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<u>Economics Summary thread 1.4</u>
Economy / Trade / Resource management / Unit support
<u>A united work off:</u>
Don Weaver ( Don don ) - Resource management and Unit support.
E-mail: dewvr@mindspring.com
Harel Eilam ( Harel ) - Economy in general and Trade
E-mail: harel@isdn.net.il
<u>Index:</u>
1. Pirates and black markets
2. Budgets
3. Diplomacy
4. War and peace
5. Free-mind companies
6. Trade model options
7. All about caravans
8. Trade routes
9. Inertial trade
10. Tile improvements
11. Trade buildings & wonders
12. Effects of trade
13. ICS solutions
14. City management
15. Regions
16. Resources and unit support from resources
17. Unit support cost within the overall economy
18. Urban industry
<u>Economy and Trade</u> - By Harel Eilam ( harel@isdn.net.il )
1. Pirates and black markets
The element of crime should be more developed then civ II generic "corruption" rating. All money lost from corruption is not just "gone,” it is transferred to a pirate AI player. When it renly military action is required. Once the pirate units are in place, they will start raiding trade routes, attacking caravans and villages ( see idea 11 ). If a city is unguarded enough, they could even raid a city. All this time, they still gain the money from corruption. They will use the money they get to buy more units, train them, and build fortresses. Once they are firmly in place, they will start using spies that will bribe cities. A bribed city by the pirates has more corruption ( generating even more money to the pirates ), all money gotten directly from the banks and market places go to the pirates ( the extra credit gotten from the bonus ), and pirate units are invisible in the city vision radius. All this time, the pirates will save enough money for their big task: bribing a city into their hands. Once pirates own a city, they form a new civ. They cannot build a new city, however. Pirates also have a good use to the smart emperor: a high presence of pirates creates black markets. You can buy your military units from the black market with a reduced cost, but it will enrich the pirates even more. More, you can even bribe and manipulate your local pirates ( or the ones the other civ have ), and make them raid/steal/spy for you. Pirates are also a good source for experienced mercenaries for hire.
2. Budgets
Budgets, like in real life. The bonus gotten from libraries, for example would be decided by how much you put in Education. That money is divided among all libraries and universities. The higher the gold per institute, the bigger bonus they give. Hospital bonus by health, wealthfare gives happiness ( divided by all the populace, like Luxuries ), military would be divided between the support cost of all units and decide what morale bonus/minus you get, etc. ( In democracy/republic, the senate should demand a minimum portion to some section. ) The different budget sections:<list>[*]Science ( labs and science rate )[*]Education ( libraries, universities, college wonders )[*]Health ( hospital, care for cancer wonder )[*]Defence ( military infra-structure, barracks, and units )[*]nternal affairs ( Police, intelligence and reducing unrest )[*]Wealthfare ( happiness bonus: like luxuries )[*]Transportation ( Support of road tiles and Mans transport building [ highways, mass transt ] )[*]Construction ( reserve money to buy city building and wonders )[*]Arts ( support for wonders )[*]Agriculture ( support for farms )[*]Religion ( the bonus for temples/church )[*]Trade ( caravans are bought of a pool created here )</list>
3. Diplomacy
Via the diplomatic screen, you can sign several trade treaties and agreements. The first thing is the creation of trade pacts, or alliances, between three or more nations. In this trade alliance, you all automatically trade between you ( with a nice big bonus ). Also, all of the below treaties suggested are done with a bigger profit and efficiency then before. Active trade improve the relations between two nations. The more treaties you sign, the better the level of diplomatic relations will exist between the two nations. The suggested treaties have been posted on the various threads:
3.1) Single trade: exchange cities/tech/units/money/resources/land between two nations.
3.2) Fixed trade/tribute treaty: exchange/give money/food/resources every turn until canceled.
3.3) Construction: side A pays side B to build for him X units.
3.4) Shared wonder: both sides build a wonder togther ( cheap in a labor/money pool ), and get the effects togther ( all possible in wonders that affect the entire civ, not just a single city ).
3.5) Hired workers: side A pays side B for an agreed labor level ( moves from side B city to side A city ).
3,6 Monopoly: side A may demand side B to only buy his commodities only from him.
3.7) Lending money to a section side.
3.8) Port contract: side A pays side B to buy ( or build ) a port/airport on his land.
3.9) Trade passage: side A allows side B to pass caravans ( or trade with nations only his is connected with ), but gets a cut of the profit from the trade.
3.10) Embargo: side A demands side B to cancel all trade with side C.
3.11) Funded trade: side A pays side B to establish a trade route with a new nation ( buying caravans, etc ). They split the profit.
4. War and peace
The diplomatic relations between two nations should give you some specific bonus/minus. A state of war should give a boost to military production, but should drain civilian resources for a prolonged war. This could be viewed at increased support cost for units after long periods out of the city, increasing the minus to production in the SE screen, or simply reducing the bulk income. Unity, a high form of alliance, vastly increases trade profit, but makes you more vulnerable to spies.
5. Free-mind companies
5.1) Companies, and free trade, should hold a much bigger and obvious power in the game. Dictates by your market option, some of your economy ( all, part, or none ) should belong to private companies. You will stay gain the credits ( via tax ). It's more to show a real-life view and increase the realism of the game. The company could be a corporation ( in transnational ), a bank, a guild, a labor union, a single merchant, or a group of merchants. The type ( and size/limitation/behavior ) of the company depends, as said before, on your market option. The companies control parts ( or all ) of your caravans ( or trade routes ), and use those credits. They will build their own caravans. If in their interest, they will even build buildings in your cities ( such as market places ). But the profit from those will only go to the company: you only get a share via taxes. They could even build wonders if it will be profitable for them! The company will also build ports and airports, and roads/railroads to expand their trade sphere. You can sign construction treaties with companies, and cast "Embargo" and "Monopoly" treaties. You can also have "food" companies that will own part of your farmers and farms. They will even produce more food then you can ( per tile ), and give you a part of the profits. If needed, they themselves will build their privately owned farms, granaries, food markets, etc.
Switching market option from one with companies to one without ( for example, from transnational to planned ), will cause several things: all company building and units are moved to your hands, and you gain the full profit from those, but you will receive a large minus to all economy for several turns.
5.2) People have expressed wishes to be able to actually "play" for themselves the "free-mind" companies. You should have the option either to "zoom in" and take control of one of your nation’s companies for several turns, or to start the game as a company and play it over along the game. ( One player can build the empire, and his friend managing the company at the same time, at multi-player. Maybe even several players playing several companies with a single player, or multiple civ players. A possible future add-on? ) In addition, some suggested the option to play the pirates ( see idea 1 ), and play them!
5.3) Beyond companies, you should the more "generic" private sector. The doing of the private sector are completely autonomous and unknown to you ( not hidden, just not reported ). As a general thing, the private sector will deal with building his own key city improvements alone. Like libraries, churches, market places. Those will be built by the public expense, not the government. The extent of power the private sector posse relies on your SE choices in government, market and structure. If Budgeting would be used ( see idea 2 ), then some of the cost will be collected from the appropriate branch. For example, the government will finance some of the cost of building new churches out of the religious section in the royal budgets. The maintenance cost will also partly drop on the shoulders of the government.
5.4) Once transnational market option has been discovered by any nation, the central banks are created. It's yet another AI company that you may converse and sign several treaties with. The world global bank will invest in civ, buy off city improvements, lend money, and if holding enough power might even posses a small army of it's own ( for the sake of guarding the economical stability, of course ). Or maybe it could be created when a specific wonder has been created?
6. Trade-model options
6.1) Considering how faulty the trade system was in civ II, a new system must be used. Trade was very ignored on civ II, and no one can deny the absolute great importance of trade along history. This section list all of the new trade methods proposed:
6.1.1) Use the caravan system in civ II ( in this case, make sure you use some modification to the system, see idea 7 ).
6.1.2) Internal trade is automatically, like SMAC. All cities generate a small trade bonus, regarding the size of the city, size of the empire, location of cities and eco bonus. External trade is done with caravans ( see idea 7 to further increase this ).
6.1.3) All trade is totally automatic, just like SMAC. The income generated also relies on the size of your allies and their numbers.
6.1.4) All trade income is generated by signing "commerce treaties,” like Master of Orion series. It is signed via the diplomacy screen, and generates a fixed amount of cash every turn. The size of profit depends on the population size of the two nations and any commerce bonus/penalty either of you have. The size of the profit is negative at the start, and is increasing steadily over time.
6.1.5) Every big city can support several trade routes. The number of routes is decided by your SE options, tech level and city size. Each route is connected to a city of a non-hostile nation. Every foreign city can be connected to just one cities in your civ.
6.1.6) Trade is done with buildings, not units at all. You build a "depot" in your city. You automatically gain a profit, considering how many cities you have near you, the size of your city and the size of the city you are connected with. The size of the city decides the maximum bonus you can get, and how many other cities can gain bonuses from this city. For example, if a foreign nation has a city which can support three connections, it gains up to three connection bonuses, and only three other cities can get a bonus from her.
6.1.7) Just like 6.1.5, your city gain trade routes. However, when you create a trade route it will automatically call for the nearest available caravan and send it to create the trade route.
6.1.8) ( Requires a commodity system ) Trade won't generally produce any credit: no tiles producing trade arrows. Nations only trade resource/commodities between themselves. The majority of profit would be, ofcourse, to buy cheap and sell high ( usally being a third side between two nations ). The value of each commodity vary upon supply and demand. However, every trade gives both sides a few credits upon completion of the trade contract. The bigger the trade is, the more profit both sides will get. Another option is when a trade agreement has been made an available caravan automatically is sent to the other nation land.
6.2) Civ II didn't allow you to trade with barbarians: a very false idea. Barbarians should have a bigger role: like pirates they could have some diverse options, and can also build cities, if they obtain the cash to buy a settler. In a nutshell, people would really like the option to trade with barbarians, primitive and nomadic tribes.
6.3) The economy, and income from trade, needs to shift up and down, like in real life economics. The more free your society is ( democracy/free market ), the more the numbers will shift for better or for worse. In social or controlled markets however, the market will hardly shift at all. Shifting can cause up to +/- 50% of income in a single turn, and move up or down by an additional -/+ 5% every turn.
7. All about caravans
7.1) If the caravan system will still be used ( see idea 7 ) some modification to the system needs to be made. The micro-management of each caravan in civ II made trade so very bothersome, that some players choose to ignore it completely. The caravan system could be changed to the following:
7.1.1) Keep it like civ II: you build them, move them around and create trade routes ( which a creation bonus when first creating the path ).
7.1.2. You build the caravans yourselves, but they automatically move to the most profitable location ( decided by distance, ETA, merchandise carrying, nationality of the city, etc. ). To increase procession speed, you could make the caravan invisible ( totally automatic ).
7.1.3) Caravans are generated automatically at large cities ( depending on city size and location, like rivers and coastal connection ). They are replaced after X turns if they are killed. You then direct them to their destination.
7.1.4. A trade advisor governs all trade for you: he builds the caravans, moves them about, and chooses the best merchandise for maximum profit. You also can toggle "caravan viewing" for extra speed: without seeing the caravans the game will run faster. He will also manage building roads and ports for you. The advisor could be mandatory, or could be optional, and be switched off/on.
7.2) To further increase the depth of the caravan system, new caravan types were suggested. Those specific-task units will further enhance the depth of trade. They will can be used with automatic trade ( trade advisor ). He would build armored convoys when sending them into "hot-regions,” use "double-capacity,” or "finished goods,” if it's more profitable, etc.
7.2.1) Special movement: a trade plane and ships. Trade ships are critical for realism.
7.2.2) Double capacity: costlier, slower caravans, that carry a double cargo that offers a bigger income.
7.2.3) Armored convoy: a costlier caravan that has some defensive capacity and can protect himself for pirates.
7.2.4) Finished goods: a costlier caravan version, but one that offers a much bigger profit.
7.2.5) Tourist caravan: carry no resource. The profit is purely set on the size of the two cities, with no connection to request and demand. Losing a tourist caravan, however, causes grave diplomatic strains and morale drops.
7.3) New ways to get caravans: hire them! Hiring caravans can come at two options. One, is hiring privateers. Privateers are controlled by the AI, and automatically seek the most profitable location. Hiring privateers reduce the time and cost to takes you to make a new caravan: but you only get a cut from the profit, and you can't control or direct your units. Full hired caravans are under your control, just like any unit. You don't build them however, or buy them: you rent them for a fixed price. Like privateers, you don't get the full cut of the profit from the trade route.
7.4) Convoys may help a besieged city ( under artillery fire, or an enemy unit is in the city radii, or both ). If armored convoys exist, only they may do it. If not, then any sort of caravans. Helping caravans generate food for the helped nation, and reduce money ( at a reduced cost ) for the owner of the caravan. However, it will greatly boost the diplomatic relations.
7.5) Caravans can assist cities that were harmed by a random event ( earthquakes, tornados, etc. ). The caravan helps fix the damage to the infrastructure and boosts the food supply for several turns. You gain no money by this interaction, but you do greatly help the diplomatic relations between the two nations.
7.6) Caravans can't simply "help" wonders. They only reduce the mineral cost of the wonder, not increase the labor rating (by offering new means of construction and rare items). If the caravan is carrying construction goods (timber, concrete, steel, etc.), the bonus to resource is doubled.
7.7) Caravans "know" how to use boats, and will "call" for one automatically when it needs to pass over the seas. In other case, a caravan unit can be "glued" to a ship which will move the caravan all the time. In yet another option, you can set ships into "trade mode,” where those ships, and only those ships, will be "called" by the caravans to move them back and forth.
7.8) Instead of having caravans create trade route, caravans move back and forth. Instead of generating a fixed amount every turn, the caravan will produce a sum of money whenever it reaches another city on the route.
8. Trade routes
Trade routes are the path where trade passes between cities or nations. It could be caravans moving back and forth, or a generic "trade route" which is generated automatically. The following things can be added into trade routes to make them more realistic:
8.1) Once you create trade routes with another nation, you can't cancel it alone. Your only option is to cancel all trade with that nation, which means breaking ALL trade routes and all profit gotten from them.
8.2) Once you create a trade route (with a caravan or not), then you can further expand the level of trade that pass by the path automatically, by signing extra "contracts" that can further increase the profit and resource swapping that go along the path.
8.3) Trade routes can never pass over enemy land, or any nation that didn't sign a "right of passage" treaty with you (or you are in a high state of alliance with them). The route will go around the land, and it's impossible, the trade route will be canceled.
