According to at least one of the game reviews out, cities will work all hexes within three of the city. That is a LOT of hexes (6 + 12 + 18 = 36!). But it also means the end of the big fat cross! Personally, I'm not sure how to deal with that.

On the one hand, the BFC has been the bane of proper city settlement ever since Civ started. Always with the overlapping, or the leaving tiles unworked. Oy!

On the other hand, the BFC is what keeps us from predictable, repetitive patterns of city settlement. It's precisely because we have to figure out where to overlap and where to leave no coverage that we end up spending hours simply mapping out how we intend to settle a given area (only for the stupid AI countries to dink in and mess it up with a city that will never grow past size 5!). :crazyeye:

So what think you? Is this a good thing, or a bad thing???? :eek:

Good thing! But my limited mind is going to have to kick in gear first.

Source ?

Wow. That's a lot of tiles to work. I really hope they get rid of the "assign different citizens to work each tile" micromanagement nonsense.

Just add up the resources of all tiles in the radius, divide by that number of tiles, then multiply by the city size. That would really cut down on the annoying work we have to do.

Wow. That's a lot of tiles to work. I really hope they get rid of the "assign different citizens to work each tile" micromanagement nonsense.

Just add up the resources of all tiles in the radius, divide by that number of tiles, then multiply by the city size. That would really cut down on the annoying work we have to do.

I personally love the level of micromanagement required. I am very maticulous about how my cities are worked, and I take forever to make sure they are correct. I go through all of my cities about once every 3 or 4 turns to change up how they are being worked.

Source ?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=355763

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=355763

Ah..... point 4. But did they mean the borders or actual city workable tiles?

@ Dale

The sources are a swedish and a german review that got out yesterday/today ( both have threads in here ). Cities will be able to work tiles up to the third ring...

Not to drop water in the OP enthusiasm, but the BFC was dead since they decided to use hexes :D

I personally love the level of micromanagement required. I am very maticulous about how my cities are worked, and I take forever to make sure they are correct. I go through all of my cities about once every 3 or 4 turns to change up how they are being worked.

I have a friend who takes this to the extreme. He rearranges the tiles in his cities every single turn. He then complains to me when he gives up on every game in the latter stages (due to being completely bogged down in all of this drudgery). I don't think he's ever managed to finish a game. I think he may have OCD or something.

I hope for his sake that they fix this, it's a major distraction for him.

I wonder if this new mechanic will make it so Aqueducts allow you to work the second hex ring and Hospitals to work the third? Cities would start out working one ring and then must build the appropriate improvement in order to expand? I think I'd like that better than the method of halting city growth.

I wonder if this new mechanic will make it so Aqueducts allow you to work the second hex ring and Hospitals to work the third? Cities would start out working one ring and then must build the appropriate improvement in order to expand? I think I'd like that better than the method of halting city growth.

That's an interesting idea. Where would the choice come in though? Any time you add new gameplay elements, it is important that they are accompanied by interesting choices to make, lest they become boring busywork that you must perform the same way every time.

I wonder if this new mechanic will make it so Aqueducts allow you to work the second hex ring and Hospitals to work the third? Cities would start out working one ring and then must build the appropriate improvement in order to expand? I think I'd like that better than the method of halting city growth.

That's an interesting idea. Where would the choice come in though? Any time you add new gameplay elements, it is important that they are accompanied by interesting choices to make, lest they become boring busywork that you must perform the same way every time.

I'd guess that improvements which allow working the 2nd and 3rd hex rings would be available after particular techs. Is that what you meant? Interesting choices would begin with the old standard of choosing your tech path. Questions of... Does working the second ring take precedence over military or social development? Which do you choose, when.... civil, social, military, science etc.

There would be city planning decisions as well. Do you rush for Aqueducts and plan your city placements such that there will be minimal overlap? Or do you build your cities close and small and don't worry about overlap since it will be some time before you get the tech to work the second and third rings?

I'd guess that improvements which allow working the 2nd and 3rd hex rings would be available after particular techs. Is that what you meant? Interesting choices would begin with the old standard of choosing your tech path. Questions of... Does working the second ring take precedence over military or social development? Which do you choose, when.... civil, social, military, science etc.

There would be city planning decisions as well. Do you rush for Aqueducts and plan your city placements such that there will be minimal overlap? Or do you build your cities close and small and don't worry about overlap since it will be some time before you get the tech to work the second and third rings?

I think he is on to something.

