ECONOMICS/TRADE ( vers 1.3 ) HOSTED BY: HAREL

[Harel]

<u>ECONOMICS/TRADE ( vers 1.3 )</u>

Hosted by Harel

Hello again! Time for a new version. This time I tried to group things better, into more catagories. I think you would find it much easier to understand and read the points suggested. I also tried to combine ideas, and think of a way it can be implamnted in the game. AND tried to dig up VERY old ideas, and looked up to a year back in the old forums. ( I am still sure I forgot some ideas ).
As ever, feel free to post anything, and if i forgot something, let me know!
( and guys, you have no idea how much time this took )

A. Resoucrce managments.
B. Economy in general
C. Trade in general
D. Caravan issues
E. Trade and diplomacy
F. List of posters

A. Resource managment

1. Option A: keep the shield system as normal.

2. Option B: make two "general" values: labor and minerals. Labor is equal 1 per every citizen, minerals are produced by mines. Factories and such increase labor, not minerals.

3. Option C: insteed of one "overall" value, minerals, use 3 basic resources: fuel, metal and exotic. Special tiles can give a bonus to a certain mineral production.

4. Option D: have commodities, ala colonization. End amount of around 20, and evolve them as time progress ( bows replaces by muskets, etc. ). Request and demand makes the value of each commodity flux all the time: much like in stock exchange.

5. Option E: use Imperliasm II system, with the roads, mines on the tiles, etc.
( In otpion B,C,D the cocnept of "labor" being different then resource exist ).

6. You can build a "carrier" unit which function like master of orion freighter ships. They automaticly move X items to a required city. For example, if you build 3 "carrier" you can pass up to 3 minerals from city A that produce many minerals, to city B that have a great labor party. When you "activted" a carrier unit ( by giving her work ), it cost you 1 gold unit. The exchange is done automaticly: any surplus minerals are automaticly passed to were they are needed the most. ( maybe you can also pass food this way? ).

7. Have two specialist: one to increase labor ( 2 insteed of 1 ), and a miner who gives +25% to mining.

8. Having a large variaty of trade goods increase the happiness and economy of your people.

9. Since the automatic delivery carrier units from A.6 are not very realistic, you should be able to group regions, a number of cities into a shared pool of resources. The higher you are on the tech tree, the bigger the region can be ( in term of range and number of cities in the region ).

10. A development to A.9 is a new building called "regional headquarters". When you build it, you select a several cities which must be connected to the home town via roads, river, etc. Now, all those cities act like one city: bonus from wonders or city strcutres are given to all cities ( only from the home town. A minor town can't effect the other ones. So, if the minor town has a temple, NO city [ not even herself ] shell get the bonus. If the temple was at the home town, all the cities would have gotten the bonus ). Popultion, food, labor, all are pooled like it's one big city. ( seems very, very un-balanced. Maybe make the support cost for that building HUGE? )

11. Specail resource should be handled like Birth of the federation dilitium mines. In Birth, several rare solar system had dilitium mines. You can only produce a military unit per mine, even if it doesn't have to be in the same city. Meaning? If you have two mines, you can produce up to two ships, at the same time, max. In civ III, you could have some rare tiles with special resource, like coal, oil or uranium. The name is not important. Point is, you need that support to create a military unit. ( or, maybe, only a fixed number of more powerful units ).

12. You should be able to place several workers on each tile, but every new one would produce less then the original one ( anyone has any idea how can be graphicly displayed?

13. Support for units, ofcoruse, would only got materials, not labor.

14. Another idea is to scrap commodites: the items can be represnted by labor. How? If you are in industrial era and got a coal tile, insteed of trading with coal you simply get a bonus to production. A dye tile, or gold, for give a bonus to trade.

15. An improvement to A.14: if you got a special trade tile that no other country has, you gain a very big trade bonus.

B. Economy in general

1. You can buy your units from a black market for a cheapr price, but it would cost you in repution ( maybe in -1 police or -1 corruption? ).

2. You can hire mercenries ( extra morale, extra support units? )

3. AI players as companies, and human players can play a company. In older times it could represent arsitocarts and noble-man. Maybe even allow pirates as players? You have a limited form with companies: can only create contracts with them. ( only in a free market? )

4. To show the burden of war, you need to pay an X amount of money every turn. When you end the war, that cost is decreesed along time ( maybe this can be represented by increased supply cost? Or readiness level like in CtP? ).

5. You should have BUDGETS, like in real life. The bonus gotten from libaries, for example would be decided by how much you put in Eductation. That money is divided between all libaries and universties. The higher the gold per institue, the bigger bonus they give. Hospitels bonus by health, wealthfare gives happiness ( divided by all the populs, like Luxary ), military would be divided between the support cost of all units and dedice what morale bonus/minus you get, etc. ( In democracy/republic, the senate should demand a minimum portion to some section. Suggested sections: Science ( labs and science rate ), Eduction ( libaries, universties ), Health ( hospitels ), Military ( military infra-structre and units ), Internal affairds ( Police, intelligence and reducing un-rest ), Wealthfare ( happiness bonus, like luxary ), Transportion ( Support of road tiles and Mans transpot building ), Construction ( reserve money to buy city building and wonders ), Arts ( support for wonder ), Argiculture ( support for farms ), Religon ( the bonus for temples ) and Trade ( caravans are bought of a pool created here ).

6. Cities should be able to build several times, with slider bar to decide how much labor each section gets.

7. The city tile ( center ) doesn't produce anything, but it does give +1 trade/farm/mine to all near-by hexs.

8. Docks, railroads, farms and such can be simply bought, or use a system like CtP public works. If B.5 idea is used, you can buy the improvement from the budget pool available to that improvment section.

9. Inter-city resoruce level should dictate the amount of minerals a city can produce without lost. In earlier times, it took lots of time to bring the ores from the distant mines to the city. High amount of resources can flood the system. You should have a "max-per-tile" output: a farm can't prodcue more then 2, a mine no more then 3, etc. As technology advance, you can build special structre which can increase the maximum level of output. A tile with a road or river in it can has a max+1 ( notice! If a farm can max produce 4, it doesn't mean she always produce 4. Only that she can't produce more. If the farm had a river, beyond the bonus to farming she could produce a max of 5 ).

10. If commodites are used, they can be deptled.

11. Ofcourse, you should have build queue.

12. The economy should flux, like in real life. Every turn, a number between +1 to -1 would dedcide the level of your income ( maybe a +1 or -1 to the economy Social change? ). This should effect free market countries more then controled market ones. ( double to bonus/minus for free market, half the bonus/minus for planned one? ). The number isn't totaly random, and slowly move up and down. If you are doing well, more chance the number would go up.