8.4) You should be allowed to toggle "economy map,” and view all the trade routes displayed over the land, with statistics over the city names showing the level of profit.
8.5) A city that sits on a river or on a shore (or both) gets an extra trade route credit (or extra income from trade, if that system is not used).
8.6) Trade routes automatically adapt themselves over roads/rail roads over ground, and into the "trade winds" along the ocean (fixed paths in which movement cost is ½ ).
8.7) All tiles that belong to a highly active (several caravans using it), trade route generate +1 trade ( considering you use the X10 format, see idea 14.4 ). All cities that have trade routes pass through their radii benefit from the trade route in this manner. This is cumulative: if several trade routes pass by the same tile, then that tile can get a larger bonus. However, the tile is last to receive this bonus (see below). However, the maximum income that can be gained (the number of tiles that get the +1 bonus), depends on the number of caravans, their profit, and their type. Important! A land trade routes that link two of your own cities (a domestic trade route), would get no such bonus at all. It has to be linked to another nation city.
For every land caravan, you gain up to half the profit they generate. Boats give ¼, and planes nothing. For example, a land route with 2 caravan that each generates 20 trade icons per turn, can give up to 20 tiles a +1 bonus. If they were sea crafts, the bonus would have applied to 10. If one caravan is land, and the other is airborne, the profit will be 10 since airplanes generate nothing.
This bonus is received by all friendly nations of the trade route owner: not just him.
If the number of tiles is smaller then the bonus ( a 50 tiles trade route with only a bonus to 10 ), then only those that belong to a city would get the bonus. After that, railroad tiles are last to get a bonus, since when a train speed past a city it's less likely to give any profit. If still in need, large cities collect the bonus before smaller ones. Therefor, in order of importance, this is the tiles that get the bonus:
City tile ( center )
Village ( see idea 11.3, on the village itself )
Inside large city radii + road/river
Inside large city radii
Inside large city radii + railroad
Inside small city radii + road/river
Inside small city radii
Inside small city radii + railroad
A city tile that already has a bonus ( for extra, cumulative bonus from several trade routes )
Outside city radii ( doesn't really matter, does it? Since no one does get it anyway... )
8.8) If a trade routes pass over a road, and several caravans move on the road, it is automatically upgraded into "Royal highway," which will give a slightly better increase in speed ( 1/4 instead of 1/3 ).
8.9) If you create a trade route between two of your nations over sea, you can assign a transport ship to the trade route. That ship will automatically ferry units from one side to the other. Your units (caravans or any other unit) that were directed over seas will automatically move to the harbor on their side and wait for the ferry. Several ships can be assigned this way to the trade route.
8.10) Trade routes can use accepted way points.
8.11) You may position a military unit along a trade route and order it to "raid" it, diverting all income to you. Consider a hostile act. Pirates ( see idea 1 ), use it all the time to generate more cash. Spies can destroy the trade route totally.
8.12) Trade route profit relays only of supply and demand of both the cities in the trade route. The bonus for distance (like in civ I/II), is better represented by the +1 trade per tile idea ( see idea 8.7 ).
8.13) Trade routes take a small amount of cash to maintain. The cost is decided by the route length.
9. Inertial trade
Inertial trade is a radical idea that states that you can "center" your nationwide trade power on several cities. For example, frontier cities always support the bulk, if not all, the trade routes (caravans, automatic, whatever the system is). In inertial trade, you can transfer the "option" for trade routes to a nearby city. So, a single city could get 5,10,15 extra trade routes when several inner land cities pass their "Trade power" to her. Of course, for play-balancing, there is some lost which increase the more trade routes you pass. You can pass 1-2 with no loss, but try to pass 20 and you only get an extra, let’s say 10, for the destination city. This represents trade cities that dealt with trade for most of the empires. With contracts, you can even grant the other nation trade routes credit for him to you ( when you are getting some back, of course ).
10. Tile improvements
10.1) The current system used to create tile improvements (such as farms, roads, etc.) is very bulky and require a great deal of micro-management.
10.1.1) ]Keep the current system (settlers), but further develop the automation option that was introduced in SMAC.
10.1.2) Use the public work option like in CTP: you earn work points, which you can spend to construct public works.
10.1.3) Combine public works with settlers: build them in the public work menu, which will automatically send a settler to construct them (for the public work points), automatically.
10.1.4) If companies or private sectors are used (see idea 5), then many tile improvements will pop up with the support of the public himself (farms and roads, mainly). If budgeting is used ( see idea 2 ), then increasing the development section will make more tiles produce themselves. You can also hire the company to build tiles for you.
10.2) Regardless of what system, tiles should cost maintenance, mainly the roads and railroads. Roads that are not properly maintained decay over time. If not using budgeting (idea 2) to support tile improvements, they could cost gold, or just degrade if not used for some times, requiring a settler to fix it (takes half the time). Roads that are not traveled, mines that are left alone, farms that are not tilled, etc.
11. Trade buildings & wonders
11.1) To further show and increase the importance of trade, you should have several buildings, and even wonders, that increase the usefulness of trade. The effects of those buildings/wonders can be:
11.1.1) city can support extra trade routes (one or more). Wonder can give an extra trade route for all your cities, world wide.
11.1.2) Extra profit from trade routes: a fixed amount of an added percentile.
11.1.3) Free caravans upon completion of structure. A building can give you an instant caravan for the city, and a wonder can give you one free caravan in every city you have. Another option is a wonder that generates a free caravan every few turns.
11.1.4) Reduce the number of population you need to support one extra caravan (see idea 7.1.3 ). For example, instead of a caravan every 5 pop, you get one every 4. Local effects for buildings, world wide effects for wonders.
11.1.5) Increase movement of all caravans (wonder only).
11.1.6) Reduce support cost of all caravans (wonder only).
11.1.7) Increase carrying capacity of all caravans (wonder only).
11.2) Settlers can build a new type of building in the outlands: a trade depot. The trade depot can do one, some, or all of the following options:
11.2.1) Give a bonus to trade in the range of operation.
11.2.2) Act like a fortress.
11.2.3) Heal all caravans resting one turn on it.
11.2.4) Building, or generating caravans.
11.2.5) Defend all caravans in range of operations from raiding.
11.2.6) Resupply all fueled units.
11.2.7) Store cargo.
11.2.8) Act like a waypoint: you can send units to it by the command "go to.”
Sea ports are built on shore tiles, and act just like a trade depot: only they work on ships (protecting/building/repairing ships). You can also ask via the diplomacy screen for your friend to build a port/trade depot for you ( see idea 3 ).
11.3) Villages are constructed by a settler, which forces the settler to disband (like building a city). Villages are a bit like supply crawlers from SMAC: they generate some food/resources which they send to the home city (the original city of the settler). If that city is destroyed, the bonus can be directed to any city of your choice. You can't build a village with your first settler: only after you have at least one city. While a village is in fact a one pop unit city, the pop unit does not count toward your city total (it does however on your nation scale), and requires no food. They are several types of villages:
11.3.1) Farm village: produce food + resources + trade in equivalent of the tile the village sits upon. The tile automatically has food improvement on it (irrigation, fields, farms, farmland). Must be built on flat, fertile land.
11.3.2) Mine village: Just like 11.3.1 in all cases, except you have a mine on the tile, and must be built on a mountain/hill.
11.3.3) Fishing villages: Only produce food and trade (no resources), but you automatically generate food like you are using a fish-improved ocean tile. Must be built on a shore.
12. Effects of trade
While one nation trades with the other one, they affect each other. Specific events can also boost, or hamper the profit generated from trade. The suggested effects of trade are:
12.1) The most basic one: the more trade you generate, the better the diplomatic relations between your nations.
12.2) Trade slowly generates a map of foreign territory: the area around the cities you trade with, and all cities that are interlinked via trade routes with those cities.
12.3) If one side possesses some technology the other one hasn't, the other side can easily acquire it (less research points needed).
12.4) If one side possesses trade tech and the other size doesn't, after one single trade the other side acquires it too.
12.5) The side that posses a clear technological advantage gets a bonus to trade.
12.6) Trade in general greatly increases technology output (more scientific relations, diverse cultures originate more ideas, etc.). Maybe make trade routes produce a small science bonus?
12.7) Cities with large population and food production obtain a small trade bonus: cuisine is a key industry in trade and tourism.
13. ICS solutions
The problem of ICS, meaning one city size, has been discussed heavily over the forums. Mainly, the problem relies on the fact that small cities, usually one pop size, are more profitable then large cities, making it unprofitable to spend money on expanding, beyond hampering realism. One, or a few, of the following solutions could be used:
13.1) Increasing the production ratio of workers at a geometrical rate. For example, the first pop gives 10 labor, second 20, third 30, etc. So, a 3 pop size city would produce 60 labor, instead of 30. This is fitting to the fact that the level of population in real numbers also increases geometrically. If this incremental increase seems to steep, maybe 10-15-20-25 system is better used. Like the above idea except increasing trade profit. 1 pop city produce 10 trade, 2 pop city produce 30, etc, etc, etc...
13.2) The city center tile won't produce anything, just give a +1 food/+1 prod/+1 trade to all surrounding hexes.
13.3) The effects of specialists (which are usually only used on large cities) should be much bigger.
13.4) You can put several workers on the same tile, but it with reduced efficiency (up to a max of 3 workers per tile). This will allow big cities to put more people to work, and further increase their power.
13.5) The number of population that can be put on tiles is city size -1. Meaning, a size 1 city would just work on the city center tile production, size 2 city would only have 1 worker, not 2, etc.
13.6) The maximum number of production increasing buildings that can be built is the size of the population. So, a size 1 city could only support 1 market/factory/bank, making bigger cities more profitable.
13.7) World-wide wonders that give "+1 happy citizen per city" unbalance things in favor or the smaller nations. Maybe it could be replaced by "+10% happy citizens in city".
14. City management
This section list all of the changes suggested to the "building" menu in cities, to further increase the ease of control of the player over his empire.
14.1) Having build queue: up to 5 buildings, one after another.
14.2) Allow multiple construction at the same time: slider bars share the labor power between various constructions. The maximum amount of items that can be constructed at the same time is either fixed (4-5?), or decided by your city size/tech level/city improvements. One idea is simply to have city improvement construction separate from unit construction.
14.3) Making the governor more intelligent, and allow worldwide control over governor (and regions). Also, allow more fine-controlling the governor.
14.4) All production values related to cities should be increased by a factor of 10. Meaning, a farmer produces 20 food instead of 2, and every citizen consumes 20 food instead of 2. By increasing the numbers, you allow small increments to be used (+10% to food, for example, almost never has any effect in the current system).
14.5) The population logarithmic scale used in civ II isn't very realistic. For starters, 10 thousand citizens for a starting village/hamlet, mainly in the old days, is way too much. One thousand sounds more reasonable. On the other extreme, even the largest cities never tend to reach the size of truly huge cities on modern Earth. Fixing the scale is very needed.
14.6) Instead of using pop size units in a logarithmic scale, use real-life numbers. You then divide the citizens by percentile among the works (for example, a city has 120,000 people, and 12.1% are working in farming, meaning food production per farmer * 14520).
14.7) Totally change the way you manage your cities and workers. You build generic buildings like farms, factories, libraries. You then assign work force (the size of your city) to the various building in a sort of a slider bar menu. You can then upgrade the buildings as technology increase. The basic output of farms and mines is decided by the surround lands around the city. This system was introduced in Birth of the federation. It's far more realistic: farmers should hardly give any labor or mine output.
14.8) Trade goods should be a conversion of minerals to goods (by labor) and sold automatically for profit
14.9) Citizens can either be assigned in tiles, which produce food + resources, on inside the city, which produce labor. One labor + one resource equals one civ I/II build shield. The concept of labor is based by many of the ideas included in the summary. However, it means starting cities would need several workers (since one would not be able to both mine and build). Another option is that all workers tend tiles, and automatically produce X amount of labor (in this case, make sure you see idea 13.1).
14.10) When building military units, and if your social options allow (free market), you may hire them as mercenaries. They require no construction or buying, and they start as veteran, but they cost twice as much to support and are less loyal to you (easier to bribe them). Another, more realistic option, that you can't just hire any unit, you have a few offers that will vary along the time.
14.11) Since shipping items from the fringes of the city in early days was very hard, the outer ring of the city radius has a "maximum output" setting that will improve along the years when new city improvements are allowed. For example, a farm can produce 5 food, but since it's the outer fringe it can only produce 3 (the rest are lost). Build a warehouse, and it will increase to 4. A highway will raise it once more to 5. Tiles that are connected by road have a +1 to their maxima. Connection by river or railroad gets +2.
14.12) "Rush-buying,” meaning buying the rest of the product in a city in a single turn must be limited due to vast un realism. In a resource system, you can only buy the resources and still need to build them by labor. In civ II old system, limiting the buying to only doubling the speed would do it (produce twice as fast, and buy the difference in shield * 2 every turn).
14.13) Citizens that are not assigned into any tile, and have not been yet "specialized,” are considered "unemployed" and increase the city unhappiness. Certain key technologies would increase unemployment for a few turns (like Industrialization, robotics, and other economy-changing techs).
14.14) Lack of communication for a long period of time can result in a city breaking down and declaring independence. The further away the city is, the more likely the city will revolt. The following things can decrease the chance: soldier inside the city, trade route connection with your empire, roads that are connected (by some way) to your capital, key buildings and wonders (like torch-lines), and technologies (radio, TV, etc).
15. Regions
The concept of regions is that you are able to "group" several close cities into one shared pool. The number of cities in the region, and its maximum size depend on your SE options and your technological level. All the "grouped" cities pool their food, resources and labor rating. The food pool first take care of the need of all the cities: any surpluses are shared equally by all cities to produce pop growth. The "home" city, either selected or the biggest one, is affecting all the others. All wonders that exist on this city, or buildings, give their effects to ALL cities in
the group. A temple, for example, would reduce 1 unhappy drone in every city, not just his hometown. A wonder that normally affects the hometown will affect all the grouped ones. However, buildings that only exist in the other cities won't affect ANY city, including the one with the buildings. Wonders that only effect the home city, and exist in another city than the central one, won't give a bonus to ANY city. However, the support cost of all buildings/wonders in the center city is doubled by the square root of the number of cities. For example, a temple in a 9 city pool would cost 3 times more, while affecting all the cities. Once the grouping is canceled, the support cost returns to normal.