I wonder if this new mechanic will make it so Aqueducts allow you to work the second hex ring and Hospitals to work the third? Cities would start out working one ring and then must build the appropriate improvement in order to expand? I think I'd like that better than the method of halting city growth.
That smeels so much to Civ III pop caps ... :(

To be honest i don't see this happening.

I'd guess that improvements which allow working the 2nd and 3rd hex rings would be available after particular techs. Is that what you meant? Interesting choices would begin with the old standard of choosing your tech path. Questions of... Does working the second ring take precedence over military or social development? Which do you choose, when.... civil, social, military, science etc.

There would be city planning decisions as well. Do you rush for Aqueducts and plan your city placements such that there will be minimal overlap? Or do you build your cities close and small and don't worry about overlap since it will be some time before you get the tech to work the second and third rings?

Could be interesting. Perhaps there is a reduction in efficiency of the worked tiles due to distance from the city. I would like to see players forced to make very hard choices in these areas, rather than simply finding the optimal path and then having no reason to deviate from it.

Good riddance BFC!!! In all seriousness though, this actually solves several problems associated with the AI and its city placements. From the sound of things so far, I really like the direction the city/empire management is going, though I'm still a bit of a skeptic over the whole one unit per tile thing. Thats gonna take awhile to get used to.

I would like to see players forced to make very hard choices in these areas, rather than simply finding the optimal path and then having no reason to deviate from it.Me to! To justify Civ5 as more than a rework of Civ4; I want to see more dynamics, more decisions to be made which have a significant impact on things yet to come, more ways to play, more circumstances to overcome, and especially more variety from game to game. I read hints towards the increase of playing styles in Civ5. It's starting to sound like we can actually play a diplomacy game. The Social thing intrigues me. Perhaps Economy will also be in better focus for Civ5. Would be great to play Civ with the expanded dynamics of civil, social, economic, scientific, and military development. Expanding the productivity of a cities fat ring sounds like civil development to me. I'm trying not to get my hopes up (once bitten, twice shy) but I can't help wondering if Civ5 will be the epitome of the series.

Me to! To justify Civ5 as more than a rework of Civ4; I want to see more dynamics, more decisions to be made which have a significant impact on things yet to come, more ways to play, more circumstances to overcome, and especially more variety from game to game. I read hints towards the increase of playing styles in Civ5. It's starting to sound like we can actually play a diplomacy game. The Social thing intrigues me. Perhaps Economy will also be in better focus for Civ5. Would be great to play Civ with the expanded dynamics of civil, social, economic, scientific, and military development. Expanding the productivity of a cities fat ring sounds like civil development to me. I'm trying not to get my hopes up (once bitten, twice shy) but I can't help wondering if Civ5 will be the epitome of the series.

Yeah. I also hope Civ V will move a lot more in the direction of believable, plausible situations. I know they'll never make it realistic, with the silly timescale and so on, but I hope they make the game more amenable to real-life strategies.

Civ 4 seems to revolve so heavily around these ridiculous unrealistic metagames of religion, specialists, civics, wonders and so on. Specialist economies, chop-rushing wonders, lightbulbing certain techs and tech-brokering. It's all very meta-gamey and has nothing in common with what would be a plausible, real-life strategy for an empire.

How exactly can you speed up the pyramids by chopping down trees? They are made out of wood, not stone! And how exactly does your stone quarry multiply the benefit you get out of chopping down those trees?

It would be far more interesting if, for example, the pyramids took 200 units of stone and you were simply required to obtain that much stone to build them. Forests, on the other hand, would provide wood and other improvements might require that.

How exactly can you speed up the pyramids by chopping down trees?

All these huge boulders were moved from the quarries down the Nile on huge rafts. They had to be pulled across land on top of logs. They had to be hoisted atop the pyramid on ramps with the help of force multiplying mechanisms. The workers had to build their own dwellings near the construction site from scratch.

Now tell me where timber is needed in all this.

Now tell me where timber is needed in all this.

They used wooden paddles to spank the slaves when they were naughty. :p
:spank: :trouble: :egypt:

All these huge boulders were moved from the quarries down the Nile on huge rafts. They had to be pulled across land on top of logs. They had to be hoisted atop the pyramid on ramps with the help of force multiplying mechanisms. The workers had to build their own dwellings near the construction site from scratch.

Now tell me where timber is needed in all this.


According to something I watched about the sphinx, one of the most significant things was how they managed to build such things even though the tools will get dull quickly, and needed reshaping very very often, where the wood can come in. Perhaps it was similar with the pyramids.

Wow. That's a lot of tiles to work. I really hope they get rid of the "assign different citizens to work each tile" micromanagement nonsense.

