Civ III Site Updated

[aCa]

quote: Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS on 05-11-2001 06:07 PM The way it currently stands, your borders are seperate from your "workable city tiles". The number of city tiles you can work does increase as your city grows, but it doesn't expand nearly as far as your city borders do.

Here he say that the city radius WILL expand. What more proofe do you guys need?

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aCa (a Civilization addict)

[SerapisIV]

Why show a screenshot of a settler with a city-radius outlay, if the city-radius is gonna change? The city-radius isn't going to change, your borders which allow you to take advantage of resources within your city radius will change (that is in the early-game) by mid game your borders/culture should at least be outside of the city-radius.

[Steve Clark]

Just got around to checking this out and I must say it is awesome. The slideshow mini-tutorial is a perfect visualization tool.

Hopefully the next update will get into customization and scenario-building. <-HINT

[bagdar]

forget about the update, when's the release???

[ChrisShaffer]

aCa, he didn't say the city radius expands. He said:

quote: The number of city tiles you can work does increase as your city grows

which is how it worked in Civ, Civ2, and SMAC. The larger your population, the more city tiles you can work. This has nothing to do with the city radius - you still get to place workers within the standard 21 square layout.

[Fintilgin]

I was looking at one of the new screenshots (Rome and Germany) and noticed that you can't seem to tell who the colony belongs too.

I hope we get little colored ownership flags with cities, colonies and units in the final game. Altering parts of the units color is a neat idea, but we should be able to tell at glance what belongs to who. And that means a swatch of easy to read color (read: flag) at a consistent immediately visable spot for every thing who's nationality may be in question.

Remember Civ1 and 2? Nationatlity colors were so obvious you didn't even have to think about it. In the screenshots we've seen so far it's a little different:

"Well.... ::squints:: that guy looks like he has a blue fringe to his cloak so I guess he's a baddie. And that one... er... ah... oh! Red boots, that must be one of mine."

Oh! Another thought. It might be cool to be able to name your little colonies. Also maybe colonies could be `upgraded' to cities. Perhaps if you use a settler to build a city in a square with a colony they get a bonus population point? Then you could form all sorts of oversees colonies like Massachusetes and Virginia and stuff, slowly develop them into cities, and eventually have them revolt and form their own country or something. I know that sounds far fetched and nothing happened like it in history, but this is a game after all!

Joe

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Dan Mahaga The way it currently stands, your borders are seperate from your "workable city tiles". The number of city tiles you can work does increase as your city grows, but it doesn't expand nearly as far as your city borders do.

quote: Originally posted by aCa Here he say that the city radius WILL expand. What more proofe do you guys need?

quote: Originally posted by SerapisIV Why show a screenshot of a settler with a city-radius outlay, if the city-radius is gonna change?

Hmm! Yet more confusing and contradicting Civ-3 update-info.

If I study the Resource mini-tutorial it initially looks like aCa is right (look at slide 8: if fixed 21 tiles ruled, wouldnt the colony still be needed?), but if I then study the Settler surveying Ask the Civ-team answer, its looks more like Jarouik and SeraphisIV is right.

Personaly, I keep my fingers crossed for Jarouik´s explanation. Its seems to be the most sensible solution to me (I never liked CTP-2 style expanding city-areas for a number of good reasons) - but Im still not 100% sure. However, his explanation CAN explain "slide 8": You get standard resources (like food) from within the fixed 21-tile setup. IRON is however a special resource - and all special resources may very well be harvested from a culture-depending expanding city-area (and it IS). Also, read below:

quote: Originally posted by Jarouik The way I interpreted Firaxis, you can work any tile in your city radius, which is the same 21-square-area as in Civ II, regardless of the size of your borders. Gaining access to specific resources, however, which are separate from food/shield/trade production, requires that the resource fall within your borders (or a colony is built on the square of the resource) and is connected with a road to the cities where you want the resource to be used.