For limiting the power of regions, it was suggested that only a specific set of buildings give an effect to all cities (like highways, or stock exchange), and the other needs to be built several times (maybe a nice menu that tells you the number of temples you have, and how many cities you support). Maybe the buildings that don't affect all the cities generate a bonus regarding on the comparison of amount/city size. For example, if you have 10 cities and 5 temples, maybe all cities will get a temple bonus, but only 50% of it (5/10). Extra! Another way to implement this is by creating "regional command" in the home city. Since "Grouping" can be very powerful, the support cost for the command building should be very big.
<u>Resource management and unit support</u> - By Don Weaver ( dewvr@mindspring.com )
16. Resources and unit support from resources
GENERAL COMMENTS: This article covers the resources represented on the map, extracted from tiles (with the aid of applicable tile improvements), and utilized in the Civ3 economy. The Civ engine splits the economy into 3 divisions: Food, Resources, and Trade. Trade is further divided into taxes, luxuries, and science (Public sector, Service sector, and an ad hoc "Research" sector). Food and Resources together can be viewed as the Production sector of the Civ economic model. The overwhelming response of devoted Apolyton Civers to the prospect of a major reworking of the Civ engine is: more is better. More resources to play with, and more ways to play with them.
This article is primarily concerned with how to incorporate resources into the Civ3 economy. While there are ideas for new special terrain types, distribution algorithms, graphics, etc., there are no long lists of new resources here. Many suggestions barely mention any consideration beyond the economic use of resources, assuming that remaining details are covered in other chapters.
16.1) Keep the shield system of previous Civ engines. However, even without changing the terrain-derived resources many of the following ideas would still be applicable.
16.2) Make two general resources: labor and materials. Both can still be represented as "shields." Citizens assigned to work the land produce the Food, Shields, and Trade from the tiles worked as normal. These same citizens also take the raw materials and transform them into usable products.
16.2.1) Initially, the labor component is included in the shields represented by tile production. City improvements that increase production add shields in proportion to the workforce (number of citizens working tiles) rather than to the materials extracted. Terrain improvements effect only the materials extracted.
16.2.2) Alternately, labor increases due to city improvements is proportional to all citizens regardless of occupation. The Specialist citizens are seen as tradesmen producing goods that increase money, luxuries, or science as well as shifting the trade economy proportions towards their specialties. Other than that city improvements and terrain improvements work as in §16.2.1.
16.2.3) Another alternate implementation provides slight relief to mineral-poor cities. Initially, workers on tiles that do not produce shields (and for §16.2.2, Specialist citizens) produce ½ shield each. This initial production bonus is not cumulative with city improvements adding production as in §16.2.1 or §16.2.2.
16.3) Material resources are divided into 3 basic materials: fuel, metal and exotic. Each terrain type (including special tile types) produces different amounts of the three materials.
16.3.1) Shields are generalized for production of city improvements and units. But at least 25% of shields used in production must be fuel, and 25% metal, and 10% exotics. If the percentage of one resource type falls below that, total production is limited to the amount proportionately allowed by the lacking resource. (E.g., 6 fuel + 2 metal + 2 exotic would be limited to 8 total production because of insufficient metal; excess is lost.)
16.3.2) Shields are still generalized for production of city improvements and units. However, each city will require a number of fuel resources. Production capacity falls proportionately if the minimum number of fuel resources aren't available. Fuel required is initially proportional to city size/4. Each city improvement or advance in manufacturing technology, power and transportation effects that requirement. City improvements: Factory +1/8, Power Plant +1/8, Manufacturing Plant +1/4, Superhighway +1/4, Mass Transit -1/8, etc. Advances: Automobile +1/4, and Electronics +1/8. A full list would have to be developed and scaled appropriately.
16.3.3) Unit support requires metal. Unit construction also requires that metal be available above metal resources spent supporting existing units.
16.3.4) Motorized unit support requires ½ metal and ½ fuel. Motorized unit production also requires ½ metal and ½ fuel above unit support requirements and city fuel requirements. Heavy units such as iron and steel ships, armor, and mechanized infantry require ½ metal and 1 fuel support, and 1 metal plus ½ fuel above unit support for construction.
16.3.5) Certain technologies (and units built from them) require exotics. Each exotic deposit would be identified as one named material. Bronze and Electronics each requires copper, so Phalanx and modern high-tech units require copper. Wooden ships require old growth hardwoods. Jet aircraft require titanium. Elephants and even horses might be considered exotic "materials." A full list would have to be developed.
16.3.6) This option could be combined with §16.2. The percentages in §16.3.1 would effect only material resources; labor could either be unaffected or could be lost in proportion to materials unusable.
16.4) In addition to generic shields have 6 special materials: Timber, Stone, Iron, Gold, Coal, and Oil. Generic shields are blue; these would be colored green, white, grey, gold, brown, and shiny black (as opposed to the featureless black of Waste). Each special material shield normally counts as 1 shield in production. Each gives a bonus towards construction of certain city improvements and units. Iron, Gold, Coal, and Oil would no longer be special terrain types. Instead all 6 special materials would be generated separately and supersede the terrain shield production. (The frequency of Civ1/Civ2 style special terrain types would be reduced somewhat.)
16.4.1) At least one Timber (old growth hardwood) source is required for ship construction prior to and including ironclads. Timber counts double towards ships and all preindustrial city improvements. Timber is available in forests, jungles and hills.
16.4.2) Stone counts double towards all pre-electronic city improvements. A city without at least one stone source must pay an extra 50% construction cost towards City Walls improvement and Great Wall WOW. Stone is available in hills and mountains.
16.4.3) Iron is required for all military units except warriors, archers, horsemen, and wooden transport ships. Iron counts double towards all unit construction. Iron is available in hills and mountains.
16.4.4) Gold counts double towards all city improvements and trade units. Gold is available in hills and mountains.
16.4.5) Coal counts double towards construction of powered (non-nuclear) ships and all industrial era and post-industrial city improvements. Coal is available in hills and mountains.
16.4.6) Oil counts triple towards all motorized units. Oil can be found in any land terrain except hills and mountains, and in continental shelf waters. Oil can only be discovered after technology creates demand.
16.4.7) Oil might be governed by a separate resource generation algorithm to make it plentiful in some areas and rare in others, with a few regions of tightly clumped Oil tiles.
16.4.8) Special materials produce one special material shield where discovered. Timber produces one special material shield plus one generic shield where discovered in forest. Mining a special material (including Timber) is a separate order from regular mining and produces a variable 1-3 special material shields. Regular mines and special material mines cannot coexist.
16.4.9) Special materials could be required for support as well. Land units would require ½ iron + ½ generic (shield shown would be half grey and half blue), motorized infantry ½ iron + ½ oil (grey/black), and Armor units 1 iron + ½ oil. Wooden tranports, ½ timber + ½ generic; warships with cannon ½ timber + ½ iron. Steamships ½ timber + ½ coal; add ½ iron for ironclad warships. Iron-hulled warships 1½ iron + ½ coal or oil. A full list would have to be developed.
16.4.10) Cities would require fuel (either coal or oil) as described in §16.3.2.
16.4.11) This option could be combined with §16.2.
16.5) Have commodities, tiered production, etc, a la Colonization. End amount of around 20, and evolve them as time progresses (bows replaces by muskets, etc.). Supply and demand keeps the value of each commodity in flux. Sid knows all about it.
16.6) Require roads and tile improvements to make materials accessible to the city. 2 units of raw materials make 1 unit of manufactured goods, 2 units of mfg goods make 1 unit of trade goods. Military units are made of manpower and trade goods (weapons). Some raw materials simply go 2=>1 into mfg goods (2 timber=>1 lumber) others might be mixed. Trade goods might also be either homogeneous (2 lumber=>1 furniture) or mixed (1 lumber+1 iron=>1 musket). An arbitrary number of mfg goods and trade goods can be made in this way. (Any resemblance to a game made by another company is probably not coincidental and therefore this is unlikely to be adopted.)
16.7) Merchant units constructed by any city or cities could contribute to a civ-wide pool for internal trade. Merchant units would cost a small amount of money to maintain (¼ or ½ gold, or 2-5 gold in a x10 economy).
16.7.1) Merchant units would not be represented with icons on the map or city screen, etc. but can be killed if a tile associated with Merchant duties is entered by belligerent military unit(s). That is basically any land tile generating trade. The probability of a Merchant unit being killed off is a ratio of the number of Merchant units to the number of land tiles generating trade, moderated by the level of hostility of the invading unit. The invading unit may plunder a small amount of money in the process.
16.7.2) A Merchant unit could carry up to 2 units of critical resources (such as exotics of §16.3.5, special materials of §16.4, trade goods of §16.5) from a city with excess to a city in need, within some transportation-limited distance.
16.7.3) A Merchant unit could carry up to 2 food from a city with excess to a city in need within transportation-limited distance.
16.7.4) Each unused Merchant in the pool could be used to carry up to 2 shields from one of a list of designated cities to a target city constructing a large city improvement or WOW within transportation-limited distance.
16.7.5) A Merchant unit could make up to one tile outside (but still touching) the city radius accessible to that city. Merchant units designated to that task are much more likely to be lost when the tile served is entered by enemy unit(s), per §16.7.1. Add 50 percentage points to the percentage calculated; or 25 percentage points if a friendly military unit is in an adjacent tile.
16.7.6) After the discovery of Capitalism, the Merchant units can pool unused shields from turn to turn at the city with excess capacity.
16.7.7) Merchant pools may be necessarily segregated by continents or great distances between groups of cities. Regional divisions as suggested in §16.13 are ideal. Without a regional system the pool may be considered based in a specific city and reaching only a certain distance from the base. "Land tiles generating trade" from §16.7.1 would be based on the region covered by the Merchant pool.
16.7.8) Merchant activity should be limited to areas in supply if §4 Supply rules of Movement and Supply is adopted. A city cut off from neighbors by enemy units and ZOCs would not benefit from any Merchant activity as described in this section.
16.8) A Supply unit, a la SMAC. It should start very weak, initially returning only one food, shield, or trade unit to the city and limited to squares inside the city radius connected to the city by minimal roads available. Returns up to 2 food if both Supply unit and city are on the same river. With advancing transportation technology distance permitted would increase (and number of food units returned would increase). With Ironworking, forests and mines could return more than one shield. Could modify or be combined with the requirements or effect of §16.7.5 to bring resources from more distant tiles.
16.9) A new specialist, the Laborer, simply produces 1 shield added to the total shields from terrain resources before Factory bonuses, etc. Under the labor resource system of §16.2, the Laborer produces 1 more shield plus the bonus for city improvements.
16.10) A new specialist, the Miner, produces 1 shield per mine worked by the city's citizens. Available upon discovery of Steam Engine. (The first steam engines were mining pumps.)
16.11) A new specialist, the Slave, acts like a Worker except only requires 1½ food. A Slave can be created by taking slaves in trade or conquest and adding them to your city. A Slave is never happy. A full list of Slave problems (generating unhappiness after Monotheism, escaping in disorder, increasing the destructiveness of rioting, etc) would have to be developed.
16.12) Having a large variety of trade goods increases the happiness and economy of your people. If trade with other cities brings in more than 6 types of trade goods some bonus to happiness results. It could be as little as reducing the effect of empire-size random unhappiness in that city.
16.13) Resource sharing regions. Several people in several threads have expressed the desire to group cities for administrative purposes and for resource sharing. Region size would be limited by transportation technology via a maximum movement cost between extreme cities in the region. Crossing bodies of water limited to one tile under sail, two tiles with powered ships, and three after air travel. Food would be the most important resource shared among cities of a region, freeing cities suited for industry to specialize without using up trade routes on food caravans. One idea to make regional structure workable is the resource "carrier," or the generalized Merchant units of §16.7.
16.13.1) Happiness and efficiency penalty due to civ size should be reduced if the civ is divided into administrative regions.
16.13.2) Possibility of civ splitting under certain circumstances should increase if the civ is divided into administrative regions.
16.14) Expanding on §16.13 is a new city improvement called "regional headquarters." It becomes the capital of a §16.13 resource sharing region with all cities connected via roads, river, etc. All cities within the region gain benefits from Wonders or city improvements in the capital. Bonuses are restricted to those cities that pay a maintenance cost as though the improvement were local. (Cities could still build improvements in case they were cut off by invading units or natural disasters.) Food and resource sharing would still require caravans or a §16.7 Merchant pool. (Seems very, very un-balanced. Maybe make the support cost for "regional HQ" HUGE?)
16.15) After discovery of Nuclear Fission special resource Uranium can be found. Uranium deposits are treated as a special material source tile from §16.4 but should be very rare. Only one nuclear weapon can be constructed at any given time by a civ per Uranium deposit under that civ's control.
16.15.1) At least 10% of construction cost of a nuclear weapon must be met with Uranium shields (or more, depending on total cost; the lower the unit cost, the higher the percentage that must be Uranium).
16.15.2) After discovery of Nuclear Power, ships are not automatically granted a movement bonus. Instead, nuclear powered vessels must be either separate unit types, or a flag for nuclear power could be included in naval unit definitions (toggled only at construction), or available in the Unit Workshop if that is implemented. At least 10% of construction cost of a nuclear powered vessel must be met with Uranium shields.
16.15.3) Other exotic materials could be modeled in this way as well. Motorized, mechanized and flying units could require Rubber. Jet aircraft could require Titanium. To make a game really difficult for human players (especially in multiplayer games), make Oil in §16.4.7 required for all modern units (AI would undoubtedly have to cheat to survive).
16.16) Permit more than one worker on irrigated, farmed, and mined tiles, with diminishing output for each worker past the first. On a farmed tile the second worker produces as on an irrigated tile; a third worker (or a second worker on an irrigated tile) produces as on an unirrigated tile; each subsequent worker produces one less food. On a mined tile the second worker loses half the benefits of the mine; a third worker losses all benefits of the mine. (This requires either very dense graphics or a different method of displaying the placement of workers and their output.)
16.16.1) Implemented with the three material resources of §16.3, multiple workers on a mined tile would not necessarily produce the same material. Mines producing metals only produce metals for additional workers added to the tile. If a mine produces fuel, a second worker in the tile will produce fuel or metal with equal probability as determined by the resource seed. If a mine produces exotics, a second worker will produce only metal. Any third worker added to any mined tile will only produce metal.