Just add up the resources of all tiles in the radius, divide by that number of tiles, then multiply by the city size. That would really cut down on the annoying work we have to do.

I actually enjoy telling my cities what tiles to work.

Now tell me where timber is needed in all this.

Uh, real question? Hmm. From what the specials on TV said the timber was used to help move the huge stone blocks uphill...up-pyramid...up-whatever. Easier to move a two-ton block of granite over wood than it is over stone/sand/muddy clay. Blocks of wood about the size of your arm, maybe thicker, got placed on the ground spaced so that the weight of the stone didn't crush the wood immediately, and you had one more than what was needed I think, so you could place it in front, move the block, then grab the freed wood at the rear and repeat the process until the stone was where it needed to be.

Uh, real question? Hmm. From what the specials on TV said the timber was used to help move the huge stone blocks uphill...up-pyramid...up-whatever. Easier to move a two-ton block of granite over wood than it is over stone/sand/muddy clay. Blocks of wood about the size of your arm, maybe thicker, got placed on the ground spaced so that the weight of the stone didn't crush the wood immediately, and you had one more than what was needed I think, so you could place it in front, move the block, then grab the freed wood at the rear and repeat the process until the stone was where it needed to be.

(rhetorical question)

Me to! To justify Civ5 as more than a rework of Civ4; I want to see more dynamics, more decisions to be made which have a significant impact on things yet to come, more ways to play, more circumstances to overcome, and especially more variety from game to game. I read hints towards the increase of playing styles in Civ5. It's starting to sound like we can actually play a diplomacy game. The Social thing intrigues me. Perhaps Economy will also be in better focus for Civ5. Would be great to play Civ with the expanded dynamics of civil, social, economic, scientific, and military development. Expanding the productivity of a cities fat ring sounds like civil development to me. I'm trying not to get my hopes up (once bitten, twice shy) but I can't help wondering if Civ5 will be the epitome of the series.
I might be suggestign somethign a bit far, btu especially in regards to the economy, I want "economic civics" to give us differing levels of control over certain economic variables, like governments do in real life, like interest rates, or budgetary spending.
Just an idea.

...we end up spending hours simply mapping out how we intend to settle a given area

We do?

I wonder if this new mechanic will make it so Aqueducts allow you to work the second hex ring and Hospitals to work the third? Cities would start out working one ring and then must build the appropriate improvement in order to expand? I think I'd like that better than the method of halting city growth.

Eugh. Please no. Civ IV finally got it right with its health system.

All these huge boulders were moved from the quarries down the Nile on huge rafts. They had to be pulled across land on top of logs. They had to be hoisted atop the pyramid on ramps with the help of force multiplying mechanisms. The workers had to build their own dwellings near the construction site from scratch.

Now tell me where timber is needed in all this.

In the scaffolds at the quarry?

This news was in the other thread; I'm opposed though because I think it's going only exactly one way: The game is going to be made smaller and dumbified. Combined with one-unit-per tile, removing other features and all, I have a feeling we're going to see CivRev-ish stuff, like games where your mighty "Empire" is like three cities. 3-radius cities would be ridiculous for the late game and encourage turtling the whole time, and I object on those grounds alone -but I think the problem is that they're going to be removing the epic feel/late game that I and many of us players like anyway. (note: I don't hate the Kurios. It should go without saying this and things below are a tremendous difference against the regular civ game, which should have different balance/realism)

Does really make me wish I had the time/effort to put into making my own civ4 mod though. For instance, I agree with:


Civ 4 seems to revolve so heavily around these ridiculous unrealistic metagames of religion, specialists, civics, wonders and so on. Specialist economies, chop-rushing wonders, lightbulbing certain techs and tech-brokering. It's all very meta-gamey and has nothing in common with what would be a plausible, real-life strategy for an empire.

How exactly can you speed up the pyramids by chopping down trees? They are made out of wood, not stone! And how exactly does your stone quarry multiply the benefit you get out of chopping down those trees?

Specialist "Economy:" I consider this mostly a bug/exploit in vanilla civ :thumbsup:

Chopping - a broken mechanic that more than anything else in the game justified much of civ 4's broken balance/AI. I'd put it back to like 10 hammers, reduce early game bonuses, everyone's the better. It's worthless in itself, only a reason to make the human able to compete against higher-imbalanced AI.

Tech as a whole is just a little unrealistic; but the diplomacy side isn't ideal, yes, because of the AI/AI restrictions again.

