RADICAL IDEAS (ver1.0): Hosted by Rong

[Rong]

zaz,

I love that idea! It's just like Philippine after WWII. The US asked them to vote to join US or not. They voted no.

True democracy at work.

[23 Skidoo]

Apocalyptic Random Events

Migratory Plagues - as in The Black Plague, or the 1918 Flu.

Earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, cometary bombardment (remember Sodom & Gomorrah?), locusts, drought, crop failure (potato famine).

A little natural excitement!

[yin26]

Rong,

Great opening! I'd like to throw this out to everybody as an inaugural RADICAL question:

How about a public alpha/beta for Civ3?

The main idea, of course, is that rather than relying on a small group of in-house Firaxis people to take the game to higher levels, WE--the eventual source of the money--would be testing the game from VERY early on. This would provide Firaxis priceless feedback before it's too late to make huge changes.

For example, one of the reasons SMAC failed to appeal to more people (or at first sight, anyway) is that "simple" things like color schemes and ability to easily understand the technology, for example, were a result of the in-house testing: The Firaxis team simply got used to their own design and were unable to view the game as a gamer would the day he brings it home. And by the time the game was released (or with the beta testers), it was too late (or too painful) to hear: Hey, the graphics totally blow; and what the hell is a Singularity Engine?

By then, there was nothing for Firaxis and us to do but hope we'd just learn to like it. After giving the game a second and third chance, I finally did like it. But many didn't. Civ3 should be brilliant from day one. No stinkin' "S.O.S." patches. No "user configuration" crash b.s. Just a rock solid game. That, to me, means going public with the game very early on.

Thoughts?

------------------
CIV3 DEVELOPMENT LIST COORDINATOR

**(un)Officially Making Lists for Firaxis Since SMAC Enhancement 3!**

[kmj]

I think that that is a very good idea, yin. But how do you propose they do it? Do you think they should offer it to anyone that wants it? For free? Don't you think something like this would jeopardize sales? That is why they're making this game, after all. (sales.) Of course, on the other hand, I would love to see this game as it develops and get my hands on an alpha and beta version.

kmj: I'm not sure of the best way. Some other ideas have popped up already here. Maybe they could offer a bunch of us forum nuts the chance. (Yin)



[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited May 20, 1999).]

[zaz]

True democracy at work.

Hey that's gives me another idea. Ceding the city could of course only be done by certain governments.

[mindlace]

OSExAI

I love the tribes into cities/Rise and fall of Empires idea, Possibility. Combined with Revolution (OTHER) and Reigons (CITY INTERFACE), it could be fantastic.

it could let megalopoli happen- if cities actually expanded into adjacent squares, in late game you could have the Californiburbia or the East Coast Sprawl routine... nice & cpunk.

i wonder if you could go so far as to be citizen based, where cities are just the area where units pop out?

Maybe cities come when you stack citizens/workers, and at least one gets turned into a specialist... that seems to be historically true...

Imagine: map view, 'citizens' button on, normal units hidden from view... those nice little faces stacked on top of the 3d squares... the top citizens being specialists... high population densities (cities) would just be high elevations from a distance... (see what I'm saying?) pissed citizens would be on the very top, little red beacons of anger.

Maybe improvements in a reigon would just have an area of effect, like SimCity- plop 'em down on any sqare within a reigon(and they'd even have a cool little icon).'psych', 'econ', 'research' and 'production' would each have their own buttons, showing areas of effect and intensity...

Units can only be built once you have agalmated enough citizens to form a city (city=stack with at least one specialist)
The range of squares that the city draws resources from is equivalent to the number of citizens in the central square (would require retooling of resource breakdown, esp. food- but would explain why large, ancient cities (rome) were primarily concerned with redistributing grain).
If squares adjacent to the first square get specialists, they join the 'city'...

in the 'units' view, cities are 3d objects that cover as many squares as above...

it could be incredible. It could also lend itself to a Pseudo-real-time strategy, because your growth would be more organic.

Wow. Thanks, Rong, inspirational thread!

[mindlace]

And with the devolution of the 'city is all' approach, being nomadic could be a feasable early-game strategy! Also some more historic realism...