16.16.2) Implemented with the special materials of §16.4, subsequent workers added to a special materials tile would only produce generic shields. Under the special Oil rules in §16.4.7 there would be an exception: multiple workers produce Oil in regions of plentiful Oil.
16.17) Some percentage of resources should be devoted to the domestic economy. Generic resource shields would be required for trade and population growth (housing and roads).
16.17.1) The percentage of shields (including city improvement bonuses) diverted to domestic use would be determined by the Luxuries percentage set for the civ. Setting Luxuries to zero would incur growth penalties in cities without Entertainer citizens.
16.7.2) If labor is segregated from material resources, city improvement bonuses are applied first. Labor and materials are diverted in proportion to labor:materials in total. Exotics (as used in §16.3.5) or special materials (§16.4) would not be proportionately diverted (but might be required to meet percentage diverted under high Luxury settings).
16.17.2) Entertainer labor in §16.2.2 disappears, consumed to produce the luxuries generated by the Entertainer.
16.17.3) External trade represented by trade routes would be limited in proportion to the number of shields diverted. One shield would produce up to 4 trade. Special materials Timber, Gold, and Oil (§16.4), exotics (as used in §16.3.5), and rare materials (§16.15) produce up to 8 trade. Excess trade capacity from diverted shields do not produce more trade than trade routes specify.
16.18) Have trade commodities determined by terrain and geography.
16.18.1) Special terrain types (such as Silk) utilized by workers enable the city to trade certain commodities. Special materials Timber, Gold, and Oil (§16.4), exotics (as used in §16.3.5), and rare materials (§16.15) allow certain trade commodities in a city controlling those resources.
16.18.2) Selected agricultural trade items such as wine, silk, spices, ivory, coffee, etc. could be limited to certain geographical areas, climates, and terrain types. E.g., coffee needs hills, furs need forest, and ivory needs plains.
16.18.2.1) If the item needs forest, and your settlers clear too much, it's gone. Climate changes over centuries may destroy trade agriculture in some cases, even if global warming etc is not as pronounced in Civ3 as in Civ2.
16.18.2.2) There need not be any representation of these trade products on the game map. Trade items of this nature are a combination of the terrain and the expertise of the people living and working there. If an adjacent city has similar terrain there is no guarantee they will produce the same trade products. If an adjacent foreign city takes over tiles formerly worked by one city, that foreign city may still not be able to produce the trade products because the people skilled in the processes might be displaced.
16.18.2.3) A city can attempt to "grow" rare trade commodities by importing live specimens. Obtaining live specimens and sufficient knowledge to care for them may occur simply through normal trade channels, or could be a diplomatic objective or covert mission. Success in transplanting should be dependent on climate, technology and economy. For example, a domestic wine has to survive in domestic economy first before it can be traded to foreign cities; a booming economy will help, a depressed economy will hinder. Advanced horticulture makes much more likely today than in the past. Success in some cases should be very rare, as in numerous failed attempts to get silk industries started in the United States, various South American countries, parts of India, etc.
16.19) Trading with barbarians. Barbarians need not be temporary marauders bent on destruction. Some should just be interested in preventing incursion by "civilized" settlements in their (loosely defined) territory. Some barbarians should hang around (particularly if suggestions about nomads are adopted) and be amenable to trade. This is generally done through any contact with barbarian units.
16.19.1) Trading money (representing small amounts of trade goods) for special materials Timber, Iron, and Gold (§16.4), exotics (as used in §16.3.5), and rare materials (§16.15) can be handled on a case by case basis; as long as the barbarian unit(s) are within some specified distance from the trading civ's unit or territory the trade continues turn by turn. The civ may voluntarily discontinue, or contact with the barbarian unit(s) may cause renegotiation.
16.19.2) A Trading Post could facilitate trade with barbarians, it could be represented by temporarily by fortifying an explorer unit or by a tile improvement. An explorer is disbanded to erect a permanent trading post tile improvement. The trading post tile improvement would afford no defensive protection except that friendly units entering the post may instantly fortify. Non-hostile units may move through the tile without effect but may not stop on the tile (unless stacking rules permit the coexistence of non-allied units). Hostile units destroying all occupying units or entering the tile destroy the post.
16.19.3) A trading post might also allow trading with sparse populations not represented in the Civ engine. Special resources (§16.4), exotics (as used in §16.3.5), and rare materials (§16.15) discovered on the map could be purchased from presumed indigenous peoples on a continuing basis as with barbarians. Foreign units or barbarians intruding on the resource tile involved would interrupt trade.
17) Unit support cost within the overall economy
GENERAL COMMENTS: Unit support overlaps many other areas, and some of these ideas are found elsewhere in someone else's words. But this effort is one of brainstorming, so duplication of content in different context should be of value in any case.
17.1) Units could be supported with money, or money and shields, using fractional increments or a x10 economy. Unit size, technology, and weaponry should determine support cost. Monetary support could be charged to the civ as a whole or to regional divisions (if any).
17.1.1) A warrior unit should require virtually nothing; a high tech Jet Fighter unit should be expensive. Unarmed units should cost less support than military units.
17.1.2) Pre-gunpowder units could be supported with money only. Gunpowder units would require part of their support from material resources. Motorized units would require generalized material resources, or fuel (§16.3), or oil (§16.4), which would never be totally waived as "free" support costs regardless of government/SE choices.
17.1.3) At least a little food may be required for military unit support. One military unit would be free for each city, support for remaining units is ¼ food per unit. Preindustrial units could pillage food when in enemy land and waive food support from home (some reasonable limit should apply; perhaps no more than 2 units per plains/grassland tile, 1 unit per hills/forest tile).
17.2) Unit support under preindustrial economies, feudal systems, and some Republic governments should be specific to city of origin. More advanced economies, particularly after Railroad networks interconnect many cities, should be generalized to regions (§16.13) or civ-wide.
17.2.1) Units supported by cities for political reasons (feudalism, Roman-style Republic) would require some cost to switch home cities. Preindustrial economies would require small cost to change home city, waived if unit is stationed in new home city for some number of turns prior to switching home city.
17.2.2) Switching home cities should be possible without the unit physically present in either the old home city or the new home city. Cost would increase if the unit were not in either city but within either city radius, and would increase further if outside the radius of either city.
17.3) Social Engineering and unit support (modified from the SMAC SE system). Instead of taking up physically modeled resources, units take up productivity represented by workers converted to Specialists supporting military units. Non-military units should require economic support only or minimal Specialist support.
17.3.1) The new class(es) of Specialist represents the troops themselves as a fraction of population, plus the military personnel devoted to supply and support, plus civilian productivity diverted to supply and support. Support must be supplied by Specialist(s) in the home city.
17.3.1.1) The Soldier Specialist incurs a penalty of -2 Economy -1 Labs +1 Psych in the city. Obsolete with industrialization.
17.3.1.2) The Quartermaster Specialist becomes available with industrialization and incurs a penalty of -1 Economy and a +2 Psych bonus.
17.3.1.3) The Engineer Specialist (available with Fusion) includes a limited strength support function. The Engineer Specialist provides one support point at some SE Support levels.
17.3.2) Military units require Specialist support points based on chassis type, technology level, and a fraction of the unit's construction cost. (A fractional or x10 accounting system is preferred.) Nonmilitary units, if requiring Specialist support points at all, would be based on chassis type and technology level. Basic infantry units should require around 1 point, basic vehicle units 1½ 2 points, and aircraft 2 3 points.
17.3.2.1) Higher power plant technology level should diminish support requirements.
17.3.2.2) Higher weapons technology level should increase support requirements.
17.3.2.3) Special Abilities directly related to weapons or training should increase support requirements. This would apply to non-combat units if non-combat units are permitted AAA, Comm Jammer, Cloaking etc.
17.3.2.4) "Clean Reactor" does not effect support cost derived from weapons or §17.3.2.3 above.
17.3.3) Social Engineering Support Level affects "free" support points from bases and support points provided by Specialists.
17.3.3.1) SE Support Level Effects Table
SE Support Specialist Support Free Support
Level Points Provided Points/Base Other Effects
-4 2 None Engineer does not provide support
·No free minerals for new base
·Soldier/Quartermaster incurs additional -1 Economy
-3 2 None Engineer does not provide support
·No free minerals for new base
-2 2 1 Engineer does not provide support
·No free minerals for new base
-1 2 1 Engineer provides 1 Support Point
0 3 2 Engineer provides 1 Support Point
1 4 3 Engineer provides 1 Support Point
2 5 4 Engineer provides 1 Support Point
3 6 5 Engineer provides 1 Support Point
·First Soldier/Quartermaster incurs no Econ/Labs penalty
17.3.3.2) Under a Civ2-like system instead of a SMAC-like system, a similar schedule of Specialist effectiveness could be devised using mobilization, war morale (vis-a-vis sneak attacks, atrocities, etc), government type, etc.
17.4) A unit which loses support (resources or Specialists) from its designated home city does not instantly disband. Instead it cannot attack and suffers defense penalties until a new home city can provide necessary support. A powered unit might suffer movement penalties as well.
17.4.1) Units outside of city radii, borders or other limits to switching designated home city can come into contact with another friendly unit and change to that unit's home city.
17.4.2) Units in Fortresses may designate the nearest friendly city as home city.
17.4.3) Switching home city due to loss of support may incur some cost (or increase in cost under §17.2.1 and §17.2.2).
18. Urban industry
GENERAL COMMENTS: This section is derived from the thread "From Terrain to Urbanism: an Innate Conceptual Fault" found on the Apolyton Civ3 General/Suggestions forum (http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/000122.html).
18.1) The productive city radius is reduced to just ONE tile from the main city square. Thus only 8 (or 9 depending on ICS solution) tiles would have citizens working the land.
18.1.1) Zone of influence would remain TWO tiles radius. Various suggestions for Villages (see Tile Improvements) and other extensions of workable land (e.g., §16.8) would be usable in the outer tiles.
18.1.2) Additional means of increasing productivity of tiles would be introduced to model increasing food production with agricultural advancements. Such new tile improvements (and city improvements) should make up for the diminished number of tiles available for supporting large cities.
18.1.2.1) Cowshed or Dairy tile improvement. +1 food. This may be available for grasslands and plains only, or hills and forests may permit Dairies as well (historically accurate).
18.1.2.2) Railroads make previously marginal land worth farming due to reduced transportation costs to market. +1 food.
18.1.2.3) Farmlands produce +1 food (no Supermarket required).
18.1.2.4) Supermarket adds +1 food from Farmland tiles (in addition to above).
18.1.2.5) Supermarket adds +1 food to Ocean tiles.
18.1.2.6) Harbor adds +2 food to Ocean tiles (instead of only +1).
18.1.2.7) Game balance may require more time for Settler/Engineer units to perform tasks.
18.2) Citizens would be employed in city improvements. City improvement jobs would be represented by city improvement thumbnail symbols on the periphery of the city resource map. Placing a worker on the symbol would result in production of the specified "resources."
18.2.1) City improvements that explicitly produce food, shields, or trade (taxes, luxuries, or research) can employ citizens. Some may require citizens in order to produce; all suffer reduced production if not fully staffed.
18.2.2) The output of citizens employed at city improvements is based on the Basic Trade value. The Basic Trade value (BT) is the trade produced by an ordinary plains or grasslands square with a road. Oppressive governments' BT=1, representative governments' BT=2, Superhighway +1, Colossus +1. For city improvements that create a fixed unit or percentage bonus to food, shield, tax, luxury, or research, the full Improvement Bonus (fixed or percentage) is referred to as IB.
18.2.2.1) Marketplace, Bank, and Stock Exchange provide jobs for 1 citizen each. Employed citizens produce BT(trade arrows) + BT(coins). Alternately, Marketplace employee may produce BT(coins) + BT(diamonds). Improvements yield only ½IB if unstaffed, and yield 1IB if staffed.
18.2.2.2) Library, University, and Research Lab provide jobs for 1 citizen each. Employed citizens produce BT(trade arrows) + BT(science). Improvements yield only ½IB if unstaffed, and yield 1IB if staffed.
18.2.2.3) Factory and Manufacturing Plant provide jobs for 2 citizens each. Employed citizens produce 3 shields (4 after Computers). Improvements yield ½IB if unstaffed, 1IB with 1 employee, and 1½IB with 2 employees.
18.2.2.4) Power Plant (or Hydro Plant, Nuclear Plant, etc.) provides jobs for 1 citizen. Improvement yields ½IB if unstaffed, and yields 1IB if staffed.
18.2.2.5) Offshore Platform provides jobs for one citizen. Employed citizen produces 3 shields. The improvement yields no bonus if unstaffed, full bonus (+1 shield each worked Ocean tile) if staffed.
18.2.2.6) Harbor and Supermarket provide jobs for 1 citizen each. Employed citizens produce 4 food + BT(trade arrows). Harbor yields +1 Food (for each worked Ocean tile) if unstaffed, +2 Food (for each worked Ocean tile) if staffed. Supermarket yields no bonus if unstaffed, full bonus (+1 Food to Farmland) if staffed.
18.2.2.7) SuperHighway and Mass Transit provide jobs for 1 citizen each. Employed citizens produce 2BT(trade arrows). Neither yields any bonus if unstaffed, and provides full bonus if staffed.
18.2.2.8) Under the current Civ2 system Factory and Mfg Plant become available very late in the game, and with only 9 tiles to work instead of 21 shield production in the early game will be unbalanced. Some proposals (such as §16.8) will serve to remedy that to some extent.
18.2.2.8.1) A new city improvement, the Workshop (80 shields, 1 maint), would be available with Invention. The Workshop will provide jobs for 2 citizens. Employed citizens produce 3 shields. There is no global benefit.
18.2.2.8.2) After Miniaturization, Workshop would provide jobs for 1 additional citizen in cities not adjacent to Ocean or Lakes. This is an attempt to raise production potential for cities that can't build an Offshore Platform.
18.3) Lengthy discussions brought up some problems that would need to be addressed: Even with additional food produced with new tile improvements city size would be much more limited. Even with shields produced by city improvement employees it would be difficult to match production levels of medium-sized industrial cities in Civ2. As discussed in various threads, modern productivity is vastly higher than Civ2 scale allows. Farms in the USA easily produce 4 times the food/acre of traditional farming methods still in use in parts of Europe and all over the third world. For industrial production a cumulative doubling of shields with Factory, Power, and Mfg Plant would still be an order of magnitude below actual production increase over unpowered industry.
