Mobile Cities?

[FreeChina]

Through clever use of the flags, is it possible to make a city mobile?

I think there are seperate flags for "is a city" and "cannot move".

[Nordicus]

Hey, I think you're right. Don't see why not--might want to give it some MAX_MOVEMENT points in addition, though

[lago]

Cool!!! Are you going to work this into one of the mods, Nordicus? That'd be great. What would be the enabling advance?

Actually, now that I think of it, that would be good for those times when the only terrain you've got to work with is something lousy like swamp or glacier. You could found the city, then when you had the advance that allowed you to change the underlying terrain, you could move the city for a few turns...just like in real life!

[Nordicus]

lol!
Ah...I dunno. What I thought right off was something like a mobile army/airforce base--say you're at war with a civ in a far-off area and can't be bothered to build a real city all the way out there...just plop down one of these, protect certain units, build a few more, whatever. You could even use it as a port--yunno, sort of a Panama or Suez Canal type of deal...set it down somewhere where you need to shorten an otherwise long journey around a continent....
And we already have the perfect sprite for it--just thought of it: that 'bunker' like unit Harlan had made in the WWII units. Hey, that would be cool, huh?

[Caranorn]

Nordicus: a mobile city was actually one of the first things I thought of when I started looking through the various text files in the data folder. At this point, I'd say it's impossible. I changed some settings for cities and tried it out, there simply is no way to order a city to move. On the other hand, something like this would be nice in CTP2. Have the option of founding either a regular city or a tent city. Tent cities can move but only produce a few types of improvements and units (no wonders obviously). Maybe even allow regular cities to pack up and move (destroying any wonders or larger improvements). And of course the opposit, nomadic tent cities settle down.

On the other hand, while such a feature would be nice, it would bbe of limited usefullness unless some seasonal system was included (making semi nomadic pastoral tribes a feasible alternative to agricultural societies). All in all, I don't consider this a major factor for changes in the game system. If it's easy to implement, I'd say Activision should do it. Else, they should get other matters solved first and if time remains try out mobile cities.

[lago]

You guys think of such practical applications. Me, I was thinking more of April Fools Day or something. Like in MP, wait until some guy painstakingly moves his Siege Engines up next to one of your cities, then just when he's ready to bombard...WTF!?!? Darn.

[skorpion59]

I found this an interesting concept so I have been playing with it too. Caranorn is right, it is not possible (in its current form). You simply can't move cities and when you try to build them via the build que, the game abends. Even though it is defined in units.txt, the game knows it is not a unit.

Using the bunker and creating a new TempCity unit with real City abilities might be possible but I doubt it would be worth the trouble.


------------------
Don,
CtPMaps at Apolyton

[Nordicus]

Lago:
lmao! Oh, that would hilarious--following a city around, trying to hit it ("Hey, stand still!").

Don, Carnorn:

Oh well. I think it would have been a cool feature--even the nomadic point. But, no, it doesn't sound that feasible....

[gaenues26]

is this still viable?