According to at least one of the game reviews out, cities will work all hexes within three of the city. That is a LOT of hexes (6 + 12 + 18 = 36!). But it also means the end of the big fat cross! Personally, I'm not sure how to deal with that.

On the one hand, the BFC has been the bane of proper city settlement ever since Civ started. Always with the overlapping, or the leaving tiles unworked. Oy!

On the other hand, the BFC is what keeps us from predictable, repetitive patterns of city settlement. It's precisely because we have to figure out where to overlap and where to leave no coverage that we end up spending hours simply mapping out how we intend to settle a given area (only for the stupid AI countries to dink in and mess it up with a city that will never grow past size 5!). :crazyeye:

So what think you? Is this a good thing, or a bad thing???? :eek:

I like the Hexes no mistake, but you are not the first one that has mentioned that circular cities will make positioning so easy that it will be boring.
I wondered if this is true so I sat down with my MS Paint and downloaded some Hex structure graphic from the internet, filled it in a little with 'land' and 'sea' and pretended I was placing cities there.

Even with a tiny landmass I wasn't able to position my 'cities' in a way where I
a) used all the tiles available AND
b) had NO overlap whatsoever.

So just curious, where are you getting this idea from?

Edit: Added Picture to illustrate my point.
And for simpilicities sake I just went withtwo tiles out not three.

I think there should be a tech or, more likely, a civil policy that would allow you to transition from only working tiles within a city radius to working all tiles within your border. Maybe Nationalism?

Another civil policy could allow you to decide whether resources are apportioned to the nearest city, or split evenly and distributed between all cities in the Civ. Maybe Communism?

If this isn't in the game, I'm hoping it can be modded in. I always hated that I had cities overlapping and tiles that could never ever be worked. Not being able to position cities optimally on a random map caused me to restart many many many games.

In fact, I'd rather we do away with fat cross and city radius. If we can choose what tiles are within our national borders, we should be able to choose what tiles a city works. Then cities could be placed as they were historically, for premium trade opportunities and for defense.

i kinda like it, but working 36 hexes can make the population quite high. i assume they will scale back the population to compensate.

..on the other hand, having a 360 population city is now possible. if you cheat.

The island in your map is too small for 2 3hex-radius cities. One such city could cover it.

Actually, an idea they could do is remove the idea of "Working the Hexes" altogether.

ie Hexes only produce something if they have some 'special' resource. (now the special resources would have to be more common, say 1 in every 3-4 tiles.. but that would simplify the micromanagement a lot)

So you would place a city to get those special resources.

The island in your map is too small for 2 3hex-radius cities. One such city could cover it.

Like I said, I restricted myself to 2hex-radius cities so I wouldn't have to draw as much.
But my main point stands independent of 2hex or 3hex radius. You still have overlap and can't work every tile just because the BFC has been replaced by circles.

In a way it would be interesting to have a building like, say, Mass Transit that you have to build before making use of hexes in the outermost circle. But that would put off their development until the modern age, and by then - if one has played a successful game - those hexes are probably not very important. At least not if one uses Civ IV as a comparison, in which I tent to control half the world by 1300 AD on Monarch level (through near-constant warfare).

But it would be nice to have modern buildings that let you work a fourth ring, like the mentioned Mass Transit for land squares and, say, a Ferry for ocean squares. That would let you access left-over squares which may not be that important but should still show signs of belonging to a civilization by being worked on.

i kinda like it, but working 36 hexes can make the population quite high. i assume they will scale back the population to compensate.

..on the other hand, having a 360 population city is now possible. if you cheat.

I'll bet it will be really hard and cost a lot of money to try and grow a city to 36 tiles. Remember, there's no ring expansion, each city gains one tile at a time, which can be pushed along by spending gold.

Its not going to be strategically beneficial to spend money to grow a city over every tile. Maybe maintenance is tied to city size? And instead of cities overlapping you'll choose as the cities grow who takes which tile. So you won't have an empire of circular cities, rather irregular shaped cities that are able to pick and choose the terrain in the region best for there specialization, and also fill in your entire empire with worked tiles for once.

Like this island:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d175/sbrylski06/civV.png

This is what I was getting at. It would be so awesome if cities didn't overlap anymore, but I don't think you are spending to get tiles for a city, but for the civ. I could be wrong and that would be awesome.

Yet another shift away from a concept that was pretty much set in the earlier incarnations of Civ. It does sound good though and would make a lot of sense and be a ncie tie in with the irregular expansion we keep hearing about!

They used wooden paddles to spank the slaves when they were naughty. :p
:spank: :trouble: :egypt:

Um...