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<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Harel (edited September 25, 1999).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Harel (edited December 09, 1999).]</font>
Economy / Trade / Resource management / Unit support
<u>A united work off:</u>
Don Weaver ( Don don ) - Resource management and Unit support.
E-mail: dewvr@mindspring.com
Harel Eilam ( Harel ) - Economy in general and Trade
E-mail: harel@isdn.net.il
<u>Index:</u>
1. Pirates and black markets
2. Budgets
3. Diplomacy
4. War and peace
5. Free-mind companies
6. Trade model options
7. All about caravans
8. Trade routes
9. Inertial trade
10. Tile improvements
11. Trade buildings & wonders
12. Effects of trade
13. ICS solutions
14. City management
15. Regions
16. Resources and unit support from resources
17. Unit support cost within the overall economy
18. Urban industry
<u>Economy and Trade</u> - By Harel Eilam ( harel@isdn.net.il )
1. Pirates and black markets
The element of crime should be more developed then civ II generic "corruption" rating. All money lost from corruption is not just "gone,” it is transferred to a pirate AI player. When it renly military action is required. Once the pirate units are in place, they will start raiding trade routes, attacking caravans and villages ( see idea 11 ). If a city is unguarded enough, they could even raid a city. All this time, they still gain the money from corruption. They will use the money they get to buy more units, train them, and build fortresses. Once they are firmly in place, they will start using spies that will bribe cities. A bribed city by the pirates has more corruption ( generating even more money to the pirates ), all money gotten directly from the banks and market places go to the pirates ( the extra credit gotten from the bonus ), and pirate units are invisible in the city vision radius. All this time, the pirates will save enough money for their big task: bribing a city into their hands. Once pirates own a city, they form a new civ. They cannot build a new city, however. Pirates also have a good use to the smart emperor: a high presence of pirates creates black markets. You can buy your military units from the black market with a reduced cost, but it will enrich the pirates even more. More, you can even bribe and manipulate your local pirates ( or the ones the other civ have ), and make them raid/steal/spy for you. Pirates are also a good source for experienced mercenaries for hire.
2. Budgets
Budgets, like in real life. The bonus gotten from libraries, for example would be decided by how much you put in Education. That money is divided among all libraries and universities. The higher the gold per institute, the bigger bonus they give. Hospital bonus by health, wealthfare gives happiness ( divided by all the populace, like Luxuries ), military would be divided between the support cost of all units and decide what morale bonus/minus you get, etc. ( In democracy/republic, the senate should demand a minimum portion to some section. ) The different budget sections:<list>[*]Science ( labs and science rate )[*]Education ( libraries, universities, college wonders )[*]Health ( hospital, care for cancer wonder )[*]Defence ( military infra-structure, barracks, and units )[*]nternal affairs ( Police, intelligence and reducing unrest )[*]Wealthfare ( happiness bonus: like luxuries )[*]Transportation ( Support of road tiles and Mans transport building [ highways, mass transt ] )[*]Construction ( reserve money to buy city building and wonders )[*]Arts ( support for wonders )[*]Agriculture ( support for farms )[*]Religion ( the bonus for temples/church )[*]Trade ( caravans are bought of a pool created here )</list>
3. Diplomacy
Via the diplomatic screen, you can sign several trade treaties and agreements. The first thing is the creation of trade pacts, or alliances, between three or more nations. In this trade alliance, you all automatically trade between you ( with a nice big bonus ). Also, all of the below treaties suggested are done with a bigger profit and efficiency then before. Active trade improve the relations between two nations. The more treaties you sign, the better the level of diplomatic relations will exist between the two nations. The suggested treaties have been posted on the various threads:
3.1) Single trade: exchange cities/tech/units/money/resources/land between two nations.
3.2) Fixed trade/tribute treaty: exchange/give money/food/resources every turn until canceled.
3.3) Construction: side A pays side B to build for him X units.
3.4) Shared wonder: both sides build a wonder togther ( cheap in a labor/money pool ), and get the effects togther ( all possible in wonders that affect the entire civ, not just a single city ).
3.5) Hired workers: side A pays side B for an agreed labor level ( moves from side B city to side A city ).
3,6 Monopoly: side A may demand side B to only buy his commodities only from him.
3.7) Lending money to a section side.
3.8) Port contract: side A pays side B to buy ( or build ) a port/airport on his land.
3.9) Trade passage: side A allows side B to pass caravans ( or trade with nations only his is connected with ), but gets a cut of the profit from the trade.
3.10) Embargo: side A demands side B to cancel all trade with side C.
3.11) Funded trade: side A pays side B to establish a trade route with a new nation ( buying caravans, etc ). They split the profit.
4. War and peace
The diplomatic relations between two nations should give you some specific bonus/minus. A state of war should give a boost to military production, but should drain civilian resources for a prolonged war. This could be viewed at increased support cost for units after long periods out of the city, increasing the minus to production in the SE screen, or simply reducing the bulk income. Unity, a high form of alliance, vastly increases trade profit, but makes you more vulnerable to spies.
5. Free-mind companies
5.1) Companies, and free trade, should hold a much bigger and obvious power in the game. Dictates by your market option, some of your economy ( all, part, or none ) should belong to private companies. You will stay gain the credits ( via tax ). It's more to show a real-life view and increase the realism of the game. The company could be a corporation ( in transnational ), a bank, a guild, a labor union, a single merchant, or a group of merchants. The type ( and size/limitation/behavior ) of the company depends, as said before, on your market option. The companies control parts ( or all ) of your caravans ( or trade routes ), and use those credits. They will build their own caravans. If in their interest, they will even build buildings in your cities ( such as market places ). But the profit from those will only go to the company: you only get a share via taxes. They could even build wonders if it will be profitable for them! The company will also build ports and airports, and roads/railroads to expand their trade sphere. You can sign construction treaties with companies, and cast "Embargo" and "Monopoly" treaties. You can also have "food" companies that will own part of your farmers and farms. They will even produce more food then you can ( per tile ), and give you a part of the profits. If needed, they themselves will build their privately owned farms, granaries, food markets, etc.
Switching market option from one with companies to one without ( for example, from transnational to planned ), will cause several things: all company building and units are moved to your hands, and you gain the full profit from those, but you will receive a large minus to all economy for several turns.
5.2) People have expressed wishes to be able to actually "play" for themselves the "free-mind" companies. You should have the option either to "zoom in" and take control of one of your nation’s companies for several turns, or to start the game as a company and play it over along the game. ( One player can build the empire, and his friend managing the company at the same time, at multi-player. Maybe even several players playing several companies with a single player, or multiple civ players. A possible future add-on? ) In addition, some suggested the option to play the pirates ( see idea 1 ), and play them!
5.3) Beyond companies, you should the more "generic" private sector. The doing of the private sector are completely autonomous and unknown to you ( not hidden, just not reported ). As a general thing, the private sector will deal with building his own key city improvements alone. Like libraries, churches, market places. Those will be built by the public expense, not the government. The extent of power the private sector posse relies on your SE choices in government, market and structure. If Budgeting would be used ( see idea 2 ), then some of the cost will be collected from the appropriate branch. For example, the government will finance some of the cost of building new churches out of the religious section in the royal budgets. The maintenance cost will also partly drop on the shoulders of the government.
5.4) Once transnational market option has been discovered by any nation, the central banks are created. It's yet another AI company that you may converse and sign several treaties with. The world global bank will invest in civ, buy off city improvements, lend money, and if holding enough power might even posses a small army of it's own ( for the sake of guarding the economical stability, of course ). Or maybe it could be created when a specific wonder has been created?
6. Trade-model options
6.1) Considering how faulty the trade system was in civ II, a new system must be used. Trade was very ignored on civ II, and no one can deny the absolute great importance of trade along history. This section list all of the new trade methods proposed:
6.1.1) Use the caravan system in civ II ( in this case, make sure you use some modification to the system, see idea 7 ).
6.1.2) Internal trade is automatically, like SMAC. All cities generate a small trade bonus, regarding the size of the city, size of the empire, location of cities and eco bonus. External trade is done with caravans ( see idea 7 to further increase this ).
6.1.3) All trade is totally automatic, just like SMAC. The income generated also relies on the size of your allies and their numbers.
6.1.4) All trade income is generated by signing "commerce treaties,” like Master of Orion series. It is signed via the diplomacy screen, and generates a fixed amount of cash every turn. The size of profit depends on the population size of the two nations and any commerce bonus/penalty either of you have. The size of the profit is negative at the start, and is increasing steadily over time.
6.1.5) Every big city can support several trade routes. The number of routes is decided by your SE options, tech level and city size. Each route is connected to a city of a non-hostile nation. Every foreign city can be connected to just one cities in your civ.
6.1.6) Trade is done with buildings, not units at all. You build a "depot" in your city. You automatically gain a profit, considering how many cities you have near you, the size of your city and the size of the city you are connected with. The size of the city decides the maximum bonus you can get, and how many other cities can gain bonuses from this city. For example, if a foreign nation has a city which can support three connections, it gains up to three connection bonuses, and only three other cities can get a bonus from her.
6.1.7) Just like 6.1.5, your city gain trade routes. However, when you create a trade route it will automatically call for the nearest available caravan and send it to create the trade route.
6.1.8) ( Requires a commodity system ) Trade won't generally produce any credit: no tiles producing trade arrows. Nations only trade resource/commodities between themselves. The majority of profit would be, ofcourse, to buy cheap and sell high ( usally being a third side between two nations ). The value of each commodity vary upon supply and demand. However, every trade gives both sides a few credits upon completion of the trade contract. The bigger the trade is, the more profit both sides will get. Another option is when a trade agreement has been made an available caravan automatically is sent to the other nation land.
6.2) Civ II didn't allow you to trade with barbarians: a very false idea. Barbarians should have a bigger role: like pirates they could have some diverse options, and can also build cities, if they obtain the cash to buy a settler. In a nutshell, people would really like the option to trade with barbarians, primitive and nomadic tribes.
6.3) The economy, and income from trade, needs to shift up and down, like in real life economics. The more free your society is ( democracy/free market ), the more the numbers will shift for better or for worse. In social or controlled markets however, the market will hardly shift at all. Shifting can cause up to +/- 50% of income in a single turn, and move up or down by an additional -/+ 5% every turn.
7. All about caravans
7.1) If the caravan system will still be used ( see idea 7 ) some modification to the system needs to be made. The micro-management of each caravan in civ II made trade so very bothersome, that some players choose to ignore it completely. The caravan system could be changed to the following:
7.1.1) Keep it like civ II: you build them, move them around and create trade routes ( which a creation bonus when first creating the path ).
7.1.2. You build the caravans yourselves, but they automatically move to the most profitable location ( decided by distance, ETA, merchandise carrying, nationality of the city, etc. ). To increase procession speed, you could make the caravan invisible ( totally automatic ).
7.1.3) Caravans are generated automatically at large cities ( depending on city size and location, like rivers and coastal connection ). They are replaced after X turns if they are killed. You then direct them to their destination.
7.1.4. A trade advisor governs all trade for you: he builds the caravans, moves them about, and chooses the best merchandise for maximum profit. You also can toggle "caravan viewing" for extra speed: without seeing the caravans the game will run faster. He will also manage building roads and ports for you. The advisor could be mandatory, or could be optional, and be switched off/on.
7.2) To further increase the depth of the caravan system, new caravan types were suggested. Those specific-task units will further enhance the depth of trade. They will can be used with automatic trade ( trade advisor ). He would build armored convoys when sending them into "hot-regions,” use "double-capacity,” or "finished goods,” if it's more profitable, etc.
7.2.1) Special movement: a trade plane and ships. Trade ships are critical for realism.
7.2.2) Double capacity: costlier, slower caravans, that carry a double cargo that offers a bigger income.
7.2.3) Armored convoy: a costlier caravan that has some defensive capacity and can protect himself for pirates.
7.2.4) Finished goods: a costlier caravan version, but one that offers a much bigger profit.
7.2.5) Tourist caravan: carry no resource. The profit is purely set on the size of the two cities, with no connection to request and demand. Losing a tourist caravan, however, causes grave diplomatic strains and morale drops.
7.3) New ways to get caravans: hire them! Hiring caravans can come at two options. One, is hiring privateers. Privateers are controlled by the AI, and automatically seek the most profitable location. Hiring privateers reduce the time and cost to takes you to make a new caravan: but you only get a cut from the profit, and you can't control or direct your units. Full hired caravans are under your control, just like any unit. You don't build them however, or buy them: you rent them for a fixed price. Like privateers, you don't get the full cut of the profit from the trade route.
7.4) Convoys may help a besieged city ( under artillery fire, or an enemy unit is in the city radii, or both ). If armored convoys exist, only they may do it. If not, then any sort of caravans. Helping caravans generate food for the helped nation, and reduce money ( at a reduced cost ) for the owner of the caravan. However, it will greatly boost the diplomatic relations.
7.5) Caravans can assist cities that were harmed by a random event ( earthquakes, tornados, etc. ). The caravan helps fix the damage to the infrastructure and boosts the food supply for several turns. You gain no money by this interaction, but you do greatly help the diplomatic relations between the two nations.
7.6) Caravans can't simply "help" wonders. They only reduce the mineral cost of the wonder, not increase the labor rating (by offering new means of construction and rare items). If the caravan is carrying construction goods (timber, concrete, steel, etc.), the bonus to resource is doubled.
7.7) Caravans "know" how to use boats, and will "call" for one automatically when it needs to pass over the seas. In other case, a caravan unit can be "glued" to a ship which will move the caravan all the time. In yet another option, you can set ships into "trade mode,” where those ships, and only those ships, will be "called" by the caravans to move them back and forth.
7.8) Instead of having caravans create trade route, caravans move back and forth. Instead of generating a fixed amount every turn, the caravan will produce a sum of money whenever it reaches another city on the route.
8. Trade routes
Trade routes are the path where trade passes between cities or nations. It could be caravans moving back and forth, or a generic "trade route" which is generated automatically. The following things can be added into trade routes to make them more realistic:
8.1) Once you create trade routes with another nation, you can't cancel it alone. Your only option is to cancel all trade with that nation, which means breaking ALL trade routes and all profit gotten from them.
8.2) Once you create a trade route (with a caravan or not), then you can further expand the level of trade that pass by the path automatically, by signing extra "contracts" that can further increase the profit and resource swapping that go along the path.
8.3) Trade routes can never pass over enemy land, or any nation that didn't sign a "right of passage" treaty with you (or you are in a high state of alliance with them). The route will go around the land, and it's impossible, the trade route will be canceled.
