REGIONAL MENU & CITY MENU IDEAS - hosted by Shining1

[Shining1]

HanS,

Not too complex, but a little vague. You obviously have some good ideas here, along the lines of progressive regionalization, some more details would be nice, however, for me to include your suggestions in the 1.2 list.

Otherwise, chalk up another hit for progressive regions.

[EnochF]

The gist of this thread seems to be that regions are going to be nothing more than "groupings" of cities which can be collectively controlled.

In my mind, this is scarcely an improvement over the current state of things.

For there to be a real improvement, regional management must transcend cities. There must be an acknowledgement that individual city management is something that cannot be dictated by the supreme leader of a nation, and so we must, in a sense, limit the control of the nation to regions.

Here is how regions could be made a superior alternative to cities: Regions can be any shape and can include a number of tiles up to 60 (or some other number, based upon play-testing, maybe 75). This can include ocean no more than 2 tiles from shore. Every one of the tiles in a region can be worked by a member of its collective population. Improvements are built by the region in a "region screen" which resembles the current city screen. Each region must contain at least 3 former cities and no more than 10. The largest of these former cities becomes the "capital" of the region. This city becomes marked by a star with a circle around it, and clicking on the capital gives one access to the region screen. Terrain improvements are built via a public works system, and can be built on any tile in the region.

Any members of the cities' excess population (who are probably automatically designated entertainers or other specialists) can be transferred to work tiles outside the city radii but inside the region. Eventually every tile in the region may be worked, including large mountain ranges, expansive deserts and tundra, and there will still be excess population to provide entertainment, taxes and science.
Also, every tile within the region can be engineered or terraformed, meaning those large deserts can be made verdant again. (In the interests of realism, I might also suggest a longer time-span for radical land engineering changes, such as glacier-to-tundra, tundra-to-desert, etc.) With such control over large patches of the Earth's surface, it would make much more sense to preserve forest and jungle squares for environmental reasons.

The geographical mode of management is determined by a civilization's government. Anarchies, tyrannies, dictatorships, monarchies and republics are governed city-by-city. Democracies, communist states, fascist states, fundamentalist states, technocracies and other such higher forms of government manage by regions.

The difficulty then becomes how to manage the "transitions" from city management to regional management. If you wish to form a region that includes the city radii of six cities, and only three of the cities have a temple, should the region have the equivalent of a temple in every city? I believe this can be managed behind the scenes by the computer simply pooling all the resources of each individual city, then adding in all the extra resources of regional tiles and government bonuses. Thus, a region would ultimately have the collective equivalent of three temples working upon a combined population. You would then have the option of building a "regional church system" which would provide the equivalent of a temple in every city, and the cost of such a system would be diminished due to the presence of the three preexisting temples. From the computer's point of view, the cities would still exist as independent entities, but from the point of view of the interface, they would not.

There are probably a number of unforeseen difficulties that will crop up in the system I've described, so I'd like to hear people's reactions.

[EnochF]

Er, another point. Let's put this in Alpha Centauri terms for a second. Effectively, your civilization would encompass every tile within your borders.

Now, at any time, the borders of your regions may become disputed, if another nation claims a tile currently being worked by a citizen outside of a city radius but within your borders. This would be an act of war. In order to claim a tile, you would have to position a military unit there and then make a claim, then position a citizen of your region on that tile.

Building cities within your regions would not be impossible in this system. Settlers can still be produced on a region-by-region basis. As long as that part of the region currently contains enough tiles not part of any other former city radius, then a new city will appear. It will effectively be a part of the region and can be managed as such. As soon as you build this new city, you will then have to rebuild your region-wide improvements (but in a streamlined manner and much faster than the city could build those improvements on its own). Effectively, this would build improvements in the small city, but with the collective building power of the entire region. A temple in one turn (called "regional church system"), a marketplace in another turn (called perhaps "regional business network"), a harbor in the next, etc. Or perhaps giving each improvement an equivalent "region name" is silly and pointless, so you would simply build a "regional marketplace."

The extent of regions could not exceed the current borders of the civilization. One could not, for example, claim a tile which is ten tiles distant from your nearest city because it has a tempting resource on it. In Alpha Centauri, I believe borders effectively reach 3 or 4 tiles beyond your city radii, or less if a foreign civilization is near. Claiming regional land would be limited to squares within your borders. The only way to expand your borders will remain building cities, but individual city management will still disappear.

Whew. Anyway, I'll check here in the morning to see what people think of all this...

[ember]

My idea had all production control striped away from cities to the region.
Cities act as military and population centres
It saves you from having to capture EVERY square in a region, you just capture the cities.

I had an idea that region sizes grow over the course of the game (city size in ancien, medium in medeaval, national in modern)

It would be nice to have a more flexable city radius. Maybe you can relocate any overlapping city squares to a unused but adjastet square no more than 4 squares away?
then you don't have to worry about the awkward shpe of the city radii as much...

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

[Shining1]

Interesting. EnochF, Ember, you both seem to answer each other's questions. Ember's idea for capturing cities negates the need to steal individual tiles. And Enoch's idea for working within your own borders already includes the expanded city limits. Or rather, regional borders, since it seems there will still need to be more than one region.

A question for everyone:

* What is the optium level of mircomanagement per turn, say in terms of cities. I find 8 cities are no problem to manage, 12 is okay, 20 starts to cause problems, and 30+ just gets tedious.

[ember]

Yes, I also find 8 -12 cities is good. FOr regions we probably would want to have 4 - 6, because they will take more micromanaging than an induvidual city.

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

[ember]

THis thread seems to be going into decline.
DOn't let the ideas get lost!

Resources are a funny concept in civ.
A shield can represent either a resource or labour depending on what is in you city.
Maybe this should be split up.
Resources come from the terrain. Wood from forests, metals from hills/mountains, oil and coal from resource squares in desserts/swamps the ocean or wherever. More advanced mines/lumberyards give more per turn. Depending on play balnce issues this could be just one abstract type, or subdivided into the different classes of materials.

Labour comes from your population.
Each pop. point produces a certain amount of labour, modified by government, tech and improvments (like factories). Pop points not devoded to gathering produce double or more labour.

Resources are freely shiped throughout you empire (or within a region), and can be shiped between regions on trade routes of some type. Resources are stored for when they are needed, but reserves decay over time, maybe ~5% a turn. Resources can be sold to other empires or abstractly like capitalization. Resources can also be bought abstractly at a hefty premium, or from other civs.

Labour cannot be moved from it's city/region, and cannot be saved.
All units/structures require a certain amount of each component.
Ancient units tend to require a higher ratio of resorces/labour than modern units.
( a legion and a musketter unit might have the same amount of iron in tehm, but much more workmanship is required to make the muskets)
Infantry are less resource intensive than other unit types. Ships are the most resource intensive.
This, combined with the regional sharing of resouces will allow people to develop production centers seperate from the mining areas.
Food from agricultural cities (all pop devoted to resource gathering) is sent to the bigger cities to support industry (only the best squares are gathered, or could have lots of overlap with the resource gathering centers, most pop is devoted to labour) and mining comunities (all pop devoted to resource gathering, but in forested/hilled areas) Production from the industrail centers is used to build infrastructure for all areas, and military units.

This could lead to different war strategies, such as a civ with only one major mountain and hill chain. Attampt to capture their resource producing area and force them to devote lots of their money to try and aquaire resouces from elsewhere.
Or siexe their oil cities and dissalow them from building tanks and ships cheaply.

In Canada, for example, most mining is in the north, on the shield and norhtern alberta, but the bulk of the industrial production is in southern ontario, which is basically grassland. The bulk food production is in the plains, and some in southern ontario/quebec.



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

[Gregurabi]

I like ember's suggestions, to a certain degree. Micromanagement can become a chore in Civ2 and other games -- it's better in CTP, but it can still use some improvement.

I don't really like the idea of regions as a game concept. If there need to be regions, then they should NOT be defined by the computer, and they should not be static. If regions are to be useful, then the player must decide what set of cities and/or tiles constitutes a region.

Production still has to occur at a city level as long as the Civ1/Civ2/CTP paradigm of city improvements is retained. (I have some conceptual and game play issues with city improvements, but I'll save them for later.) You can't build temples at the regional level, for example -- if the region has 7 cities, which one gets the temple's benefit?

I also don't see any advantage of letting the player make cities into carbon copies of each other. Why would I want to build the same thing in all of my cities, or even a large number of them which happen to be close together? Assuming a Civ1/Civ2/CTP-style production model, each city would have a dramatically different production rate, and the benefits of city improvements would be different between them. (City A might be large and would require an Aqueduct (either to overcome a Civ2-style size ceiling or to negate CTP-style overcrowding penalties), whereas City B might be just fine with its happiness/size, but might have enough trade income to justify a Bank. I treat my cities as individuals.) So, making regions into a "mass change" feature would not please me.