The pyramids weren't built with slaves. They were built by the public, who "paid" their debts by working on the Pyramids for a few weeks. It's like paying off your credit card by spending your August fixing potholes in the highway.

I don't get why people here are arguing for less micromanagement of the cities. If you don't want to micromanage your cities, you don't need to. It's optional. But for those, like myself, who enjoy doing it, that possibility should be available. For me, it wouldn't be Civ without the ability to specialize and micromanage the cities as much as possible. I'd be very disappointed if Civ V got rid of the ability to micromanage the cities and the tiles in the cities.

For those who like to micromanage, you A) get more tiles and B) get to micromanage when you get each tile expansion.

For those who don't then it's probably been streamlined from how it was in CIV.

sorry toddler messed with the laptop delete please

Um...

The pyramids weren't built with slaves. They were built by the public, who "paid" their debts by working on the Pyramids for a few weeks. It's like paying off your credit card by spending your August fixing potholes in the highway.

As far as I knew, nobody can really say for certain how the Pyramids were built (though we have very good educated guess) and by whom (slaves/citizens), with information on the latter being extremely scant.

I would be very interested in a link supporting your claim, however.

The island in your map is too small for 2 3hex-radius cities. One such city could cover it.

He assumed 2-radius for simplicity's sake. 3-radius plus a bigger island in the example wouldn't be fundamentally different.

Plus in the actual Civ V I would expect city-placement/city-count decisions to be made more complicated by the possibility of seafood and other resources, benefits for coastal or riverside placement, canal cities, chokepoint cities, etc....

The BFC was a necessity for increasing city placement difficulty back when all city sites were mostly created equal. That hasn't been true since at least Civ IV.

...It's optional...

The problem with this logic is that you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either micromanagement provides a benefit or it doesn't:

If micromanagement provides a benefit, then it is not optional if you intend to compete at the higher difficulty levels
or
If micromanagement provides no benefit, then it is utterly pointless and shouldn't even be included

Not to drop water in the OP enthusiasm, but the BFC was dead since they decided to use hexes :D
Sure, we'll no have Big Fat Hexes :D:D

it seems very simplified civ5 will be, compared to civ4. with better gfx, less parameters/dynamics, less micromanagement and less of many things. more and more becoming a game for teenagers.

having 36tile cities mean less cities with higher rates. that should be considered for a faster game engine. i am sure civ5 will work slower than civ4 inspite of that.

with each new civ game, we have smaller worlds. and compared to civ3, civ4 brought higher maintenance points which disable founding many cities. civ4 still worked slower than civ3.

well, i am also afraid of White Elk's idea to have in the game. With so many disappointing news, I will not be surprised if we have a simple approach like white elk's idea: aqueduct helps work 2nd ring while hospital lets working the third. that could mean health is out as well. i hope we don't get to that much of a simple game.

hmm i red the ign article before but it seems i have missed a part. i just noticed this and didn't like it.

"It's all an attempt to make the game more accessible without compromising on the depth or details."

hmm i red the ign article before but it seems i have missed a part. i just noticed this and didn't like it.

"It's all an attempt to make the game more accessible without compromising on the depth or details."

You dislike that they aren't compromising the depth or details? Or that they attempt to make the game more accessible?

I don't see how any of those can be considered a bad thing.

I'll bet it will be really hard and cost a lot of money to try and grow a city to 36 tiles. Remember, there's no ring expansion, each city gains one tile at a time, which can be pushed along by spending gold.

Its not going to be strategically beneficial to spend money to grow a city over every tile. Maybe maintenance is tied to city size? And instead of cities overlapping you'll choose as the cities grow who takes which tile. So you won't have an empire of circular cities, rather irregular shaped cities that are able to pick and choose the terrain in the region best for there specialization, and also fill in your entire empire with worked tiles for once.

Like this island:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d175/sbrylski06/civV.png


That's exactly how I see it coming!
I will assume a lot in the next passages of text, but I've thought this since I had the first pieces of info (and especially since the screenshots show irregular borders!). So shame on me if this is completely wrong, but I'm very sure about it.


IMO:

You will add single tiles to the cities radius, choosing what you need and specialising the city this way. Cities will have irregular shape, making "dotmapping" no longer important. It will be much more natural to realize what recources are workable when you found a city. Overlap or "Oh-damn-I-have-to-found-a-useless-city-just-to-get-those-horses-on-that-stupid-little-island" will be non-issues.

