CITY IMPROVEMENTS (ver2.0): Hosted by CyberShy

[Ekmek]

VISIBLE CITY IMPROVEMENTS: I kinda like the idea of making city development kind of like Age of Empires, you build, them see them and you can attack or defend them. It would be micromanaging early on but thats how it was in the city state. Trying to build an empire was tough, Alexander's successor's couldn't manage and Rome did it by conquering (and allying) and allowing a lot of local rule (automated governors, and give the automated governors an AI like leaders perfectionist, religious, technocratic, economical, etc.) You could also build more than one. It would be eye candy to see the differnt shapes of cities andchallenging try to control them and connect them from vast areas.

DIFFERENT CITIES: this idea seemed like it was killed quick but its good. Urban, suburban are different and an eskimo igloo city would be a lot diferent and look weird in the sahara (someone else mentioned this idea in the civilizations web). Or atleast have the type of cities change appearance by what is built. (instead of walls just changing, if we have visible improvements they should show up and give us a choice of architecture types, or make archetecture types a technology tree).

TERRAIN AND IMPROVEMENTS: Some cities and improvements can't be built on certain terrain (atleast early on). It was probable a mismatch of terrain resources but it is such a pain how fast the russians develop siberia even though its so undeveloped today.

HOUSING: instead of aqueducts and sewer systems it should be housing so you are constantly challenged at trying to make your city grow by population and also meeting economic demands. CIV3 should be not only a military challenge but a series of challenges of competing demands: economic vs military, domestic vs foriegn policy, national vs local goals. business vs govemnment, leaders vs people. This would guarrantee more that the game is not a few lines to victory (winning the game should be ambiguos and based on what you want not points, conquest, space, when you start you should have a goal and try for it; is there a thread for this?).

DEFENSE IMPROVEMENTS: I think city walls should be on the outskirts like AOE, but as time moves on have your engineers (or combat engineers!) be able to build anti-tank traps, minefields, wire obstacles etc. defense should modernize too.

Some ideas overlap in the terrain and terrain improvements thread.

------------------
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
- Dr. Johnson, from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

A small point: shouldn't most improvements be in the plural? You don't have one factory per city in real cities. Shouldn't it be "City X builds factories/industrial complexes", "City Y builds temples"?

[Theben]

Are you talking about a ST: Birth of Federation-type approach to city structure construction?

[Flavor Dave]

E--your idea would make the map impossible to understand.

"Flav Dave,

I don't know if sitting behind walls should ever be a viable strategy."

I've won a game with only 5 cities. And some have won with only one city, or so I've heard;-) So hell, yes it's viable, and should remain so.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned or if I'm posting this in the right category, but here are 2 ideas:

1) Allow units to target specific city improvements and/or allow structures to be hit inadvertently during an attempt to attack a city. This should be possible even if there is no garrison in the city. The improvement may be destroyed or maybe just damaged, in which case it would not function at 100% (maybe a cathedral would only affect 2 unhappy citizens), until it is repaired either by shield cost or money.

2) City improvements can be placed according to a player's decision (remember the city view screen in CivII?). Structures near the center of the city may have more of an effect and would be harder to target by an outside unit, compared to structures placed near the outer boundaries of the city.

[wonderdog4]

My goodness. Just scrolling down here gave me a headache. I pity the poor fellow who has to read all of this.

Civ2 is a good game; it just needs to be tweaked a little.

Personally, I hope we don't see a lot of new units and improvements in the new game. Civ2 is already so complex that it is nearly incomprehensible.

What I would rather see are changes in the way city improvements work now. Barracks, for example, might work as a police force and keep down discontent (making one unhappy person content) perhaps doubling in effectiveness once a certain tech level (say conscripton) is reached.

All in all, I think I would like to see more emphasis on city improvements and technology and less emphasis on the magical powers of Wonders of the World.

That's all.

[loinburger]

I am for two things...
One: That more than one city improvement/unit(yes, wrong thread, but it has to do with production, after all) can be built at a time. I don't just mean queueing, I mean that you could build both a bank and a courthouse IN ONE TURN by cranking out a little extra cash or having your people work overtime or whatever. The maximum number of units/improvements that could be built each turn would go up as city population went up, and would never get above 3 or 4 (if it even got above 2).