However, I do like the concept of differentiating resources (and separating resources from labor). And I add this idea: like CTP's public works, let resources and food be put into a national pool. If the mines of City C produce 9 units of iron per turn, and a cannon requires 3 units of iron and 30 units of labor (just to make up some numbers), then the mines of City C would supply enough raw material to produce 3 cannons per turn in the factories of Cities D, E and F -- if I can supply the labor. Meanwhile, the farms of Cities G and H can produce, say, 32 units of food per turn, which might be enough to feed all of my empire (Cities A through H). Of course, Cities A-C, G-H might also be building things with their own labor even as they supply food and resources to Cities D-F, depending on how closely we continue to follow the Civ1/Civ2 model.

This would change how food is handled. Instead of having a local food surplus, the nation's food would be averaged out over all cities. This would generally eliminate starvation in all cities (but in the event of global disaster such as global warming, could mean your whole empire starves). In terms of game-play, this seems desirable, and in later years (after discovering refrigeration, railroads) it makes great sense. In earlier years, it may be slightly unrealistic -- food handling and storage and transportation technologies are inadequate and would mean some food would rot before getting to its destination. But this could be rationalized in game terms by giving a bonus upon the discovery of certain techs (e.g., refrigeration) -- similar to what Civ2 does.

On a related note, I don't believe that the birth rate (or better, population growth rate) should be a function of excess food. The United States produces more food than we need to feed ourselves, but we don't have a skyrocketing population. The excess food is either sold to other countries or goes to waste. The population growth rate should be determined by health factors (contraception or the lack thereof, longevity due to medical care), social factors (overcrowding, women's rights, religious tenets), economic factors, etc. But this touches on the whole concept of "population points" which the Civ games rely on so heavily, so really belongs in another thread....

[Gregurabi]

There absolutely, positively MUST be a build queue in Civ3. Look at CTP (especially after the 1.1 patch which allows items to be inserted into arbitrary points in the queue) for the proper design. (But let Capitalization and Infrastructure, if they're retained, be put into the queue just like other items. Duh!)

The other CTP interface improvement that Civ3 will need is the interactive City Report. (This is what you get when you press F1.) I use this feature more than any of the other game reports because it's so flexible -- you can click a column header to sort the list by that column (and it is, or should be, a stable sort, so the list remains sorted by your previous selection if any, in the event of a tie), and click again to reverse the sort.

The biggest headache of Civ2 (after getting nuked by the AI) is when cities require attention. At the beginning of every turn I have to go to any city that's causing trouble (or which has finished something, because there's no queue), in whatever order the game decides I must go to them. I can decline to visit a city at that particular moment, but then I have to try to remember to go back there -- and I can't sort the city report by happiness or whatever to quickly find the cities I need to visit. In CTP, I can postpone city management until whenever I am ready for it, and I can quickly do what needs to be done, because I can see all my cities in one report, rather than zooming in to one city at a time and then trying to figure out how it fits in to the global picture.

However, there is still room for improvement in the city report of CTP. For instance, I can't tell at a glance how many specialists (entertainers, especially) my cities have -- for that, I still have to visit cities sequentially. No matter how much Firaxis improves the city report, in fact, it will always have such drawbacks -- some player somewhere will want to see information which isn't there.

Therefore, I would dearly love to be able to build custom report screens with a REAL scripting language (or even a shared object compiled with a C compiler and linked against a Civ3 library if it comes to that -- just make sure you don't use the Win32 API, because when we Linux users (or the Mac users, etc.) get the game ported we won't have that API). I want to be able to produce a custom report, covering any conceivable bit of information the game is willing to divulge to me (where every one of my units is located, the top 5-10 cities of the world, how many temples I have and where they're located, my relative demographic rating in years of military service, EVERYTHING). I want to be able to bind this to an arbitrary keystroke sequence and/or mouse selection/button. I want to be able to put usable widgets on it (with callback functions that can perform any legal game action, such as generating another report, changing production orders, changing unit orders, changing empire settings, performing diplomatic actions, sending profane messages to other players -- ANYTHING the client program is legally allowed to do). And of course this should be a full-powered programming language, with both local and global variables, recursive functions, arrays, user-definable "struct"-like data types, dynamic memory allocation, etc. Garbage collection and object-oriented features are optional, since I can get by just fine without them.

Basically, I want what SLIC should have been, not what it turned out to be. But if I can't have that, then I'll settle for being able to add new columns to the city report, and being able to find my Lawyer units when I need them.

[ember]

I agree that regions should be hand selected. In the early game only a couple cities could form a region, in the mid game 5-10 cities, and in the late game whole continetns - your whole empire.

I think you have a misunderstanding of what I have in mind for a region.
I would focus all production on the region, but the various structures would still have a physical location.

In your example, when you finsih a temple, (and various other things, not liminted to one per turn) a deployment list comes up, and you choose which city you want your temple in.

Regions would allow cites to be LESS cookie cutter like than before, by allowing them to specialize without crippiling them.
(a farming center could have virtually no production, but the region would build it's granary, temple, supermarket, etc for it.)

A production centre might not even harvest in a single square, like NYC, or Tokyo

Some improvments, like a stock exchange would only be needed in one city per region.

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

[ember]

Divorcing growth from food.

Growth should depend on happiness, government, tech, infrastructure and location.

Food has a strong influence on happiness.
All food is pooled and distributed to a nuetral happiness level automatically. (losses to to bad transport can happen)

The happiness neutral level of food corresponds to current slow groth, maybe 2.2 food / person.
Having more than this much food slightly increases happines and hence growth.
having less decreases happines. At a certain level (~1.5 food/ person) starvation begins. Happiness penalties are SEVERE and pop losses are inevitable.

Inventions like contraception will slow growth rate slightly, but they will also allow you to slow it dramatically where popultion has started to outstrip food supply.

This idea allows the modern phenomina of overcrowding. The population will grow well past the point of sustinablility and then begin to collapse, but with riots and probably revolts in long term starving cities.

Aquatducts/ hospitals increase growth
Cities near oceans and on rivers have bosted growth.
cities by mountains and desserts are reduced.

Other ideas:

Surplus food (over 2 / person) is stored in the grannary. The number of turns of spare food gives the happines bonus (and the minimum time for a full siege) Food decays at a rate of 10-20% a turn, to prevent near infanite stores. Modern refrigiration techs/ canning might slow this.

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

[Shining1]

Another idea: Moving whole cities.

Suggest including it as a build option, like infrastructure, etc, based on the population of the city. With a geometric increase in cost, because you can't honestly move New York away anytime (say set a limit to the population of around 8 - before you need infrastructure to support extra population).

Call this construction "Exodus", a similar option to Capitalisation. An Exodus will allow your entire city to be moved anywhere within the current limits of that city on the turn it is built. The reasons for using such a feature are obvious to anyone who has played CivII, but include:
* Obvious overlap with another city (esp on arcipeligos)
* "Blind" placement, where you find a much better spot after doing some exploring.
* Accidental placement, like the above, but where a better option is obvious, you just missed it (thus it should be very cheap for size 1 cities, and relatively affordable for size 2-4 ones (say 10 shields per population).

Finally, an exodus should give you the option of joining two cities together, when they are within each other's city limits.

NOTE: The next version of this thread will simply be called 'CITIES AND REGIONS 1.2 - etc', and will include issues such as the resource model, founding cities, ICS, etc, hopefully overlapping with other threads where these also occur. Thus, these issues can be discussed generally and with specific regard for citys themselves.

Shining1

[ember]

moving cities is good.
Myabe the it should take not production but time.
say 5 turns/pop to move 1 square. this prepresents the city council forcing all new construction to be in the new area, while old buildings (granaries are only going to last ~50 years at most, even if you don't specifically build a new one, that's what maint. cost represents)

What about moving the city radius. Move up to 4 squares that overlap on other city radii into an area adjastent to the normal city radii, that no other city can gather from... requires RR advance)

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

[Theben]

*BUMP*

[Theben]

This is the 1st time I've posted here, not including the bump, so please forgive if I cover old ground.