3 rings of tiles around a city (was it 36 alltogether?) doesn't seem like what will actually be worked by EVERY AVERAGE city, just what the maximum distance is. I guess there will be a minimum distance between cities (2-3 tiles) and maybe even a maximum number of fields per city (20 maybe?).

It will probably be effective to build average-sized cities of 15-20 tiles, but you will have more flexibility than in Civ4 to make some use of this hard-to-reach tiles e.g. on peninsulas.

ADVANTAGES:

-No overlap
-No unused tiles inbetween
-More flexibility to form your borders
-REALISTIC BORDERS!
-A cities fate is not decided when it's founded, but in a constant development process
-In theory, this should be easier to understand by the AI!
-You could trade single tiles with the AI/human players
-Empires which visibly consist of more or less important provinces
-Easier city specialisation
-Easier to sacrifice tiles for forts etc.
-You could hand over tiles to form bigger cities, maybe even fusion cities? see RL Tokyo as example

Another bold ;) guess: Workers are gone!

Why? we have one unit per tile, so they don't fit on the map (no stacks!). Instead, you will choose tiles your city will work, and worthier tiles will need more "culture" or something accumulating before they can be worked. Making it a sound choice to place cities closer together in fertile areas, for example.

And no, this doesn't feel dumbed down, cause workers are clumsy to use and unrealistic. They could make it just as interesting and tactically deep to place cities and develop them. It's the variety of possible improvements, not how you place them.

EDIT:

IF I'm completely wrong I'll take Brainy Smurf as my profile pic ;)

That's exactly how I see it coming!
I will assume a lot in the next passages of text, but I've thought this since I had the first pieces of info (and especially since the screenshots show irregular borders!). So shame on me if this is completely wrong, but I'm very sure about it.


IMO:

You will add single tiles to the cities radius, choosing what you need and specialising the city this way. Cities will have irregular shape, making "dotmapping" no longer important. It will be much more natural to realize what recources are workable when you found a city. Overlap or "Oh-damn-I-have-to-found-a-useless-city-just-to-get-those-horses-on-that-stupid-little-island" will be non-issues.

3 rings of tiles around a city (was it 36 alltogether?) doesn't seem like what will actually be worked by EVERY AVERAGE city, just what the maximum distance is. I guess there will be a minimum distance between cities (2-3 tiles) and maybe even a maximum number of fields per city (20 maybe?).

It will probably be effective to build average-sized cities of 15-20 tiles, but you will have more flexibility than in Civ4 to make some use of this hard-to-reach tiles e.g. on peninsulas.

ADVANTAGES:

-No overlap
-No unused tiles inbetween
-More flexibility to form your borders
-REALISTIC BORDERS!
-A cities fate is not decided when it's founded, but in a constant development process
-In theory, this should be easier to understand by the AI!
-You could trade single tiles with the AI/human players
-Empires which visibly consist of more or less important provinces
-Easier city specialisation
-Easier to sacrifice tiles for forts etc.

Another bold ;) guess: Workers are gone!

Why? we have one unit per tile, so they don't fit on the map (no stacks!). Instead, you will choose tiles your city will work, and worthier tiles will need more "culture" or something accumulating before they can be worked. Making it a sound choice to place cities closer together in fertile areas, for example.

And no, this doesn't feel dumbed down, cause workers are clumsy to use and unrealistic. They could make it just as interesting and tactically deep to place cities and develop them. It's the variety of possible improvements, not how you place them.

EDIT:

IF I'm completely wrong I'll take Brainy Smurf as my profile pic ;)

Good points. I am excited about the new city system.

One point however. They have specifically said that it's 1 military unit per hex so that doesn't preclude workers for that reason.If I had a hunch though, I'd say that workers have been dropped. I would be more in favor of a Public Works system ala the Call to Power series. That worked quite well.

I'll bet it will be really hard and cost a lot of money to try and grow a city to 36 tiles. Remember, there's no ring expansion, each city gains one tile at a time, which can be pushed along by spending gold.

Its not going to be strategically beneficial to spend money to grow a city over every tile. Maybe maintenance is tied to city size? And instead of cities overlapping you'll choose as the cities grow who takes which tile. So you won't have an empire of circular cities, rather irregular shaped cities that are able to pick and choose the terrain in the region best for there specialization, and also fill in your entire empire with worked tiles for once.

Like this island:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d175/sbrylski06/civV.png

i like this idea, if it will be like we assumed in this thread. you wouldn't invest money on a tile that you would use later, only invest on it when u need it. but i doubt civ5 will have such micromanagement issues. i feel they are trying to simplify the game.

however this system might have militaristic disadvantages.