A middleground explanation would be: The max-limit 20 surrounding work-tiles ala Civ-2 is still in place - but you can now select those max 20 tiles from a gradually much bigger area then just within the traditional fixed 21-tile layout suggests. Not likely, because then that Settler surveying screenshot simply wouldnt make any sense.

Any clarifying comments? I belive strongly that Jarouik´s interpretation is the far most likely one. If any Firaxian read this, please give us a final short answer, please (dont forget my question in bold text, further below though).

Anyway, if one continue read what Dan says:

quote: Originally posted by Dan Mahaga Even if your city has only the beginning 1-square (no) border, you can work the requisite number of surrounding squares. But until those squares actually fall within your borders, the enemy can come onto them and do what he pleases. Once you've got borders around those squares, you can tell the other players to get out (and in most cases, they listen).

Hmm! This indicates even further that Jarouik is right. A: Standard resources and B: Special recources really ARE seperately handled. Its hard for me to interpret it in any other way.

Finally, while Im at it:

Will we also be able to see what each tile actually contributes with, just as we did in that clickable Civ-2 city-area view? I noticed there was no Civ/SMAC-style tile-output icons. Where are they? Im thinking on standard resources here - not special ones.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 14, 2001).]

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Fintilgin on 05-14-2001 02:55 PM I hope we get little colored ownership flags with cities, colonies and units in the final game. Altering parts of the units color is a neat idea, but we should be able to tell at glance what belongs to who.

Thumbs up. Although units & cities is no problem; click this screenshot. Colonies though. Unit-flags would look better, I believe. City pop-number squares could be bigger, and they should always be colour-coded.

quote: It might be cool to be able to name your little colonies.

Thumbs neutral. Remember that colonies only harwest the tiles they are founded on. Is it worth it?

quote: Also maybe colonies could be `upgraded' to cities.

Thumbs down.
Firaxis should NOT re-establish a backdoor variation of ICS. ICS is dead - dont try to awake it again.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 14, 2001).]

[Sirotnikov]

We should make ICS hard and not the chose strategy, but it won't be wise to completely erase the possiblity of expanding just because some players abuse it...

[Theben]

Ralf:

quote: Will we also be able to see what each tile actually contributes with, just as we did in that clickable Civ-2 city-area view? I noticed there was no Civ/SMAC-style tile-output icons. Where are they? Im thinking on standard resources here - not special ones.

Calm down there, buddy. Remember that you could only see the tile output from within the city screen, and they've only shown one city view so far, which may have been edited to remove clutter from the image.

Unless you're referring to the 1 "shield" from grasslands, which I think does appear in the screenshots.

quote: Thumbs neutral. Remember that colonies only harwest the tiles they are founded on. Is it worth it?

Do they? Or do they only bring in the special resource? If the colony brings in every resource from the tile, we may have some serious problems with colonies dotting the landscape, creating mega-cities with no drawbacks.

quote: Thumbs down[re: upgrading colonies to cities] Firaxis should NOT re-establish a backdoor variation of ICS. ICS is dead - dont try to awake it again.

Well colonies did eventually become cities if they survived, and this was usually done by *ahem* sending over more colonists! If a player adds a settler to the colony I see no reason why it shouldn't become a city- which is an "upgrade", is it not?

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Sirotnikov We should make ICS hard and not the chose strategy, but it won't be wise to completely erase the possiblity of expanding just because some players abuse it...

Erasing ICS doesnt mean erasing the possibility of expanding (of course). Erasing ICS was/is a top priority. I hope they have succeeded in methodically squashing every possibility of it to reappear its ugly head.

quote: Originally posted by Theben Calm down there, buddy.

Capital letters = SHOUTING. Bold letters = Emphasizing.

quote: Remember that you could only see the tile output from within the city screen, and they've only shown one city view so far, which may have been edited to remove clutter from the image.

Well, I just hope their a still IN the game (at least as a toggle-option) because they are very important, I think.

quote: Do they? Or do they only bring in the special resource? If the colony brings in every resource from the tile, we may have some serious problems with colonies dotting the landscape, creating mega-cities with no drawbacks.