[Fugi the Great]

Repost from General/A new idea:

Excuse me if I meander a bit below, I'm just writing it down as it comes to me.
The very idea of the CITY producing a military unit is fine in the early to middle game, but in later times, countries BUY military hardware from companys, and TRAIN people at military bases sometimes far away from a city, and no one wants to live near a nuclear missile silo. In the later years, it does not make any sense for citys to BUILD units, all they should do is provide tax money to PAY for all the neat toys needed to build an empire.

As much as I like these Civ games, I really don't know if I want more of the same thing, just better graphics and the need for a faster computer to run it. Be brave and different. I wonder if what I am proposing would actually work. Abandon the city concept all together (Did I read that right?), this is a country/nation not just a collection of citys. The units would be bought by the country, and trained at the capital in the beginning of the game and would in later centurys be moved to military bases for this training (do you really want the military controlling your capital in a democracy? - veteren units). Each square on the map has a population 0-XXXX? and the population of this square will grow depending on what you do to the square. People would then move to the nearby squares when the population gets too high or if there is an incentive to move there to E X P A N D your empire. Your country size is now measured in squares (or hexs), the size depends upon what your military or government could control, some areas could leave the empire if not controlled for a while. Giving away or selling squares to another country would now be possible (Lousiana Purchase). Border could make small adjustments now instead of the huge adjustments you get now when you take over a city. Each square would have a movement factor, and if it was enemy territory, it may slow units down and DAMAGE them for being in them (partisans). Each square has a native population that may or may not wish to join you. You may even have to kill all people of a certain nationality/race in the square to make it peaceful (ethnic cleansing).

All military units would now belong to the country and not to the city that created them, no more citys in revolt for an army away from home (depending on your government and length of war). I could never understand why the America, which is supposedly a democracy would not be able to have the navy it does in real life in Civ 1 or 2, if you would have tried this the cities would be revolting left and right, and what about all our troops in Europe and the 1/2 million we had in Desert Storm - our country understands why we send our military overseas (to keep the wars away from home - civs should also understand this).

You would build the unit - army corp of engineers - to build the roads/railways that makes up your empire. Squares would even start to develope themselves, after all there ARE people living there. Would need trade treaties with other nations, and maybe have a little black market trading going on near the border if trading is illegal.

Factorys would pop into existance (random number possibly) and show up on the map, this is where you military hardware is built. If and/or when you get into war, this area would definitly have to be protected, factories may or may not be able to rebuild (incentive by the government?). Purchasing hardware may be the best for the cheapest price, or not quite so good just to keep them in business ($150.00 toilet seats). When you buy the hardware, it could be sold to other countrys for a profit so that those not quite so technologically advanced nations could get some toys to play with too, eventhough they may not be able to repair what breaks. Could also buy units from other nations, or maybe a license to produce the same unit in my country as in another ally's country. Possible even try competing on the open market for who gets to sell the most.
Would have areas on the map where you would drill for oil, mine for gold, mine uranium... Would not be able to move your military hardware unless you have processed fuel to run them on (the battle for control of oil). Would need processed nuclear materal to build nukes (could be stolen by spy network). Just stealing the technology to build nukes does not mean you can build them, do you have the materials to build them and the means to do it? Pollution may now be a little harder to deal with, maybe have government sponsored incentives to stop polluting or relocate to a less pollution concentrated area.

Have a spy network, not just a SPY unit, with something like the CIA or KGB giving you information as to what they THINK the other nations are upto and have them try to do things to the other nations (steal secrets, steal plans for prototypes, kill leaders, steal plutonium, destroy facilities, cause revolts, plant diseases, plant bombs, bribe officals, kill other spys, infiltrate other spy networks). Would have real airspace, territorial waters (1 square? - depends on how big of a map we get). Airplanes would be tracked by radar stations and AWACS planes, shot at by SAMS and intercepted by fighters automatically. A multilevel or 3d game where aircraft and/or missiles could fly over enemy units to a distant target (possibility of being shot down). Submarines could remain hidden and pass directly below other enemy ships unless detected by sonar, spy satellites could pass overhead showing enemy troop movements.