Specialists:

I must mention that I oppose citizen specialists as they are now because to switch them in reality takes much longer. I have another proposal.
1) Slider bars that represent the total pop of the city; with worker, merchant, scientist, and clergy as the only citizens types. Clergy replace the "elvii".
2) The structures you have in the city will both determine how many of the people can become these "specialists", as a percentage, and the rate that they will switch. These include marketplaces, banks, etc. for merchants; libraries, universities, for scientists, and temples, you get the idea. Technology may also be a factor. Writing & Literacy for scientists, FE. SE choices may also affect this. Workers are considered the standard and have no structures.
3) You move the slider bar to the percent citizen makeup you wish your "specialists" to be, up to the current limit. The level stays put for that turn. Each following turn, the % of citizens employed in that field increases, based on your buildings, tech, and SE choices.
4) Workers are exempt from the above. When increasing workers, the shift is immediate. This is because their jobs often require minimal training. You can switch back w/o penalty until you end turn. Then their new jobs are set.
5) Workers are also split into 2 types: rural & urban. Urban workers add labor to production, while rural workers are on the tiles outside the city square and bring in the food, resources, and raw trade goods (this is loosely based on the "village" idea).
6) These originally only affect their respective areas(labor, money, science). Later techs & SEs may give them other areas of influence (like SMAC) and greater influence in their own areas. Note that rural workers may also get later benefits.
2 questions:
Should non-workers cost the city more money (IMHO no; the extra cost is paid for by the populace)?
Should more non-workers add to the city's happiness level (more well-fed well-paid middle class types. I can go either way on this one)?

My thoughts on the city menu:

You have your standard window. Like civ2 and unlike SMAC (and like any normal MS window) it can be moved aside to view the map beneath.

TOP EDGE:
At the very left is a toggle with 3 choices: food, production, and trade. This tells the AI where to put your people in the event of sudden growth or decline in city pop. Each can have it's own priority level, or none or only one can (food is the default). In the event of a tie the AI will choose the tile that gives you the greatest overall resources, if all are equal it's the one closest to your city (due to supply loss from distance). The AI will also switch if your settlers/public works alter a tile to increase or otherwise change the output.
In the middle you have the standard citizen icons. You will be able to tell their culture by their race & dress (this image should include a face and upper torso) based on the various civs. Over their heads there will be a symbol denoting each citizen's religion, which are not always the same as their culture (after mingling for a while).
Just to the right of these will be the city's HAPPINESS indicator, the importance of which I described in the SE threads (Aug. 9 or thereabouts). This gets rid of the necessity of happy/content/unhappy citizens, and reduces the amount of citizen icons.
On the far right is the necessary outside info, such as turn/year, total money in treasury, City name, etc.

TOP:
On the far left is the big 3: Growth (not food, food is now a factor of growth), production, and trade. Above these there will be the % modifiers currently affecting each category. The growth indicators can be smiling little baby heads instead of bushels of wheat. With negative growth the heads are frowning with x's for eyes.
In the middle, is the city radius, showing which squares are worked. Instead of counters (civ2) each square has a number (like SMAC). This number will be x10 of the number's used in civ2/SMAC but costs will also be about x10(kudos to Maniac). This allows fine-tuning of modifiers to these resources. The city radius will not be used if villages are used. Maybe a small city view instead.
Far right has the city's stores. This includes saved food, money, the city's total unused research points, and production. Food & production will be subject to deterioration over time. If the city is captured, this food, money and production is also captured, and the research is lost. A little of each may escape to a nearby city of the same civ, or to an allied city if there are no available cities of that civ nearby. Next turn the civ will return the supplies, with deterioration & distance reductions, subject to piracy, etc. If a city is under siege and cut off from the capital, it may only use what are in it's stores if it needs extras, and the research isn't applied until the siege ends. Note that an empire split in half may combine the resources of the connected cities only, the SUPPLY grid will determine if cities are connected. However, only the research points connected with the capital are counted towards actual research, until re-connected. In the event of a successful rebellion, part of the research is lost but most of it goes to the new civilization, which may give it more techs if enough research has been saved.

THE MIDDLE:
On the left is support like we all know, with the exception that all have varying food, production, and money costs. Also any modifiers to support will be shown here.
The center shows the growth rate of the city, and # of turns until it will grow. The total food allocated to growth will be displayed; also everything that affects growth will be broken down here.
Right side shows all the items under construction. These will be shown as small windows with only the unit/building name in it, turns until completion, and another button in it to increase the production rate (see below). a 2nd button will allow you to set the production in this button to auto; this will set it to produce what is in your queue for that button only. If no queue has been built then it will default to your auto preferences that would be selected in the PREFERENCES screen or in a .txt file. There should be several types of auto-queues; the "governor" selections in SMAC are a good start. Now, if you click on the name of the item it will enlarge the window to show the picture of the item, actual # of production already allocated to production and the amount needed to complete it, as well as a unit workshop button and another "increase production rate" button. It will also show if this item is under your control or being built by your people (under strong FREE MARKET SE's). There will be an option to "purchase" the construction points back from your people, in an emergency (i.e. you need them for war units). The smaller windows allow for several items to be under construction at the same time.
The increase production rate is done by buying "extra" shields. The max you can buy is based on the amount of production normally allocated per turn. FE, an item has 7 shields added to it per turn. At a cost of, say, 2 coins each you can increase it to 14/turn. The max you can multiply it by is x3/turn. To increase production from x2 to x3 costs even more from x1 to x2. If enough money is allocated then the additional purchasing power will carry over until next turn. This means that x3 is assumed with enough money, and the extra is applied as x2 next turn until that is maxed, then x3, then the next turn, etc. In addition there would be no difference in cost buying units or buildings. This cost isn't affected by tech (tech adds production instead, so tech does affect this but not directly) but IS affected by SE choices. The more totalitarian a civ is the lower the increased costs. This will eliminate sudden purchases (which IMHO are unrealistic) & add to the benefits of having some large cities instead of several small ones.

BOTTOM:
At left are all the structures that the city has built. Next to these are the buttons to sell the structures, and the damage indicators to each set of buildings. Now I envision a system similar to Birth of the Federation, where planets(cities) had multiple buildings each, with added effects. "Damage indicators" I've explained in other threads such as CITY IMPROVEMENTS & OTHER. Above the damage I's will be the city's free repair rate, also explained in those threads.
The middle has all the units in the city, which I feel needs no explanation.
Far right bottom corner has the change city name, maps, view city (if used), etc. ala civ2. The happiness button breaks down how your city is affected by the various modifiers.

Done!

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited August 11, 1999).]</font>

[Theben]

Doh! I forgot to include space for the specialist bars. I guess they should take up a space above the construction section. This should still leave enough room for many items. Also the construction section needs stuff:

1) When opening the small window into the larger one, there should be a box to indicate how much prodution you wish to allocate there.
2) It should also allow you to scroll up/down to other choices, like civ2, or double-click on the pictured item to get an even larger window showing all items, like SMAC.

A disease indicator is necessary. This should be in the growth rate box.

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited August 11, 1999).]</font>

[ember]

My take on the city window. This assumes (Regions / Deployment / Villages / split resources and labour) are implimented.

LEFT SIDE OF SCREEN: City stats

Very top
City Name, pop x.xxx (yyyyyy), Rate of growth zz.z%, q turns to next full pop point.

x is pop points, y is the number of induviduals calculated from x. y = 5000 x^2 - 1250.
z is the growth rate in hundredths of a pop point per turn.

upper area
Specialists box. has a spot to set the ratio that new pop is sent to the field for every pop kept in the city if you don't keep track yourself. Also the Happyness indicator.
[i]Has icons for all the workers (peasents/workers/middle class) and various scientist / merchant / happy guy / soldier support guys(who count as workers for all other purposes)[/b]

middle
lists: stores
FOOD: 124 (+25) Grannary: 243 (-17)
food recieved / surplus then stored / decay
RESOURCES: 89 (-6) GOLD: 156 (+14)
resources stored / net loss or gain after decay, gold in city / net loss or gain per tuen. These numbers only matter in a siege, when a city is forced to be it's own region, or when captured.

then raw production
LABOUR: 160, 70 * 2.00 + 20
GOLD: 42
SCIENCE: 55
SUPPORT: 24
list the total output of it's citizens followed by the raw output and multipliers and bonuses colour coded by source.

lower area
left side, lists city improvments, and HP left/HP max.
right side, a list of all improvments that are currently in the regional queue and targeted for this city, and how many turn they are expected in.

bottom
List all units on left, and all units that are in the process of deploying to/from thsi city.


RIGHT SIDE OF SCREEN: Regional stats

very top
Capital name, pop x.xxx (yyyyyy), Rate of growth zz.z%

x is pop points in the region, including villages, y is the sum of the coalculated induviduals, and z is the total growth per turn.

upper area
idicator for overall happyness and village/city ratios and slider for dividing prodcution between units/improvments/woders/capitalization. As well as a spot to buy additional production for one area.
Lists totals of all cites various production counts.

center
Small map of the region, with the city currently viewd highlighted, on left, on right a list of all cities in the region.

lower area
Toggle area includes wonder in production
only one at a time per region
unit queue, improvment queue, place to set unit and improvment priorities.
for units and improvments, the player sets the build priorites for various unit types and structures, given in a ratio of number built to number built of all others. The computer then sets up a 8-16 spot build queue (with turn of completion and destination of each item listed). The player can modify this queue as they wish, incuding the destination. Whenever the priorities are modified, so is the queue. Items in each list are built sequentially, with multiple completions per turn allowed. When a region has no place to put improvments, the priority is temporarily set to 0.
terrifoming settings.
set the priority on building farms, roads, RR, highways, mines, terraform by enginners stationed in the reserves in the region.