Workers is probably not that cheap, and you are NOT regaining the subtracted 1-pop cost once your culture-depending city-borders have swallowed up that colony. Anyway the possibility of colony-abuse still exist, I guess. Perhaps they should are tweak it so they only can harvest special resources - not standard resources. I still would have emphasized building many cities with few colonies, instead of few cities with many colonies though; cities gives you much more flexibility in the long run.

quote: If a player adds a settler to the colony I see no reason why it shouldn't become a city- which is an "upgrade", is it not?

Well, that is an entirely different thing, dont you think. Settlers are expensive to build and the mother-city loses 2 pops. The understatement behind the "colony becomes city request" (I suspect) has been that they should mature automatically into cities all by themselves over time (unless swallowed up by cultural city-borders). It is the latter approach that I am strongly against.

-------------------- OBS!

What about Jarouik´s interpretation with 2 seperate city-area systems?
[*]Fixed 21 city-areas for standard food/shield/trade resources, and... [*]Expanding culture-depending city-areas for special resources? Can the conclude that this is correct?

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 15, 2001).]

[Theben]

quote: Capital letters = SHOUTING. Bold letters = Emphasizing.

Okay.

quote: Well, I just hope their a still IN the game (at least as a toggle-option) because they are very important, I think.

I think that's a safe assumption. Remember they did say that we can still move workers around to maximize production? Now why would we be able to do that unless they showed us what each tile produced?

quote: Workers is probably not that cheap, and you are NOT regaining the subtracted 1-pop cost once your culture-depending city-borders have swallowed up that colony. Anyway the possibility of colony-abuse still exist, I guess. Perhaps they should are tweak it so they only can harvest special resources - not standard resources. I still would have emphasized building many cities with few colonies, instead of few cities with many colonies though; cities gives you much more flexibility in the long run.

It depends on the difference in costs, I suspect. Remember that initially the flexibility lies in the worker, as it can both make a colony and upgrade tiles. Settlers only settle, and cost 2 pop points. And now that I think about it having the resources of a tile go to the main city isn't so bad- it'll help kill ICS even more, reduce micromanagement, and give a bonus to the perfectionist player. But eventually some player will find a way to abuse it. Can't be helped, probably.

BTW I'm giving a thumbs up to naming colonies. It adds for flavor to a game to fight over the "Jamestown" settlement then an unnamed square. In SMAC I would name sea lanes that had experienced a lot of combat "The Slot".
Come to think of it we should be able to name fortresses too.

quote: Well, that is an entirely different thing, dont you think. Settlers are expensive to build and the mother-city loses 2 pops. The understatement behind the "colony becomes city request" (I suspect) has been that they should mature automatically into cities all by themselves over time (unless swallowed up by cultural city-borders). It is the latter approach that I am strongly against.

I suspect you're right about the "auto-mature" wishes of some gamers, and from a realism standpoint I think they should too. But from a gameplay standpoint they shouldn't for the reasons you mention.

[JamesJKirk]

quote: Originally posted by Theben on 05-14-2001 11:58 PM Well colonies did eventually become cities if they survived, and this was usually done by *ahem* sending over more colonists! If a player adds a settler to the colony I see no reason why it shouldn't become a city- which is an "upgrade", is it not?

But the government itself rarely sent over settlers of its own beyond the original founding of the colony, whose purpose it was to make money for the empire. Colonies grew because of entrepreneurs and people moving for a better life, and in the case of the spanish and portugeuse, from intermarriage between soldiers and natives, and by natives moving there. So, the economic colonies did tend to grow naturally into cities with out much if any tampering by the mother country. I think it should be a time consuming process for a colony to mature into a city. Maybe it can even depend on its sucess?

Another thing:
There's 3 groups of resources, right, but most of this talk has been about the second two types. With commodities like wheat and such, will it be worthwhile to make a colony to send it into your cities? And what's more, will it be necessary to ensure the city can grow?