Be able to design your own special units, and make it so we could do the IMPOSSIBLE units (flying aircraft carriers, submergable Carriers both aircraft and land units). Think of the WHAT IFs! More treaties, cooperation between nations (UN) to get certain projects complete (fix ozone problem). Make it that a warmonger can't just run away with it all with out a lot of penaltys, after all this is a Civilization. Be able to have a REAL population, none of this one unit equal 10,000 people bit. The people necessary to build the armies are taken directly from the population, population is still the same just less people working to pay their taxes.

Some INVENTIONS would be invented by accident when the time is right sometimes long time before they actually have a use for it - it has happened alot. Instead of knowing what you are going to invent, randomise the wording for the next advancment or use blind research. Be able to research several differents areas at the same time. Some discoverys (bronze/ironworking) will slowly expand outwards from where they are invented (traders in information on the border). Building new units from new technology would be by prototype, and several years of TESTING. Just because we know how to make gunpowder doesn't mean we know how to build musketeers. Country can not ask for a certain tech if they don't really know we have it, that's what spys are for. Military is paid a salary, (bribe to stay in military), which may help limit military size.

A truly round planet with poles on both sides (they expand and may melt but not as bad as SMAC) but be able to convert this to a flat map for some scenarios (cannot change after game starts). Should also be able to easily convert the flat map to a space scenario (B5, Star Wars, MOO3). Space only goes out to near earth orbit (satellites, maybe a few space colonies). Maybe several more numbers of units if going 2D, or a unit editor if going 3D (there are alot of artists out there). How about real missile silos, and missiles that would be targeted at certain areas of the map, that would be automatically launched if another enemies weapon hits (or even accidently triggered if an asteroid falls to earth. Actually build SDI. Slow time down, alot of the games we play, the unit that is being built is outdated before it is even built. The Peloponnesion War lasted 27 years, but this is only a single turn in Civ 1 or 2, thats not even enough time to get from one city to another and build additional units to replace the ones that get slaughtered. Most battles/wars were fought aver a period of weeks or months not decades. WWIII is supposed to only take 2 weeks, yet in Civ 1 or 2 this also may be several years. I am not saying we should go week by week or month by month, that would get boring, just a little slower so we can get units up to the front before they are obsolete.

The computer hardware alone may be a bit high to use this program, but I think this would be the most realistic Civ game ever made and if done properly, would be the ultimate CIV game and people will upgrade their hardware to play it. If it is just going to be more eye appealing graphics then it isn't going to sell nearly as well.

--just my one and a half cents worth

The only thing bad about this thread is that we are the only ones truly thinking about Civ3, every other thread in working on Civ2.5.

[Druid2]

re: alpha/beta...

yin:

it would also give the Firaxis coders a very early read on how the game engine would work [more importantly, NOT work] on some PC configurations.

It's done in all sorts of industries. set out an early version of the product to a "focus group" .. turn 'em loose on it.. harvest their reactions.

....

RE: OSxAI

yin: Is there any indication from Firaxis that they would consider doing an Open AI interface? If not, no matter how much *we* might think it would set the world afire, the whold discussion is a waste.

Druid--No indication of anything yet. I do know, however, that Firaxis is a young company that is willing to take some risks. If we can argue our case well enough, we've got a shot. I've got some good arguments just waiting to go...(Yin).

rong: (a) [or more precisely, bingmann]... I've been in the programming biz for more years than I care to think about. What the *bleep* is Python?

(b) There would have to be two major parts to the OSxAI discussion.

(b1) What the scripts should be. The logic of the scripts would change as new users developed them, that's the whole idea, but the game needs a ~good~solid~ set of scripts out of the box. Many players wont want to develop new ones.

(b2) The event driven [I think that's the right idea too!] AI engine itself. What the events would have to be, how to interface them, sort priorities, what parameters to require of the script author.

[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited May 20, 1999).]

[Druid2]

Fuji ::

I understand your points, but note that there are a WHOLE LOT of people who think the game takes way too long as it is. THEY are making suggestions to speed it up.

Your comment: "I think this would be the most realistic Civ game ever" gets to the heart of ths issue.

There is a game that could turn out to be CivSim .. a realistic Civ Simulation ..
there is CivGame .. emphasis on the playability for humans, sacrificing realism.