Two: More improvements. MANY more improvements. Many who have posted in this thread are for the KISS method of doing things, but I'm for the opposite. One poster stated that one of the problems with Civ II was that you couldn't easily max out in city improvements; I say, Civ III should be even more difficult to max out. This would REQUIRE that you specialize for maximum effect--something along the lines of there being a library, a university, a research lab, a public school, an observatory, a particle accellerator, etc. that would all increase labs by, say, 25% each, but which would have a synergistic effect with each other (a library or a university would each give a 25% bonus, but together you'd get a 55% bonus, and if you add a research lab you'd get a 90% bonus).

End result? City improvements define your cities, they just aren't something you build in every single city you own (oh sure, you'll build a sewer in every city, and probably a SAM site, but you won't be building particle accellerators in every city). A rich civilization, or a civilization with a huge industry bonus, could max out its cities by buying off multiple improvements every turn. And finally, if the AI were done correctly (not like SMAC's governors), then you truly could leave your cities to auto-improve. Tell a governor to build you a research city, and he will do just that. Tell him to build a money city, and that's what you'll get. If the governor ever finishes he'll give you a message, or if you're having happiness/population/pollution problems then he'll let you know well in advance.

Are there a lot of city improvements as it is? Yup. Should there be many many more? Yup. Cities, in my opinion, should NOT be maxing out (unless the king is rich as Croesus).

[loinburger]

Two city improvement ideas I've always liked are:

1. Disruptor Field Generator (or some such Nanotech mumbo-jumbo name that makes sense). This little ditty would automatically have a chance of damaging any enemy unit within the city's production radius. Damage inflicted would be done on a turn by turn basis and would be affected by a. the unit's distance from the city, b. its morale and c. the ratio of living flesh to metal in the unit (the more flesh, the more damage-it's easier to disrupt a water molecule than it is to disrupt a steel plate). Would not affect air units (they're too high up, let's say). This would make siege warfare much more difficult to wage and would give poor Builder civilizations a little breathing room. However, it might tilt the balance too far in favor of the defenders.

2. Temporal Manipulator. Any unit attempting to enter one of a city's production squares would have a chance of failing in its attempt and losing a movement point instead. Units with multiple move points could make multiple attempts at entering a square. Chance of success depends on a. the unit's morale, b. the unit's proximity to the city, and c. the direction in which the unit is moving (it is easier to move away from the city than towards it). This would help prevent enemy civs from using your own road and railroad network against you, and would provide the defender a few more precious turns in which it could get its defenses together while the attacker attempted to penetrate the city's temporal shield. Any attacks made in the city's radius are completed successfully. Air units have a higher chance of successful penetration.

Both of these improvements are geared exclusively towards the defender, but I think that they would help more than hurt the game. They would both require extremely high technology levels, so they would not come into play after the attacker has units that would not be eradicated by these improvements. Mainly these would be used as delaying tactics, as the first improvement would hinder a siege (the attacker would need to constantly stop for repairs) and the second would hinder an enemy from using your railroads against you in a blitzkrieg.

[Ecce Homo]

Could the distinction between City and Terrain improvements be removed?

They could all be built with the Public Works system and require gold for maintenance. The religious and economic ones could only be built in the cities.

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

[Theben]

You could combine that idea w/ variable maintenance for units and settle many problems. One problem I have is a suggestion in UNITS about a mobile SDI: why build one in the city that you must maintain (and possibly more expensive) when you can build a cheap mobile one? It's worth considering.

[Theben]

I realized I never posted this here. It is also on the OTHER thread:


STRUCTURE DAMAGE
This supercedes my post on the "suggestions" page.

Structures have hit points= to the cost of building them. Certain units
(spies/saboteurs, catapults, cannons, sappers, bombers) and random disasters(floods,
fires), riots/rebellion, nukes, and actual conquest thru military action would inflict
damage upon the structures. You would pay gold or you may allocate a portion of your
city's shield production for repairs. Any number of structures can be repaired per turn.
Effects would be:

0-49% damage=no effect on structure, 1 gold repairs 2 damage or 1 shield repairs 4

50-99% damage=structure disabled. Gives no benefits to city, x2 repair as above

100%=structure destroyed. Must be rebuilt.