[Jarouik]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 05-15-2001 01:23 AM-------------------- OBS! What about Jarouik´s interpretation with 2 seperate city-area systems? Fixed 21 city-areas for standard food/shield/trade resources, and... Expanding culture-depending city-areas for special resources? Can the conclude that this is correct?

I'm glad I am not the only one interpreting Firaxis this way... although I think that the area within your borders (i.e. your territory) where you can access special resources shouldn't even be considered city areas in any way, since the resources you have access to do not contribute to any particular city; rather, the resources benefit all of the cities in your empire that have road access to the resource, no matter where within your borders the resource is located, inside or outside any of your 21-square city radii, or even outside your borders, if you build a colony.

[Jarouik]

Regarding colonies' being upgraded to actual cities: while it might make some historical sense, I believe it wouldn't play too well. After all, you place colonies on top of a certain special resource you want to have access to; if you had the possibility of the colony later growing into a city, you would also have to consider whether the location of the colony is ideal for a city with its 21-square-radius. You might establish colonies in very haphazard patterns, close to each other etc., according to the squares which have special resources, so they would make horrible city locations.

If you really want to have a city just on that special resource tile your colony is on, you can always send a settler and found a city there - colonies themselves growing might indeed contribute to ICS and result in cities in poor locations, although even that might be historically accurate

quote: Anyway the possibility of colony-abuse still exist, I guess. Perhaps they should are tweak it so they only can harvest special resources - not standard resources.

I believe that colonies already only give you access to special resources, and standard resources are harvested the same way as ever: by assigning your people to city tiles. Although it might be possible that the production of the square the colony is on is added to the production of the home city of the worker that founded the colony (the way SMAC's Supply Crawlers do, if I recall correctly), if that were the case, then colonies' disappearing as your borders expand to them absolutely would not make sense, as it would cause you to lose some production!

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by JamesJKirk on 05-15-2001 02:13 AM But the government itself rarely sent over settlers of its own beyond the original founding of the colony, whose purpose it was to make money for the empire.

The govt. rarely sent anyone anywhere. Most people move all on their own, if they are able. But in the civ series the player (i.e., the govt) moves people. It's just gameplay.

[Adm.Naismith]

quote: Originally posted by aCa on 05-14-2001 10:29 AM Here he say that the city radius WILL expand. What more proof do you guys need?

Yes, it seems to me too that city start with 9 square (8+city place) and grow at least till 21 square. The mini tutorial/slide show on official site show it so clearly I can't imagine another meaning of Dan info.

quote: Oh! Another thought. It might be cool to be able to name your little colonies.

Indeed! I would like to consider Sid's Railroad Tycoon way to automatically propose name generated from original city and surrounding geographical elements (e.g. "Rome Coal mine" or "Badlands Oil wells"). A rename ability will let anyone happy, I hope

------------------
Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Jarouik]

quote: Originally posted by Adm.Naismith on 05-15-2001 03:51 AM Yes, it seems to me too that city start with 9 square (8+city place) and grow at least till 21 square. The mini tutorial/slide show on official site show it so clearly I can't imagine another meaning of Dan info.

Please, read what what we have pointed out above regarding the borders, which indeed expand but only matter when it comes to special resource availability, and city areas, which don't depend on borders...

(Note that, in the first picture, the city does not create any borders at all... but you can still work the squares in the 21-square radius, as Dan has said.)

[Harlan]

Regarding Colonies turning into new towns, here's my take. One doesn't want the actual Colony to become a new town, cos one doesn't want many new towns to be formed directly on top of special resources. Near, for instance a nearby port or river, yes, but not smack directly on top. On the other hand, it is a bummer to lose a population and have all the work disappear into the ether when the city radius catches up to it.