I dont see how you could do both, considering we're talking about a time span of multi-millenia.

[Rong]

Open Alpha/Beta

I like the general idea, but we need to think more how it would work. How about they charge people for it? Microsoft is charging for their <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/preview/order.asp">W2K Beta</a>. I know M$ is not a good example, but this could work out. Let's say they charge $10 for obtaining the alpha/beta. When the final game comes out, you pay another $10. If you don't want to play with beta software, you can wait for the final version for $40 - $50. Any other thoughts?

OSxAI

I guess we'd better use this name. OSExAI is just too obnoxious. For a historical perspective on the original "ExAI" idea, you can read the <a href=http://www.gameai.com/exai.thread.html>gameai.com archive</a>.

A little reminder

It'll greatly help all of us if you can sum up your idea in 10 words or less (ok, maybe 20, but not more than that). You can explain your idea to your heart's content, but at the beginning or in the end, please give a short summary. Thanks!

"OSxAI" and "Open Alpha/Beta" are good examples.

Think of it this way. If you can't explain it in 20 words or less to us civ die hard fans, how are they supposed to explain it in the game manual to new players who has never seen civ before?

[This message has been edited by Rong (edited May 20, 1999).]

[Transcend]

How about moving away from a totaly turn-based game? I don't mean something like Age of Empires, but similar to Railroad Tyconn. You also have the option to pause the game at any time to give orders, view status screens, and conduct diplomacy. Also you can specify in the game option when you want to be interrupted by events such as buildings completed, armies commissioned, civ advances achieved etc. Once you release the game, your units(or armies) will carry out your orders.

[Rong]

Transcend,

Interesting thought. But how do you propose to handle multiplayer?

[Thue]

I really like Transcent's idea too. I hope it makes it.

-----------
How about abandoning the squares? Instead you could use tiles the size of a pixel. This would allow for:
-Unrestricted free movement
-More realistic cities, with circular ressourse zones and varying size.
-The possibility of making the world a sphere(You can't do it with squares, as it is impossible to map them onto a sphere without warping them)


In any event I think it would be nice if the size of squares were decreased (making the cities and city-zones larger, making units move faster). I think that would make it possible to have far more possibilities for game development (It would require efficient automatication however).

Sorry if this has allready been discussed.
-Thue

[JT]

Having your territory extend up to three ocean squares away from your land.

"Your battleships are in American waters! Remove them now or they will be destroyed!"

It's pretty realistic, actually, since countries do own waters in the real world.

[Jason Beaudoin]

I really like what peopole are suggesting here! Don't be afraid to be different is a great theme and I wholeheartedly support the ideas here!

Sefl Evolving States!

I like the idea of a natural self-evolution of an empire that you as a leader would encourage with your decisions but not actually create --something like SimCity. As a leader one would encourage growth by obtaining new lands for your citizens to expand through exploration and conquering. Great idea!

Cities?!

Yes, instead of cities, why not change each map to regions (based on the amount of squares in each) that have multimple cities within them. No more micromanaging cities! This way you can have a real monarchy with Dukes and Counts ruling each region and you as King must rely on them to support your decisions. This would work equally well once the Republic and Democratic models come in. Some governments are more centralized than others so one must be careful which one he chooses. This would be great for the introduction of charismatic characters once in a while that gives your civ a mild special bonus.

Economic Self-Evolution

Encourage the growth and development of land rather than directly developing it, again reducing micromanagement. Totalitarian governments would have to directly interveen in order to develop the lands, whereas, more liberal ones could offer some of the natural resources to private investment so that the lands develop automatically at no cost and no administration. Much more efficient, but part of the production goes to the company. There are alot of possibilities here, such as foreign investment and foreign companies buying land and taking a portion of the income that helps a rival, just as in real life.

Real Domestic Politics

Appointing too many politicians from one region to influencial posts premotes jealousy and hatred among other reagions.

Minorities

All nations have minorities and they are a very powerful force in any civilization and I can't believe they've been ignored. They could play a vital role in domestic policy making, especially in democratic countries.

Just a few ideas of my own.