13. Buy off limiting: if you have commodities, you may only buy the resources ( twice the amount of resource in gold ), but still have to build it with labor. If still using shields, you may only pay to double the construction cost, no more.

14. Once you gain insdustralization, you shouldn't be able to set any tax setting at any extream ( 100/0 lux, 100/0 science, etc. ).

C. Trade in general

1. You may "raid" trade routes. This is either standing in an area where a trade route pass, or where caravan passes in a close radii. A certain percent would be lost from money and resource profit. The amount would be dictated by the raiding unit quality, quantity and adaptbility ( a pirate can do better then a scout plane ). The raid option would be available to every combat unit: you select a spot and press R. Spys can destroy the trade routes competly, killing the caravan. Raiding is an act of war.

2. Keep trade just like SMAC: fully automatic.

3. You should be able to trade with barbian cities.

4. The higher your technology level above the level of the second side, the more bonus you get to profit. However, it increase the research rate of the second side on every tech you have and he doesn't.

5. If you use a commodity system ( see A.2,A.3,A.4 ), trade basicly gives you minerals, not money. However, you should still get a small amount of money for creating the deal. If you don't have a commodity ( using civ II old shield system ), then trade should give you some shield bonus as well. However, the goverment still guys a cut by taxes.

6. On a general note, trade should be much more profitable. Some countries were based only on trade. AI should also use trade much more then he is now.

7. Inertial trade: every city can have an X amount of trade routes. Cities can estibled intertial trade routes to pass to swap them between themself. Meaning? Cities around your empires which are inland, can estblish a trade route to a major harbor city. That habor city can now support her original trade routes + what the other cities passed her. This can even be a chain-reaction: from city A to city B to city C... etc.

8. Trade inside your empire it done automaticly ( you get a small, auto bonus, like SMAC ). Outside trade is done by trade routes. This works well with idea A.7: you can move all your "trade power" to a several cities which are in a good spot to do mass trade.

9. Black market: in a high corruption city, some of the trade routes you have turn "rouge": they give you no income. Even if you lower the crime rate they don't disappeer: you need military units to route them. ( according to idea B.3 on the pirates, they become the properity of a pirate AI and give him income ).

10. All trade will be automaticly ruled by the trade advisor. He builds the caravans, send them, etc. You can see this moving around the map. However, you can give his special guidelines: what not to trade, what you want him to try to get the most, what you want despertly to get rid off, etc.

11. As your market and goverment becomes more free, more of the trade options become automatic.

12. Some wonders and city structres should increase trade profit ( local or global ) generated by caravans. Some wonders should also increase caravan speed to increase the usefullness of early trade.

13. As strange as this sound, cities with a big food production should give a small bonus to trade. Cuisine is a very important thing for trade and tourism, and big city which makes lots of surplas food would probaly create some new sort of kitchen.

14. Showing the trade routes graphcily would be a pure mess. Create an economic map where you see all the trade routes. Better yet, make caravan on the map invisible to all but on the economic map.

15. Trade goods should be a conversion of minerals to goods ( by labor ) and sold automaticly for profit.

16. How about that insteed of building caravans, we would have a building ( depot, warehouse, etc ) that automaticly generate trade? You get +1 gold per every city in a certain range from you ( increased with technology ). Like idea C.7, it would be inertial - city A is close to 5 cities and city B. City B is close to a DIFFERENT 5 cities. Therefor, since city A is connected to city B, BOTH would get +11 gold ( ten cities +the other city, A or B ), and so does all the other 10 cities. with idea E.1, you can pay to be able to use the depot of side B city to gain access to a new batch of cities, gaining a very high bonus. Side B would get a cut of all profit gotten this way ( reflects very well the great importance of harbor cities that , more then trading themself, traded for others. Like Constantinopol ).

17. Trade technology: if you trade with a civ that doesn't have trade, he automaticly gets it. Before you discover currency, any trade is X items for X itmes ( barter system ). Only after currency are you able to trade, for example, 100 wood for 10 iron.

D. Caravans issues

1. Caravans should move automatcily. They generate money after X turns it takes them to move. For example, if it would take the caravan 5 turns to reach the city, then the bonus would be automitcly given. Beside building the unit and sending it, you can't control her. Since there is no path-finding or graphics, we can support tons of caravans.

2. You should have special kinds of caravan: one on boat, a plane, etc.

3. The caravans automaticly moves to the most profitable city upon completion ( in comptution of range, size and ETA ).

4. Caravans are not built: you gain one per X number of popultion. They are only replaced when they die.

5. Caravans can build "trade posts", that acts like a airport and fortress, and gives a trade bonus to near-by cities ( only on border-region tiles ).

6. Have a better version of caravan, a one who carry finished goods. Cost more but gains more profit.

7. Caravans can bring support to besieged cities. Side A ( you ), gives side B food when under attack from side C. You get a very big profit, and the attitude of Side B toward you is increased greatly, and your repution. Side C, however, becomes more hostile to you.

8. You can have the caravans moes by fixed way-point.

9. You can give caravans military support: either ordering a combat unit to protect the caravans, or build a new type of caravan: "armed covoy", which is 2/2/2 but cost about three times more.

10. A caravan acts like a limited spy: trade routes slowly reveal the enemy known maps.

11. Caravan, when helping a wonder, should decreese the cost of the production, not give extra shield. Thier bonus is given by offering new apporch to construction.

12. If you got free-market, you can "hire" privateers to trade for you. You pay no construction cost, only a fixed support cost in gold. You also get a lower cut of the profit.

E. Trade in diplomacy

1. Free-pass trade: allow your caravans ( only ) to go over the side B to trade. Side B get a cut of the profit.

2. Fixed trade: a swap that occurs every turn: you give X items to side B, side B gives X items to you. Can also trade food.

3. Embargo: you may ask side B to cancel all trade with side C, in a UN meeting or on direct contact.

4. Funded trade: side A gives side B a sum of money to build caravans. Side B trades with side C, and side A get's a cut of the trade profit.

5. War automaticly destories all trade routes: caravan return to thier home city.

6. Trade increase the diplomatic realtion between the two nations.

7. Trade treaty: like Master of orion II, signing this treaty gives an automatic trade bonus. Caravans are not needed. Another way, is that you use caravans till a certain tech level ( railroads? or maybe advanced sea navigation? ), and after that it's automaticly done via the diplomacy screen.

8. Demand monopoly: you can demand from a certain country to only buy a specfic commodity from you. Therefor, allowing you to greatily increase the cost. Microsoft rings a bell? ( see Idea A.5. ).