Solution? When a city radius comes to encompass a Colony, have the Colony instantly convert into the most relevant and useful tile improvement. For instance, if you've put a colony on an Iron spot, have it turn into a Mine. This makes much more sense than having the Colony disappear completely into unused land, just because a nearby town is expanding. Also, this would help make Colonies turn into new towns. Because, for far away but good special resources, you'd want to establish a Colony ASAP to help your already strong towns. Then later, when you have a chance, you can settle a new town a square or two from that special resource, and you instantly have a very productive special resource square already working for you. Nearby special resources you wouldn't want to start a new town with, since you know a nearby city radius will eventually catch up to it.

Makes sense to me . Without doing it this way, the rules would tend to discourage starting new towns near far off special resources, since your work gets wiped out.

And by the way, big thumbs up on the Colony idea generally.

[Quartz Dragon]

quote: Originally posted by bagdar on 05-13-2001 01:58 AM That means the unhappiness/units-out-of-the-city relation in Democracy has changed, has it not?

Remember in Civ 2 fortified units in fortresses did not cause unhappiness

[Quartz Dragon]

quote: Originally posted by ChrisShaffer on 05-14-2001 01:34 PM aCa, he didn't say the city radius expands. He said: which is how it worked in Civ, Civ2, and SMAC. The larger your population, the more city tiles you can work. This has nothing to do with the city radius - you still get to place workers within the standard 21 square layout.

That can be interpreted in many different ways

[Ralf]

OK, heres a summarized version, as I have understood it:

There are now two types of resource-collecting models to consider in Civ-3. Firstly, we have the old standard city-area version:
[*] Fixed 21-square city-areas - they work exactly as in Civ-2. [*] They are called city-areas because harvested basic resources is available to that city only. [*] Basic resources (= foods, shields & trades) can ONLY be harvested from within fixed 21-square city-areas. [*] The available tiles you have access to DONT expand in steps, from 9 and upwards. Instead: as long as the map is uncovered, you are free to pick-and-choose what tile/tiles you should harvest on foods, shields & trades, from the very start - depending on your pop-points: exactly as you did in Civ-2 & SMAC.

Secondly, we have the new "cultural border/special resource" model:
[*] Gradually expanding border-areas. Expands depending on culture-level in cities.[*] Special resources (like iron) can ONLY be harvested, if A: city-connected by road, and B: within expanding culture-borders, or alternatively C: outside the expanding culture-border IF underneath a 1-square colony AND the colony is road-connected to a city. Just 21-square coverage is not enough (and not needed). [*] ANY city within your empire, that is connected to that special resource by roads (ocean-lanes, flight-routes?) have also free access to that unique resource.

Below touches both basic- and special resources:
[*] If a tile (harvested, or not) is inside your culture-borders, a foreign civ cannot overtake that tile without act-of-war consequences. [*] If, however a tile (harvested, or not) is outside your culture-borders, a foreign Civ are free to overtake that tile without it being considered as an act-of-war, by the other civs. You may still be pissed off and declare war against that civ, of course. But in terms of Civ-diplomacy; YOU is then considered the aggressor - not that other Civ.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 15, 2001).]

[m_m_x]

i like the new irrigation graphic
it looks so real!!!great job on that!!
but the trees graphic still ugly!!

[Father Beast]

My take on this, and I think it was explained well in the slideshow:

There are 2 things we are talking about. 1: city radius. 2: culture radius.
Don't get them mixed up.

in the beginning, you have no culture, and your culture radius does not extend outside your city square. that doesn't mean that your citizens cannot work the tiles outside the city square, just can't access the rersources. as you develop culture, your culture radius expands, and you can use resources within your culture radius connected by a road.

to use a resource outside of your culture radius, you can use a worker to build a colony, which will then supply the resource (not the tile production) if the colony is connected by a road. Obviously, you can use the worker to build the road on the way there.

as I understand it, you can move your citizens round your city radius at will, but even if they're working a square with a special resource, you won't get the benefit of the resource unless it is (a). within your culture radius and connnected by road to your city, or (b). covered by a colony connected by a road to your city.

The balance seems simple to me. if you don't like losing your worker, you don't have to build a colony. If your culture radius is about to expand, you might want to not build your colony and save your worker. it seems one of those choices sid regularly throws at us.

