Are farms coming back?

[XOR]

I mean, I'd love to see farms come back because in Civ3 currently farms dont exist and the thing that increases food production beyond irrigation is railroads.

It was perfectly fine with farms as it was in Civ2. If they dont put in a supermarket I dont care, but railroads producing more food is silly. And irrigation and roads or rails looks ugly.

[DrFell]

Agreed that rails everywhere looks a bit ugly, although I can handle that. Rails realisticly could increase food production (the food is transported faster, so less goes to waste). I'm more bothered about adding options to MP and filling out the industrial and modern ages with some buildings.

[Andrew_Jay]

I also think that using farms instead of rails to increase food also helps solve the problem of rails EVERYWHERE. In Civ2 rails didn't provide any extra trade, only fast movement, that way you really didn't need a whole lot. But with the Civ3 increase of food with the rails, you need all 20 squares railroaded in every city.

[Panag]

hi ,

, maybe they are not coming back , but with the "advanced editor" in PTW we should be able to remove the food from the railroads and add a terrain improvement , ....

have a nice day

[Firebird]

It would be great to be able to add terrain-improvements, but have you heard anything about that Panag?

[Panag]

Originally posted by Firebird
It would be great to be able to add terrain-improvements, but have you heard anything about that Panag?

hi ,

nothing is confirmed in that way , but it would be easy to add a workers job and it would be easy to add terrain and its improvements , ....

have a nice day

[XOR]

Originally posted by DrFell
Agreed that rails everywhere looks a bit ugly, although I can handle that. Rails realisticly could increase food production (the food is transported faster, so less goes to waste). I'm more bothered about adding options to MP and filling out the industrial and modern ages with some buildings.

Dude, where do you live? In my entire country there are no ralroads to rural areas loading food. All the food is easily loaded in trucks. Grain can be loaded in normal boxes and vegetables are loaded in some trucks with refrigeration thingy and practicly nothing is lost in the trucks. Most of the food that is lost is lost due to improper handling (i.e. People dropping boxes or squishing the tomatoes.) and none due to transportation methods. Trains would just make it so they would have to be "handled" from one method of transportation (truck) to another (train) and then back (truck again) in order to reach the supermarket, which is a mess.

Railroads producing food is silly. Irrigation and railroads look ugly.

[Panag]

Originally posted by XOR


Dude, where do you live? In my entire country there are no ralroads to rural areas loading food. All the food is easily loaded in trucks. Grain can be loaded in normal boxes and vegetables are loaded in some trucks with refrigeration thingy and practicly nothing is lost in the trucks. Most of the food that is lost is lost due to improper handling (i.e. People dropping boxes or squishing the tomatoes.) and none due to transportation methods. Trains would just make it so they would have to be "handled" from one method of transportation (truck) to another (train) and then back (truck again) in order to reach the supermarket, which is a mess.

Railroads producing food is silly. Irrigation and railroads look ugly.

hi ,

that why they should bring the super highways and refrigeration , ....

and they should give us more option in the editor , example ; highways + one food , ...

have a nice day

[Az]

oh , Superhighways..... *sigh* where are you?

[XOR]

Originally posted by panag


hi ,

that why they should bring the super highways and refrigeration , ....

and they should give us more option in the editor , example ; highways + one food , ...

have a nice day

Well, for trucks, roads is plenty enough, I dont think transportation lines affects food supply more than vehicles do (like, when trucks did not exist it must have been very tough to get fresh vegetables very long distances). But beyond that it goes to cultivation technology, the game does not need to be entirely realistic but railroads giving food is silly.

[Robert Plomp]

I think terrain improvements should differ much more,
so you havo to make more decisions on the way you improve the terrain. Examples:

- theme park (++ happyness)
- farmland: animals (+ food + production)
- farmland: grain (++food)
- industry (++ production)
- nature parks (+happyness +food)
- sport (+ happyness + production)
- airport (++production ++trade)
- harbor (++ production ++trade)

all with restriction
theme parc: only first 3 increase happyness.
nature parc: only first 2 increase happyness
airport: decrease happyness
harbor: only first 4 increase happyness, only next to rivers / sea squares)

etc. etc. etc.
that way you have to manage your terrain more, right now terrain improvement doesn't really matter. Just improve it to the max.