Botom area
Lists all units in the reserves in the region (not placed at a specific location.) as well as destination for each unit (none means it isn't going to get deployed)
Deployment occurs from this screen. All new built units are placed in the reserves unitl they can be deployed. Enginnering type units in the reserves cost full maint, but they can build farms/mines/improve paths/terriform while there, in fact this is the only place to do so. Millitary units stationed in the reserves have reduced maint. costs, but take a full turn to deploy, ehre they are velnerable. Units can be sent to the reserves of neighboring regions as well, or deployed to any city or bse in the region and any appropriate ships stationed within a certain range (like carriers)

More thougts
Some of these panes may have to be made into toggles, depending on screen size.
I agree with alot of Theben's suggestions, this assumes different consepts incopirated. Villages locations and future terraform loccations are set by 'flagging' on terrain view toggles in the main map.
One idea that would be good to incprirate to any Automation suggestion is the idea of priorities. These allow you to not just say, to the auto build - build tanks and infantry as well as buildings, but say, build 1 tank for every two infantry and 2 econ structures for every science one.


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

"to / or \ slash, that is the question"
-me
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by ember (edited August 11, 1999).]</font>

[Theben]

2 more buttons, a martial law button & a CE (civilization effects) button.

The martial law button basically changes the city (only) from a more free political SE (republic, democracy) to a more totalitarian one (police state, etc.). If a totalitarian govt. declares martial law then it gets a large bonus to it's POLICE rating.

A button that shows how the various civilization effects (social effects in SMAC) +technology+ the building's effects add together to effect the city.

Not sure where they should go; just stick 'em in there somewhere.

[Shining1]

Excellent work.

[Maniac]

Theben, I suggest that the martial law makes all citizens content for ten turns, similar to what nerve stapling does in SMAC.
You could only declare martial law if you have a positive or a 0 police rate.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by M@ni@c (edited August 19, 1999).]</font>

[Theben]

Maniac, I never really liked the nerve stapling. It was just too easy to do with too few side effects; also it had a very standard effect no matter what city it was used in. Thats' why I proposed this alternative. I have no objections to your idea if "nerve stapling" is kept; I'd just rather see it not kept.

[ember]

I'll give a summary of my region/city/production/growth/terrain ideas as an integrated system.

This system encompasses villages, regions, split labour and resources, fractional pop growth, and is intended to be used with CLAS-D combat.

CITIES

Cities represent the industrial, economic, population and military centres in a nation.

All citizens in cities are some form of specialist, even if it is "serf."
All economy and labour are produced in cities. All population growth occurs in cities.

All food and resources are produced in villages. Villages are population points that have been moved from the cites to surrounding tiles. Villages use some food to support themselves, and send the rest of the food and all resources to the region, to be distributed among the cities.

Labour is the work needed to build things. It must be used immediately.
Resources are what things are built out of. They can be stored. Stores of resources and surluss food "decay" at a rate governed by SE and structures and tech. 5 to 20 % a turn, to prevent loopholes that would alow people to stave off sieges indefinatly. You can only stave off a siege as long as your food and resources hold out.

Cities would get a happyness bonus depending on how many turns worth of food are stored. If there is a shortfall happiness takes a big penalty. In a siege a city surrenders when it would have food riots. Cities under siege are considered a region of one city and no villages.

This is the "village system model." It requires approximately 2 times as many population points as normal. You set a ratio of village to city for each region, and the new population is divided between the two areas. You can set "flags" to tell where you want new villages to form, or let the AI do it.

REGIONS

A region is a area that can easily share resources...

In ancient times a region would be approximately the size of a current city.
As time progresses the size increases in both number of cities and land area allowed.
A city sized region using these rules will be very similiar to a current city.

In a region is based on with cities it includes. Borders are drawn between regions. All villages in the region pool their resources and excess food. Efficiency depends on tranportation infrastructure. The food is distributed to all cities on a need basis, extra is used to increase happiness, (and thereby population growth). Resources are stored in cities, but the actual location only matters when regions are redrawn or cities captured.

Each city has to have its own structures, with a few exceptions (stock exchanges).
In the regional menu there are four catergories where all labour from the region can be divided. All building is done by the regional menu. Details can be found on the layout can be found earlier in this thread. There are some limits based on SE choices. Resources are used for building as needed and available.

Resource uses are:

WONDERS: Only one wonder can be produced at a time. The location is set when building is started.

CAPITALIZATION: The Labour --> Money rate depends on SE and economic structures in the region. Resources can be sold independently of cities, or traded.

UNITS: Labour is used to build units. All new units are placed in reserve, and can be "deployed" the same turn. Explained later.

The units list is a build queue. Items can be directly added or the AI can build a list based on priorities you assign each unit type. The priority of a unit is a ratio of how many of that type to build to how many of each other type. If armour has priority 3 and mech inf 2, then 3 armour will be built for every 2 mech inf, over the long term.

IMROVEMENTS: Similiar to units. When all cities in a region have a structure the priority is counted as 0, so no more are built. The destination city is chosen by the AI, and can be changed by the player.


VILLAGE PLACEMENT

Villages can only be established adjacent to existing ones and within your borders.
Borders only extend into shallow water, usually 1 square, or 2 max.
Coastal villages, while really on land are represented at sea in a coastal square. Ships can only attack coastal villages, only the one that is represented by the square they are on.

MOVING VILLAGES

moving a village takes as long as it does to 'deploy' a unit. In this time no resources are produced, but it feeds itself.

DEPLOYMENT

All new units are placed in the reserves. Other units can be sent there also. Each turn you can deploy units to cities/bases/certain ships in the region. You can also send units to other region's deploy lists. The units cannot defend or be used until the next turn, but can be destroyed. Units in the reserve list cost less to maintain than deployed troops. This is the only way to move air and missile units.

Terraform units can normally only build forts, bases, and other transport and military TI's. When they are placed in the reserves they can build farms, irrigation, mines and other economic, terraforming and transport TI's, anywhere within the region. This prevents players from using their former types anywhere not near their population, except as combat engineers. It also makes them less vulnerable to airstikes. They still can take damage when cities are hit.

POPULATION

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 growth rates to be expressed 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. To simulate casualties of war, lose 0.001 pop per HP lost by units supported by the region.

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 growth of 40 turns.

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

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

I have made use of a "happiness 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%
Happiness : + 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 happiness - civ happiness) / Y. Y depends on SE and the overall level of transportation available. In cty immigation tends to have larger volume than between civs.

between civs migration = (city happiness - world happiness) / Z. Z depends on SE and transport of all players. For this calculation government types can influence the happiness 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)

TERRAIN

First step is determine the form of the terrain. Form never changes during the course of the game.
These are:
Deep ocean
Ocean shelf
Glacier
Mountain.

Flat
Hills
Major Rivers

Navigable rivers cannot be in hills, so to keep things simple they will be their own landform. Otherwise it is basically the same as flat.
Flat terrain gives a food bonus, hills have a defensive bonus and allow mines.

Vegetation:
Vegetation can only be applied to the last 3 landforms. The first 4 do not support vegetation types.


Plains
Grassland
Taiga (Evergreen Forest)
Boreal Forest
Rain Forest
Tundra
Desert
Swamp

Combinations to note:
hill + grasland = plateau
river + grassland = flood plains, the most fertile standard terrain type.
flat + grassland = no irrigation reguired.
taiga + hills = shield, like the canadian shield or siberia. This is the best resource producing terrain.
swamp + hills, acts as fresh water lakes, these cannot be changed to anything else. (just as a place keeping way of programming it)

Landform cannot be changed by your engineers.
Vegetation can.

Allowable changes:
Grassland <--> Boreal Forest
Taiga <--> plains
Swamp --> Grassland
Jungle --> Plains
Irrigated desert acts like Plains.
Irrigated plains acts like Grassland.
Tundra can't be changed to anything else.

Terraforming model.
Economic TI's are auto built by enginners in cities. A former type unit is fortified in a city. While it is there, it can automatically build farms and mines as well as changes the vegetation in friendly squares. You can change the terrain view mode "T" and click on squares to set their priority and change preffered. If villages are used, can only do squares surrounding friendly villages and cities. Squares do not have to be near the city the engineer is in, just connected by roads, or in the same region.