[Mark_Everson]

*My first post in this thread*

Can I be a Token Radical guy? I had Radical in my Sig. file before this thread was here .

The open alpha/beta is a great idea. Its easy for any group of a few people to get slowly led down the garden path...

I think the extensible AI idea is good too, but I don't think Firaxis will ever support it. To put in all the right hooks and triggers to do allow someone else to do Good AI would take more work IMO than the Whole Amount of Time they seem to put into AI.

------------------
Mark Everson
Project lead for The Clash of Civilizations
(That means I do the things nobody else wants to do )
This Radically different civ game needs your suggestions and/or criticism of our design.
Check our our Forum right here at Apolyton...

[crusher]

I want to be able to buy land! Some sort of louisiana purchase going on.

Over use of resources should eliminate the.When was the last time you hunted a dodo?

The fact that you have a resourse in your possesion should mean that any unit using that resource builds 50% faster.

Tank cost(in shields)without oil-50

Tank cost in city with oil-25
oil drums owned 10

This comes out to: if you have 10 oil tanks would 50% faster for the next 10 turns. If you have 10 steel also the result is 75% faster for the next ten turns half of a half added.



------------------
"War does not determine who is right,It determines who is left."
-Crusher-

[Singularity]

Customizable space exploration missions.

[Goob]

Thank you Rong, great ideas posted.
Comments:
Let's remember that at least in western culture the idea of th Nation State did not really emerge until the 18th and 19th century. Before that the "nation" was what ever the ruler could control with their military. I can not speak to whether this was true in eastern or Meso-American cultures.

But in looking at CIV III this way then the idea of a "nation"or "empire" as a collection of powerful provinces and urban areas "city states" for the ancient and middle period is still realistic.

mindlace, I love the idea of the terrain having an inherant population that can be managed into cities. I would like to see cities be created in any one of three ways:

Normal Civ:
Colonists from an existing city "Go West" to find their fame and fortune.
City as selected Military/Regional center:
When you as the leader of your people see a square/hex/pixel area/ that is just so strategically significant you can build a city there with the inherant population of the square/area.
City self creates as a result of Population pressures:
A square/hex/ collection of pixels reach a population threshhold and a city is born.

With the final method "neutral" or non-faction cities can generate and grow as well as cities within an empire. Colonists would be used to "peacefully" expand into areas outside your territory. Or to speed the growth of an area within your territory.

Your territorial borders in the early game are not set as specifice distance from your cities (as in SMAC) but as the Sphere of Influence (SoI) of your military and/or economy. Thus a small city with a weak economy and no military will have a small SoI, while a Large powerful city with a strong - dominant economy with a weak military would still have a larger SoI.

Then once the technology of "The Nation State" is discovered the setup changes. Borders will become less fluid, and can become fixed by diplomatic agreement between factions. You can claim territory as manifest destiny. But if you have a poor reputation then the intrinsic population of that area could refuse to recognize you as there leader and revolt against becoming part of your empire.

One other idea mentioned is that of Civilizations emerging through out the time line. I like this. How about taking it one step further, as a player you can choose to start at any point in the time line. The computer will randomly set the existing Civilazations (some strong and some weak) you can choose to be at the tech level of the advanced civ's slightly behind them or way behind them. This would add a degree of difficulty. You could choose to be an emerging Aztec empire when some other powers were on the verge of the industrial revolution. Or you could choose to be the American civilization in 1776.

Summary:
1) Tiles have inherant population
2) 3 ways to create a city: Colony pod, selection of a site within empire, and self growth of inherant pop crosses city threshold.
3) The Nation State technology to be discovered and modeled after existing nations.
4) Allowing the not only AI civ's to start during the game, but also allow the player to choose where in the timeline/tech tree to start.

Goob
p.s. Jason, remember that until recently, and not even now in many countries Minorities have been at best ignored and at worst persecuted. Do we want to model that in the game as well?

[EnochF]

I think we should totally redesign Civ III in so that it plays more like a real time first-person shooter, like Quake. The techs should be scattered around the globe like ammunition clips, and the guns are your military units.

Oh, I also think Civ III should be able to do my taxes and help my son with his O-levels.