9. Ask for harbor: you can pay Side B to build for you a habor or airport in his terratory.

F. List of posters

Special thanks: Pythagoras.

Bab5tm, Bubba, Bulrathi, CapTVK, Chowlett, Colon, Crashn, DanS, Delcuze, Dinoman2, Diodorus Sicilus, Don don, Druid, E, Ecce Homo, Eggman, Ember, EnochF, Flavor dave, Fugi the great, Gregurabi, Gordon the whale, Hans2, Harel, Isle, Itokugawa, Jakester, JamesJKirk, Jele2, Kaiser, Kerris, Kryllon, Korn469, Lancer, Maniac, Matthew, Mark_everson, Mindlace, NotLikeTea, Prefect, Scooter, Sir David, Stefu, Technophile, Theban, Trachymr, Utrecht, VaderTwo, ZenOn, Zorloc
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Harel (edited August 02, 1999).]</font>

[Gordon the Whale]

Thanks for the summary, Harel.

I'd like to suggest an option between C and D in resource management: Have more than 3 natural resources, but don't worry about manufactured commodities. Natural resources can still be traded, but all the nightmare with manufactured goods, where to manufacture them, how to manufacture them, what to do with them, how to transport them, whether to store them, etc.

The natural resources could still be grouped more or less into 3 categories, but would be further divided.

Fuel: instead of being abstracted to oil/gas/coal, make it oil, gas, and coal. Each requires different techs to become useful, and their use makes different amounts of pollution. Shortly after these become useful in making units, they are also required by cities, with a happiness penalty if not supplied.

Material: Here are Wood, Iron, Stone, Copper/Bronze, Bauxite, Uranium, and maybe one or two others. Wood or stone are required for the expansion of cities, and the metals are used primarily for units. Perhaps even go back further in history than bronze working, and allow units that require stone for production?

Exotic/trade: It's not really exotic if it's growing in your civ, is it? These are numerous, and the particulars are not important. Gold, Silver, Gems, Spices, Salt are the obvious choices. Cash crops, a TI, could make similar goods: Tobacco, Silk, Cotton, Sugar, Indigo. These would all be traded as the trade goods in Civ2 (or, more accurately, CtP? I never played it). Better if the caravan never had to be built, though. Trade through roads, as in the summary. However, don't let routes go for infinite distances. It would be too easy to build a network of roads on a continent (everyone does it anyways) that would be making WAY too much money. Instead, add in a component for diminished returns over distance, but make cities in between add to the maximum distance.

ember and I were discussing how to purchase production in a split-resource system, at the very end of the last thread. I suggested you could buy, as 1 gold per, as many resources or industry as you were already producing. ember suggested that this be a sliding scale, where you gould buy 50% of your produce at 1 per, another 50% at 2 per, another 50% at 3 per (or is this one 4 per?), etc. I think that's a good idea, ember. Still, the actual values need to depend upon SE choices. To repeat my previous example, in a Socialist economy, production is largely controlled by the government; in CIV, socialist countries get a bonus to industry and resources. However, this means that there isn't so much private industry to hire in times of need, so a socialist country would not be able to get as much of a bonus.

There definately needs to be a limit on stored resources. AND a turn-by-turn decay. I don't think you should be able to build up huge reserves, that's not the way it really works. If terrain tiles get depleted (and it would be neat if they did) then resources above your production needs and capacity of storage facilities are considered not even harvested. Each city should be able to store 5 or 10 of each resource per each point of population, which can be increased with the production of a Warehouse facility, which would have increased capacity for all goods, to avoid complexity. (maybe just double the production of the city.)

[Gordon the Whale]

Sorry, Double post.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Gordon the Whale (edited August 02, 1999).]</font>

[ember]

If you have a turn-by-turn decay of stockpiled resources and food, a maximum capacity is not as imortant. If the ecay rate is 10% and there is 100 units surplus, the max stockpile is 1000 units, and it will take a long time (never) to reach that amount. In 10 turns you have reached only 2/3 the max.
year 1: lose 0, add 100 = 100
year 2: lose 10, add 100 = 190
year 3: lose 19, add 100 = 271
year 4: lose 27, add 100 = 344
year 5: lose 34, add 100 = 410
year 6: lose 41, add 100 = 469
year 7: lose 47, add 100 = 522
year 8: lose 52, add 100 = 570
year 9: lose 57, add 100 = 613
year 10: lose 61, add 100 = 651
(numbers are rounded off)

Graneries and such could jsut affect the rate of decay, to produce a similair effect to a higher max stock.

The point on costs more to add more resources is for illustration. The 50% blocks would be a different amount for different SE.

On regions. The building in the capital shouldnt affect all cites, with a few exceptions. When you build a temple the AI chosses a location, based on where it would be best suited(you can change it). It builds it in that location, affecting that city. Some improvments are regional in effect, like a stock market, or superhighways. Most woders could be limited to a region to avoid some aspects of ICS.

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

[Maniac]

Just want to say cathedrals took indeed centuries to build.
BTW, doesn't your post belong in City Improvements?

[Gordon the Whale]

Gregurabi- Check out my post in radical ideas, fairly near the end as of now, I think, about how to look at who it is that you are being in Civilization. It makes the current system make much more sense.

I'm not sure I like the idea of sharing city improvements within a region. (this must belong in city improvements, too... everything overlaps) Resources amd military support, I can handle, but I don't know about ALL city improvements... Maybe some (cathedral) could be shared, whereas others (granary) would have to be built individually.

[Zorloc]

I like Gordon's idea of an point in between C and D on resources.

My original idea is to have resource/commodity catagories, differentiated by tech level (or age). Thus one resource would be fuel, with a progression of:
firewood
animal oils
coal
petrolium
uranium
geothermal

Additionally certain techs will be able to provide power (shields?) without using resources:
Water/windmill
windfarm
Dam
Solar plant
etc...

jbw

[ember]

A new method for populaation growth.

The population of cities are recorded as x.xxx. This allows fractional population points. The fraction has no gameplay effect until it reaches the next number. It allows groth rates to be experesed as an increase per turn. Attacks that hit population centers can now do fractional pop. points of damage. maybe 0.1 or 0.05 per hit.

The purpose of this proposal is to seperate growth from straight food production.
Growth rates can be expressed as a percentage per turn, (eg 2.5%) to give a familiar sort of look. What this means for gameplay terms is that 0.025 pop points are added every year. This gives a groth of 40 turns.

Pop is recorded as fractional points, but it is easy to convert that to a real pop number.
The formula:
Actual pop = 5000 x (pop points + 0.5)^2 - 1250
Follows the civx model exactly for whole numbers, and can give good values for fractional numbers.