Engineers outside of cities act like normal civX, but they cannot build farms/mines. (to prevent building away from your pop centres). When acting this way they can build paths (along with most millitary units) as well as Roads, highways and RR, and military TI's

Nothing can be built on deep ocean/glaciers.

military TI's:

Bases act as both fortress and airbase, coastal bases can have ships enter as well. Units can be 'deployed' to bases.
Forts act as a scout unit and stop the first enemy unit to step on it. also offer some defense bonus.
Sonar acts as a fort in the water.

economic TI's:
Farms / modern farms, built on any plains, grassland or desert.
irrigation, built on desert or plains, makes it act as the next stage better, without changing it.
mines / modern mines, built on any hills or mountains. Farms can also be built if it is a grassland/plains square.
fisheries can only be built in continental shelf, which usually only extends one square from land, but sometimes more.

transport TI's:
Paths, built by and most military units as well, MP/2 move
Roads, MP/4 move, and give a trade bonus (and allow resource sharing) when connecting cities.
Highways, modern roads, MP/8 move, more resource sharing.
Rail-roads, MP/8, take 50% longer than highways to build, but enemy units act as if on path (or road?) when using.
Tunnels, connect two squares of land under a shallow ocean square. Allows land units to cross water.
Canal, connect two ocean squares over flat land. Can connect a city on a river to the sea if 1 square away.
When a unit enters a tunnel/canal it uses 1 full MP and goes directly to the other side, units cannot rest in a tunnel/canal. Both can only be used by the owner. Neither can be pillaged by sea units.
A tunnel is built by having an engineer on each end of the desired location. Both then build the tunnel. To use you press a key.

COMMENTS
The idea behind this is to make the economic model have a more accurate and flexible representation, but mostly invisibly. Regions attampt to reduce micromanagement.
CLAS-D, which this is intended to be used with, attempts to to the same for combat.

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

[jer64]

I think it would be cool to add some features like:

Civilization techs. can be destroy in a global nuclear war, its realistic. Since, if you hit each of the enemy cities with a nuke, it should kill all of their citizens immediatly. And INCLUDING THEIR CITIZENS + DATABANKS, ETC...

Yours: Jari T.T. aka Jer

[Theben]

Okay, folks. This got cut down quite a bit &/or edited, so don't be shocked if you don't recognize your post. Many said the same as other posts, and were combined, some were repeating what the author said earlier, some were difficult to follow, and 1 or 2 made no sense. However, comments and critcisms are still welcome.

***REGIONAL/CITY MENUS AND IDEAS version 2.0(?)***

1. Cities

1.1) A city has many different areas in which to improve... Housing, Industry, Economy, Recreation, etc. Allow levels in each area, similar to Birth of Federation in that there are multiple granaries, etc.

1.2) Have slider bars to control what % of resources goes to mines, farms and others. The player simply chooses what % of PW to enhance the city, and the computer does the rest based upon population and workforce. PW could be sent to other territories or traded (like “resource routes). Have a % chance that a square in use is improved automatically for free (farmers build farms with or without government help).

1.2.1) Agreement: There should be some chance that settlements auto-upgrade the land. Irrigation, Farms, and Paths (early roads) only.

1.3) Settlements may also automatically use pre-allocated PW to improve a level if that area is becoming inefficient due to # of people using it. As inefficiency rises, a larger % of available PW will be used to enhance that area.

1.4) Auto-improvement of a square could be affected by SE/GOVT choices, or at least the cost of such improvements affected.

1.5) When new tech that can benefit a settlement is discovered, that tech must first be implemented. This costs money and is based upon the size of a city (it is harder to incorporate new tech into larger, more stable cities). Once the tech is implemented, it provides its benefits to the settlement. Tech may be implemented on a city, regional or national level.

1.6) The workforce is handled on a city or regional basis, depending on SE choices. The workforce determines not only what one produces but also how cities develop (A city with Level 8 Industry due to a lot of factory workers as opposed to a city with Level 8 Religion due to lots of clergy). Tiles need to be reduced in size to allow this to be effective.

1.7) Population

1.7.1) 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 growth rates to be expressed as an increase per turn. Attacks that hit population centers can now do fractional pop. points of damage. To simulate casualties of war, cities loses a % of pop per HP a unit suffers, if it is supported by this city.

1.7.2) Population is recorded as fractional points, but it is easy to convert that to a real number.

1.7.3) The formula:

Actual population = 5000 x (population points + 0.5)^2 - 1250
This formula follows the civII model exactly for whole numbers, and can give good values for fractional numbers.

1.7.4) Effects on population growth:
All numbers are arbitrary and should vary depending on SE choices and tech.

1.7.5) Happiness rating:
# 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. (Theben- Formula is hard to follow to conclusion)

Base growth: 10%
Happiness : + city happiness / N * N depends on SE.
Villages (see below): + 0.2% per village
Medicine : + 2%, etc.

1.7.6) Immigration: Large unhappy cities will tend to slow down growth or shrink, while your smaller cities will pick up the extra people.

1.7.7) In civ immigration = (city happiness - civ happiness) / Y * Y depends on SE and the overall level of transportation available. Same-civ immigration tends to have larger volume than between civs.

1.7.8) Between civs migration = (city happiness - world happiness) / Z * Z depends on SE and transport of all players. For this calculation, government types can influence the happiness used. Democracy might add 10 points, while Communism subtracts 10 points.

1.7.9) Option for happiness control: Send gold to the city and it is converted to happiness, depending on SE/govt. This could be set in the city menu or from the F1city listing, for the turn or on an ongoing basis.

1.8) Terrain:

1.8.1) Forts, bases, and other transport and military TI's can be built on the regular map. Other TI’s require the engineer to be in the regional reserve or fortified in a city. One can change the terrain view ("T") and click on squares to set their priority and to make changes if desired. If villages are used, engineers can only alter squares surrounding friendly villages and cities. Squares do not have to be near the city the engineer is in, just connected by roads, or in the same region (See TERRAIN & TERRAIN IMPROVEMENTS for further information).

1.8.2) The outlying terrain of cities should be developed so one can create suburbs and industrial areas, but don’t go too far, like another Sim City.

2. City Menus:

2.1) Option 1:

2.1.1) There is a standard window for the Menu. Like any normal MS window it can be moved aside to view the map beneath. These had an order from left to right, top to bottom, but really they can be put in anywhere.

2.1.2) Toggle with 3 choices: food, production, and trade. Tells the AI where to put people in the event of sudden growth or decline in pop. Each has it’s own priority level: 0 (no priority), 1, 2, and 3 (highest). In the event of a tie the AI will choose the tile that grants the greatest production of all 3 categories; if there’s a tie it's the one closest to the city. The AI will also switch if settlers/PW alter a tile to change output.

2.1.3) Citizen icons. The player can tell their culture by their race & dress; the icon should include a face and upper torso. Over their heads there will be a symbol denoting each citizen's religion.

2.1.4) The city's HAPPINESS indicator, which was described by Theben in the SE/GOVT thread.

2.1.5) The big 3: Growth (food is now a factor of growth), production, and trade. Above these there will be the % modifiers currently affecting each category.

2.1.6) The city’s radius, showing squares that are worked. Use SMAC-style method of counting tile production. These numbers should be x10 of the numbers used in civ2/SMAC; this allows fine-tuning modifiers to these resources. Costs should also be x10.

2.1.7) City stores: Saved food, money, the city's total unused research points, and production. If the city is captured, the food, money and production are also captured; some research would be “captured” (points add to enemy total) and the rest lost. A little of each may escape to a nearby city of the same civ, or to an allied city if no cities of that civ are nearby. Next turn the allied civ will return the supplies, with deterioration & distance reductions, subject to piracy, etc. Research may be both “kept” by ally (add to total) and returned. If a city is under siege, it may only use what are in its stores if it needs extras. Cities cut off from the capital do not add research points until the siege ends, but in the meantime the research points are “stored”.
An empire split in two or more may combine the resources of the connected cities only. The SUPPLY grid will determine if cities are connected. In case of a successful rebellion, part of the research is lost but most of it goes to the new civilization.

2.1.8) Support: Units have varying food, production, and money costs. Any modifiers to support will be shown here.

2.1.9) The Growth Rate: The total food allocated to growth and everything else that affects growth will be displayed here (including the Disease indicator, in MISCELLANEOUS), as well as the # of turns until the city grows another point.

2.1.10) Specialist bars, described above.