You dislike that they aren't compromising the depth or details? Or that they attempt to make the game more accessible?

I don't see how any of those can be considered a bad thing.

i like details, micromanagement, depth and many parameters/dynamics.
i don't feel comfortable when i hear civ5 will get rid of some of these.

i like details, micromanagement, depth and many parameters/dynamics.
i don't feel comfortable when i hear civ5 will get rid of some of these.

An example for bad, unnecessarily complicated details are unit and building upkeep from civ 2.

If I remember it right, you had "home cities" for units, which payed the upkeep, making it it very complicated to finance your army. after building troops, you had to take them to the city which should pay the future upkeep and "connect" them there.

And buildings had an upkeep, forcing you to calculate a lot if a marked would be profitable (although corporations have a simila problem in BtS, but they come late and are not obligatory).

Buildings and units are managed in a simpler, yet good way now.

An example for bad, unnecessarily complicated details are unit and building upkeep from civ 2.

If I remember it right, you had "home cities" for units, which payed the upkeep, making it it very complicated to finance your army. after building troops, you had to take them to the city which should pay the future upkeep and "connect" them there.

And buildings had an upkeep, forcing you to calculate a lot if a marked would be profitable (although corporations have a simila problem in BtS, but they come late and are not obligatory).

Buildings and units are managed in a simpler, yet good way now.
that was not a bad detail IMO. in fact the philosophy is still the same: build only the buildings which were worth building at that very moment

moreover, it was a help to the player. it was for teaching the players the correct way of playing. it oriented the player directly towards the philosophy. So the player wouldn't build worthless buildings, he would knew there was a cost for all. and plus the waste of hammers.
in civ4, the disadvantage of building worthless buildings is only about the waste of hammers. so civ4 orientates the player indirectly towards the same philosophy.

if u feel that was an unrequired micromanagement, you might just not care about what cost each building would bring and instead do this "not build any worthless building"

EDIT: according to a new ign article published today, i am more optimistic on the game. civ5 doesn't seem too much simplified as much as I feared.

that was not a bad detail IMO. in fact the philosophy is still the same: build only the buildings which were worth building at that very moment

moreover, it was a help to the player. it was for teaching the players the correct way of playing. it oriented the player directly towards the philosophy. So the player wouldn't build worthless buildings, he would knew there was a cost for all. and plus the waste of hammers.
in civ4, the disadvantage of building worthless buildings is only about the waste of hammers. so civ4 orientates the player indirectly towards the same philosophy.

if u feel that was an unrequired micromanagement, you might just not care about what cost each building would bring and instead do this "not build any worthless building"

EDIT: according to a new ign article published today, i am more optimistic on the game. civ5 doesn't seem too much simplified as much as I feared.

There is a difference in calculating whether or not something is profitable (Benefit-cost) and in calculating how Much an investment in Hammers will pay.
In the second, I know if I need more gold building Marketplaces will help... always.. it might not help as much as some other strategy (building and Raising cities, but it will Help)

As for units, that was definitely a needed change (not using gold to maintain units, but using an imperial resource to maintain units.)

There is a difference in calculating whether or not something is profitable (Benefit-cost) and in calculating how Much an investment in Hammers will pay.
In the second, I know if I need more gold building Marketplaces will help... always.. it might not help as much as some other strategy (building and Raising cities, but it will Help)

As for units, that was definitely a needed change (not using gold to maintain units, but using an imperial resource to maintain units.)
hey there guys, u miss a point. you are comparing apples with pears.

of course, you easily know these in civ4. but you wouldn't know that in the amiga civilization game or a civ2 game. just consider each product within the era it was.

that costs detail was very helpful just like other small details. in civ1 & civ2, we weren't able to reach much info about games. if it wasn't written in a game menu, you would hardly realize it. There was no platform you could learn strategies neither.

The difference is how obvious an effect is.