Effects on population growth. All numbers are arbitray and should vary depending on SE choices and tech. This system is desigend to be compatable with the idea of villages.

I have made use of a 'happyness rating', which is (#happy - #unhappy) / # total. This gives 0 for all content, 100 for all happy, and -100 for all unhappy. This can be applied to a city, a region, a civ or the entire world.

Base growth: 10%
Happyness : + city happyness / N. N depends on SE.
villages : + 0.2% per village
medicine : + 2%
etc.

Immigration. To take into account people moving around in your civ and between civs.
The advantages of including this is that large unhappy cites will tend to slow down growth or shrink, while your smaller cities will pick up the extra people.

In civ immigration = (city happyness - civ happyness) / Y. Y depends on SE and the overall level of transportation availabble. In cty immigation tends to have larger volume than between civs.

between civs migration = (city happyness - world happyness) / Z. Z depends on SE and transport of all players. For this calcualtion government types can influence the happyness used. democracy might add 10 points, while communism subtarcts 10 points, to reflect that democracies never have had problems with too many people trying to flee from them.

Wonder: Iron curtain. Prevents all between civ emmigration. (for gameplay all cities count as average happyness level)


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

Timber
Stone
Silver
Iron
Coal
Oil

I don't see why it should be any more complicated than that. Bauxite, for example, becomes a substitute for iron in the post-industrial economy. Copper is initially a "substitute" for iron, which isn't discovered until later. Just treat both as minor sources of the generalized "iron."

It may be hard to reduce it from these categories. In general, one can't be substituted for any of the others. The difference between coal and oil is worth starting wars over (Japan in WW2).

[Maniac]

ember, I'm glad you worked out a immigration model, but couldn't you insert my SE Culture factor in it, please?

[Gregurabi]

I'm copying this, which I posted recently in the CTP suggestions forum.

During a war, the state may claim a higher percentage of the production output of the private factories. Thus, while the factories aren't really producing any more than they were during peace time, they're now producing more tanks and fewer tractors.

I think the Civ games do a damned poor job of modeling the interactions between public and private sectors. Why is the government building a church in every city? And why does the construction of this church take centuries and prevent the simultaneous construction of military weaponry and the training of soldiers? Buildings like temples, banks, etc. should simply appear when market forces bring about conditions in which they are needed/useful. They should be supported entirely by the private sector -- no drain on the state treasury. In fact, the state should BENEFIT from them through taxation. By changing the tax rates you levy against the private sector, you can encourage growth and investment (lower taxes) or siphon money into public projects (higher taxes, giving you (the state) the capital necessary for police/military, civil engineering like public roads, etc.).

Even SimCity has a better model than Civ1/Civ2/CTP. (Note: I haven't played SMAC.)

So... depending on your military readiness setting (or other factors, whatever works), you might be able to usurp a certain amount of production capacity from private industries. Modifying existing factories to produce military hardware should require some time, but once all of the adjustments are in place, weapons can be mass-produced much more quickly. Of course, this leaves fewer consumer goods, so that would have to be modeled -- unhappiness is one way, but there should be greater long-term ramifications on the economy. At a minimum, industrial efficiency should drop -- a lot of those consumer goods that aren't being produced any more would have gone back into the industrial infrastructure and fuel the economy. With their quantities reduced, industrial output should slow down -- just a bit at first, but it should accelerate as the war continues.

(If I remember correctly, the USSR had this problem -- after a while, they were spending something outrageous on their military -- over 50% of their GNP, wasn't it? But they got diminishing returns over time, and the economy collapsed.)

[Gordon the Whale]

M@ni@c, why not add it in yourself? It's not like ember owns the idea... If he(she?) wanted to keep it exactly how he thought of it, he wouldn't have posted it in a forum. For those of us who don't want to leave this thread, explain the SE Culture choice.

I think it's a good idea, ember, especially as far as fractional population growth. The only thing that worries me about the i/emmigration factor is processor time. There are lots of nice effects that could be made by summin gup all sorts of things at the end of each turn, but a lot of them can end up really CPU heavy. This one only requires: determine the happiness of each city, take average by civs, take world average, compare averages, add/take away citizens. If I'm correct, you don't need to keep track of where a citizen from city a goes... There ends up being the right number anyways. However, if ethnicity/religion is implemented, which you didn't suggest but I, tentatively, am, in relation to this immigration/emmigration scheme, you end up with a lot of stuff to keep track of.

On resources: Splitting into

lumber
stone
iron
silver
coal
oil

Does represent all the necessary components. Indeed, it looks like you are dividing into:

Temporary building material/primative fuel
Permanent building material
Practical Metal
Trade goods
mid-grade fuel
high-grade fuel

Which is an excellent way to divide if this were a game about a single city, or in a single time period, etc. And it would work, and better than the "shield" system. But I like the idea of a city that's vital in the bronze age becoming backwater in the iron age, because those copper mines are now almost useless. Definately, no civilization will be using bronze AND iron extensively at the same time, but if both exist, and the discovery of iron working prompts a switch, that is, to me, a worthwhile part of gameplay. For silver/other trade goods, I think it's even more important to have lots of variety. These should be where those trade routes come from. They aren't exactly "resources," because you con't use them to build things, but as new deposits are discovered and trends come and go, their worth on the world market waxes and wanes. Someone who's played it, was this the system used in CtP, and did it seem to work?

[Maniac]

The following is a post I made a while back in the SE thread.

6) Culture

Some threads ago, I said culture would determine population happiness. I've made that a separate SE factor.

1)Culture determines how much it costs for you to bribe a unit or a city.

2)If a neighbour civ has a lower culture rate, his cities become slowly and automatically converted to your culture. Cities converted to your culture get your city stile. If two civs already have the same city stile, I don't know yet what should represent the conversion. If the capital is converted you get a higher Diplomacy rate. If that civ attacks you, the citizens of the converted city become unhappier = lower happiness rate.

3)A civ with a high culture rate has more population immigration from other countries.
Immigration : citizens from other civs migrating to your civ. Immigration/emigration has been suggested in the 'City Growth' thread in Civ3-General/suggestions.
Im- and emigration should depend on your culture rate and the happiness of the concerning city.

4) A high Nationalism(=Probe) rate lowers emigration. This is to simulate the Iron Curtain( or whatever it's called in English).

5) Your culture rate determines how long it takes for conquered cities to assimilate to your culture and cause less happiness.
In SMAC it was 50 turns. For every +Culture you have more than the city of the previous owner, the city needs 10 less turns to assimilate.
If you have a lower Culture rate, the city doesn't adapt. Means more unhappiness and increases the likelyness of revolting and forming a new civ.