2.1.11) Items under construction: These will be shown as small buttons with only the unit/building name in it, turns until completion, a button in it to “increase production rate” (below), and a 2nd small button that will allow one to set the production to auto. This will set it to produce what is in the player’s queue for that button only. If no queue has been built then it will default to auto-preferences that would be selected in the PREFERENCES screen or in a .txt file. There should be several auto-queues- offense, defense, explore, research, etc. Clicking on the name of the item enlarges the button to a window to show the picture of that item, the # of “shields” already allocated to production and the amount needed to complete it, as well as a unit workshop button and another "increase production rate" button. A box to indicate how much production you wish to allocate is necessary. It will also show if this item is under player control or being built by the people (under strong FREE MARKET SE's). There will be an option to "purchase" the construction points back from the people. Allow players to scroll up/down to other items, or double-click on the pictured item to get an even larger window showing all items available. This allows for several items to be under construction at the same time.

2.1.12) Increasing the production rate is done by buying "extra" shields. The max one can buy is based on the amount of production per turn. FE, an item has 7 shields added/turn. At a cost of x # of coins it can be increased 14/turn. The max multiple is x3/turn. Increasing production from x2 to x3 costs more than from x1 to x2. If enough money is allocated then the additional purchasing power will carry over until next turn. The player decides if they want to have a x2 or x3 multiple when cost carries over from one turn to the next. SE choices will affect this; i.e. a totalitarian civ would have lower costs. This eliminates unrealistic instant purchases & benefits large cities over smaller ones.

2.1.13) City Structures: As before, with “damage indicators” for each set of buildings. Above the DIs is the city's “free repair rate” (both explained in CITY IMPROVEMENTS & MISCELLANEOUS). A system similar to Birth of the Federation, where planets(cities) had multiple buildings each, with additive effects, should be used.

2.1.14) In the box with change city name, maps, etc., their should be a happiness button that breaks down how your city is affected by the various modifiers.

2.1.15) The martial law button: Changes that city (only) from a freer political SE (republic, democracy) to a more totalitarian one (police state). If a totalitarian govt. declares martial law it gets a bonus to its POLICE rating. Disliked “nerve stapling” from SMAC as it is too simplistic.

2.1.15a) Disagreement: Use the “Nerve Stapler” function anyway.

2.1.16) A box that shows how the various civilization effects (social effects in SMAC) + technology + the building's effects add together to effect the city.

2.2) Option 2:

This list was put together assuming top to bottom, left to right, but, as above, can be placed wherever. It also agrees with most of the above- in fact they are compatible in many areas- but this version assumes different concepts incorporated, including Regions, Deployment, Villages, and more detailed split resources and labor.

2.2.1) When the player clicks on a city, one side of the screen shows the normal citizen allocation, happiness, resource collection, and structure list, trade (except on regional level), and unit status. The other side would be the same for all cities in a region (if you want national regions it would be optional) and would have the resource allocations listed: one button for food, one for structures, one for wonders, one for units. It would also have sliders for the different production areas. If one clicks on the name of another city, the left side would shift to that city’s info.

2.2.2) City Name, pop x.xxx (yyyyyy), Rate of growth zz.z%, q turns to next full pop point. x= pop points, y= # of individuals calculated from x. y = 5000 x^2 - 1250. z= growth rate in hundredths of a pop point per turn.

2.2.3) The Specialist box: A spot to set the ratio that new pop is sent to the field vs. pop kept in the city. Included here is the Happiness indicator. Has icons for all the “workers” and various “specialists”.

2.2.4) Stores. These numbers only matter in a siege, when a city is forced to be it's own region, or if captured.

FOOD: (Food received + surplus then stored) – decay;
RESOURCES: Resources stored +/- net loss or gain after decay;
GOLD: Net loss or gain per turn.

Raw production:
LABOUR, GOLD, SCIENCE, SUPPORT
List the total output of its citizens followed by the raw output and multipliers and bonuses, color-coded by source.

2.2.5) City improvements, with HP left/HP max (see CITY IMPROVEMENTS & MISCELLANEOUS).

2.2.6) A list of all improvements that are currently in the regional queue and targeted for this city, and # of turns until they are expected to arrive.

2.2.7) List of all units, and units in the process of deploying to/from this city.

2.2.8) Capital name, pop x.xxx (yyyyyy), Rate of growth zz.z%, where x= pop pts. in the region, including villages, y= sum of the calculated individuals, and z= total growth per turn.

2.2.9) Indicator for overall happiness, village/city ratios, and a slider dividing production between units/improvements/wonders/capitalization. Also a spot to buy additional production for one area.

2.2.10) List totaling all cities various production counts.

2.2.11) A small map of the region with the city currently under view highlighted, and a list of all cities in the region.

2.2.12) Unit queue, improvement queue, and place to set unit and improvement priorities.

2.2.12a) For units and improvements, the player sets the build priorities for various units and structures, given in a ratio of # built to # of all others built. The computer then sets up a 8-16 spot build queue (with turn of completion and destination of each item listed). The player can modify this queue as they wish. Whenever the priorities are modified, so is the queue. Items in each list are built sequentially, with multiple completions per turn allowed. When a region has no place to put improvements, the priority is temporarily set to 0.

2.2.13) Terraform settings set the priority to build farms, roads, RR, highways, mines.

2.2.14) List of all units in the reserves of the region, as well as the destination for each. Deployment occurs from this screen. All newly built units are placed in the reserves until they can be deployed. Units can be sent to the reserves of neighboring regions or deployed to any city or base in the region; ships stationed within a certain range may as well.

3. Regions

3.1) Regions would have a maximum size. Regions would form the primary borders of a society, contested regions would have interior borders similar to SMAC.

3.2) The maximum size of a region is directly related to your current tech level. Early game: 10 or 20 tiles max; late game: up to 50-100 tiles, with 5-10 cities each.

3.3) Reasons for regions:

• Links cities together.
• Exchange resources easily (so you still can do fast building).
• Move units to another nearby city quickly.

3.4) Regions should grow over time.
As technology improves, certain advancements would increasingly define regions and allow increased resource sharing. Various improvements could also help define & unify them.

3.4.1) Agreement: Wants city/region radius to grow as city/region grows. It would also be nice to have a more flexible city radius.

3.5) Divide the map into NxN regions. Each of the civilization can choose their starting regions, or it can be random. This will allow for quick contact of civilization or ample room for expansion, whichever the player desires.

3.6) Regions should be pre-defined at game start, usually bordered by mountains, rivers, or some other rough terrain. The program would have to make sure that there is enough food producing and resource producing terrain in each region.

3.7) Have region size based on the map size, in order to avoid too many regions on large maps.

3.8) Doesn’t like the idea of regions, but if there needs to be regions, the player should decide what set of cities and/or tiles constitutes a region, not the AI.

3.8.1)Agreement: Player should select Regional areas.

3.9)Regions by Era:

3.9.1) ANCIENT:
All cities build their own units and structures. Allow cities to use "resource routes"- like trade routes, but are used to send production &/or food to other nearby cities, linked by roads, rivers, or the ocean. FE, Rome sends some “shields” (has coal & forests) to Naples (agricultural) which sends some food back. Limit of ~4 units of production? Long distances can be spanned by sending something to city A and having that city send it to city B. Routes do not cost resources to make, but increase corruption/inefficiency in the receiving city.

3.9.2) RENAISSANCE:
Regions are formed. Production/agriculture is pooled within the region. Units/structures/wonders are built from a central menu (accessed by clicking on ANY city in the region, or main menus) and can only be placed within the region. "Resource routes" can be created between regions, limit per route of ~20. Regions would contain a maximum of 6-8 cities.

3.9.3) MODERN:
Full deployment and resource sharing. Highly centralized civs can be treated as one region. "Resource routes" can only be created with allies.

3.9.4) Reasoning: Players will need to only deal with individual cities in the early game. Late game regionalization will greatly reduce micromanagement.

3.9.5) Early game- 2-3 cities could be a region, mid-game 5-10 cities, and in the late game whole continents.

3.10) Regions vs. Cities:

3.10.1) Regions handle production, food distribution, and tile improvement. Cities handle worker placement, happiness, economics, local defense, and city improvements after they're built. Trade depends on the system implemented. Regions could trade with other regions.

3.10.2) Only the gathering of resources, city growth, and unit movement are done at a local level. All the regional level does is allow you to set production for all cities, or pool some resources.

3.10.3) Focus all production on the region, but the various structures would still have a physical location. FE, when finishing a temple, a deployment list pops up and the player chooses which city they want their temple to go to.

3.10.4) Use workers in the regional screen to expand the city radius. Once the pre-requisite tech is discovered, one can move citizens to any square within the region. Thus, most of the endgame will be managed through the regional menu screen.

3.10.5) A production center might not even farm a single square, like NYC or Tokyo. Some improvements, like a stock exchange would only be needed in one city per region.

