium.

Conquest would inflict low/medium damage on most/all structures when the city fell,
but rarely will a structure be destroyed when the city is conquered.

low=about 10% damage or 4-7 hp's
medium=about 20-25% damage or 12-17 hp's
high=50-60% damage. Only happens to cities hit with random disaster's that are
unprepared, or nuked.

DonDon
Questioned cost (later I halved repair costs), suggested:

· A "free repair" rate, something like 1 shield × city size each turn.
· Add 1 or more to "free repair" for: Con, Bri, Exp, RR, & Aut. (Each effects construction
technology)
· Repairing w/o interrupting current construction by setting % rate.
· Pop-up menu (click on improvement) for selling, setting priority for "free" and shield
repairs, and buying repairs (set rate in $/turn).
· Allow settlers & engineers in city to repair improvements, 2 & 4 shields/turn added to
"free repair" rate.
· Add another special citizen type: construction crew, adds 2 shields to "free repair," 4
after Exp, sorta like a temporary settler or engineer.

David James
Questioned incentives to repair much past 49%, why not be % reductions, liked
donDon's ideas.

itokugawa
Liked the idea of structural damage, suggested pay extra $ to lower spy success.
Suggested that some buildings should have more hits based on importance, such as
city walls and SDIs.

Theben
I envision a number next to each built structure in the city screen representing the
total damage, color-coded like units. Green=0 damage, yellow=1-49%, red=50-99%.
You would click on the number and a pop-up window would let you repair the items,
w/o limit of how many and how often you can repair. Gold is subtracted from your
treasury, shields are counted similar to supported units for that turn.
Replied to David James % reductions don't work for each building type, and you should
repair or you risk building's destruction later.
Disagreed with Itokugawa, repairs should be based on cost of building to keep player
happy.

donDon
Since most improvements are structures easily damaged by fire perhaps they should
not be
made too resistant to destruction. Then you could have aqueduct improve the
resistance, representing better fire fighting capability. There could also be an
improvement with sewer representing an incremental advance in water control
structures. Modern water infrastructure would follow…

[Flavor Dave]

"Two: More improvements. MANY more improvements. Many who have posted in this
thread are for the KISS method of doing things, but I'm for the opposite. One poster
stated that one of the problems with Civ II was that you couldn't easily max out in city
improvements; I say, Civ III should be even more difficult to max out. This would REQUIRE that you specialize for maximum effect--"

A good idea IF:

you keep the game balanced between money, science, production, and military. Your idea also puts to use many of the minor techs from the tech thread--they could be for all the minor city improvements.

franchising makes malls available (in the marketplace/banks line); multinationalism makes the multinational corporation possible, etc.

public education makes public schools available; particle theory (or whatever) makes particle accelerator available, etc.

I kinda agree. When it comes to Civ3, I'm pretty conservative--I don't want change for the sake of change, only change that will be real improvement. And my maxed out cities are kinda boring in the end game, and kinda unrealistic.

IMO, the balance issue shouldn't be that tough. Pollution makes emphasizing production all over your civ problematic. You'd just do it in your 3 or so high production cities, after building the solar plant. Late in the game, I'm running science at only 50 or 60% anyway. High levels of specialization should only be available late, tho, since you're going to be 70-80% science in the first part of the game. If more science improvements were available too early, that's all that would get built.

[CivPerson]

The Train Station: This improvement would allow air units to be transported to any other one of your cities with this improvement along the connected RR. Basically it would be like the Airport inprovement, having the same restrictions as the airport with one unit load/unload per turn - per city. Allow a warning if other Civ Units are blocking the track (just like enemy fighters). Have the ability to loose the transported unit if the track is mined or something.

Fire Station: An improvement to prevent (or reduce the effects) of natural disaters.

[Kedryn]

A possible solution for ICS is for each city to have an infrastructure rating. Granary might be worth one point, city walls worth two... And if your civilisation's average infrastructure rating is below a certain number (maybe modified by government type/social engineering choices), each settler causes unhappy population units at home (to reflect your population's unease over outstripping your ability to protect them).

And another idea I had, which I feel may not go over very well, is a way to encourage city specialisation. It, umm, limits the number of improvements you can build in a city according to population and terrain type. Say in the beginning of the game you can build one improvement/population point (if that system is still used) or maybe one improvement/population point+1. Also... each improvement is physically located in one of the terrain tiles in your city radius; before urbanisation occurs, you may only have one improvement/terrain tile... after which, you may have 2-4 (not sure of a good number for this). In addition, certain terrain tiles cannot support certain improvements (forests must be cleared and swamps must be drained for almost anything). And after urbanisation, a city improvement on a terrain tile removes any terrain improvement on that tile. This forces bigger cities to get raw materials and food from outside sources... likely the mining towns/villages and your nation's 'breadbasket'.

[EnochF]

About fire stations: I dunno. Civilization has always struck me as a game too much on the macro level to worry about things like fire stations, but here's my thought. If anything, fire fighting should be an advance. After you've discovered it, there are no longer random "fire" events which occasionally devastate your cities. Before you develop fire fighting, you may experience things like the Great Fire of London in 1666. Either that, or just leave the whole subject out.