Civ 4:
25% more money - easy to understand (though still complex in its details, but you get more or less what you expect. At least you will never have a disadvantage)

Civ2:
25% more money, but also 2 upkeep. So I could end up trying to get more money but in fact I get less (if the city is too small). War could reduce population making those buildings a burden. Determining when to build and when to sell it is not easy, and you have to keep an eye on that constantly for every single city! If I remember it right, when you build too many units in that city you could reduce your income so it ended up as disadvantage... That's really too tough for 90% of the players (not talking about 14-year-old shooter freaks)

well, i don't say dealing with building upkeep cost was very good but still at least you knew how the total upkeep comes. i repeat, otherwise u wouldn't be able to know it much.
i remember that we could reach the formula of magic "herbal honey" in the amiga game elvira a decade later. yes, i could only finish the game when internet era came and found it on the net. then i installed an emulator and finished the game. we just couldn't find much info about games.

selling buildings was not reasonable. that is sth different. and the rest calculations are just versions of eachother. the formula of civ4 maintenance is quite complicated so maybe they didn't want to use that in a year 92/97 tech, that was my meaning. just giving an upkeep per every building seemed easier for them. i don't know.

or as i said in the beginning, which u also mentioned, maybe they just wanted it to be obvious and orientate the player directly towards building the improvements that would be worth it.

anyway, for me it was not that much complicated still. it might be boring for some players as well. but note that, there are much more micromanagement dynamics in civ4 already. even a possibility of which GP will be born and (how many tuns later) is a very important parameter for me, which I check frequently. but at least civ4 had mods like BUG though i never used it. you could use such things for simplifying the game.



anyway, it is just a style of gameplaying. some like it faster, some like it with more depth, just like Bonafide11 said, i agree with that.
I don't get why people here are arguing for less micromanagement of the cities. If you don't want to micromanage your cities, you don't need to. It's optional. But for those, like myself, who enjoy doing it, that possibility should be available. For me, it wouldn't be Civ without the ability to specialize and micromanage the cities as much as possible. I'd be very disappointed if Civ V got rid of the ability to micromanage the cities and the tiles in the cities.

As we will choose expansion, the BFC is dead, rest in pieces

Big Fat Hex?

I remember reading naysayers that civ 4 is going to be dumbed down because they removed the pop-the mole pollution and mechanisms to prevent ICS (which I feel were successfully abolished). Settlers would not reduce city population. Hammers and beakers would roll over into the next one. Units having one combat stat...

Civ 3 was going to be dumbed down because zone of control was being removed, unified unit maintenance, hit points and firepower removed...

Big Fat Hex?

It won't be "fat" as the cross was, but it will have bumpy edges. Maybe the Big Bumpy Hex would be a better description.

I guess that the progressive expansion outlined will mean that the world view borders will only end up hex like under limited circumstances.

Even so, the city view that surely would exist in CV (but hasn't to date been revealed to the public) might well display all hexes in reach, even those unavailable to use, just as all prior versions of Civ show their tiles in reach.

Wow. That's a lot of tiles to work. I really hope they get rid of the "assign different citizens to work each tile" micromanagement nonsense.

Just add up the resources of all tiles in the radius, divide by that number of tiles, then multiply by the city size. That would really cut down on the annoying work we have to do.

As well as make it impossible to grow a city.

Consider even a basic Civ4 City with a source of food in its fatcross and everything else grass.

Food layout:
_222_
22222
22222
22622
_222_

2 * 20 + 6 = 46.

46/21 = 2.2 (approx)
2.2 * 1 = 2.2

2.2- 2 = 0.2, which rounds to 0 growth.


Consider the same, Civ4 system

Food layout:
_222_
22222
22222
22622
_222_

2 + 6 = 8 (working the 6 food tile)
8 - 2 = 6

This is 6 growth, because the workers aren't working junk tiles.

It won't be "fat" as the cross was, but it will have bumpy edges. Maybe the Big Bumpy Hex would be a better description.

but it's not a hex, it'll be a 78 sided polygon - the big fat heptacontakaioctagon anyone?

but it's not a hex, it'll be a 78 sided polygon - the big fat heptacontakaioctagon anyone?
it makes 42 sides according to the below attached png file.
245853
so we will have 18+12+6=36tiles to work+city center
Big Fat Hex?
It won't be "fat" as the cross was, but it will have bumpy edges. Maybe the Big Bumpy Hex would be a better description.

we can call it as a big fat hex (BFH) or a big bumby hex (BBH) because the shape still makes a hex roughly.
although the shape expands 1tile by 1tile, still the largest shape it can take will be a BFH. so the gamer will focus on 36neighbour tiles when he picks a plot for building the city.

but i also think game won't let us to invest and work a plot in 3rd layer if we have no tiles gained in 2nd layer. so that will make it hard to decide the city plot. will it be better to cover a very good 36 tiles combo or will it be better to have a food resource in the first layer instead of 2nd and 3rd layers? it will depend on the situation, i guess.

However, we also don't know if it will be possible to have 36 pop cities. maybe cities can practically be only 20-25 because of health caps? if so, that makes overlapping quite useful, maybe even decreasing distance maintenance this way? any ideas?