8.4) You should be allowed to toggle "economy map,” and view all the trade routes displayed over the land, with statistics over the city names showing the level of profit.
8.5) A city that sits on a river or on a shore (or both) gets an extra trade route credit (or extra income from trade, if that system is not used).
8.6) Trade routes automatically adapt themselves over roads/rail roads over ground, and into the "trade winds" along the ocean (fixed paths in which movement cost is ½ ).
8.7) All tiles that belong to a highly active (several caravans using it), trade route generate +1 trade ( considering you use the X10 format, see idea 14.4 ). All cities that have trade routes pass through their radii benefit from the trade route in this manner. This is cumulative: if several trade routes pass by the same tile, then that tile can get a larger bonus. However, the tile is last to receive this bonus (see below). However, the maximum income that can be gained (the number of tiles that get the +1 bonus), depends on the number of caravans, their profit, and their type. Important! A land trade routes that link two of your own cities (a domestic trade route), would get no such bonus at all. It has to be linked to another nation city.
For every land caravan, you gain up to half the profit they generate. Boats give ¼, and planes nothing. For example, a land route with 2 caravan that each generates 20 trade icons per turn, can give up to 20 tiles a +1 bonus. If they were sea crafts, the bonus would have applied to 10. If one caravan is land, and the other is airborne, the profit will be 10 since airplanes generate nothing.
This bonus is received by all friendly nations of the trade route owner: not just him.
If the number of tiles is smaller then the bonus ( a 50 tiles trade route with only a bonus to 10 ), then only those that belong to a city would get the bonus. After that, railroad tiles are last to get a bonus, since when a train speed past a city it's less likely to give any profit. If still in need, large cities collect the bonus before smaller ones. Therefor, in order of importance, this is the tiles that get the bonus:
City tile ( center )
Village ( see idea 11.3, on the village itself )
Inside large city radii + road/river
Inside large city radii
Inside large city radii + railroad
Inside small city radii + road/river
Inside small city radii
Inside small city radii + railroad
A city tile that already has a bonus ( for extra, cumulative bonus from several trade routes )
Outside city radii ( doesn't really matter, does it? Since no one does get it anyway... )
8.8) If a trade routes pass over a road, and several caravans move on the road, it is automatically upgraded into "Royal highway," which will give a slightly better increase in speed ( 1/4 instead of 1/3 ).
8.9) If you create a trade route between two of your nations over sea, you can assign a transport ship to the trade route. That ship will automatically ferry units from one side to the other. Your units (caravans or any other unit) that were directed over seas will automatically move to the harbor on their side and wait for the ferry. Several ships can be assigned this way to the trade route.
8.10) Trade routes can use accepted way points.
8.11) You may position a military unit along a trade route and order it to "raid" it, diverting all income to you. Consider a hostile act. Pirates ( see idea 1 ), use it all the time to generate more cash. Spies can destroy the trade route totally.
8.12) Trade route profit relays only of supply and demand of both the cities in the trade route. The bonus for distance (like in civ I/II), is better represented by the +1 trade per tile idea ( see idea 8.7 ).
8.13) Trade routes take a small amount of cash to maintain. The cost is decided by the route length.
9. Inertial trade
Inertial trade is a radical idea that states that you can "center" your nationwide trade power on several cities. For example, frontier cities always support the bulk, if not all, the trade routes (caravans, automatic, whatever the system is). In inertial trade, you can transfer the "option" for trade routes to a nearby city. So, a single city could get 5,10,15 extra trade routes when several inner land cities pass their "Trade power" to her. Of course, for play-balancing, there is some lost which increase the more trade routes you pass. You can pass 1-2 with no loss, but try to pass 20 and you only get an extra, let’s say 10, for the destination city. This represents trade cities that dealt with trade for most of the empires. With contracts, you can even grant the other nation trade routes credit for him to you ( when you are getting some back, of course ).
10. Tile improvements
10.1) The current system used to create tile improvements (such as farms, roads, etc.) is very bulky and require a great deal of micro-management.
10.1.1) ]Keep the current system (settlers), but further develop the automation option that was introduced in SMAC.
10.1.2) Use the public work option like in CTP: you earn work points, which you can spend to construct public works.
10.1.3) Combine public works with settlers: build them in the public work menu, which will automatically send a settler to construct them (for the public work points), automatically.
10.1.4) If companies or private sectors are used (see idea 5), then many tile improvements will pop up with the support of the public himself (farms and roads, mainly). If budgeting is used ( see idea 2 ), then increasing the development section will make more tiles produce themselves. You can also hire the company to build tiles for you.
10.2) Regardless of what system, tiles should cost maintenance, mainly the roads and railroads. Roads that are not properly maintained decay over time. If not using budgeting (idea 2) to support tile improvements, they could cost gold, or just degrade if not used for some times, requiring a settler to fix it (takes half the time). Roads that are not traveled, mines that are left alone, farms that are not tilled, etc.
11. Trade buildings & wonders
11.1) To further show and increase the importance of trade, you should have several buildings, and even wonders, that increase the usefulness of trade. The effects of those buildings/wonders can be:
11.1.1) city can support extra trade routes (one or more). Wonder can give an extra trade route for all your cities, world wide.
11.1.2) Extra profit from trade routes: a fixed amount of an added percentile.
11.1.3) Free caravans upon completion of structure. A building can give you an instant caravan for the city, and a wonder can give you one free caravan in every city you have. Another option is a wonder that generates a free caravan every few turns.
11.1.4) Reduce the number of population you need to support one extra caravan (see idea 7.1.3 ). For example, instead of a caravan every 5 pop, you get one every 4. Local effects for buildings, world wide effects for wonders.
11.1.5) Increase movement of all caravans (wonder only).
11.1.6) Reduce support cost of all caravans (wonder only).
11.1.7) Increase carrying capacity of all caravans (wonder only).
11.2) Settlers can build a new type of building in the outlands: a trade depot. The trade depot can do one, some, or all of the following options:
11.2.1) Give a bonus to trade in the range of operation.
11.2.2) Act like a fortress.
11.2.3) Heal all caravans resting one turn on it.
11.2.4) Building, or generating caravans.
11.2.5) Defend all caravans in range of operations from raiding.
11.2.6) Resupply all fueled units.
11.2.7) Store cargo.
11.2.8) Act like a waypoint: you can send units to it by the command "go to.”
Sea ports are built on shore tiles, and act just like a trade depot: only they work on ships (protecting/building/repairing ships). You can also ask via the diplomacy screen for your friend to build a port/trade depot for you ( see idea 3 ).
11.3) Villages are constructed by a settler, which forces the settler to disband (like building a city). Villages are a bit like supply crawlers from SMAC: they generate some food/resources which they send to the home city (the original city of the settler). If that city is destroyed, the bonus can be directed to any city of your choice. You can't build a village with your first settler: only after you have at least one city. While a village is in fact a one pop unit city, the pop unit does not count toward your city total (it does however on your nation scale), and requires no food. They are several types of villages:
11.3.1) Farm village: produce food + resources + trade in equivalent of the tile the village sits upon. The tile automatically has food improvement on it (irrigation, fields, farms, farmland). Must be built on flat, fertile land.
11.3.2) Mine village: Just like 11.3.1 in all cases, except you have a mine on the tile, and must be built on a mountain/hill.
11.3.3) Fishing villages: Only produce food and trade (no resources), but you automatically generate food like you are using a fish-improved ocean tile. Must be built on a shore.
12. Effects of trade
While one nation trades with the other one, they affect each other. Specific events can also boost, or hamper the profit generated from trade. The suggested effects of trade are:
12.1) The most basic one: the more trade you generate, the better the diplomatic relations between your nations.
12.2) Trade slowly generates a map of foreign territory: the area around the cities you trade with, and all cities that are interlinked via trade routes with those cities.
12.3) If one side possesses some technology the other one hasn't, the other side can easily acquire it (less research points needed).
12.4) If one side possesses trade tech and the other size doesn't, after one single trade the other side acquires it too.
12.5) The side that posses a clear technological advantage gets a bonus to trade.
12.6) Trade in general greatly increases technology output (more scientific relations, diverse cultures originate more ideas, etc.). Maybe make trade routes produce a small science bonus?
12.7) Cities with large population and food production obtain a small trade bonus: cuisine is a key industry in trade and tourism.
13. ICS solutions
The problem of ICS, meaning one city size, has been discussed heavily over the forums. Mainly, the problem relies on the fact that small cities, usually one pop size, are more profitable then large cities, making it unprofitable to spend money on expanding, beyond hampering realism. One, or a few, of the following solutions could be used:
13.1) Increasing the production ratio of workers at a geometrical rate. For example, the first pop gives 10 labor, second 20, third 30, etc. So, a 3 pop size city would produce 60 labor, instead of 30. This is fitting to the fact that the level of population in real numbers also increases geometrically. If this incremental increase seems to steep, maybe 10-15-20-25 system is better used. Like the above idea except increasing trade profit. 1 pop city produce 10 trade, 2 pop city produce 30, etc, etc, etc...
13.2) The city center tile won't produce anything, just give a +1 food/+1 prod/+1 trade to all surrounding hexes.
13.3) The effects of specialists (which are usually only used on large cities) should be much bigger.
13.4) You can put several workers on the same tile, but it with reduced efficiency (up to a max of 3 workers per tile). This will allow big cities to put more people to work, and further increase their power.
13.5) The number of population that can be put on tiles is city size -1. Meaning, a size 1 city would just work on the city center tile production, size 2 city would only have 1 worker, not 2, etc.
13.6) The maximum number of production increasing buildings that can be built is the size of the population. So, a size 1 city could only support 1 market/factory/bank, making bigger cities more profitable.
13.7) World-wide wonders that give "+1 happy citizen per city" unbalance things in favor or the smaller nations. Maybe it could be replaced by "+10% happy citizens in city".
14. City management
This section list all of the changes suggested to the "building" menu in cities, to further increase the ease of control of the player over his empire.
14.1) Having build queue: up to 5 buildings, one after another.
14.2) Allow multiple construction at the same time: slider bars share the labor power between various constructions. The maximum amount of items that can be constructed at the same time is either fixed (4-5?), or decided by your city size/tech level/city improvements. One idea is simply to have city improvement construction separate from unit construction.
14.3) Making the governor more intelligent, and allow worldwide control over governor (and regions). Also, allow more fine-controlling the governor.
14.4) All production values related to cities should be increased by a factor of 10. Meaning, a farmer produces 20 food instead of 2, and every citizen consumes 20 food instead of 2. By increasing the numbers, you allow small increments to be used (+10% to food, for example, almost never has any effect in the current system).
14.5) The population logarithmic scale used in civ II isn't very realistic. For starters, 10 thousand citizens for a starting village/hamlet, mainly in the old days, is way too much. One thousand sounds more reasonable. On the other extreme, even the largest cities never tend to reach the size of truly huge cities on modern Earth. Fixing the scale is very needed.
14.6) Instead of using pop size units in a logarithmic scale, use real-life numbers. You then divide the citizens by percentile among the works (for example, a city has 120,000 people, and 12.1% are working in farming, meaning food production per farmer * 14520).
14.7) Totally change the way you manage your cities and workers. You build generic buildings like farms, factories, libraries. You then assign work force (the size of your city) to the various building in a sort of a slider bar menu. You can then upgrade the buildings as technology increase. The basic output of farms and mines is decided by the surround lands around the city. This system was introduced in Birth of the federation. It's far more realistic: farmers should hardly give any labor or mine output.
14.8) Trade goods should be a conversion of minerals to goods (by labor) and sold automatically for profit
14.9) Citizens can either be assigned in tiles, which produce food + resources, on inside the city, which produce labor. One labor + one resource equals one civ I/II build shield. The concept of labor is based by many of the ideas included in the summary. However, it means starting cities would need several workers (since one would not be able to both mine and build). Another option is that all workers tend tiles, and automatically produce X amount of labor (in this case, make sure you see idea 13.1).
14.10) When building military units, and if your social options allow (free market), you may hire them as mercenaries. They require no construction or buying, and they start as veteran, but they cost twice as much to support and are less loyal to you (easier to bribe them). Another, more realistic option, that you can't just hire any unit, you have a few offers that will vary along the time.
14.11) Since shipping items from the fringes of the city in early days was very hard, the outer ring of the city radius has a "maximum output" setting that will improve along the years when new city improvements are allowed. For example, a farm can produce 5 food, but since it's the outer fringe it can only produce 3 (the rest are lost). Build a warehouse, and it will increase to 4. A highway will raise it once more to 5. Tiles that are connected by road have a +1 to their maxima. Connection by river or railroad gets +2.
14.12) "Rush-buying,” meaning buying the rest of the product in a city in a single turn must be limited due to vast un realism. In a resource system, you can only buy the resources and still need to build them by labor. In civ II old system, limiting the buying to only doubling the speed would do it (produce twice as fast, and buy the difference in shield * 2 every turn).
14.13) Citizens that are not assigned into any tile, and have not been yet "specialized,” are considered "unemployed" and increase the city unhappiness. Certain key technologies would increase unemployment for a few turns (like Industrialization, robotics, and other economy-changing techs).
14.14) Lack of communication for a long period of time can result in a city breaking down and declaring independence. The further away the city is, the more likely the city will revolt. The following things can decrease the chance: soldier inside the city, trade route connection with your empire, roads that are connected (by some way) to your capital, key buildings and wonders (like torch-lines), and technologies (radio, TV, etc).
15. Regions
The concept of regions is that you are able to "group" several close cities into one shared pool. The number of cities in the region, and its maximum size depend on your SE options and your technological level. All the "grouped" cities pool their food, resources and labor rating. The food pool first take care of the need of all the cities: any surpluses are shared equally by all cities to produce pop growth. The "home" city, either selected or the biggest one, is affecting all the others. All wonders that exist on this city, or buildings, give their effects to ALL cities in
the group. A temple, for example, would reduce 1 unhappy drone in every city, not just his hometown. A wonder that normally affects the hometown will affect all the grouped ones. However, buildings that only exist in the other cities won't affect ANY city, including the one with the buildings. Wonders that only effect the home city, and exist in another city than the central one, won't give a bonus to ANY city. However, the support cost of all buildings/wonders in the center city is doubled by the square root of the number of cities. For example, a temple in a 9 city pool would cost 3 times more, while affecting all the cities. Once the grouping is canceled, the support cost returns to normal.