Of course you must be able to manage the city surrounding in one screen, ie. 20% happyness, 50% food etc. etc. and the workers will obbey to this)

[Tiberius]

Don't forget, in civ everything is very abstracted.
Take it this way: the railroads from civ3 are not only railroads, but the entire road & railroad infrastucture, including highways (after all, you build them on top of roads, right?).

[Tiberius]

Having highways only to improve food instead of rairoads would be silly. What's the fun in that?

Adding highways to the game would be interesting only if there were a strategic difference between highways and railroads. For example:
rairoads: - infinite movement, production bonus, no pollution
highways:- limited movement, commerce bonus, pollution.
farms:- food bonus

Something like that.

Anyway, it shouldn't be very complicated, because the AI wouldn't be capable of handling it.

[Galvatron]

Yes at the first look it might appear silly that a railroad produces food but when you think about it as Dr. Fell said it's ok (trains delivering the goods).

But I would also like to have the good old farms back. What a convenient way it was to increase food production all gone and yes the tiles for roads and rails must really be improved or we have to play Civ III with closed eyes in the future (so we don't have to see them).

[JtheJackal]

Originally posted by Tiberius
Having highways only to improve food instead of rairoads would be silly. What's the fun in that?

Adding highways to the game would be interesting only if there were a strategic difference between highways and railroads. For example:
rairoads: - infinite movement, production bonus, no pollution
highways:- limited movement, commerce bonus, pollution.
farms:- food bonus

Something like that.

Anyway, it shouldn't be very complicated, because the AI wouldn't be capable of handling it.

Railroads should get limited movement and highways should get infinite because the main purpose of highways is to transport the military in case of invasion

[XOR]

Originally posted by JtheJackal


Railroads should get limited movement and highways should get infinite because the main purpose of highways is to transport the military in case of invasion

Hmmm... How about highways being a city improvement instead of a suburban tile improvement? It was like that in Civ2 and it worked quite well.

[Martinus Magnificus]

I think terrain improvements should differ much more,
so you havo to make more decisions on the way you improve the terrain. Examples:

- theme park (++ happyness)
- farmland: animals (+ food + production)
- farmland: grain (++food)
- industry (++ production)
- nature parks (+happyness +food)
- sport (+ happyness + production)
- airport (++production ++trade)
- harbor (++ production ++trade)

Go play SimCity then!

[WarpStorm]

I agree with Tiberius, to me railroads don't mean literally railroads, but rather the abstracted modern transportation infrastructure. As such, it is about right in effect (if somewhat ugly to look at).

[DrFell]

Agreed, that's what I always take rails as being. Rails early on, canals, and motorways.

[XOR]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
I agree with Tiberius, to me railroads don't mean literally railroads, but rather the abstracted modern transportation infrastructure. As such, it is about right in effect (if somewhat ugly to look at).

Ya, but they are transportation, not food production...

[dunk]

Originally posted by CyberShy
I think terrain improvements should differ much more,
so you havo to make more decisions on the way you improve the terrain. Examples:

- theme park (++ happyness)
- farmland: animals (+ food + production)
- farmland: grain (++food)
- industry (++ production)
- nature parks (+happyness +food)
- sport (+ happyness + production)
- airport (++production ++trade)
- harbor (++ production ++trade)

all with restriction
theme parc: only first 3 increase happyness.
nature parc: only first 2 increase happyness
airport: decrease happyness
harbor: only first 4 increase happyness, only next to rivers / sea squares)

etc. etc. etc.
that way you have to manage your terrain more, right now terrain improvement doesn't really matter. Just improve it to the max.