6) Can't say numbers. Testplaying needed.

maximum+6
+? : less money needed for bribing; immigrating people from lower cultures; conversion if higher culture; fast assimilation

-? : possible emigration and conversion if lower culture; no assimilation if lower culture
minimum-5
[This message has been edited by M@ni@c (edited August 02, 1999).]

I hope you have some use out of it.

[ember]

M@ani@c:
Sounds like your culture factor is basically anouther way of determining civ happyness for immigration purposes.
It looks interesting, but I'm not terribly concerend about ethnicity and such, I actually feel that it would be an complexity that would not help gameplay.
If you want to figure out how to calculate the various immigration percentages, feel free, but I don't really have a feel for it, so I can't.


Resources:
Building materials. Only really need one here. If you really want at modren ceramics and composits.
Trade goods should not be resources in the building units sense. Don't need to get 3 silver from that hill...
Iron/bronze
Advanced alloys (upgarde from Iron)
Ancient fuels, up to coal
Modern fuels, oil and uranium.
6 catergories, of which only 3 are used at a time.
Can even call them the same things throughout, but change the production value of each square with certain techs:

Building materials
Metals
Fuels

only 3 needed. To me that is the most that is managable.

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

I am not afraid of complication, especially when it can improve play. Somewhere in the strategies forum a civer mentioned a scenario-like rules.txt change for MP:

• Make oil (or some other special terrain resource) worth some huge amount of shields and trade (10 each).
• Watch the wars fought over them!

Making certain resources worth extracting for trade, and some few worth fighting over, can improve play. You might make stone and brick the most generic resource (like "shields"), available as needed with sufficient labor to extract it, but it must be modeled. Timber should be separate from stone as a resource.

• You can't build ships, seige engines, or wagons (necessary for large scale military units) out of stone or brick!
• There are large areas of the world without useable timber.
• There are areas of the world without quarry stone.
• There are some areas without either; brick is all they've got.
• Timber can be traded economically at any tech level.
• Timber can be can be used for fuel and, with moderate tech, naval stores and other derivatives.

Coal must be separate from oil as a resource.

• Coal (or lignite, or even poorer substitute peat) can be extracted and utilized in its raw form at any tech level.
• The usefulness of crude oil and amount extractable is proportional to some function of tech level.
• Oil also requires investment in facilities to use and to process for use, chiefly wrt/internal combustion engines.
• There are large areas without coal, or oil, or both; trade ensues.
• Oil is so necessary to the late industrial era that wars are fought over it.

Precious stones, metals, etc. should be resources in their own right.

• They (and goods made from them) are the only trade materials that have intrinsic value out of proportion to usefulness.
• They inspire trade or war far more than common resources or goods made from common resources (except oil).

Trace metals, including uranium, could be handled as generic resources. You would never really need more than one "shield" (or whatever)/turn of each type for an entire civ. If your civ has a major source you can use more than one unit, but it doesn't get you anything special. The Soviet Union had abundant titanium and they could build entire submarine hulls. It gave the Alpha class a depth advantage, but that's it.

Note to users and staff: UBB numbered list function isn't working correctly.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by don Don (edited August 07, 1999).]</font>

[Ecce Homo]

Copper, bronze and iron could all work as generic metal concerning building materials. As technology advances, the production methods should produce increasingly more metal, maybe according to this model:

Copper: copper deposit
Bronze: copper and tin deposits+labour.
Iron: iron deposit+fuel+labour
Steel: iron deposit+fuel+labour
Alloyed Steel: iron and alloy deposits+fuel+labour

Copper and tin would still be traded after the bronze age, but only as luxury goods.

------------------
The best ideas are those that can be improved.
Ecce Homo

[Maniac]

Don't mind the Culture SE factor when making an immigration model. I'm trying to match the ideas of the Religion thread with those on the SE thread.

Culture will be adapted and it won't affect immigration anymore. Purely determined by Happiness of city/world (, and emigration also determined by Nationalism).

Will post more details later on the SE thread.

Ecce, that's why I said on 8/3

Bauxite, for example, becomes a substitute for iron in the post-industrial economy. Copper is initially a "substitute" for iron, which isn't discovered until later. Just treat both as minor sources of the generalized "iron."

The second aspect, the difference between iron and steel, is really a matter of designing a new type of furnace for refining the metal from ore. It's still just iron as a resource, we're using it better.

Changing the resource type may be an unnecessary complication. Since the tiles are likely to be large (~100 miles) rather than small we can assume that small iron deposits could be located in the same tile. Also, bronze may not be used for swords after iron is developed, but common tools would only be made of iron as larger sources are discovered.

If anything, the discovery of ironworking should make new resources appear. They would be bigger than the little resources that represented copper, lead, and tin necessary for bronze.

Similarly, oil should not be known (except for trivial sites where oil oozed to the surface) until later when profitable uses make somebody think its worth developing a drilling technique.

[Theben]

ember,
I have a similar proposal for growth. It is based mostly on happiness.

Happiness affects everything. It is probably the single most important SE choice. If you've played MOO2, think of the morale bonus given to citizens. Happiness gives a bonus/penalty to pop growth, labor production, trade, how much your citizens will support your foreign/domestic actions in diplomacy, research, etc. For this reason the bonus/penalty should be 1/2 of regular SE choices, about 2% per +1 happiness modifier.

Growth is affected positively by:
happiness
Food surplus
Certain techs-medicine, sanitation, public health, etc. Note that some of these techs add to both happiness (better quality of life) and growth (live longer lives, which also allows more time for having kids)
Certain buildings-Granaries, aqueducts, sewers, hospitals
Possibly fundementalism or a animist/poltheistic religion that stresses pop growth
Random events
(Most SE choices affect happiness, not growth)


Negatives:
negative happiness mods-Rebellion, units dying, SE choices, etc.
Lack of food
Certain techs, notably contraception (which may incidentally increase happiness)
Plagues
Random events
Pollution, including nuke pollution

I had no ideas for villages; yours is good. Immigration & emmigration should be assumed in the rise & decline of your population.

don Don,
While having some resources necessary for construction is okay (or have contruction penalty), I think it should be assumed that wherever a major civ arises it has plenty of quality wood & quarry nearby. Otherwise it would have some serious penalties to overcome. Unless you had some other ideas for balance (start with extra techs, on fertile continent by yourself)?
Or is this for trading commodities only?
Also not having oil, uranium be important until modern times is a good idea.

Gordon, I like your's (and ember's) ideas (posted 8/2).