A disabled structure will start functioning again once it has been repaired to the 0-49%
range, but cost of repair will stay as 50-99% until completely repaired.

How I see it function in the game:
Spies/saboteurs/sappers: These would inflict random amounts of small damage to one
structure at a time, based on the total hp's of the particular building. Sappers would be
limited to city walls. However the successful act of sabotage would prevent the
structure from working for, say, 1-3 turns, or 1 turn after the minor damage is repaired.

Catapults/cannons/artillery/howitzer + bombers: Inflict minor amounts of damage to a
few structures during bombardment. They may specifically target city walls to do
medium amounts of damage, to that structure only. Bombers may specifically target
any city building, but may be repulsed by AA fire, fighters, bad weather, etc. Prior to
laser targeting their chances of success will be low.

Floods, fires, riots, cause low/medium/high damage to some/many structures depending
on the city's preparedness. Fires would be limited by aqueducts, wells, etc.; riots by
police station &/or barracks. You get the idea. This would also be based on each
building's total hp's.

Nukes: Depends on power of nuke. All structures take damage, most in the high range,
some will be destroyed. The rest would take medium.

Conquest would inflict low/medium damage on most/all structures when the city fell,
but rarely will a structure be destroyed when the city is conquered.

low=about 10% damage or 4-7 hp's
medium=about 20-25% damage or 12-17 hp's
high=50-60% damage. Only happens to cities hit with random disaster's that are
unprepared, or nuked.

DonDon
Questioned cost (later I halved repair costs), suggested:

· A "free repair" rate, something like 1 shield × city size each turn.
· Add 1 or more to "free repair" for: Con, Bri, Exp, RR, & Aut. (Each effects construction
technology)
· Repairing w/o interrupting current construction by setting % rate.
· Pop-up menu (click on improvement) for selling, setting priority for "free" and shield
repairs, and buying repairs (set rate in $/turn).
· Allow settlers & engineers in city to repair improvements, 2 & 4 shields/turn added to
"free repair" rate.
· Add another special citizen type: construction crew, adds 2 shields to "free repair," 4
after Exp, sorta like a temporary settler or engineer.

David James
Questioned incentives to repair much past 49%, why not be % reductions, liked
donDon's ideas.

itokugawa
Liked the idea of structural damage, suggested pay extra $ to lower spy success.
Suggested that some buildings should have more hits based on importance, such as
city walls and SDIs.

Theben
I envision a number next to each built structure in the city screen representing the
total damage, color-coded like units. Green=0 damage, yellow=1-49%, red=50-99%.
You would click on the number and a pop-up window would let you repair the items,
w/o limit of how many and how often you can repair. Gold is subtracted from your
treasury, shields are counted similar to supported units for that turn.
Replied to David James % reductions don't work for each building type, and you should
repair or you risk building's destruction later.
Disagreed with Itokugawa, repairs should be based on cost of building to keep player
happy.

donDon
Since most improvements are structures easily damaged by fire perhaps they should
not be
made too resistant to destruction. Then you could have aqueduct improve the
resistance, representing better fire fighting capability. There could also be an
improvement with sewer representing an incremental advance in water control
structures. Modern water infrastructure would follow…

[Flavor Dave]

"Two: More improvements. MANY more improvements. Many who have posted in this
thread are for the KISS method of doing things, but I'm for the opposite. One poster
stated that one of the problems with Civ II was that you couldn't easily max out in city
improvements; I say, Civ III should be even more difficult to max out. This would REQUIRE that you specialize for maximum effect--"

A good idea IF:

you keep the game balanced between money, science, production, and military. Your idea also puts to use many of the minor techs from the tech thread--they could be for all the minor city improvements.

franchising makes malls available (in the marketplace/banks line); multinationalism makes the multinational corporation possible, etc.

public education makes public schools available; particle theory (or whatever) makes particle accelerator available, etc.