[Rong]

Singularity,

Can you be more specific? When I said sum up your idea in 20 words or less, I didn't mean it ends there. You should explain your idea verbatim, as detailed as possible, so we won't misunderstand you.

[EnochF]

Okay, seriously though. This is an idea that Sieve Too agreed with:

A system of post-republic government management. Instead of slogging through city-by-city management, the game would give you the option to switch to National management, at which point there would be some fairly major (and hopefully positive) changes that would make the late game much more playable, enjoyable and even addictive:

* No more endless strings of messages appearing on the screen each turn (so-and-so built a library, so-and-so needs an aqueduct, so-and-so is celebrating, etc.)
* Instead, at the end of each turn, you would speak to a group of advisors who would summarize things for you ("These cities are reaching their population limit, Comrade. Shall we add an aqueduct to their built queue?" "These cities request new building orders, Comrade.")
* You would also have the option to add a city improvement (or military unit) to the build queues of every city in your civilization
* You could set national minimum wage, begin a system of rationing, declare martial law, or (with the permission of the senate, where appropriate) establish all sorts of national standards. (Maybe even a standard build queue for all newly founded cities).

Imagine, you would actually *need* the High Council!

[Darkstar]

First off, I didn't see any other place for some of the following ideas. I don't believe most of these are radical so we must be missing threads... or I could just have had a brain hiccup.

You know, I am waiting on one seriously original idea on any of these threads. I've seen all these suggestions so far elsewhere and elsewhen. Oh well, I suppose Firaxis wants us to feel involved. (And no, I don't think my ideas are any more original than the others posted. Many are from other games, computer or board, or wherever...)

City Production Radi

People per square. Hate it. Seriously. That situation does not take into account say... the colonization of the USA. There were lots of people per tile already, but England and France sent over their own colonization forces. Most of the Native Americans DIED... not assimilated, nor displaced. They died. What I would prefer to see is a production radius around the City based on Tech and current improvements BUILT (and supported) in the city (ala Destiny, a Civ clone put out by I-Magic I think). Say in the stone age, 1 square (walking, you know). When you master Horsemanship, you can build a Stables, which permits you to build Horse based units (Mounted Infantry (they dismount to fight), Mounted Scouts, Lt Chariots, whatever) AND you gain +1 Tile radius for resource usage. This continues throughout the tech trees with certain advances obsoleting other facilities or their effects (cars and modern farm equipment replace the horse and oxen, yeilding +2 Tile radius utilization, regional highway transit network add +1 utilization (and consume +2 Work Units and +2 Energy and +1 Minerals to maintain), the Special Projects: Super Highway Transit System adds yet another tile to the usable radius yeilding 4 tiles out from the City).

Special Projects

Reusable Special Projects... Wonders are Unique Special Projects which can only be built ONCE and confer some special bonus onto the World, or at least your Nation. A Special Project is a great project or undertaking on a national scale, but can be done multiple times and by any nation possessing the qualifications. Example: The Hover Dam WONDER confers a hydro-electrical plant onto every city for the possessing NATION. It also confers a +50% bonus to build Continental Hydro-Electrical Plant (CHEP) Special Project as well as enabling all nations to now build the CHEP. The Hoover builder gets the build bonus for CHEPs due to the pride and engineering know-how in dam building that his nation possesses.

Canals

Once you have the requisite terraforming options, you can build CANALS (river roads) just like roads. Naval units can traverse canals, and land units can cross them. The act as rivers for encouraging trade/energy.

The Rise and Fall of new Civilizations

There are no such thing as "Goody huts that are free city". Rather, all those free cities start out as minor nations, just as the player does. In addition, as a featured random event a NEW CITY-NATION is sometimes generated. This represents: Radical Religious movements that migrate from other nations to a point that is considered Holy or simply far enough away from their former nation to pratice an "outlaw" ritual or religion. (Example, Monotheism is discovered ... the Cities of Aries founded by devote Arian priests refusing to give up their ways and going to someplace they can continue their calling); Shipwrecked/Lost military expedition - It was not unusual for officers or career men to take along wifes and children, depending on culture in question if they expected to be away for a long time. Also, many armies had a nomadic "liberty city" of followers that followed along (hence, camp followers) that provided all the services an individual in the army could want. Often family travelled with this van; a rich old "noble" leader "retiring"/expelled from the nation's elite and taking a small "servant" staff of a few hundered and their families to live a life of peace in their remaining years... yada yada yada. This would tend to lead to the occasional minor nation gaining strength or becoming a vassal state of a Major Nation. I'd also like to see far flung colonies occasionally break away and become their own nation. A nasty random event could also be a Civil War where a significant portion of the nation breaks away, due to whatever reason.