For limiting the power of regions, it was suggested that only a specific set of buildings give an effect to all cities (like highways, or stock exchange), and the other needs to be built several times (maybe a nice menu that tells you the number of temples you have, and how many cities you support). Maybe the buildings that don't affect all the cities generate a bonus regarding on the comparison of amount/city size. For example, if you have 10 cities and 5 temples, maybe all cities will get a temple bonus, but only 50% of it (5/10). Extra! Another way to implement this is by creating "regional command" in the home city. Since "Grouping" can be very powerful, the support cost for the command building should be very big.
<u>Resource management and unit support</u> - By Don Weaver ( dewvr@mindspring.com )
16. Resources and unit support from resources
GENERAL COMMENTS: This article covers the resources represented on the map, extracted from tiles (with the aid of applicable tile improvements), and utilized in the Civ3 economy. The Civ engine splits the economy into 3 divisions: Food, Resources, and Trade. Trade is further divided into taxes, luxuries, and science (Public sector, Service sector, and an ad hoc "Research" sector). Food and Resources together can be viewed as the Production sector of the Civ economic model. The overwhelming response of devoted Apolyton Civers to the prospect of a major reworking of the Civ engine is: more is better. More resources to play with, and more ways to play with them.
This article is primarily concerned with how to incorporate resources into the Civ3 economy. While there are ideas for new special terrain types, distribution algorithms, graphics, etc., there are no long lists of new resources here. Many suggestions barely mention any consideration beyond the economic use of resources, assuming that remaining details are covered in other chapters.
16.1) Keep the shield system of previous Civ engines. However, even without changing the terrain-derived resources many of the following ideas would still be applicable.
16.2) Make two general resources: labor and materials. Both can still be represented as "shields." Citizens assigned to work the land produce the Food, Shields, and Trade from the tiles worked as normal. These same citizens also take the raw materials and transform them into usable products.
16.2.1) Initially, the labor component is included in the shields represented by tile production. City improvements that increase production add shields in proportion to the workforce (number of citizens working tiles) rather than to the materials extracted. Terrain improvements effect only the materials extracted.
16.2.2) Alternately, labor increases due to city improvements is proportional to all citizens regardless of occupation. The Specialist citizens are seen as tradesmen producing goods that increase money, luxuries, or science as well as shifting the trade economy proportions towards their specialties. Other than that city improvements and terrain improvements work as in §16.2.1.
16.2.3) Another alternate implementation provides slight relief to mineral-poor cities. Initially, workers on tiles that do not produce shields (and for §16.2.2, Specialist citizens) produce ½ shield each. This initial production bonus is not cumulative with city improvements adding production as in §16.2.1 or §16.2.2.
16.3) Material resources are divided into 3 basic materials: fuel, metal and exotic. Each terrain type (including special tile types) produces different amounts of the three materials.
16.3.1) Shields are generalized for production of city improvements and units. But at least 25% of shields used in production must be fuel, and 25% metal, and 10% exotics. If the percentage of one resource type falls below that, total production is limited to the amount proportionately allowed by the lacking resource. (E.g., 6 fuel + 2 metal + 2 exotic would be limited to 8 total production because of insufficient metal; excess is lost.)
16.3.2) Shields are still generalized for production of city improvements and units. However, each city will require a number of fuel resources. Production capacity falls proportionately if the minimum number of fuel resources aren't available. Fuel required is initially proportional to city size/4. Each city improvement or advance in manufacturing technology, power and transportation effects that requirement. City improvements: Factory +1/8, Power Plant +1/8, Manufacturing Plant +1/4, Superhighway +1/4, Mass Transit -1/8, etc. Advances: Automobile +1/4, and Electronics +1/8. A full list would have to be developed and scaled appropriately.
16.3.3) Unit support requires metal. Unit construction also requires that metal be available above metal resources spent supporting existing units.
16.3.4) Motorized unit support requires ½ metal and ½ fuel. Motorized unit production also requires ½ metal and ½ fuel above unit support requirements and city fuel requirements. Heavy units such as iron and steel ships, armor, and mechanized infantry require ½ metal and 1 fuel support, and 1 metal plus ½ fuel above unit support for construction.
16.3.5) Certain technologies (and units built from them) require exotics. Each exotic deposit would be identified as one named material. Bronze and Electronics each requires copper, so Phalanx and modern high-tech units require copper. Wooden ships require old growth hardwoods. Jet aircraft require titanium. Elephants and even horses might be considered exotic "materials." A full list would have to be developed.
16.3.6) This option could be combined with §16.2. The percentages in §16.3.1 would effect only material resources; labor could either be unaffected or could be lost in proportion to materials unusable.
16.4) In addition to generic shields have 6 special materials: Timber, Stone, Iron, Gold, Coal, and Oil. Generic shields are blue; these would be colored green, white, grey, gold, brown, and shiny black (as opposed to the featureless black of Waste). Each special material shield normally counts as 1 shield in production. Each gives a bonus towards construction of certain city improvements and units. Iron, Gold, Coal, and Oil would no longer be special terrain types. Instead all 6 special materials would be generated separately and supersede the terrain shield production. (The frequency of Civ1/Civ2 style special terrain types would be reduced somewhat.)
16.4.1) At least one Timber (old growth hardwood) source is required for ship construction prior to and including ironclads. Timber counts double towards ships and all preindustrial city improvements. Timber is available in forests, jungles and hills.
16.4.2) Stone counts double towards all pre-electronic city improvements. A city without at least one stone source must pay an extra 50% construction cost towards City Walls improvement and Great Wall WOW. Stone is available in hills and mountains.
16.4.3) Iron is required for all military units except warriors, archers, horsemen, and wooden transport ships. Iron counts double towards all unit construction. Iron is available in hills and mountains.
16.4.4) Gold counts double towards all city improvements and trade units. Gold is available in hills and mountains.
16.4.5) Coal counts double towards construction of powered (non-nuclear) ships and all industrial era and post-industrial city improvements. Coal is available in hills and mountains.
16.4.6) Oil counts triple towards all motorized units. Oil can be found in any land terrain except hills and mountains, and in continental shelf waters. Oil can only be discovered after technology creates demand.
16.4.7) Oil might be governed by a separate resource generation algorithm to make it plentiful in some areas and rare in others, with a few regions of tightly clumped Oil tiles.
16.4.8) Special materials produce one special material shield where discovered. Timber produces one special material shield plus one generic shield where discovered in forest. Mining a special material (including Timber) is a separate order from regular mining and produces a variable 1-3 special material shields. Regular mines and special material mines cannot coexist.
16.4.9) Special materials could be required for support as well. Land units would require ½ iron + ½ generic (shield shown would be half grey and half blue), motorized infantry ½ iron + ½ oil (grey/black), and Armor units 1 iron + ½ oil. Wooden tranports, ½ timber + ½ generic; warships with cannon ½ timber + ½ iron. Steamships ½ timber + ½ coal; add ½ iron for ironclad warships. Iron-hulled warships 1½ iron + ½ coal or oil. A full list would have to be developed.
16.4.10) Cities would require fuel (either coal or oil) as described in §16.3.2.
16.4.11) This option could be combined with §16.2.
16.5) Have commodities, tiered production, etc, a la Colonization. End amount of around 20, and evolve them as time progresses (bows replaces by muskets, etc.). Supply and demand keeps the value of each commodity in flux. Sid knows all about it.
16.6) Require roads and tile improvements to make materials accessible to the city. 2 units of raw materials make 1 unit of manufactured goods, 2 units of mfg goods make 1 unit of trade goods. Military units are made of manpower and trade goods (weapons). Some raw materials simply go 2=>1 into mfg goods (2 timber=>1 lumber) others might be mixed. Trade goods might also be either homogeneous (2 lumber=>1 furniture) or mixed (1 lumber+1 iron=>1 musket). An arbitrary number of mfg goods and trade goods can be made in this way. (Any resemblance to a game made by another company is probably not coincidental and therefore this is unlikely to be adopted.)
16.7) Merchant units constructed by any city or cities could contribute to a civ-wide pool for internal trade. Merchant units would cost a small amount of money to maintain (¼ or ½ gold, or 2-5 gold in a x10 economy).
16.7.1) Merchant units would not be represented with icons on the map or city screen, etc. but can be killed if a tile associated with Merchant duties is entered by belligerent military unit(s). That is basically any land tile generating trade. The probability of a Merchant unit being killed off is a ratio of the number of Merchant units to the number of land tiles generating trade, moderated by the level of hostility of the invading unit. The invading unit may plunder a small amount of money in the process.
16.7.2) A Merchant unit could carry up to 2 units of critical resources (such as exotics of §16.3.5, special materials of §16.4, trade goods of §16.5) from a city with excess to a city in need, within some transportation-limited distance.
16.7.3) A Merchant unit could carry up to 2 food from a city with excess to a city in need within transportation-limited distance.
16.7.4) Each unused Merchant in the pool could be used to carry up to 2 shields from one of a list of designated cities to a target city constructing a large city improvement or WOW within transportation-limited distance.
16.7.5) A Merchant unit could make up to one tile outside (but still touching) the city radius accessible to that city. Merchant units designated to that task are much more likely to be lost when the tile served is entered by enemy unit(s), per §16.7.1. Add 50 percentage points to the percentage calculated; or 25 percentage points if a friendly military unit is in an adjacent tile.
16.7.6) After the discovery of Capitalism, the Merchant units can pool unused shields from turn to turn at the city with excess capacity.
16.7.7) Merchant pools may be necessarily segregated by continents or great distances between groups of cities. Regional divisions as suggested in §16.13 are ideal. Without a regional system the pool may be considered based in a specific city and reaching only a certain distance from the base. "Land tiles generating trade" from §16.7.1 would be based on the region covered by the Merchant pool.
16.7.8) Merchant activity should be limited to areas in supply if §4 Supply rules of Movement and Supply is adopted. A city cut off from neighbors by enemy units and ZOCs would not benefit from any Merchant activity as described in this section.
16.8) A Supply unit, a la SMAC. It should start very weak, initially returning only one food, shield, or trade unit to the city and limited to squares inside the city radius connected to the city by minimal roads available. Returns up to 2 food if both Supply unit and city are on the same river. With advancing transportation technology distance permitted would increase (and number of food units returned would increase). With Ironworking, forests and mines could return more than one shield. Could modify or be combined with the requirements or effect of §16.7.5 to bring resources from more distant tiles.
16.9) A new specialist, the Laborer, simply produces 1 shield added to the total shields from terrain resources before Factory bonuses, etc. Under the labor resource system of §16.2, the Laborer produces 1 more shield plus the bonus for city improvements.
16.10) A new specialist, the Miner, produces 1 shield per mine worked by the city's citizens. Available upon discovery of Steam Engine. (The first steam engines were mining pumps.)
16.11) A new specialist, the Slave, acts like a Worker except only requires 1½ food. A Slave can be created by taking slaves in trade or conquest and adding them to your city. A Slave is never happy. A full list of Slave problems (generating unhappiness after Monotheism, escaping in disorder, increasing the destructiveness of rioting, etc) would have to be developed.
16.12) Having a large variety of trade goods increases the happiness and economy of your people. If trade with other cities brings in more than 6 types of trade goods some bonus to happiness results. It could be as little as reducing the effect of empire-size random unhappiness in that city.
16.13) Resource sharing regions. Several people in several threads have expressed the desire to group cities for administrative purposes and for resource sharing. Region size would be limited by transportation technology via a maximum movement cost between extreme cities in the region. Crossing bodies of water limited to one tile under sail, two tiles with powered ships, and three after air travel. Food would be the most important resource shared among cities of a region, freeing cities suited for industry to specialize without using up trade routes on food caravans. One idea to make regional structure workable is the resource "carrier," or the generalized Merchant units of §16.7.
16.13.1) Happiness and efficiency penalty due to civ size should be reduced if the civ is divided into administrative regions.
16.13.2) Possibility of civ splitting under certain circumstances should increase if the civ is divided into administrative regions.
16.14) Expanding on §16.13 is a new city improvement called "regional headquarters." It becomes the capital of a §16.13 resource sharing region with all cities connected via roads, river, etc. All cities within the region gain benefits from Wonders or city improvements in the capital. Bonuses are restricted to those cities that pay a maintenance cost as though the improvement were local. (Cities could still build improvements in case they were cut off by invading units or natural disasters.) Food and resource sharing would still require caravans or a §16.7 Merchant pool. (Seems very, very un-balanced. Maybe make the support cost for "regional HQ" HUGE?)
16.15) After discovery of Nuclear Fission special resource Uranium can be found. Uranium deposits are treated as a special material source tile from §16.4 but should be very rare. Only one nuclear weapon can be constructed at any given time by a civ per Uranium deposit under that civ's control.
16.15.1) At least 10% of construction cost of a nuclear weapon must be met with Uranium shields (or more, depending on total cost; the lower the unit cost, the higher the percentage that must be Uranium).
16.15.2) After discovery of Nuclear Power, ships are not automatically granted a movement bonus. Instead, nuclear powered vessels must be either separate unit types, or a flag for nuclear power could be included in naval unit definitions (toggled only at construction), or available in the Unit Workshop if that is implemented. At least 10% of construction cost of a nuclear powered vessel must be met with Uranium shields.
16.15.3) Other exotic materials could be modeled in this way as well. Motorized, mechanized and flying units could require Rubber. Jet aircraft could require Titanium. To make a game really difficult for human players (especially in multiplayer games), make Oil in §16.4.7 required for all modern units (AI would undoubtedly have to cheat to survive).
16.16) Permit more than one worker on irrigated, farmed, and mined tiles, with diminishing output for each worker past the first. On a farmed tile the second worker produces as on an irrigated tile; a third worker (or a second worker on an irrigated tile) produces as on an unirrigated tile; each subsequent worker produces one less food. On a mined tile the second worker loses half the benefits of the mine; a third worker losses all benefits of the mine. (This requires either very dense graphics or a different method of displaying the placement of workers and their output.)
16.16.1) Implemented with the three material resources of §16.3, multiple workers on a mined tile would not necessarily produce the same material. Mines producing metals only produce metals for additional workers added to the tile. If a mine produces fuel, a second worker in the tile will produce fuel or metal with equal probability as determined by the resource seed. If a mine produces exotics, a second worker will produce only metal. Any third worker added to any mined tile will only produce metal.