Gregurabi,
To solve some of your concerns on 8/3, one thing I suggested (others too I believe) in the SE threads is that free-market economies wouldn't have much control over their production, but would get a large ECONOMY bonus, while planned/communal econs would have total or near total control over theirs. This means that only a percent goes to you the player (in FM) trade generated: money goes to private sector, research is partially controlled by you, production as well. BUT you get more trade overall. Also allow multiple builds in a city at one time. Thus, the citizens pay for the buildings they use (almost everything non-military, although you may have to pay if they don't have enough), research non-military techs, and produce more of "their" buildings, trade routes, public works (if used), etc. You only get what you tax for money. You may in emergencies (war) "buy" back these items: research can be changed to military research, you can buy back production to build new units &/or military-style TI's and buildings. Planned/communal economies get all the money/research/production, but less overall. They may assign it wherever they wish, but must pay for everything. Other economies would fall somewhere in-between.
As for "building a church in every city", we are talking about a huge area of land, with a major metropolitan center. It should be building at least one of everything.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited August 09, 1999).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited August 10, 1999).]</font>

[mzilikazi]

Someone on the sidgames site suggested that Civs ought to be able to lend and borrow money between each other. I reproduce my reply here...

"I love the idea of lending and borrowing money from another Civ - it opens up massive new possibilities, and replicates the "power" in the real world today of trading nations like Switzerland or Japan. Imagine a rival wanting to rush build a wonder - you have the cash and can charge exorbitant rates to enable them... how much do they really want to rush build it? Of course, the AI will do the same to you when you are hard up... I love it. Exorbitant rate chargers might attract some negative reputation due to resentment. And what would happen in a war? Would the debt be cancelled - perhaps only if the debtor nation 'won' the war. Wars could actually be started by creditor nations (perhaps paying mercenaries?) to make defaulting debtors restart servicing their loans. Default would be an option - but would be a major diplomatic incident. It would make gold much more important in the dynamics of the game."

[Maniac]

That option exists already in SMAC, so it will certainly be in Civ3.

Egypt had to import timber (of any substantial size); they did have plenty of quarry stone.

Mesopotamia had neither quarry stone nor heavy timber. Even their city walls were made of brick. They just made them 100+ feet thick!

Timber was a big trade item in those days.

[Theben]

Current rules allow for players to "create" forest in normal terraforming, and no one has suggested any limiting factors for foresting, let alone other normal terraforming abilities. So timber would never be a trade item/production limitation as it stands now. You'll have to develop this more to implement it. IMHO.

[ember]

Seems to me that the more complicated a resource model that gets used, the more regionalisation we need to have to compensate for micormanagment.

A system of labour split from resources, and that divided into, metals, fuels and buildign materials, would be a huge burden if the production system is as it is now. If you only have 4-8 regions to manage, instead of 20-60 cities, things are more reasonable.

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

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Timber was a major item of trade from ancient (1500BC and earlier) Egyptian through Roman times, and always for the same reason: only certain timber was suitable for ship building, and it did not grow everywhere. In modern terms, only 'old growth' forests with very tall, very straight timber could be used for keels, masts, and other necessities of the navy.
Which brings up the major factor in trade goods: many of them are limiting factors or requirements for other things we want to do in the game. You cannot build pre-iron ships without suitable timber. You cannot make bronze without tin and copper, or power vehicles, aircraft, and ships with oil and gasoline unless you have petroleum. Until very, very recently, gold and silver were required for finance, because all money was based firmly on those precious metals.
Therefore, two things have to happen in the revised game IMHO:
1. Trade has to be available very early - tin and copper were traded before 2000BC to make bronze, and traded from as far as Cornwall, England to the Mediterranean. One possibility is to have trade available as 'barter' from the start to get needed resources, but with no income until currency or coinage or some other Advance is discovered.
2. Trade goods have to be related specifically to other activities. Some specific examples, taken from history (and some of which already commented on in previous posts):
petroleum = allows development of Greek Fire for 'fire triremes' or enhancements to ships, is modern requirement not only for fuels for internal combustion, automobile, aircraft, and all modern ships, but also raw material for many chemicals, dyes, perfumery, and other modern manufactured Trade Goods.
gold/silver = allows governments to buy all sorts of things, including, in ancient Athens, financing an entire fleet of 200 Triremes! Also provides for major population shifts: look at results of 'gold rushes' in western US, Australia, South Africa, etc in 19th century.
timber = for ship building as mentioned above, was a major strategic concern of any naval power: 18th century France financed 'reforestation' projects to support the navy, and England made a major financial and trade effort to keep on Scandinavia's good side after chopping down her own forests and losing the American colonies (New England's forests were a major strategic asset!). Incidentally, the current ability to replant major forests in CivII should be limited to modern times: Weyerhauser can rebuild a pretty fair lumber source in 20 years, but that's a result of modern genetic research, and still doesn't get you mast timber: that takes much longer even today, and would be a century+ long project earlier.
horses = were not available all over the world in 4000BC! Before you can build any mounted unit, you need to obtain them, so here's another terrain icon to add, along with Elephants, even less widely distributed throughout history.

In short, I'm just scratching the surface here. There are a lot of ways in which trade goods and terrain icons both have to be more precisely related to building units, finances, and advances in the game. As an aside, many of the resources would be generated on the map from the beginning of the game, but not visible to the player until discovered/needed. As stated in another post, most petroleum deposits were not even looked for until petroleum became valuable in the 19th century, and coal was a minor resource until the 18th century, and so not exploited or searched out.

[Theben]

Didorus Sicilus,
The Athenian League...he, he, he...as I remember each member had a choice to contribute money or ships. Everyone but Athens gave money, while they used the money to build ships. When someone wanted to leave the league Athens would send the fleet...

Anyway, about horses as a trade/resource, I disagree that they were a rare resource. Horses originated in the Americas, then migrated to Asia. We know they were in western Europe circa 5000 b.c. by cave paintings, which means that they were likely still in Asia; obviously they were in the Middle East by 1500 b.c. Had horses not been hunted to extinction in the Americas they'd have been quite common and I see no reason why Civ3 must follow history this closely. Indeed, to help civs start out on equal footing (not for historical reasons, but for game purposes) they should remain common. Not having horses is far too great a detriment.

[Maniac]

Hi, I was thinking yesterday about migration of peoples. After a while, I came up with this. I posted it in more than one thread –sorry if it annoys you- cause it covers a lot of areas.

