Need more city improvement options

Lewsir · March 19, 2004, 09:48

I'm fairly new to C3C, so I may be making some points that people have already gone over - or that maybe should be pointed toward the CIV4 board, but anyway...

I'm enjoying some of the new C3C build items (e.g. police stations - wait is that new?) but I am still finding that quite often I run out of city improvements to build, unless I'm embroiled in a very long war. I also find my workers sometimes run out of improvements to make for a while until, say, railroads become available. On the other hand there are quite a number of techs that don't provide much direct benefit.

I conclude that the next XP (I for one really hope there will be another one) or CIV4 should offer a number of additional things to do - mainly to force you to make more decisions and accept more tradeoffs. One way to fit this in would be to ratchet down some of the benefits of existing items (e.g. happiness benefit from markets) in order to create the need for more build items. It would also be good to have one or two more ways to reduce corruption, given how small the benefit of courthouses and police stations currently is. Maybe even bring out the health/environmental aspects further - like an early type of hospital to cut down on disease, which could itself be changed to be more of a problem than it is now.

So, do people agree build additions are needed? Or would they just make the game overly "busy"?

vmxa1 · March 19, 2004, 12:37

Builders will like and warmongers won't. Not sure how it will impact the AI. I would expect to see some additions in Civ4.

Willem · March 19, 2004, 15:01

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
Builders will like and warmongers won't. Not sure how it will impact the AI. I would expect to see some additions in Civ4.

I've added tons of new improvements to my game and the AI for the most part is fairly good at building them. It seems to depend on which civ however; some are builders, some aren't.

Son of David · March 19, 2004, 17:04

I thoroughly disagree, old bean. There are already more ancient/medieval improvements and wonders than I can build in most of my games. Need to spend the resources on military and infrastructure. The last thing I want to see is an absolute slew of improvements in Civ4, because undoubtedly the AI will end up building them all and the player will build next to none (at the higher difficulty levels).

Edit: on the other hand, I would like to see an updated form of mines/irrigated land in the modern era. Like Civ2, I think supermarkets should become available in modern times (twice the bonus of irrigation?) and something contemporary like call centres to replace mines (twice the bonus of a mine). Now, *that* would be jolly spiffing (and gets rid of the anachronism that people in the modern age rely on industrialized factories and mines for their productivity!)

Lewsir · March 22, 2004, 11:07

Well, Willem has given me the idea of trying out adding more city improvement items. I hadn't realised you could actually.

I'm just a beginner at modding, so I am wary about what I'm going to do to game balance, but I've come up with a few new imaginary things that basically either increase culture or reduce corruption. I've also broken out the benefits of harbors into two city improvements - adding something I call "shipyards". which now provides veteran naval units as well as one shield in sea squares. Now I shall see if these things satisfy my desire for having more tough choices to make, or just make the game too messy, or maybe screw up the game balance and either make it too easy or hard for me to keep up with the opposition (playing on Monarch).

Jaybe · March 22, 2004, 14:59

The one thing that you can never run out of for building is WEALTH! When a city has built all I want it to, and if it is not the time to build more units, then it builds WEALTH.

With post-Economics Wealth at 1/2 shields, it is nothing to sneeze at and often allows higher research ... perhaps 100% without trade income.

And what of those "authorities" that have said that Wealth is a wasteful way to go?? I totally ignore them; their info is too much from game theory and statistics, which does NOT always apply to civving.

Arrian · March 22, 2004, 15:57

I thought post-economics "Wealth" was 1/4 shields. Was it changed in Conquests?

-Arrian

Jaybe · March 22, 2004, 16:39

Yes, Arrian. PRE-economics Wealth is now 1/4 shields.
I have played C3C with it adjusted up to 6 in the Editor (translates to 3 post-econ).

LzPrst · March 22, 2004, 20:32

what do you do when in the industrial age you get every tech at 4 turns (with a little bar sliding) and you have ALL happy citizens and a surplus gold of minimum 200+ every turn?
I'm playing a hotseat game with my girlfriend and this is getting kind of boring. all out of improvements in my homeland and I will be in my colony cause I buy them every other round. I'm FILTHY RICH MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!