I kinda agree. When it comes to Civ3, I'm pretty conservative--I don't want change for the sake of change, only change that will be real improvement. And my maxed out cities are kinda boring in the end game, and kinda unrealistic.

IMO, the balance issue shouldn't be that tough. Pollution makes emphasizing production all over your civ problematic. You'd just do it in your 3 or so high production cities, after building the solar plant. Late in the game, I'm running science at only 50 or 60% anyway. High levels of specialization should only be available late, tho, since you're going to be 70-80% science in the first part of the game. If more science improvements were available too early, that's all that would get built.

[CivPerson]

The Train Station: This improvement would allow air units to be transported to any other one of your cities with this improvement along the connected RR. Basically it would be like the Airport inprovement, having the same restrictions as the airport with one unit load/unload per turn - per city. Allow a warning if other Civ Units are blocking the track (just like enemy fighters). Have the ability to loose the transported unit if the track is mined or something.

Fire Station: An improvement to prevent (or reduce the effects) of natural disaters.

[Kedryn]

A possible solution for ICS is for each city to have an infrastructure rating. Granary might be worth one point, city walls worth two... And if your civilisation's average infrastructure rating is below a certain number (maybe modified by government type/social engineering choices), each settler causes unhappy population units at home (to reflect your population's unease over outstripping your ability to protect them).

And another idea I had, which I feel may not go over very well, is a way to encourage city specialisation. It, umm, limits the number of improvements you can build in a city according to population and terrain type. Say in the beginning of the game you can build one improvement/population point (if that system is still used) or maybe one improvement/population point+1. Also... each improvement is physically located in one of the terrain tiles in your city radius; before urbanisation occurs, you may only have one improvement/terrain tile... after which, you may have 2-4 (not sure of a good number for this). In addition, certain terrain tiles cannot support certain improvements (forests must be cleared and swamps must be drained for almost anything). And after urbanisation, a city improvement on a terrain tile removes any terrain improvement on that tile. This forces bigger cities to get raw materials and food from outside sources... likely the mining towns/villages and your nation's 'breadbasket'.

[EnochF]

About fire stations: I dunno. Civilization has always struck me as a game too much on the macro level to worry about things like fire stations, but here's my thought. If anything, fire fighting should be an advance. After you've discovered it, there are no longer random "fire" events which occasionally devastate your cities. Before you develop fire fighting, you may experience things like the Great Fire of London in 1666. Either that, or just leave the whole subject out.

[Theben]

Angry Overlap is a good idea. I've also suggested that settler/engineers would be used in place of supply crawlers. They'd bring all the food/production/trade from a tile back to a city, but at the same time you'd need to support the settler/engineer. Also some of the f/p/t could be lost due to distance from city, type of connection (roads, port), and tech level you're at. So you may want 1 or 2 "supply" engineers, but more than that & you're wasting your time.

[mindlace]

Hmm... theben, if I'm reading you right, you're suggesting limiting supply crawlers... What I was trying to say is that I use supply crawlers to use the open spaces between my cities, which allows me to avoid having to overlap cities. This is a good thing, and not like ICS- supply crawlers are vulnerable to air power and they take time to build. Anyway, this is getting offtopic.

[mindlace]

Limiting ICS:
Ineffeciency leading to drones (ala SMAC) would help.

Angry Overlap: the more squares are overlapped, the more crowded people feel. So if 1 square is shared by 2 cities, fine, but if 3 cities share the same square, one citizen (in _each_ city) becomes unhappy.
This would kill ICS dead- as soon as you have 3 cities, that 1 worker is pissed in each of them, and since several squares overlap, they're going to be pissed for a long time. You could mitigate this with improvements/psych/specialists, but that would defeat the point of the ICS strategy.

I can think of limited situations where it would impact my style of play (i.e., I tend to overlap in the Monsoon Jungle) but I could get a close-enough result with Supply Crawlers, or the addition of being able to work squares in reigons.

[NotLikeTea]

I've been thinking about overpopulation and the problems linked to it.

Look around at some of the most populous nations. They are often third world, and the enormous population is a problem, not an asset. If population was always and asset, as it is in Civ, China would be the #1 nation in every possible aspect today.

Especially consider the aqueduct (which can be thought of as fresh water). In Civ, a city will not grow without fresh water. In the real world, overpopulation without fresh water is the real problem. Same thing applies to sewer systems.

What I propose is that population grow, continuously. No limitations. Of course, excess food would speed growth, or increase happiness. If a city has no aqueduct, only the first 8 population points participate in generating taxes, resources, food, etc. All others consume food, but give nothing. Building an aqueduct would allow up to 12 (or whatever) population points to contribute. Beyond this, a sewer system is required.

Of course, if the population grows beyond the food level, what is the point of having food at all? Maybe for every point of food defecit, one population point be made unhappy, and as such, unproductive.

I think that this may allow for advanced nations to have large populations and productive cities, while the less advanced nations have a burden of overpopulation.

I'm not too sure of the details of this, but it seems plausible. Problems might be that this would encourage the creation of many small cities, rather than a few big ones, though this is the case in Civ anyways.

[ember]

We could make 'supply crawlers' a tile improvment. Each one sends a the resources from the square (food and minerals, no trade) it is on to a nearby city (choose if there are several), It costs a gold for maintenance and N gold to build, and you can have max pop/X linked to a city, where X depends on play balance and governmnt/tech.

Advantages: Can't be used as a wall to stop enemy armies, but still can be pillaged.
Do not have to worry about keeping tarack of additional units...
It allows for offshore platforms and remote mines, and basically simulates mini-colonies, ones that are less than a full city...

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

[loinburger]

Supply Crawlers as Terrain Improvements: I like the idea, but have you posted it on the Terrain Improvements thread? Those folks might have a few suggestions/reservations about having a terrain improvement like that.


I forget who it was (I'm sorry, but this thread is so long that I get a headache looking for specific text and the author of said text), but somebody way back when suggested that some city improvements become outdated, the example being Drill Fields for ancient armies, Barracks for middle-tech armies, and Maneuver Fields for modern armies. Another statement/suggestion made by someone was that they hated granaries because no modern city would have a granary.

Well, if we have Wonders become outdated and useless, why not have the same restriction on city improvements? "Because there are so many city improvements and so few Wonders, and the argument doesn't hold." Wrong. Look at the Units upgrades in SMAC: don't spend the money, you've got lousy outdated units, spend the money, you've got your modern units. Why not do the same for certain city improvements? Drill Fields would still work for modern armies, but not as well as Barracks would, and Barracks would not work as well as a Maneuvers field. You would not have to build a Drill Field or Barracks prior to building a Maneuver Field, in fact it would be cheaper just to build a Maneuvers Field, but you CANNOT build a Maneuvers Field until late in the game and so you must ask yourself the question: build now and be stuck with shoddy merchandise or expensive upgrades later, or build later and be stuck with shoddy cities now?

This would also serve to make City Walls more believable. Why should a wooden wall erected in 3000 B.C. still be able to protect a tank corps in 2000 A.D.? It shouldn't--the wall, lacking upgrades, would give, say, 5% protection against a modern army, whereas the Maginot Line (or the 2000 A.D. equivalent) would provide 100% protection.

[Theben]

Because civ is military unit based, so upgrades to military structures are within the game boundaries. Upgrades to other, non-military structures are not, and would be more likely seen as a nuisance to any player than a realistic benefit. Assuming it is realistic. It can be assumed that your helpful citizens continually upgrade the non-military buildings w/o your help (the same people who look to YOU to upgrade the army, i.e. that's your problem, we live here, this is our problem). Also new types of structures can be considered to be "upgrades" market->bank->stock exchange. Lastly how much does one need to "upgrade" a market? Many markets today function basically the same as they did 1000's of years ago.

[Theben]

Supply crawlers as TI: I like this idea. Reduces micromanagement and is still playable & realistic (as realistic as supply crawlers). But why build a supply "depot" on gold if you won't get any trade? Perhaps it should stay as regular crawlers-one type of resource per TI on square (max 3 obviously)-and you be required to pay build costs and maintenance for each TI.

[mzilikazi]

Remember - you're paying upkeep of quite a bit of gold every turn on your city improvements... surely this can be considered as a trickle of modernisation every turn as new tech becomes available. Your market starts off as a dusty fleapit, but just imagine that 1 gold spent every turn on it pays for a wooden shelter, then a few bricks and a bit of mortar, then a fancy glass ceiling - or however you like to think of it. The function remains the same, and the building is superseded in importance by the Bank and the Stock Exchange - so you don't want to be fiddling around with modern markets in every city as well as building Banks and Stock Exchanges. Sounds like overdoing the micromanagement to me.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by mzilikazi (edited July 26, 1999).]</font>

[Flavor Dave]

When I first read of the idea of updating the barracks, I thought, great idea!! (I've already suggested that city walls go from a 40-shield "barricades," (acts exactly like a fortress) to the +40 shield city walls we all know, to a +40 more shields fortifications, which double defense against all forms of artillery.

Then I read the arguments against improved barracks. Well, since at gunpowder and mobile warfare you have to rebuild, what difference does it make? Perhaps you can keep barracks at each stage, but they only repair instantly. So, you'd sell most of these, you might keep one or two near the front, for a while. It wouldn't be worth the 1G upkeep elswhere.

I just think that the intermediate and modern form of barracks would look kewl on the city screen. Same effects, different names.

[Theben]

I'm not sure which arguements against upgraded barracks you're referring to, FD, but perhaps the arguements were talking about levels of veteran status? Such as:

Basic barracks=+1 to vet level
Improved barracks=+2 " " "
etc.

Then when new military techs &/or fighting styles arrive (gateway military techs; gunpowder, mobile warfare) the old ones are useless, and you have to build each type again.

[loinburger]

A clarification:

I did not intend that all city improvements require upgrades, only a few key improvements (barracks and city wall to name a few) which would lose their effectiveness as time goes by if not replaced/upgraded. As Flavor Dave says, you've got to replace your barracks anyway, right? Why not a. have the different names (drill field, barracks, maneuvers field) for the new improvements, and b. allow the player to keep his or her old rotting drill fields, which would still serve some purpose but not work at 100% efficiency, until the player gets around to replacing/upgrading them. If they ever do.

I agree with the arguments AGAINST this system, and agree that there would be no purpose to employing "outdated improvements" with improvements which have modern additions (market place -> bank -> stock exchange). However, with the one-time improvements, the ones which cannot be improved by additional improvements (barracks and city wall), why not require more than the usual maintenance fee and require an upgrade fee as well?

[ember]

I got a better idea for supply TI's.
You can settle villages of 1 pop on sqaures outside of a city radius. These villages would send any extra food and all resouces back to the hsot city. They can be pillaged and the pop killed, but they don't count towards aquaduct and size happiness limits.
With this idea, the city radius could be 1, with villages representing outlying farming and mining communities... (or maybe not).
This goes well with regions. The villages contribute directly to the regional pools, and fill in the gaps between cities. Al squares could potentially be villages for a region like modern western europe.
Cities would represent major trade and insutrial centers.

If we wanted to take this to an extreme, all food/resource gathering could be done by villages, and all trade/industry by cities.

Adding a second pop to a village would give a bonus of 50% to what it collects. Usefull for special resouce squares.

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

[Theben]

Village is a TI or a settled settler?

If a settler why bother? Just build another city.

If a TI isn't that the same thing as before with a different name?

[ember]

As a TI. THe difference is it uses a pop to make. THis avoids the potential cheese of just building millions of villages. Any pop growth is contributed back to the host city.

I got the idea of divorcing resouce gathering from cities while I was writing the previous post. Does it belong in Radical, or is here ok?

My idea is basically that villages, all size 1, farm and mine. (size 2 might give a 50-75% increase, for late game). THese goods are all automatically sent to a nearby host city. The city only gathers resources from it's square, but all the extra population is in the form of labourers, traders, and scientists.

Cities are hadled mostly as now.
Villages are TI's. Vilage improvments are also TI's. adding advanced farms, or silos, or a bettermines are all TI's.
By this model, a farmer would have to support ~twice as many pop as in CIV2.
All Food and natural resouces are 'made' in terrain squares.
All industry and trade are 'made' in cities, by citizens.

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