Of course you must be able to manage the city surrounding in one screen, ie. 20% happyness, 50% food etc. etc. and the workers will obbey to this)

Very cool ideas. I would like to see some stuff like this. But, it won't happen in Civ III. Maybe Civ IV.

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by XOR


Ya, but they are transportation, not food production...

Get rid of the modern transportation and see how much fresh food there is in the store. It's not "just transportation". Transportation is the lifeblood of a modern economy. If the goods don't get where they're needed when they're needed they may as well not have been produced.

[XOR]

Originally posted by WarpStorm


Get rid of the modern transportation and see how much fresh food there is in the store. It's not "just transportation". Transportation is the lifeblood of a modern economy. If the goods don't get where they're needed when they're needed they may as well not have been produced.

Get rid of the cultivation technology and see how much fresh food there is in the store. It's not "just food production". Farm cultivation is the lifeblood of a modern nutrient production. If the goods don't get produced in the amouns they're needed when they're needed they may as well not have been transported.

It's just transportation, really, if you want to take food from one place to another trucks can do the job very well even if they have to travel trough miles of non-paved roads. (except, non-paved roads are unusable when it rains).

Railroads producing food is silly, and Rail+Irrigation tiles look ugly.

[WarpStorm]

I'll disagree with you on the transport issue, but I'll agree rails everywhere looks ugly. Truth be told, I'd rather a feeder system like Imperialism II.

[Cyclotron]

It makes perfect sense for rails to increase food. At least in the USA, railroads (and later, refrigerator cars) enabled the mass transport of meats and foodstuffs from their sources to the urban areas of the east coast. Without railroads, the East Coast would not have been able to support the dense urban population that it does.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

My only real problem with the whole "RR increase food" thing is that it does lead to that awful RR sprawl! What should happen, in my opinion, is that if your city is connected to your internal trade network, by even a single RR, then you should gain a bonus to trade, production and food based on the number of cities also connected up! Example, if your city is connected, by rail, to an internal trade network consisting of 15 other cities, all of them connected by rail, then that city should recieve about +3 food, +2 commerce and +2 production! This would reflect the movement of commodities and wealth along these networks, without that awful SPRAWL effect! There should also be a similar bonus from roads, but to a lesser effect (Maybe +1 per 8 cities for roads, and +1 per 6 cities for rail!)
This might also provide an interesting side to international trade. For instance, instead of just trading resources, you might be able to trade commodities, such as production and food! To make it simple, you would not require any surplus of either commodity, you would simply gain bonuses to food or production based on the number of cities in THEIR internal trade network, and vice versa. You would also recieve bonus commerce, to reflect the money gained from your export trade!
I have to say, though, that I still do agree with XOR that we also need farms to make a comeback! At the very least, I'd like to be able to EDIT and ADD terrain improvements via the editor, so that I can have things like Early farms and Modern farms, Early Mines and Modern Mines and even more advanced transportation than RR's!!
Anyway, just a thought!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Optimizer]

The RR sprawl is realistic. I had got a railroad map over the USA somewhere, and it shows that in the heavily populated areas the rail network is very fine.

If you think the railroads are ugly, make them more discrete. I believe it wouldn't be too hard to make them some pixel thinner.

I think that railroads are overpowered, however. Letting the food bonus to another improvement would be just fine.

[Palaiologos]

In the civ2 manual a programer(don't remember his name) says that in civ1 there were only railroads and irrigation and that the final result looked ugly.So they decided to add farmlands as an upgrade of irrigation, as RR was an upgrade of roads plus it would look cooler.

Unless i am mistaken were not the same men who made civ2, responsible for civ3?

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by Palaiologos
Unless i am mistaken were not the same men who made civ2, responsible for civ3?

Actually, most of the people responsible for Civ2 no longer work for Firaxis.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
Actually, most of the people responsible for Civ2 no longer work for Firaxis.

Not only that, but they left Firaxis in the middle of the development of civ3. Thank God, may I say, because right now they are working on the first [disgusted]real time civ game [/disgusted] (namely Rise of Nations).