CITY IMPROVEMENTS (ver2.0): Hosted by CyberShy

[Theben]

Angry Overlap is a good idea. I've also suggested that settler/engineers would be used in place of supply crawlers. They'd bring all the food/production/trade from a tile back to a city, but at the same time you'd need to support the settler/engineer. Also some of the f/p/t could be lost due to distance from city, type of connection (roads, port), and tech level you're at. So you may want 1 or 2 "supply" engineers, but more than that & you're wasting your time.

[mindlace]

Hmm... theben, if I'm reading you right, you're suggesting limiting supply crawlers... What I was trying to say is that I use supply crawlers to use the open spaces between my cities, which allows me to avoid having to overlap cities. This is a good thing, and not like ICS- supply crawlers are vulnerable to air power and they take time to build. Anyway, this is getting offtopic.

[mindlace]

Limiting ICS:
Ineffeciency leading to drones (ala SMAC) would help.

Angry Overlap: the more squares are overlapped, the more crowded people feel. So if 1 square is shared by 2 cities, fine, but if 3 cities share the same square, one citizen (in _each_ city) becomes unhappy.
This would kill ICS dead- as soon as you have 3 cities, that 1 worker is pissed in each of them, and since several squares overlap, they're going to be pissed for a long time. You could mitigate this with improvements/psych/specialists, but that would defeat the point of the ICS strategy.

I can think of limited situations where it would impact my style of play (i.e., I tend to overlap in the Monsoon Jungle) but I could get a close-enough result with Supply Crawlers, or the addition of being able to work squares in reigons.

[NotLikeTea]

I've been thinking about overpopulation and the problems linked to it.

Look around at some of the most populous nations. They are often third world, and the enormous population is a problem, not an asset. If population was always and asset, as it is in Civ, China would be the #1 nation in every possible aspect today.

Especially consider the aqueduct (which can be thought of as fresh water). In Civ, a city will not grow without fresh water. In the real world, overpopulation without fresh water is the real problem. Same thing applies to sewer systems.

What I propose is that population grow, continuously. No limitations. Of course, excess food would speed growth, or increase happiness. If a city has no aqueduct, only the first 8 population points participate in generating taxes, resources, food, etc. All others consume food, but give nothing. Building an aqueduct would allow up to 12 (or whatever) population points to contribute. Beyond this, a sewer system is required.

Of course, if the population grows beyond the food level, what is the point of having food at all? Maybe for every point of food defecit, one population point be made unhappy, and as such, unproductive.

I think that this may allow for advanced nations to have large populations and productive cities, while the less advanced nations have a burden of overpopulation.

I'm not too sure of the details of this, but it seems plausible. Problems might be that this would encourage the creation of many small cities, rather than a few big ones, though this is the case in Civ anyways.

[ember]

We could make 'supply crawlers' a tile improvment. Each one sends a the resources from the square (food and minerals, no trade) it is on to a nearby city (choose if there are several), It costs a gold for maintenance and N gold to build, and you can have max pop/X linked to a city, where X depends on play balance and governmnt/tech.

Advantages: Can't be used as a wall to stop enemy armies, but still can be pillaged.
Do not have to worry about keeping tarack of additional units...
It allows for offshore platforms and remote mines, and basically simulates mini-colonies, ones that are less than a full city...

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

[loinburger]

Supply Crawlers as Terrain Improvements: I like the idea, but have you posted it on the Terrain Improvements thread? Those folks might have a few suggestions/reservations about having a terrain improvement like that.


I forget who it was (I'm sorry, but this thread is so long that I get a headache looking for specific text and the author of said text), but somebody way back when suggested that some city improvements become outdated, the example being Drill Fields for ancient armies, Barracks for middle-tech armies, and Maneuver Fields for modern armies. Another statement/suggestion made by someone was that they hated granaries because no modern city would have a granary.

Well, if we have Wonders become outdated and useless, why not have the same restriction on city improvements? "Because there are so many city improvements and so few Wonders, and the argument doesn't hold." Wrong. Look at the Units upgrades in SMAC: don't spend the money, you've got lousy outdated units, spend the money, you've got your modern units. Why not do the same for certain city improvements? Drill Fields would still work for modern armies, but not as well as Barracks would, and Barracks would not work as well as a Maneuvers field. You would not have to build a Drill Field or Barracks prior to building a Maneuver Field, in fact it would be cheaper just to build a Maneuvers Field, but you CANNOT build a Maneuvers Field until late in the game and so you must ask yourself the question: build now and be stuck with shoddy merchandise or expensive upgrades later, or build later and be stuck with shoddy cities now?

This would also serve to make City Walls more believable. Why should a wooden wall erected in 3000 B.C. still be able to protect a tank corps in 2000 A.D.? It shouldn't--the wall, lacking upgrades, would give, say, 5% protection against a modern army, whereas the Maginot Line (or the 2000 A.D. equivalent) would provide 100% protection.

[Theben]

Because civ is military unit based, so upgrades to military structures are within the game boundaries. Upgrades to other, non-military structures are not, and would be more likely seen as a nuisance to any player than a realistic benefit. Assuming it is realistic. It can be assumed that your helpful citizens continually upgrade the non-military buildings w/o your help (the same people who look to YOU to upgrade the army, i.e. that's your problem, we live here, this is our problem). Also new types of structures can be considered to be "upgrades" market->bank->stock exchange. Lastly how much does one need to "upgrade" a market? Many markets today function basically the same as they did 1000's of years ago.

[Theben]

Supply crawlers as TI: I like this idea. Reduces micromanagement and is still playable & realistic (as realistic as supply crawlers). But why build a supply "depot" on gold if you won't get any trade? Perhaps it should stay as regular crawlers-one type of resource per TI on square (max 3 obviously)-and you be required to pay build costs and maintenance for each TI.

[mzilikazi]

Remember - you're paying upkeep of quite a bit of gold every turn on your city improvements... surely this can be considered as a trickle of modernisation every turn as new tech becomes available. Your market starts off as a dusty fleapit, but just imagine that 1 gold spent every turn on it pays for a wooden shelter, then a few bricks and a bit of mortar, then a fancy glass ceiling - or however you like to think of it. The function remains the same, and the building is superseded in importance by the Bank and the Stock Exchange - so you don't want to be fiddling around with modern markets in every city as well as building Banks and Stock Exchanges. Sounds like overdoing the micromanagement to me.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by mzilikazi (edited July 26, 1999).]</font>

[Flavor Dave]

When I first read of the idea of updating the barracks, I thought, great idea!! (I've already suggested that city walls go from a 40-shield "barricades," (acts exactly like a fortress) to the +40 shield city walls we all know, to a +40 more shields fortifications, which double defense against all forms of artillery.

Then I read the arguments against improved barracks. Well, since at gunpowder and mobile warfare you have to rebuild, what difference does it make? Perhaps you can keep barracks at each stage, but they only repair instantly. So, you'd sell most of these, you might keep one or two near the front, for a while. It wouldn't be worth the 1G upkeep elswhere.

I just think that the intermediate and modern form of barracks would look kewl on the city screen. Same effects, different names.

[Theben]

I'm not sure which arguements against upgraded barracks you're referring to, FD, but perhaps the arguements were talking about levels of veteran status? Such as:

Basic barracks=+1 to vet level
Improved barracks=+2 " " "
etc.

Then when new military techs &/or fighting styles arrive (gateway military techs; gunpowder, mobile warfare) the old ones are useless, and you have to build each type again.

[loinburger]

A clarification:

I did not intend that all city improvements require upgrades, only a few key improvements (barracks and city wall to name a few) which would lose their effectiveness as time goes by if not replaced/upgraded. As Flavor Dave says, you've got to replace your barracks anyway, right? Why not a. have the different names (drill field, barracks, maneuvers field) for the new improvements, and b. allow the player to keep his or her old rotting drill fields, which would still serve some purpose but not work at 100% efficiency, until the player gets around to replacing/upgrading them. If they ever do.

I agree with the arguments AGAINST this system, and agree that there would be no purpose to employing "outdated improvements" with improvements which have modern additions (market place -> bank -> stock exchange). However, with the one-time improvements, the ones which cannot be improved by additional improvements (barracks and city wall), why not require more than the usual maintenance fee and require an upgrade fee as well?

[ember]

I got a better idea for supply TI's.
You can settle villages of 1 pop on sqaures outside of a city radius. These villages would send any extra food and all resouces back to the hsot city. They can be pillaged and the pop killed, but they don't count towards aquaduct and size happiness limits.
With this idea, the city radius could be 1, with villages representing outlying farming and mining communities... (or maybe not).
This goes well with regions. The villages contribute directly to the regional pools, and fill in the gaps between cities. Al squares could potentially be villages for a region like modern western europe.
Cities would represent major trade and insutrial centers.

If we wanted to take this to an extreme, all food/resource gathering could be done by villages, and all trade/industry by cities.

Adding a second pop to a village would give a bonus of 50% to what it collects. Usefull for special resouce squares.

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

[Theben]

Village is a TI or a settled settler?

If a settler why bother? Just build another city.

If a TI isn't that the same thing as before with a different name?

[ember]

As a TI. THe difference is it uses a pop to make. THis avoids the potential cheese of just building millions of villages. Any pop growth is contributed back to the host city.

I got the idea of divorcing resouce gathering from cities while I was writing the previous post. Does it belong in Radical, or is here ok?

My idea is basically that villages, all size 1, farm and mine. (size 2 might give a 50-75% increase, for late game). THese goods are all automatically sent to a nearby host city. The city only gathers resources from it's square, but all the extra population is in the form of labourers, traders, and scientists.

Cities are hadled mostly as now.
Villages are TI's. Vilage improvments are also TI's. adding advanced farms, or silos, or a bettermines are all TI's.
By this model, a farmer would have to support ~twice as many pop as in CIV2.
All Food and natural resouces are 'made' in terrain squares.
All industry and trade are 'made' in cities, by citizens.

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