Of course, you don't have to have culture, either. you can just recklessly expand, and use masses of colonies to get your resources to you. it's always an option, but the disadvantages are clear, also.

the one thing that isn't clear to me, is how do you connect resources on the other side of a river? do you have to wait until bridge building to get them?
[This message has been edited by Father Beast (edited May 15, 2001).]

[Adm.Naismith]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 05-15-2001 02:59 PM OK, heres a summarized version, as I have understood it: Below touches both basic- and special resources: [*] If a tile (harvested, or not) is inside your culture-borders, a foreign civ cannot overtake that tile without act-of-war consequences. [*] If, however a tile (harvested, or not) is outside your culture-borders, a foreign Civ are free to overtake that tile without it being considered as an act-of-war, by the other civs. You may still be pissed off and declare war against that civ, of course. But in terms of Civ-diplomacy; YOU is then considered the aggressor - not that other Civ. [This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 15, 2001).]

Ok, you are right, now I understand better. Thanks!

On Firaxis site, I noticed also that

quote: Finally, resources and luxuries can be traded with other civs if the goods are connected to your capital via road, airport, or harbor

To me it seems the death of Camel (caravan), replaced by a national trade screen: what's the point to bring all goods to capitol, otherwise?

[Father Beast]

quote: Originally posted by Adm.Naismith on 05-16-2001 09:57 AM To me it seems the death of Camel (caravan), replaced by a national trade screen: what's the point to bring all goods to capitol, otherwise?

DANG! Matthew will be upset to hear that.
and so am I. I like setting up my trade routes, although it can be a pain to spend a hundred years moving my camel somewhere, the AC model failed to turn me on.

[Ralf]

quote: "Finally, resources and luxuries can be traded with other civs if the goods are connected to your capital via road, airport, or harbor." Adm. Naismith: To me it seems the death of Camel (caravan), replaced by a national trade screen: what's the point to bring all goods to capitol, otherwise?"

Good observation! We are still speculating here, of course - but, I must concede that your assumption seems rather probable. In Civ-2 one was forced to herde buckloads of camels accross the map (= too tiresome), and in SMAC it was enough just to make contact with a faction-specific city, with any unit, and you instantely got full trade-access to that faction (= too easy). I really hope they find a well-balanced middleground trade-solution in Civ-3.

Anyway I hope you are right about the "trade-screen replaces camel" assumption. A trade-screen is much more flexible, more AI-friendly, and it allows more spinn-off economical war effects, like monopolys, protectionism, ...

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 16, 2001).]

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Adm.Naismith on 05-16-2001 09:57 AM To me it seems the death of Camel (caravan), replaced by a national trade screen: what's the point to bring all goods to capitol, otherwise?

I suggest that you read the new Gamespot preview. Heres one interesting quote.

"Trade was really abstract in the two [previous Civilization] games," Briggs said. "You would build caravans and move them yourself from city to city, moving them in the right place. I thought that was cumbersome." To change all of that, Firaxis is implementing two types of resources--luxury items and strategic resources -"

My underlining. So the camel IS Killed - its confirmed. Now, the wheeling and dealing with those luxery items & strategic recources must of course be handled within some appropriate trade-screen, I assume...

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 16, 2001).]

[Ralf]

Doublepost. Sorry!
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited May 16, 2001).]

[Father Beast]

there's a couple of things I'm still wondering about.

1. Rivers. If a resource is within your cultural borders, but across the river from your city, and you haven't discovered bridge building, does that mean you can't access that resource?
Come to think of it, what about the cities you can't connect by road to your capitol, because of a river in the way. they can't trade?

2. War. If you're at war with another civ, can they interfere with your special resource gathering by standing on it, or standing on the road, since the road seems so important to this process?
do you have to defend your colony? can enemy troops attack your resource gathering colony and destroy it? would it have the defense of a worker?, or that of an undefended city, where a unit can just walk in and get rid of it?


Just wondering...