3.10.6) In the early game, use individual city works. Later on switch to regional development.

3.11) "Command and control" tech that allow a civ to develop from city-state to the satrapies to feudal states to the early then modern nation states. The development from city and region is linked to government and the development of communication from runners, horsemen, pigeons, and torches to printing, telephones, satellites, etc. The expanse of the region and the power a civ controls depend on:
1) Type of government;
2) The building of Comm stations (from towers to satellites);
3) The use of leader units (training at the capital tends to lead to more obedience);
4) The economy.
Random bonuses could be AI mayors that are exceptional leaders.

3.11.1) Agreement: Infrastructure needed for determining regions; efficiency, tech allows for better resource sharing. Combat could split regions.

3.12) “City improvements” now affect all tiles of the region that they are in. If a region happens to contain two or more city tiles, both sets of city improvements continue to affect the region, but the region has to support both city tiles and all their improvements.

3.12.1) Disagreement: Dislikes having city improvements on each tile.

3.13) Regions perhaps should be limited to government issues only - providing political infrastructure (Governor, regional capital, etc) and the potential for public works within that region.

3.14) Regions should be limited to resource sharing, regional developments (stock exchanges, etc.) and production of units. City improvements should be handled at the city level. Terrain improvements should be handled through PW. Roads and defenses could be build by any military unit or by Public Works.

4. Regional Menus

4.1) Option 1:

4.1.1) Regions can be any shape and include ocean no more than 2 tiles from shore. Every tile in a region can be worked by a member of its population. Improvements are built in a "region screen" which resembles the current city screen. Each region must contain at least 3 cities and no more than 10, the largest becoming the "capital" of the region. This city becomes marked by a star with a circle around it, and clicking on the capital gives one access to the Region Screen. Terrain improvements are built via PW, and can be built on any tile in the region.

4.1.2) Any member of a city’s population can be transferred to work tiles outside the city radius but inside the region (a minimum # of citizens must stay in the city). Eventually every tile in the region may be worked and there will still be excess population for specialists.

4.1.3) A civ’s government/SE choices determine the geographical mode of management.

4.1.4) To manage the transition from city management to regional management, have the AI simply pool all the resources of each individual city, then add in the extra resources of regional tiles and government bonuses (FE, 3 temples make 6 content in the entire region).

4.1.5) A civilization would encompass every tile within its borders. If another nation claims a tile currently being worked by a citizen outside of a city radius but within its borders, the borders of the region will become disputed. This would be an act of war. In order to claim a tile, the player/AI would have to position a military unit there and then make a claim.

4.1.6) As long as part of the region currently contains enough tiles not part of any other city’s radius, then a new city can be settled there. It will be part of the region and can be managed as such. As soon as this new city is built, region-wide improvements will need to be restructured (a % cost of the original improvement?-Theben). The player would be able to build improvements in the new city with the collective building power of the entire region.

4.1.7) Allow for uncentralized civs to have regions that are not considered same nation; they are 2+ nations working together.

4.2) Option2:

4.2.1) In ancient times a region would be approximately the size of cities in current civ games. As time progresses the size increases in both number of cities and land area allowed.

4.2.2) Borders are drawn between regions. All villages in the region pool their resources and excess food. Efficiency depends on transportation infrastructure. The food is distributed to all cities on a need basis, extra is used to increase happiness/growth. Resources are stored in cities, but the actual location only matters when regions are redrawn or cities captured.

4.2.3) Each city has to have its own structures, with a few exceptions (stock exchanges).

4.2.4) In the regional menu there are four categories where all labour from the region can be divided. All building is done by the regional menu. There are some limits based on SE choices. Resources are used for building as needed and available.

4.2.5) Resource categories are:

4.2.5a) WONDERS: Only one wonder can be produced at a time. The location is set when building is started.

4.2.5b) CAPITALIZATION: The Labor --> Money rate depends on SE and economic structures in the region. Resources can be sold or traded.

4.2.5c) UNITS: Labor is used to build units. All new units are placed in reserve, and can be "deployed" the same turn.

The Units list is a build queue. Items can be directly added or the AI can build a list based on priorities the player has assigned for each unit type. The priority of a unit is a ratio of # of units of that type vs. # of each other type. FE, armor has priority 3 and mech. inf. 2, then 3 armour will be built for every 2 mech. inf.

4.2.5d) IMROVEMENTS: Similar to units. When all cities in a region have a structure the priority is counted as 0, so no more are built. The destination city is chosen by the AI, but can be changed by the player.

4.2.6) Deployment:

4.2.6a) All new units are placed in the reserves. Other units can be sent there also. Each turn you can deploy units to cities/bases/certain ships in the region. You can also send units to other region's deploy lists. The units cannot defend or be used until the next turn, but can be destroyed. Units in the reserve list cost less to maintain than deployed troops, except engineers. This is the only way to move air and missile units.

4.2.6b) Terraform units can normally only build forts, bases, and other transport and military TI's. When they are placed in the reserves they can build farms, irrigation, mines and other economic, terraforming and transport TI's, anywhere within the region. This prevents players from using their former types anywhere not near their population, except as combat engineers. It also makes them less vulnerable to airstrikes. They still can take damage when cities are hit.

4.3) Option 3:

4.3.1) Regions require a special improvement in a central city. The palace counts as this structure. The region surrounds the capital city with a radius of ~10 squares, providing a geographical map that allows management of build orders and deployment of forces in that region.

4.3.2) Each city icon on the regional screen has these options:

• Enter city menu screen.
• Exempt from general build orders
• Set production for city (go directly to the build screen)

4.3.3) All cities within this radius are part of this region, and once the appropriate infrastructure is in place (roads, trading post, etc.) cities within that region may share resources. A city’s production can then be set from the regional window and all cities in the region can be given build orders. The geographical view in this menu will allow one to organize the distribution of resources, troops, and infrastructure. Armies in a region may be viewed and ordered through this menu.

4.3.4) Roads allow one to exchange N amount of resources each way per turn (influenced by SE effects). Railroads allow infinite amounts of resource transfer and let one begin building city improvements with all the resources of the region, and then place them in a city of the region. Resource transfer MUST be to and from the capital of a region, to avoid becoming overly complex. This depends on having a network of roads and RR’s established between the region capital and the outlying cities. All regional production takes place in the capital.

4.2.5) All regions are linked to the palace, and can contribute resources to this city, or vice versa, provided the requisite tech has been discovered. This is handled through the 3rd and final city screen, the capital menu.

4.2.6) Disagreement: No need for a 3rd “Capital” menu.

Note that many of the ideas in these options can be used together.

5. Villages

5.1) Option 1:

5.1.1) Villages are akin to the “supply crawler” of SMAC; i.e. it brings in the resources of the tile to the city. Villages are built only outside the city radius. They need to be limited in some manner. Splitting resources and labor would work well, or no more than 1 village per citizen in the city.

5.2) Option 2:

5.2.1) Villages add +50% to resources gathered in that tile, but are expensive to build. They are built within city limits.

5.3) Option 3:

5.3.1) Villages can only be established adjacent to existing ones and within your borders. Borders only extend into shallow water, 2 max. Coastal villages, while really on land, are represented at sea in a coastal square. Ships can only attack coastal villages, the one that is represented by that square.

5.3.2) Moving a village takes as long as it does to 'deploy' a unit. In this time no resources are produced, but it is self-sufficient.

5.3.3) All food and resources are produced in villages. Villages are population pts. that have been moved from the cities to surrounding tiles. Villages use some food to support themselves, and send the rest of the food and all resources to the region, to be distributed among the cities.

5.3.4) Future village and terraform locations are done by ‘flagging' on the main map. Players can also let the AI flag possible sites.

5.3.5) The village system model requires approximately twice as many population points as civX games do. You set the ratio of village : city for each region, and the new population is divided between the two areas.

6. Miscellaneous

6.1) Specialists:

6.1.1) Slider bars that represent the total pop of the city, with worker, merchant, scientist, and clergy. Clergy replace the "elvii".

6.1.2) The structures in the city will determine how many of the people can become "specialists" and the rate that they will switch. These include marketplaces, banks, etc. for merchants; libraries, universities, for scientists, etc. Technology & SE choices would also be factors; i.e. Writing, Literacy, and Knowledge SE, for scientists. Workers are the standard and have no structures.

6.1.3) Move the slider bar to the % “specialist” desired, up to the current limit. The current level stays put for that turn. Each following turn, the % of citizens employed in that field increases, based on the above. Workers are exempt. When increasing workers, the shift is immediate. The player can switch back w/o penalty until the end of the turn. Then the citizens’ new jobs are set.

6.1.4) Like SMAC, later tech may give increases in their “field” and in other specialists’ fields.