Overlapping Resource Usage

When allied/same nation cities try to use the same square, they SPLIT the resources derived.

Utilizing Tech Required Resources

I would like to be able to buy or lease the rights to harvest the resources of other nations that they either can't due to lack of tech, or have no cities/towns to process the tile for.

Buying Land - I second this. I suggested it elsewhere, and think it a wondrous idea.


------------------
-Darkstar
(Knight Errant Of Spam)

[Trachmyr]

A possiability to "Expanding Cities":

Similar to terraforming/PW, you can build additions to your city in surronding tiles... some examples:

Suburbs: Reduces overcrowding (+happy/+health)
Industrial: Give % bonus to industry, + pollute
Port/Airport: For truely massive facilities
Military Bases: have you seen the size of 'em
Reaserch Campus/University: ditto
Theme parks: Disney would need 5+ tiles!

these are just examples, but graphicly, it would make each city very unique.

[Trachmyr]

Genetic Engineering, similar to social engineering ala SMAC. The Nazi's were the first to try...

Turning people into cyborgs in the late game (assuming post-modern tech)... no food needed, just support like buildings and/or units.

[Goob]

Darkstar(r) ignoring the existing inherant population does not take into account that they are... there.

In the system I was suggesting then the English or French Civ would send colonists to this new land with some inherant population, the native population adds some small benefit to the cities by supplying some resources.

To model the aspects that you mention we could A) introduce disease, B) have inherant population not help an incoming civilization without the use of slavery, indentured servitude (slight differance) or a tech discovery of enlightened interaction which would cause the empire to treat the inherant pop as equals.

Inherant pop that is near your empire's territory would be more willing to become members of your empire, areas further away would be less willing. There could also be factors for the absolute differance between tech levels of the Civ and the non-civ populous. When close the peoples would work together, when further apart there would be a greater chance for hostility and contempt.

Or this could be handled through Social engineering settings the closer these are the more likely, etc.,.... Inherant pop's could hve social agendas with differant map areas having differant agendas.

I think there is a lot that could be done with this.

Trach. - other countries could then view genetic engineering as an atrocity.

Darkstar(r) I can see food resources being forced to be close to the city, but if there are "mineral" resources that I am mining 3 tiles away and am forcing my people to haul back to the city by whatever means, then that should still be usable.

Goob

[Possibility]

Darkstarr, you did not read my message carefully enough. Having people living in some (not all) of the squares as neutrals, is also like having native inhabitants. (there would be small pockets of them scattered all over the map). If some were isolated on seperate islands, they would be technologicaly inferior because they wouldnt have any of the techs of that had become common knowledge in the more crowded parts of the world. Also what I said is you could plant down a city and then move people to your new contintent, as in colinization of a new land. Also if were to build a new city, and your empires newly expanded borders were to incorporate some neutrals, they would either join your empire, or possibly move out of your borders to another empty square, creating waves of migration. Once they join your empire you can then move them around as you please, of course at the cost of some gold or something.

Thinking along the lines of incorportaing neutrals into your empire and if they didnt join, they would be pushed outside of your borders, where they would start to build up and then be more likely to form there own city. Also, maybe if you were a freindly democracy, you would be morelikely to have these natives freely join your empire where as if you were a ruthless dictatorship, they would be more likely to not join your empire. Of course if you were ruthless enough you could easily go and kill the people natives in the squares as I stated in my original message. This kind of action would have repercussions though, becoming an atrocity later on in the game.

What I said is almost exactly what you want Darkstarr.

Possibility

[Freddz]

Rong,

just wanna say thanks for accepting this thread. Good luck. I see this one may turn out good

[Captain Action]

Not to hijack the thread but why not replace the civ's square with a hexagon?
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