16.16.2) Implemented with the special materials of §16.4, subsequent workers added to a special materials tile would only produce generic shields. Under the special Oil rules in §16.4.7 there would be an exception: multiple workers produce Oil in regions of plentiful Oil.
16.17) Some percentage of resources should be devoted to the domestic economy. Generic resource shields would be required for trade and population growth (housing and roads).
16.17.1) The percentage of shields (including city improvement bonuses) diverted to domestic use would be determined by the Luxuries percentage set for the civ. Setting Luxuries to zero would incur growth penalties in cities without Entertainer citizens.
16.7.2) If labor is segregated from material resources, city improvement bonuses are applied first. Labor and materials are diverted in proportion to labor:materials in total. Exotics (as used in §16.3.5) or special materials (§16.4) would not be proportionately diverted (but might be required to meet percentage diverted under high Luxury settings).
16.17.2) Entertainer labor in §16.2.2 disappears, consumed to produce the luxuries generated by the Entertainer.
16.17.3) External trade represented by trade routes would be limited in proportion to the number of shields diverted. One shield would produce up to 4 trade. Special materials Timber, Gold, and Oil (§16.4), exotics (as used in §16.3.5), and rare materials (§16.15) produce up to 8 trade. Excess trade capacity from diverted shields do not produce more trade than trade routes specify.
16.18) Have trade commodities determined by terrain and geography.
16.18.1) Special terrain types (such as Silk) utilized by workers enable the city to trade certain commodities. Special materials Timber, Gold, and Oil (§16.4), exotics (as used in §16.3.5), and rare materials (§16.15) allow certain trade commodities in a city controlling those resources.
16.18.2) Selected agricultural trade items such as wine, silk, spices, ivory, coffee, etc. could be limited to certain geographical areas, climates, and terrain types. E.g., coffee needs hills, furs need forest, and ivory needs plains.
16.18.2.1) If the item needs forest, and your settlers clear too much, it's gone. Climate changes over centuries may destroy trade agriculture in some cases, even if global warming etc is not as pronounced in Civ3 as in Civ2.
16.18.2.2) There need not be any representation of these trade products on the game map. Trade items of this nature are a combination of the terrain and the expertise of the people living and working there. If an adjacent city has similar terrain there is no guarantee they will produce the same trade products. If an adjacent foreign city takes over tiles formerly worked by one city, that foreign city may still not be able to produce the trade products because the people skilled in the processes might be displaced.
16.18.2.3) A city can attempt to "grow" rare trade commodities by importing live specimens. Obtaining live specimens and sufficient knowledge to care for them may occur simply through normal trade channels, or could be a diplomatic objective or covert mission. Success in transplanting should be dependent on climate, technology and economy. For example, a domestic wine has to survive in domestic economy first before it can be traded to foreign cities; a booming economy will help, a depressed economy will hinder. Advanced horticulture makes much more likely today than in the past. Success in some cases should be very rare, as in numerous failed attempts to get silk industries started in the United States, various South American countries, parts of India, etc.
16.19) Trading with barbarians. Barbarians need not be temporary marauders bent on destruction. Some should just be interested in preventing incursion by "civilized" settlements in their (loosely defined) territory. Some barbarians should hang around (particularly if suggestions about nomads are adopted) and be amenable to trade. This is generally done through any contact with barbarian units.
16.19.1) Trading money (representing small amounts of trade goods) for special materials Timber, Iron, and Gold (§16.4), exotics (as used in §16.3.5), and rare materials (§16.15) can be handled on a case by case basis; as long as the barbarian unit(s) are within some specified distance from the trading civ's unit or territory the trade continues turn by turn. The civ may voluntarily discontinue, or contact with the barbarian unit(s) may cause renegotiation.
16.19.2) A Trading Post could facilitate trade with barbarians, it could be represented by temporarily by fortifying an explorer unit or by a tile improvement. An explorer is disbanded to erect a permanent trading post tile improvement. The trading post tile improvement would afford no defensive protection except that friendly units entering the post may instantly fortify. Non-hostile units may move through the tile without effect but may not stop on the tile (unless stacking rules permit the coexistence of non-allied units). Hostile units destroying all occupying units or entering the tile destroy the post.
16.19.3) A trading post might also allow trading with sparse populations not represented in the Civ engine. Special resources (§16.4), exotics (as used in §16.3.5), and rare materials (§16.15) discovered on the map could be purchased from presumed indigenous peoples on a continuing basis as with barbarians. Foreign units or barbarians intruding on the resource tile involved would interrupt trade.
17) Unit support cost within the overall economy
GENERAL COMMENTS: Unit support overlaps many other areas, and some of these ideas are found elsewhere in someone else's words. But this effort is one of brainstorming, so duplication of content in different context should be of value in any case.
17.1) Units could be supported with money, or money and shields, using fractional increments or a x10 economy. Unit size, technology, and weaponry should determine support cost. Monetary support could be charged to the civ as a whole or to regional divisions (if any).
17.1.1) A warrior unit should require virtually nothing; a high tech Jet Fighter unit should be expensive. Unarmed units should cost less support than military units.
17.1.2) Pre-gunpowder units could be supported with money only. Gunpowder units would require part of their support from material resources. Motorized units would require generalized material resources, or fuel (§16.3), or oil (§16.4), which would never be totally waived as "free" support costs regardless of government/SE choices.
17.1.3) At least a little food may be required for military unit support. One military unit would be free for each city, support for remaining units is ¼ food per unit. Preindustrial units could pillage food when in enemy land and waive food support from home (some reasonable limit should apply; perhaps no more than 2 units per plains/grassland tile, 1 unit per hills/forest tile).
17.2) Unit support under preindustrial economies, feudal systems, and some Republic governments should be specific to city of origin. More advanced economies, particularly after Railroad networks interconnect many cities, should be generalized to regions (§16.13) or civ-wide.
17.2.1) Units supported by cities for political reasons (feudalism, Roman-style Republic) would require some cost to switch home cities. Preindustrial economies would require small cost to change home city, waived if unit is stationed in new home city for some number of turns prior to switching home city.
17.2.2) Switching home cities should be possible without the unit physically present in either the old home city or the new home city. Cost would increase if the unit were not in either city but within either city radius, and would increase further if outside the radius of either city.
17.3) Social Engineering and unit support (modified from the SMAC SE system). Instead of taking up physically modeled resources, units take up productivity represented by workers converted to Specialists supporting military units. Non-military units should require economic support only or minimal Specialist support.
17.3.1) The new class(es) of Specialist represents the troops themselves as a fraction of population, plus the military personnel devoted to supply and support, plus civilian productivity diverted to supply and support. Support must be supplied by Specialist(s) in the home city.
17.3.1.1) The Soldier Specialist incurs a penalty of -2 Economy -1 Labs +1 Psych in the city. Obsolete with industrialization.
17.3.1.2) The Quartermaster Specialist becomes available with industrialization and incurs a penalty of -1 Economy and a +2 Psych bonus.
17.3.1.3) The Engineer Specialist (available with Fusion) includes a limited strength support function. The Engineer Specialist provides one support point at some SE Support levels.
17.3.2) Military units require Specialist support points based on chassis type, technology level, and a fraction of the unit's construction cost. (A fractional or x10 accounting system is preferred.) Nonmilitary units, if requiring Specialist support points at all, would be based on chassis type and technology level. Basic infantry units should require around 1 point, basic vehicle units 1½ 2 points, and aircraft 2 3 points.
17.3.2.1) Higher power plant technology level should diminish support requirements.
17.3.2.2) Higher weapons technology level should increase support requirements.
17.3.2.3) Special Abilities directly related to weapons or training should increase support requirements. This would apply to non-combat units if non-combat units are permitted AAA, Comm Jammer, Cloaking etc.
17.3.2.4) "Clean Reactor" does not effect support cost derived from weapons or §17.3.2.3 above.
17.3.3) Social Engineering Support Level affects "free" support points from bases and support points provided by Specialists.
17.3.3.1) SE Support Level Effects Table
SE Support Specialist Support Free Support
Level Points Provided Points/Base Other Effects
-4 2 None Engineer does not provide support
·No free minerals for new base
·Soldier/Quartermaster incurs additional -1 Economy
-3 2 None Engineer does not provide support
·No free minerals for new base
-2 2 1 Engineer does not provide support
·No free minerals for new base
-1 2 1 Engineer provides 1 Support Point
0 3 2 Engineer provides 1 Support Point
1 4 3 Engineer provides 1 Support Point
2 5 4 Engineer provides 1 Support Point
3 6 5 Engineer provides 1 Support Point
·First Soldier/Quartermaster incurs no Econ/Labs penalty
17.3.3.2) Under a Civ2-like system instead of a SMAC-like system, a similar schedule of Specialist effectiveness could be devised using mobilization, war morale (vis-a-vis sneak attacks, atrocities, etc), government type, etc.
17.4) A unit which loses support (resources or Specialists) from its designated home city does not instantly disband. Instead it cannot attack and suffers defense penalties until a new home city can provide necessary support. A powered unit might suffer movement penalties as well.
17.4.1) Units outside of city radii, borders or other limits to switching designated home city can come into contact with another friendly unit and change to that unit's home city.
17.4.2) Units in Fortresses may designate the nearest friendly city as home city.
17.4.3) Switching home city due to loss of support may incur some cost (or increase in cost under §17.2.1 and §17.2.2).
18. Urban industry
GENERAL COMMENTS: This section is derived from the thread "From Terrain to Urbanism: an Innate Conceptual Fault" found on the Apolyton Civ3 General/Suggestions forum (http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/000122.html).
18.1) The productive city radius is reduced to just ONE tile from the main city square. Thus only 8 (or 9 depending on ICS solution) tiles would have citizens working the land.
18.1.1) Zone of influence would remain TWO tiles radius. Various suggestions for Villages (see Tile Improvements) and other extensions of workable land (e.g., §16.8) would be usable in the outer tiles.
18.1.2) Additional means of increasing productivity of tiles would be introduced to model increasing food production with agricultural advancements. Such new tile improvements (and city improvements) should make up for the diminished number of tiles available for supporting large cities.
18.1.2.1) Cowshed or Dairy tile improvement. +1 food. This may be available for grasslands and plains only, or hills and forests may permit Dairies as well (historically accurate).
18.1.2.2) Railroads make previously marginal land worth farming due to reduced transportation costs to market. +1 food.
18.1.2.3) Farmlands produce +1 food (no Supermarket required).
18.1.2.4) Supermarket adds +1 food from Farmland tiles (in addition to above).
18.1.2.5) Supermarket adds +1 food to Ocean tiles.
18.1.2.6) Harbor adds +2 food to Ocean tiles (instead of only +1).
18.1.2.7) Game balance may require more time for Settler/Engineer units to perform tasks.
18.2) Citizens would be employed in city improvements. City improvement jobs would be represented by city improvement thumbnail symbols on the periphery of the city resource map. Placing a worker on the symbol would result in production of the specified "resources."
18.2.1) City improvements that explicitly produce food, shields, or trade (taxes, luxuries, or research) can employ citizens. Some may require citizens in order to produce; all suffer reduced production if not fully staffed.
18.2.2) The output of citizens employed at city improvements is based on the Basic Trade value. The Basic Trade value (BT) is the trade produced by an ordinary plains or grasslands square with a road. Oppressive governments' BT=1, representative governments' BT=2, Superhighway +1, Colossus +1. For city improvements that create a fixed unit or percentage bonus to food, shield, tax, luxury, or research, the full Improvement Bonus (fixed or percentage) is referred to as IB.
18.2.2.1) Marketplace, Bank, and Stock Exchange provide jobs for 1 citizen each. Employed citizens produce BT(trade arrows) + BT(coins). Alternately, Marketplace employee may produce BT(coins) + BT(diamonds). Improvements yield only ½IB if unstaffed, and yield 1IB if staffed.
18.2.2.2) Library, University, and Research Lab provide jobs for 1 citizen each. Employed citizens produce BT(trade arrows) + BT(science). Improvements yield only ½IB if unstaffed, and yield 1IB if staffed.
18.2.2.3) Factory and Manufacturing Plant provide jobs for 2 citizens each. Employed citizens produce 3 shields (4 after Computers). Improvements yield ½IB if unstaffed, 1IB with 1 employee, and 1½IB with 2 employees.
18.2.2.4) Power Plant (or Hydro Plant, Nuclear Plant, etc.) provides jobs for 1 citizen. Improvement yields ½IB if unstaffed, and yields 1IB if staffed.
18.2.2.5) Offshore Platform provides jobs for one citizen. Employed citizen produces 3 shields. The improvement yields no bonus if unstaffed, full bonus (+1 shield each worked Ocean tile) if staffed.
18.2.2.6) Harbor and Supermarket provide jobs for 1 citizen each. Employed citizens produce 4 food + BT(trade arrows). Harbor yields +1 Food (for each worked Ocean tile) if unstaffed, +2 Food (for each worked Ocean tile) if staffed. Supermarket yields no bonus if unstaffed, full bonus (+1 Food to Farmland) if staffed.
18.2.2.7) SuperHighway and Mass Transit provide jobs for 1 citizen each. Employed citizens produce 2BT(trade arrows). Neither yields any bonus if unstaffed, and provides full bonus if staffed.
18.2.2.8) Under the current Civ2 system Factory and Mfg Plant become available very late in the game, and with only 9 tiles to work instead of 21 shield production in the early game will be unbalanced. Some proposals (such as §16.8) will serve to remedy that to some extent.
18.2.2.8.1) A new city improvement, the Workshop (80 shields, 1 maint), would be available with Invention. The Workshop will provide jobs for 2 citizens. Employed citizens produce 3 shields. There is no global benefit.
18.2.2.8.2) After Miniaturization, Workshop would provide jobs for 1 additional citizen in cities not adjacent to Ocean or Lakes. This is an attempt to raise production potential for cities that can't build an Offshore Platform.
18.3) Lengthy discussions brought up some problems that would need to be addressed: Even with additional food produced with new tile improvements city size would be much more limited. Even with shields produced by city improvement employees it would be difficult to match production levels of medium-sized industrial cities in Civ2. As discussed in various threads, modern productivity is vastly higher than Civ2 scale allows. Farms in the USA easily produce 4 times the food/acre of traditional farming methods still in use in parts of Europe and all over the third world. For industrial production a cumulative doubling of shields with Factory, Power, and Mfg Plant would still be an order of magnitude below actual production increase over unpowered industry.
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<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Harel (edited September 25, 1999).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Harel (edited December 09, 1999).]</font>
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