Natural city placement - an idea for Civilization 6

JtW

Prince
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Hi guys.

I have been thinking recently about the way cities are founded in Civilization, and the problems it poses (like idiotic choices by the AI to found cities in snowy islands, ICS etc.)

I found an alternative way this could work in a future Civ game (not that I have delusions that it will). I wonder what you guys think.

So, let's think how cities get founded in real life. People originally settled where there was abundant food or where there was something to do: along a trade route, near workplaces like mines or factories, etc. In terms of Civilization, that would mean resources.

My idea is that the player don't directly control city placement, maybe except for the first city. Let the player improve resources (he would have to be able to work resources outside his borders of course) and draw benefits from them. There would be an algorithm in place where cities would "pop up" spontaneously near resources. Also near unimproved ones... And with the new trade route mechanics, along trade routes as well. Maybe along roads and rivers, too. You get the picture.

Cities would be semi-autonomous: you would have to work for control over them. If they pop up near an unimproved resource or along a trade route far from your borders, they could work like city states do now. If they pop up around your roads or improved resources, you would control them.

However, I imagine that cities could join an empire or defect if presented with the opportunity. What I am thinking about is that the strong states we have now is a pretty new concept. Earlier in history, if a king wanted to go to war, he needed to negotiate it out with his own nobility. Changes of allegiance weren't that uncommon. Not sure how exactly this could be implemented, but I think it would be an interesting twist on the current way things work.

What are your thoughts?
 
Sounds interesting. Would really make the game start dependent. Also would limit the ability to place offensive or defensive cities.

I have always wanted a similar mechanic for "suburbs." I think cities should expand outward as they gain pop. Would also make "urban" combat possible in huge cities as armies capture/recapture areas of the whole city.
 
Sounds interesting. Would really make the game start dependent. Also would limit the ability to place offensive or defensive cities.

I have always wanted a similar mechanic for "suburbs." I think cities should expand outward as they gain pop. Would also make "urban" combat possible in huge cities as armies capture/recapture areas of the whole city.

I really like that. You're right that such a system wouldn't necessitate a "city radius" in the current form, and urban conglomerates could be possible.
 
And have the AI's bad city placement enforced on me??? No thanks.
There's enough complaints about which tiles the city acquires via culture first without opening that can of worms.
 
It's an interesting idea, but it strikes me as so dramatically different from previous Civilization games that I have concerns. Civ has always been allowing you to control the maximum number of things in order to be as strategic as possible.

You'd be taking away a lot of control and the question is what you gain from it. To steal from Sid Meier, you don't want the game having more fun than the player. It makes the player fairly reactive instead of active.
 
While this does take away a hallmark Civ trait, of a large terra incognita being explored and settled by civilizations, it's a great idea for some game. 4X is a pretty tried and true concept, but mixing it up a bit could be refreshing if done well.
 
I would love it for a game with a narrower focus. For example, a Fertile Crescent-focused game where you go from City-State to Empire.
 
I really like that. You're right that such a system wouldn't necessitate a "city radius" in the current form, and urban conglomerates could be possible.

Really, its a very important feature of modern life that is completely lacking in civ. Two cities are near each other, they grow over time, and eventually become one. E.g., Buda and Pest become Budapest. Also, multiple hex cities would be much harder to keep total control of and take total control of- exactly what real nations struggle with. Not sure how well it would work in Civ, but I was disappointed when it wasn't included in civ 5.
 
And have the AI's bad city placement enforced on me??? No thanks.
There's enough complaints about which tiles the city acquires via culture first without opening that can of worms.

It seems to come back to the eternal problem of bad AI... ;) How I see it, you would still retain some control over city placement: improve that resource and people will start settling around it.

It's an interesting idea, but it strikes me as so dramatically different from previous Civilization games that I have concerns. Civ has always been allowing you to control the maximum number of things in order to be as strategic as possible.

You'd be taking away a lot of control and the question is what you gain from it. To steal from Sid Meier, you don't want the game having more fun than the player. It makes the player fairly reactive instead of active.

This is a valid point: the comment by joncunn seems to confirm it - a lot of people want to feel in total control. For me, I've always liked a bustling environment where I am reacting to arising challenges. In Civ5 I often feel like I have too much control. Part of it is bad AI, I think, and part of it a total lack of "negative challenges", e.g., decease.

The two main reasons I came up with this idea are:
1) ICS - I hate it how city spam has always been the best strategy in Civ. Civ5 tries to mitigate this but does it in a very forced way (via SP penalties and National Wonders) and population still accounts for too much (e.g., population = science output). The system I propose would include a migration module, where people would move to places where there is something interesting to do. It would work great with the new systems in BNW: tourism and trade routes. It would also allow for new and interesting systems such as ethnical diversity and its effects (such as racism/ethnic conflicts).