Solomwi · March 22, 2004, 21:33

UNITS! Build them up and wipe her off the face of the earth. Then deal with the fallout however you like.

vmxa1 · March 23, 2004, 01:02

LzPrst trade places with her and see if you can over come the lead.

Mr Justice · March 23, 2004, 07:31

Quote:

LzPrst trade places with her and see if you can over come the lead.

lol i like that suggestion.

imo there are enuf improvements. granted some improvements give far more bonuses against others (marketplace great value, coloseum not so usefull) so there is a case for balancing out the existing improvements, and imo that would inevitably mean more improvements.

however the problem of not having enuf improvements to build is only one that i find occurs with the core (due to corruption, which is fine by me, a sprawling mass of an empire that is entirely productive would be unbeatable imo), so between building spurts (after a new improvment becomes available) and unit production, most of the time i leave those cities producing wealth so that i can build up other parts of the empire.

but Lewsir you should move up a level of difficulty if ur dominating monarch. the increased difficulty makes your games more goal driven rather than you dictating your own play.

Arrian · March 23, 2004, 09:09

Well, that's one of the changes I missed.

Wealth used to suck. It's now a decent return, if you've nothing else to build right then.

I used Wealth last night for the first time in a long time. I was pleasantly surprised.

-Arrian

Plotinus · March 23, 2004, 20:17

I would like to see more improvements. I was disappointed when I first got Civ3 and found that the list of improvements was pretty much the same as in Civ1. The reason is not because of the tendency to run out of improvements to build, but because I'd like more variety in the cities. I always seem to build the same things in the same order. It would be nice to have the idea that different cities can take really different routes in their history through building different kinds of things. Just one idea to help with this - perhaps some improvements could be terrain-dependent (eg the logging station, requiring at least four Forest squares in the city's radius), just as some improvements require water. That might make things a little more interesting.

vmxa1 · March 23, 2004, 20:50

Now if they were to make a few structures that you could only build one or the other in a given city that would be ok. I just don't see a need for more structures on top of all that you can have now.

I like the idea that I can get to the point that nothing new is needed for a time.

Lewsir · March 24, 2004, 04:30

I really like Plotinus's idea. I agree its not just having more things to build, its about variety and choices. I haven't played that many C3C games (okay including vanilla C3 I guess its adding up) but they are beginning to feel repetitive. I do tend to build the same things in the same order. And of course, yes, I also tend to get all my workers to do the same basic things - its largely a "no-brainer". I don't think it would be hard to change this so that one has to make a few strategic decisions with each city.

Having added a few build items via the editor, which does seem to be helping in forcing me to make choices, I will now (when I get home) check into ways to use the editor to put restrictions on how things might get built, either by city location, size, etc. I don't remember seeing ways to do this though (apart from water v. land-based improvements). Suggestions welcome.

Willem · March 24, 2004, 14:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Lewsir

Having added a few build items via the editor, which does seem to be helping in forcing me to make choices, I will now (when I get home) check into ways to use the editor to put restrictions on how things might get built, either by city location, size, etc. I don't remember seeing ways to do this though (apart from water v. land-based improvements). Suggestions welcome.

Well with Conquest, we can now have improvements that require a resource within a city's boundaries. So you can build things like Blacksmiths for Iron, Ranches for Horses, Dye Works for Dyes etc. For the Blacksmith idea, you can set it so that it becomes obsolete down the road as well, so some early cities would get a production boost.

And a couple of little used flags is the Must Be Near Water/River. What I've done is add must be near water to my Aqueduct so that that my landlocked cities can't grow until Steam Power, when I make Aqueducts obsolete and introduce Pipelines. I've also used Aqueducts as a requirement for Factories, so only certain cities get that production boost. Then I moved Manufacturing Plant to Mass Production with Pipeline as a requirement.