6.1.5) Names for ancient workers: Serf, Architect, and Mason.

6.2) The Exodus:

6.2.1) Moving whole cities as a build option based on the population of the city. With a geometric increase in cost, because you can't move, FE, the population of New York easily. Call this construction "Exodus", similar to Capitalization. An Exodus will allow a city to be moved anywhere within the radius of the city on the turn it is built.

6.2.2) Reasons:

• Overlap with another city (esp. on archipelagoes)
• "Blind" placement, where you find a better spot after further exploration.
• Accidental placement, i.e. the player made a mistake.

6.2.3) An exodus should give the option of joining two cities together, when they are within each other's city limits.

Agreement: Supports “Exodus” idea.

6.2.4) How about time, not production? Say, 5 turns/pop to move 1 square.

6.2.5) What about moving the city radius? Move up to 4 squares that overlap on other city’s radius into an area adjacent to the 1st city’s radius, that no other city can gather from; requires RR advance?

6.3) Splitting Labor/Resources:

6.3.1) Resources come from the terrain- wood, iron, limestone, etc.

6.3.2) Resources are freely shipped throughout your empire (or within a region), and can be shipped between regions on “resource” routes. Resources are stored for when they are needed, but reserves decay over time, approx. 5-20%/turn. Resources can be bought/sold to/from other empires or abstractly like capitalization.

6.3.3) Labor comes from your population. Each pop. point produces a certain amount of labor, modified by government, tech and improvements (like factories). Pop points not devoted to gathering produce double or more labor (worker specialist?).

6.3.4) Labor cannot be moved from its city/region, must be used immediately, and cannot be saved.

6.3.5) All citizens in cities are some type of specialist. All economy and labor are produced in cities. All population growth occurs in cities.

How it works:
6.3.6) Food from agricultural cities (all pop devoted to resource gathering) is sent to the bigger cities to support industry (most pop is devoted to labor) and mining communities (all pop devoted to resource gathering, but in forested/hilled areas). Production from the industrial centers is used to build infrastructure for all areas, and military units. This could lead to different war strategies, as resource tiles and/or certain cities become targets.

Agreement: Likes the concept of differentiating resources and separating resources from labor.

6.3.7) Let resources and food be placed into a national pool, like CtP’s PW. This would allow the nation's food to be averaged out over all cities. In earlier years, it may be unrealistic, but this could be rationalized in game terms by giving a bonus upon the discovery of certain tech (e.g. refrigeration).

6.4) Food vs. Growth:

6.4.1) Food is now a factor of growth, not the sole determinant (it is still an important one).

6.4.2) All food is pooled and distributed to a neutral happiness level automatically (loss could occur due to an inefficient transport network). The neutral food happiness level corresponds to slow, steady growth- maybe 2.2 food/person. Having more than this much food increases happiness and hence growth, having less decreases happiness/growth. At a certain level (~1.5 food/person) starvation begins. Happiness penalties are SEVERE and pop losses are inevitable.

6.4.3)Inventions like contraception will slow growth rate slightly, but they will also allow you to slow it dramatically where population has started to outstrip food supply.

6.4.4) This idea allows the modern phenomena of overcrowding. The population will grow well past the point of sustainability and then begin to collapse, but with disorder, riots, and eventually rebellion in starving cities.

6.4.5) Aqueducts/hospitals increase growth.
Cities near oceans and on rivers have boosted growth, while cities by mountains and deserts are reduced.

Agreement: The population growth rate should not be solely a function of excess food.

6.4.6) Disagreement: Trade routes &/or transport hubs are more important (more trade =happiness). Ocean/River cities tend to have more than mountain/desert.

6.5) Food, production, and/or gold should be required for terraforming.

6.6) Graphics should represent evolving city/region settlements on tiles which expand as settlement expands (villages?).

6.7) Incorporate into ALL automations the idea of priorities. This would allow the player to auto-build tanks and infantry as well as terraforming.

6.8) Use CtP’s design for build queues, and their City Report interface. In CTP, a player can postpone city management until whenever they’re ready, because they can see all their cities in one report, rather than zooming in to one city at a time. There is still room for improvement in the City Report of CtP. FE, one can't tell at a glance how many specialists one’s cities have, the player still has to visit cities sequentially.

6.9) Players should be able to build custom report screens with a REAL scripting language (make sure you don't use the Win32 API, because when Linux, Mac users, etc., get the game ported we won't have that API). To be able to produce a custom report, covering EVERY conceivable bit of information the game is willing to divulge, binding this to an arbitrary keystroke sequence and/or mouse selection/button, would be great.

7. Questions

Only Regional menus? It simplifies micromanagement without losing flexibility. Switching between a regional menu and a city menu is redundant.

Both City and Regional menus? Only Regional does lack flexibility. There will be times the player will need to access the city itself.

Should new tech makes the regional menu more and more relevant as the game progresses?

Should City Improvement bonuses and SE bonuses be the same?

Is the idea of city management best linked to a regional basis?

Might changes to the city menu do instead of having regions?

Thanks To:
Isle, Ember, Theben, Trachmyr, Boom Boom, Maniac, Mingko, EnochF, Travathian, E, Mbrazier, mhistbuff, yin26, Hans2, Gregurabi, and any others from List 1 I’ve not mentioned here. Special thanks to Shining1 for TMing this thread in the beginning.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited October 29, 1999).]</font>

[Theben]

I know this needs some tweaking, but I don't have time today. Maybe tommorrow.

[Theben]

bump

[Krenske]

Hello now that my life as a Y2000 fixer is almost complete I now have some time for little things like having a life.

So I have decided to jump on to this thread with an idea or 3.

Idea 1. Simple region defining.
Many of the ideas put forward will appear to create a lot of large circular regions. I believe most regional definitions over history are based at least partly on geography. As such so should the regions within Civ. When regions begin the regions will consist of a capitol and all cities within a certain movement distance. This considers the need to communicate and trade within the region. Assuming movement improvements for tiles are relative and not absolute then regions will naturally follow most geographical boundaries. Egypt will have the delta, upper and lower egypt just because that is what movement allows. The same with other river based regions. At the same time mountain ranges will become natural borders between regions. Once a region is set it more or less becomes permanent until super regions are formed later.

Idea 2. Sharing within region.
At a certain technology level (eg, simple food storage) the food resources available within the region will be able to be shared between the cities with the surplus being averaged over all cities. Science will still accumulate civilisation wide but production will be split into public works (terrain improvement) city works (city improvements) and regional production.
Public works will be used as public works in CTP, anywhere within the Civilisation. This is really a type of national level resource allocation. The government is effectively allowing the development of its land using its monetary resources. Public works can also be used (at considerable cost) to create a new town/city within the civilizations borders.
City works are used for the creation of city improvements or the creation of new cities (high cost). The combined regional city/civic works production is available for use in the various cities of the region. If the player defines a temple a granary and a marketplace in a city of the region and none anywhere else then the regions entire civic works production is split between these three. This allows greater flexibility in where production should take place and how it should be spent. This pool can not be saved for future use though. This simulates the flow of money and resources to important projects even though they are in other cities of the region.
Regional production is the creation of units at the regional level. When a unit completes construction it can be placed in any city within the region.
The region will have a 3 part slider feeding production towards the three areas described above. Obviously only excess city production is fed to the regional level. This reduces the number of queues being tended by the player and will also greatly decrease individual item contruction times to a more "realistic" level. (with 9 cities devoting most of their production to troops then the region could produce 2-3 units in a year rather than each city produce for a decade)

Idea 3. Super regions or national production.
At some point, (probably with the techs national beureacracy and fast communications) The regions will expand greatly into super regions and later again to just the national level. The regional civic improvements pool will become a national pool not unlike public works. The user can just define civic works wherever they want and the incoming production is split between the active works across the nation. If you have too many improvements at once then all will proceed slowly but if only a few are defined then they will be completed rapidly.
The regional production queues will at a point become simply the national set of building queues (eg one for every region). This allows for the creation of a army rapidly and in some considerable mass.

These ideas strive to keep the number of queues and micromanagement to a minimum. As well the level of management may be kept approximately the same for most of the civilisations history. This is because as the civiisation grows the regions expand/join to cover the new cities.

A very important factor for this system of civic improvements as listed above is the need for a very powerful city list screen allowing for sorting and grouping as well as mass selection and build ordering. Eg If you just got the cathedral improvement then it would be desirable to be able to grab all cities with a population of 7 or more and order a cathedral in each. This though is really a interface suggestion.


<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Krenske (edited January 06, 2000).]</font>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Krenske (edited January 06, 2000).]</font>

[Theben]

bump 'cuz I want to reread it w/o going through the "links" thread.