workforce instead of shields

the production method in civ3 is good, but to some point. larger cities, in reality, has the greatest production rate. however, in civ3, to get a city large enough, you have to irrigate all tiles around it and this will result in production loss.
(think about a river nile city. city is growing and growing using flood plains, but production is limited to a few shields)

instead of this "tiles produce shields - shields are used in production" method, using population-based production in civ4 is betted i think. this will be more realistic..

some city improvements increase production (workforce) such as factories or labor unions.

any suggestions?

This negates terrain differences and completely favors cities that are on high food terrain.

Not if you expand the resources system and make it quantitive. That way large workforces will be useless if you don't have the resources to produce something with.

Sure, many things can be done to make the Civ more realistic, but changes like these would make it another game.

It's a good idea, but I think that all this great ideas will cause a huge complexity, especially for new players. "Fanatics" dream about a perfect simulation of building and ruling a civilization, but all those realistic features will make the game almost unaccessible for a large amount of players.

The Idea:
Let the citysize (number of citizens), the level of commerce (number of trade arrows) and the actual shields (industrial production of shields) be the three factors that determine the actual production (as you know production today is really different from the raw industrial production a century ago)

I don't actually think that population --> workforce --> productivity is that complicated. It's much more intuitive and sensible than what we have now (population + tiles --> shields --> productivity, it relies on complete abstractions that people aren't familiar with. What the heck does a shield have to do with productivity anyway, let alone a tile?) This isn't one of those annoying realism ideas that make the game more cumbersome -- this makes the game easier.

The bigger problem with this idea is the gameplay one. Sir Schwick is right: how do you prevent China and India from running away with the game?

Would a hibrid be possible, where part of production is based on population and part on the surrounding terrian? An extream hybridizatin would be that tiles are no longer directly worked on. Instead the contents of the city radius would determine food vs production and a higher population would be a modifer for it.

In this ancient thread I use the system you propose croxis. It also eliminates the stupid 21 effective workers and allows for megalopolises in a natural fashion.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-97860.html

Make sure you try to link to the image somehow, it really helps explain things.

of course, in reality, the population of a city is not the single factor that determines the production. but what makes me sick is that plain areas cannot make more production than the mountainous areas. this is not true in our world, mountainous areas are less feasable for factories - that produce.. in civ3, with a good irrigated grasslands and mined mountains, a size 11 city produces much more shields than that has size of 35. this cause an unbalance in the game.. may be some factors, such as population, terrain, road access, rail access, harbor access, united labor, etc.. affect production.. this way, some cities can be "hinterlands" or "satellites" or "harbors" of other cities which make more sense.

What about my idea?

The Idea:
Let the citysize (number of citizens), the level of commerce (number of trade arrows) and the actual shields (industrial production of shields) be the three factors that determine the actual production (as you know production today is really different from the raw industrial production a century ago)

Maybe what defines production and how it is produced should change with technology. Raw materials are more important and it changes to industrial ease over time. This way you see an evolution of past industrial power-houses being replaced by the Detroits of today.

sir_schwick said:

Maybe what defines production and how it is produced should change with technology. Raw materials are more important and it changes to industrial ease over time. This way you see an evolution of past industrial power-houses being replaced by the Detroits of today.

Click to expand...

Well as you use my method, the composition of the total production is affluenced by city growth, new building cityimprovements (as harbors and factories, but also roads etc.) and the increase of trade (which partly is caused by building improvements (as marketplaces, banks etc.) and partly is caused by trading with your (far) neighbours)

Excuses for my English grammar and spelling

OK, what about this?

Base Workforce points (Shields)=Population*average work hours*bonus for industrial civs*labourer specialist numbers*happiness/health factors.

These base workforce points are then multiplied by:

1) Raw Resources (each tile type gives a multiplier/divider to workforce points, and bonus/strategic/luxury resources give an additional multiplier/divider).

2) Technology, as defined by different levels of terrain and city improvements-Mines, lumber yards, factories, mills etc).

So, for instance, a city with a population of 100,000 people might have a WFP score of 10 (population/10,000). This is increased by the average work rate of 10 hours (a *0.20 bonus) Giving a total of 12 WFP's. 10% of this population are labourers, boosting the WFP by .10 (or 13). If the city is surrounded by mountains and hills, then obviously it will have a much higher WFP total (possibly as high as 30-40)-especially if those hills and mountains contain such resources as stone, metals and coal! If it is surrounded by plains, grasslands and floodplains will have a much lower WFP total (perhaps as low as 5-6)-unless these squares contain resources like cotton, sheep and cows (think wool and leather products).

WFP's would represent the total 'material output' of the population, which can be placed into the 'building pool' (where it represents raw materials for building improvements, PW and units), or left in the general WFP pool (where it represents consumer goods to keep the peoples mood high). In addition these WFP's can also be transferred to other cities for use (which earns the trading city money!) Also, such an approach could be applied to food production as well, with the food created (after consumption, via rations) being used as a determinant (though not the only one, obviously) for population growth and to be traded to other cities.

Hope you like these ideas!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

@Marx It's a pity noone is listening to you.

I myself thinks your idea is the best solution. It's not too complicate to overlook (logical basis: the more infrastructure you have, the better you produce), gives an advantage to builder players (they build already infrastructure), is a hybrid (the best of each idea), is also partly realistic and is not complicate (one way, no special things such as raw resources, etc. ...).

mfG mitsho

To me a simple recipe for production would be as follows (inspired by other ideas above)

Inputs X Means of Production = Outputs

Inputs = Workforce X Resources
Means Of Production = City Improvement Bonus X Technology Bonus

Notice: no where in that recipe do we even mention tiles.

Lets get rid of Tech Bonus

Instead, technology effects how much the workforce counts(including facilities), how many resources come in(including facilities, location). Means could include none location/workforce/facility factors(policy).

Resource distribution is a factor too. NOW the larger cities are the producers because raw materials can be transported with ease. This was not the case for thousands of years where shops were located closer to the resource. Some people have proposed concepts of a national food source for the later periods of the game, couldn't the same be done for production?

That is what I mean about technology changes how the game plays over time. Early on it means local is good, later transportation allows more trading of local resources.

Ahh yes, those are definitely great factors to incorporate -- the urban/rural divide and its relevence to productivity. (And how in an "information economy", as many people call it, location becomes almost a non-factor.)

And to me, this is much simpler than the whole "assign population heads to tiles to maximize shields", even though as veterans we're all pretty used to Civ as it is. Somehow, I could never see them changing something so fundamental, even for the better. But I figure it's worth pointing out anyway. Most people's intuition of productivity is as simple as "do I have more people? do I have more resources? do I have more factories?" as opposed to how many mountains are nearby your city.

Hmmmm, I confess that I hadn't considered all factors when I put forward my original model. My model could still work, though, with a slight tweak! Basically, the squares in your city radius would determine the number (if any) of resource points you possess. Having bonus/strategic/luxury resources on these squares would, obviously, boost the Base RP's of a square (how many squares you use would be, to some degree, population dependant!)
So, you have RP's in one line of your city screen, which you can send to other cities if you wish. Any which remain are multiplied by the Workforce factor I mentioned previously (based on city population and city improvements) to produce Manufacturing points. These can be (a) transferred to the 'build pool' left in your manufacturing area (and represents consumer goods), or traded to other cities. Does that sound better?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker