City planning

[Szethe]

Pardon me for making a suggestion on my first post. But every time I start a new game, I can't help thinking how much I'd like city planning "flags".

When placed within a tile, the flag could have up to four visible states: flag, flag w/ 3x3 shading, flag w/ "fat X" shading, and hidden. Overlapping shading could be thicker to show the overlap. The flag only needs to show to the player, not the AI or another player if MP is added. The flag could even be placed on uncovered tiles; it would just be a planning aid. A natural addendum to this would be a toggle to extend shading from existing cities in addition to the planning flags.

I like to use every last tile when founding cities whenever possible, which has me spending much time counting tiles to find "ideal" city placement.

Do you, as an experienced Civ player, like this idea as much as I do?

[Rakso]

That's a nice suggestion, and you do enjoy the "aura" a settler now has.

[dexter4dxm]

i know how you feel Szethe. all too often i'm spending too much times looking at an area with the grid turned on counting over 2 spaces from different directions, seeing how i can maximize the use of all available land. civ 3 makes this task even harder than civ 2 because the white city radius grid lines are gone.

now i'm not sure exactly how you mean to show these "flags" to the player, but i understand the need for some kind of system to let the player know this information easily. if firaxis doesn't add something like this, i'll put it in my own civ game. hell, i'll put it in either way

[Venger]

What a good, unique idea. Well done.

Venger

[Monoriu]

Originally posted by Szethe


Do you, as an experienced Civ player, like this idea as much as I do?

YES.

[Mokael]

good idea, even though in general I don't give a cookie. but it is a pain-in-a-butt to zoom to city every time ...

[kvn299]

One of my indespensible Civ tools is a small piece of plastic (overhead transparency). I copied a "fat x" onto it and put it against the monitor when planning city placement. Very useful, although Szethe's suggestion would be far more useful!

[Eli]

Of course that such brilliant, easy to implement suggestions will continue to be ignored.

[Pythagoras]

I agree this would be most useful.

SUPPORT!

In the mean time I just look for where the result of a knight's move (ala chess) from 2 city tiles becomes adjacent.

[TrainWreck20]

my, my....I must play too much. I now mental superimpose grids on my yard, the living room, and my excel spreadsheet at work. Trying to figure out what the city is going to encompass is now second nature

[AHO]

one-two-over...one-two-over...knight-takes-rook

Oh sorry, it has become my mantra! I agree with your idea.
I would at least like to have the old Civ2 radius grid thingy back, but your idea is even better.

[Xentropy]

In case this idea is too difficult to implement in a patch, I would like that at least a compromise is added. This would be composed of two parts:

1) The radius shown when moving a settler around would ALWAYS display a fat X. We *know* it'll only be a 3x3 square if it's outside our cultural radius at first, we'd still prefer to SEE the fat X to know what the city will EVENTUALLY encompass,

and 2) Show a highlight around every city, friend or foe, in some color not used by any current boundaries (solid white instead of colored dashes seems fair), in the fat X form, a la Civ2.

I don't personally have much trouble after a decade of Civving placing my cities right, but I can see where this would get tiresome for new players, and even old players coming back to the game after a hiatus. For such emphasis supposedly placed on bringing in completely new users to the genre, I find these two things missing a grievous error.

[Szethe]

Well, once again could I have used this big time. I'm playing a game now on one continent shaped sort of like a three leaf clover. I started at the end of one leaf, with plentiful land to settle and later conquer. I use my own standard city spacing in this wide open area. Conquer my nearby neighbors Rome, Zululand, China, and making my way thru America now down a stem toward the center. Away from the wide open spaces of home, this new land winds along, and the many ways in which to place cities have me spending what seems like hours making a plan and then replanning it a few turns later. Lakes, mountains, terrain oddities, and my desire to always place cities as canals to allow naval passage, all contribute to the many variables to contemplate.

Too bad we can't hook into the right click menu to mod this; I'd take a crack at it myself.

Thanks for the positive responses btw; seems like a warm welcome to this board. What's up with that?

[Marko Polo]

Another vet civer wanting back those civ2 city radius grids..

[The Eliminator]

Finally, the first helpful thing I've found in the forums! kvn299 has a great idea about that plastic doohickey!

[star mouse]

I also like the transparency idea, I'm going to use my superior culture to acquire a sheet from work ...

[Malleus]

That would be cool. What also would be excellent is the ability to name squares ala SMAC! I used that to name places (especially battle sites)...but also to mark where I wanted my next city

K