2) lack of colonization incentives in Civ5 - at the moment, I tend to found around 3-5 cities, and get the rest of my cities as puppets via conquest. This way I don't receive the aforementioned penalties while still enjoying all the benefits of a wide empire. In Civ5 there is literally no incentive to colonize. My system would let you "mine" resources in the New World, and the colonization would occur naturally.

There have been a lot of ideas on these forums on how to deal with these problems, and I am sure they could be solved differently, but I feel this system would be more realistic and would take some tedious micromanagement out of the game, too. Do you think something like that could be modded into Civ5?
 
Not all cities start out as cities, or settlements. Many are just groups of people that group in an area for one reason or another. In stead of settler putting down settlements how about engineers that put down improvements outside current city borders. They could include things like farms, fisheries, hunting camps, Military outposts, mines etc that may or may not develop into a city.

The player would not directly control which ones becomes cities or not but could influence it strongly in some way or another. Cities that grew out of one improvement could be subtly different from a city that grew out of another.
 
Not all cities start out as cities, or settlements. Many are just groups of people that group in an area for one reason or another. In stead of settler putting down settlements how about engineers that put down improvements outside current city borders. They could include things like farms, fisheries, hunting camps, Military outposts, mines etc that may or may not develop into a city.

The player would not directly control which ones becomes cities or not but could influence it strongly in some way or another. Cities that grew out of one improvement could be subtly different from a city that grew out of another.

Hey KokeenoPokameso. This is exactly what I mean but explained in a far better way. :) Thanks!
 
Looks like an interesting suggestion. I was also thinking of something in this areas of new ways of working Civilization. That is, territorial expansion in the water. It annoys me in later games that one city has territory across half an ocean while another city on another Island controls the other half. What I am thinking is a cap to the tiles territory ca expand over water, maybe two tiles? Enough room so that units can move freely in later games.
 
The two main reasons I came up with this idea are:
1) ICS - I hate it how city spam has always been the best strategy in Civ. Civ5 tries to mitigate this but does it in a very forced way (via SP penalties and National Wonders) and population still accounts for too much (e.g., population = science output). The system I propose would include a migration module, where people would move to places where there is something interesting to do. It would work great with the new systems in BNW: tourism and trade routes. It would also allow for new and interesting systems such as ethnical diversity and its effects (such as racism/ethnic conflicts).

2) lack of colonization incentives in Civ5 - at the moment, I tend to found around 3-5 cities, and get the rest of my cities as puppets via conquest. This way I don't receive the aforementioned penalties while still enjoying all the benefits of a wide empire. In Civ5 there is literally no incentive to colonize. My system would let you "mine" resources in the New World, and the colonization would occur naturally.

Basically, Civ V shot way past the hole during its attempt.

A global happiness system could work as a slow down without a total freeze.
However the interaction with National Wonder requirement of 100% of current cities in empire (puppets excluded) for national wonders tends to totally kill expansion while your stopped. (In addition to the extremely popular 2 city National College tactic.)
A flat number of copies of the buildings instead (e.g. in Civ IV five required, but in case of Civ V four would work better) would remove the major dis-incentive against after happiness is under control further expansion into open slots along with giving players a strong incentive to found their 3rd and 4th cities as soon as happiness allows.
And removing the global happiness counter as a source of Golden ages would remove another dis-incentive to expanding.
The cultural policy increase per city actually isn't much (unless going for cultural victory).
But it won't be until Civ VI that such a major change would be made.

Of the systems:

Civ III: Did not accomplish the goal (early single REX was the way to go; a bit more spread out than Civ II). Cities furthest away added very little to the empire; but the only way a new city could harm your empire is if it was an infill city.

Civ IV: Appeared to have accomplished its goal. (At least until BTS added corporations) Players learned soon when to stop founding cities and build up the empire and when they could afford additional ones.

Civ V: After the last of a series of early patches to vanilla reducing happiness, it did accomplish its goal of killing ICS. (Too well; and that's in part why there's more sources with G&K, but those new happiness sources have instead led to the 4 city tradition empire players attaching a puppet empire rather than build an additional city or two later.)
 
I really like that. You're right that such a system wouldn't necessitate a "city radius" in the current form, and urban conglomerates could be possible.

I like the idea of the amount of tiles that the city center encompasses gradually increases over time to simulate urban sprawl.

I'd like to further suggest that the tiles that get assimilated into the urban sprawl produce little to no food, but instead produce significant amounts of gold, science, culture, production, or what have you.

The problem of urban areas growing into agricultural areas might be an interesting one to see in a future installment of Civilization.

Moreover, the possibility that a city could encompass more than one tile means more room to maneuver in city assault/defense.
 
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