Colonization/Migration

“How to simulate the migration of the ‘barbarian’ people at the end of the Roman Empire?” I asked myself. Cause they were in Civ2 terms some kind of settlers with a big attack and defense.
There should be a unit that represents some migrating people. Good, simply 4-2-1, settlers, one could say. But that would be an expensive unit. But the fact is that migration was unorganized and didn’t require 40 shields. It was instantaneous. In fact, there was never an organized migration of 10000 people, or just 10000 people saying “let’s found another city”.
So I began thinking about something else…

In Civ3 the Terrain Improver/Former could be deleted, well, now I suggest the City Founder unit would also loose much of it’s use until late in the game when planned colonization exists.
I am against automatic city building by the AI as some people suggest. What I suggest is you can point a tile where people may found a city. It may be any square 1) on a continent where there is already a city of yours and 2) not next to another city. All the rest is automatic with a migration system. People will move to that spot gradually if conditions are good.

I think there isn’t a migration system yet, except one based on happiness. I would let it play a much larger part in the game.
The automatic migration system would try to find a balance between labor and resources in a city.
This is to represent unemployment. If there is more labor(people) than resources(work) there is unemployment. And no work means that people migrate to parts where there is more work to do.
If there are more resources(work) than labor(people) there is work available and people migrate to other already existing cities with more resources or they will move to a spot you chose as a new city.
So cities built in large grasslands tracks will not be big cities since there would be large emigration out of the agricultural area without work.
Small cities will always have more resources than labor since they always have N+1 worked squares, where N is the size of the city. But to both solve the ICS problem AND the possible problem that large cities would not be possible since ALL the people would go to new cities, I came up with this.
The city square normally produces the amount of food if the square is irrigated, the amount of minerals with a limit of at least one and one trade if a road would normally produce trade.
I would add the following. If a city reaches two population, it gets for free 20 labor and 20 trade (don’t forget I use the x10 system). If a city reaches size 3, it produces an extra 30 labor and 30 trade in the city square. And so on… The extra bonuses are because in Civ2 a city with size 1 had 10000 people, a city with size 2 30000 and 3 60000… So of course the second population ‘unit’ produces double as much as the first, the thirth triple… or otherwise told the second pop unit produces 20 labor, the thirth 30. And of course a large city means more trade for the same reason; there are more people.
This would solve the ICS problem, since large cities are MUCH bigger production and trade centers as many small ones. I hope I have persuaded guys who would want to reduce the city square production to 0 food, shields and trade. I think my solution solves the ICS problem better since 0-0-0 city square production makes small cities produce too less trade and resources in the beginning and therefore seriously reduces migration to the newly built city.
And because the extra labor is balanced with the extra trade, automatic migration out of a city because there is a large population (much labor in my system) and too less resources compared with the population is impossible. So migration would be totally dependent of the resources of the surrounding terrain, as in reality.
This will represent more accurately the flow of people and the growth of cities in history. In CivX that was represented totally wrong with excess food since most big cities now and in the old days were mostly the big trade cities and some/most of them are were in half desert like terrain.
That would mean a lot more trade, so the game economical system could need some rebalancing. But don’t forget that people have suggested much more uses for gold eg troop support, religion, and if you read on, I suggest gold I also needed for colonization/migration.
So, let me define resources. Although in the Economy/Trade thread it is usually referred to as the replacement of shields, for this case I also count trade as resources.
So the biggest cities will be as in reality the economical cities.
But if you would some trade cities on a Civ2 map, they would have a lack of food eg Palmyra, Petra, Bokhara… So there is need for a general ‘food box’ for the entire empire. I don’t know sure, but I thought it existed in CTP. After all the food is ‘collected’, it becomes distributed over the empire as needed. Perhaps the efficiency of food transport (your SE Corruption/Bureaucracy rate)would also have to do something with how well food is distributed.
For example in a Federal structure with a Bureaucracy bonus food transport would be better than in the Confederate structure. Or if the above isn’t accepted, I insist that food trade routes are automatic and unlimited, so you don’t have to build a 50 shield caravan.

But of course the state has to say something too in migration. However before people are willing to move, they have to be paid a lot. So if you would want to speed up the growth of new cities or if you would want to move people to a food producing area with no other resources (eg a large Grassland track) you would have to pay them. I suggest per population unit 400 (x10!) gold (the price of a settlers in shields).

Population also x10?

I have a suggestion. It isn’t necessary for my migration model to work, but it would make it more precise since migration per 10000 is kinda rude and sudden. If population is also multiplied by 10, the migration model could be more precise. Migration could be more slowly, which is better.
Then you would have to pay only 40 gold for one pop unit.
Popx10 would make it impossible to have a population box as in all civlike games.
I suggest a simple box with the following information.
Happy : 20
Content : 70 + -
Unhappy : 10
Taxmen : 0 + -
Scientists : 0 +-
Entertainers : 0 + -
Rest : 0
So you would have a simple box showing the amount of people that have which happiness level or job.
The +’s and –’s are to switch eg a normal content citizen to an entertainer. For example if you would want to switch a content citizen (you can only make content citizens a special citizen (= taxmen, scientists, entertainers) and only happy citizens special if there aren’t any content ones. Unhappy people you could never makes special) to an entertainer, you click the minus of content. Then there appears automatically 1 (or perhaps 10?) in the Rest. Then click the +.of entertainer.

Recuitment

Doing pop x10 would also make a recruitment system possible, since if you keep the normal pop system, the mobilization of even one pop unit would mean a lot of Riflemen units = unbalancing and unrealistic. If it’s used, then you should not build Musketeers or Riflemen, but Muskets, Spears, Bows or Rifles. They could be stored and don’t require support. Then, in times of war, people could be mobilized, = one population unit disappears from the cities. You could mobilize people as far as you have guns, spears or any weapon in stock. Of course, if the units are killed, they can’t return to the normal city population after the war. This would simulate the loss of population in wars. However conscripted units would have the worst possible morale/experience. If you have Draft or Civil Duty as your SE Army choice, the experience could be a bit higher.

Settlers/Unit Workshop

Settlers should still exist, but they shouldn’t have the same use. First of all, you shouldn’t able to build them for reasons I have already explained. You could only get them if you click the “Migrate” button. Then your city would disband and in that process all buildings in the city would of course also be disbanded. Per 10 population units in the popx10 system, you should get one settlers. You should also be able to give the settlers any weapons you have in stock, eg spears, guns… basically creating something like armed nomads, as Diodorus wants to represents with his Tribe/Nomad ideas he presented several times in the Civilizations thread I think. That Settlers units would follow the same rules as Diodorus presented in his Nomad posts.
So the German population migration can be represented. If horses can also be built on the same way as spears and guns, you could even simulate people like the Huns or Mongols.
What I am suggesting is that in a city every item can be built: shields, chain mail, swords, guns, horses, or in later areas tanks. Then in the unit workshop you could create your army with the available weapons. So in a city you only built equipment, but to form a real army, you have to mobilize a population unit.
That means in peace time you can maintain a small army and in war recruit more units in a short time.
As I said before, mobilized units would have a bad experience/morale level.
To give them better experience, they should stay 3 turns in a city with a Barracks and then they would get 2 experience upgrades. Later in the game there could be a similar building, called Military Academy.

Oversea Colonization

Colonization oversea should require a unit I think. Some Sea Unit looking like a boat of Colombus. It should have a large movement range. And it should be able to move on land. If it moves on land it founds a coastal city. That way you expand oversea. More realistic.

Upgrading units

Upgrading units would be simplier. Just move them in a city, go to the unit workshop and change the item, you would want to change. Upgrading reduces the experience level with one.

Population Growth

As you might have guessed, I totally disagree food production has anything to do with pop growth. Food only is needed to feed the people.
Came up with the following. Not worked out in details, since I am no social historian.
But everybody can guess that population growth is dependent of two factors : the # children a family has and how long people live.
The # of children would be dependent on how many food there are produced since in earlier times children were assumed as working forces(child labor). So the more children a farmer has, the easier for him, the more free working forces he has and the less people he has to employ and pay.
So pop growth still has to do something with food, but indirectly. It should also be affected by your SE Growth or Urbanization factor. The eg Socialism Value would increase the number of children.

With the techology advance of Industrialization also the # of shields/resources would affect your pop growth. Means that suddenly two factors affect pop growth. That could simulate the fast pop growth around the same time of the Industrial Revolution.

The second thing affecting pop growth is how long people live. That should be affected by some techs like Medicine. In general the life expectancy would increase over time if medicine betters. It should also be determined by your SE Environment factor. Living in a polluted country should decrease your life expectancy.

Wow, are you still reading this? As you have read, what I am suggesting solves some problems like ICS plus it also includes some ideas of others like recruitment, nomads, migration…
It could be a real improvement for Civ3.

Goodbye
M@ni@c

[Maniac]

A few remarks on my own post.
I should reduce the trade bonus for large cities to 1/2. Means (x10) :
size 1 : 10 labor
size 2 : 30 labor, +10 extra trade
size 3 : 60 labor, +25 extra trade
size 4 : 100 labor, +45 extra trade
...
And I don't know how CTP Public Works works, perhaps it's better than this, but I suggest that with labor that you have too much, you can build Terrain Improvements.
So PW points = excess labor points. Means another benefit of large cities.

Harel, Bell has a section that will quote the entire post of you. Will you do that too? Cause Firaxis will understand better what I am suggesting if they see it all together, my recruitment, ICS, migration ideas.

[ember]

M@ni@c:

A few points.
Hitorically all major cities are on major rivers or the ocean. Or both.

The village system allows you to have early cities only on these squares and have all the food and resources brought in from the inland and fishing villages.

Happyness can be seen as how much people want to live in a city... In this case it is the biggest factor in immegration/emmigration. Up unitl recently unemployment has not been an issue. Everyone could have some work, even if that was as a labourer or in the fields.

A river/costal city square would give a bonsu to trade and a bonsu to growth, making these very attractive spots for cities.
No food or resources are gathered from theses squares so the resouce formula is N + M, where N is the labour/trade from N city pop, and M is the food/resources from M village pop.

One unit of labour does not neccisarily 'work one unit of resources' It depends on what you are building.
Ancient units are an even mix, modern units require more labour than ancient.
NAval units require more resources than land.
Improvments require lot's of resources.
Spy's, etc. require only labour.

I have proposed 'fractional pop points'.
These would allow a city to grow and recruit as you describe, but keep the simplicity of having less than 200 specialists to keep track of...

I believe that a straight recruitment system is needlesly complicated, but if you build units as normal and if the unit is killed have a certain amount of pop removed from it's home city. The nation as a whole should provide for the support, but the home city would take the pop hit. Max units suppoted = 2-5 x pop. Play balance decides this.

To upraged units I agree, move them in a city, say upgrade, x gold and y turns later They are the next class of unit better.



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

[Maniac]

Yes indeed oceans and rivers are a good place for cities.
Why?
Cause they're a good means of transport.
What can be transported?
Things that can be traded.

So cities weren't just built near oceans cause that meant a nice view. No, they were built cause oceans is good for transport ergo good for trade.
However there aren't everywhere on the world rivers and oceans. For example to go to China you have to pass through dry terrain.
So there came important trade cities not built near oceans, eg Petra, Palmyra and Bokhara.

So it's not the neighbourhood of water that makes cities good trade cities. It's the neighbourhood of trade routes.

Telling that all coastal squares give a trade and growth bonus is wrong and inaccurate.
First of all, then you're assuming that EVERY coastal city is good in trade. Dead wrong!
Second, then you're assuming that all inland cities are worse in trade. Dead wrong!

It's just too simplified to give every coastal city a bonus.

I suggested something wàààày back that now can be re-used.
All trade routes are visible on the map. Of course to limit the amount of information on the map it could be toggled off, Shift [T]rade eg.

The trade route runs from the origin city to the destination city along the fastest possible way. Means if ocean is faster than over land, there's a trade route along the coast (traders don't dare to sail in open sea). That way coastal cities could have profit and trade.
Same if the shortest way is over land.
Of course rivers fasten the speed of travel, so cities built near rivers are more likely to receive trade routes.
Roads also fastens travel time, so if you build a good road system in your empire, your economy will profit.
For every trade route that passes a city square of you, you get one (or ten if x10 used) extra trade.
So if a trade route would enter your city radius SouthWest and leaves the radius North East while entering your city square, you get 5 extra trade icons.
If it would enter South West, go to the city square and than goes straight Nord to leave the city radius, it would mean 4 extra trade.
Of course several trade routes can follow the same way and can go to the same squares.
So if there are cities where very much trade routes pass, it would get a huge amount of trade.
That way eg Palmyra, Petra and Bokhara would be great trade cities since all the trade routes to the east pass there.

So, as in reality, not only the origin and destination cities would get a trade bonus, also all the cities between them lying in the neighbourhood of the trade route.

This is a very easy system.
There is nothing really new to program.
The game can already seek the fastest way for a unit to go to a place, so it can certainly find the fastest way for trade routes.
The only new thing Firaxis would have to program is : +1 trade to every square where a trade route passes.
Voilà, I have just said how to make trade in Civ3 as realistic as possible.

M@ni@c