Gold Rush

You bring up another interesting point Balderstrom.

The key factor throughout history which is typically responsible for creating a large town in an inhospitable location would be mining. It is a fact of history that succesful mining towns will often have very rapid growth even in desert locations where there is little food.

This gives me a good idea for civ4.... you could have cities that undergo a 'boom time' of growth whenever a new recource is connected inside that cities radius. Each boom time lasts for about as long as a golden age and will cause rapid growth regardless of actual food supply. The speed of each boom time will be different according to each different kind of resource, gold being the most powerful.

Good idea?

Moderator Action: Posts split from original discussion. For reference and context, see that thread.

@ MystikMind2005 That actually DOES sound interesting!

In general I think CIV/and its sibling expansions are grand. Yet as I've mentioned here and other threads, there are some game mechanics that I feel don't add anything to the game at all - they don't even contribute to game balance.

The wide disparity between Good Land and Bad Land is definitely one of those things.

I like the idea of a gold rush. I think this sort of event should only be caused by gold, silver and gems though. Other resources would create some interest among your people, but only these three would warrant a "boom" IMHO.

Clam Spammer said:

I like the idea of a gold rush. I think this sort of event should only be caused by gold, silver and gems though. Other resources would create some interest among your people, but only these three would warrant a "boom" IMHO.

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Gold is definately the one responsible for some big population booms throughout history.... but not so much in ancient times, so the era your in should also have an effect on the boom time. So for example, you won't get a boom from a gold mine until you reach the classical era, then it will kick in!

What recources would cause a boom in ancient times? Grain?

What recources would cause a boom in modern times?
Well i guess any and all of the mined resources could create employment opportunities and employment opportunities are what creates a boom in population growth in modern times.

mystikmind2005 said:

Gold is definately the one responsible for some big population booms throughout history.... but not so much in ancient times, so the era your in should also have an effect on the boom time. So for example, you won't get a boom from a gold mine until you reach the classical era, then it will kick in!

What recources would cause a boom in ancient times? Grain?

What recources would cause a boom in modern times?
Well i guess any and all of the mined resources could create employment opportunities and employment opportunities are what creates a boom in population growth in modern times.

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Grains provide enough population growth as it is. They don't need a "boom" like you suggest.

As for mined resources: I don't think employment opportunities would create a huge influx of population. They would attract some people for sure, but much less than 1 pop point in the game. I think the increased hammer yield from these mines represents this well enough.

A gold rush, on the other hand, would attract a huge number of people (maybe 2-3 pop) who seek to mine the gold themselves for huge personal gain. Much better motivation than an employment opportunity. Obviously these people (and the food to prevent them from starving) would have to come from other cities - they don't just appear out of nowhere.

I think rather than being era-specific, population booms should begin after the discovery of certain techs. Currency would be appropriate since this is when resources take on an actual monetary value.

Clam Spammer said:

As for mined resources: I don't think employment opportunities would create a huge influx of population. They would attract some people for sure, but much less than 1 pop point in the game. I think the increased hammer yield from these mines represents this well enough.

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Mining employment not creating a population boom?? Ahem, you might want to look up some statistics on any mining cities anywhare in the world before putting forward such a suggestion! i am stunned to hear you say that!!

Mining in modern times is controlled by corporations. Which, funnily enough, are already in the game. Mining companies (where I live at least) hire a few hundred people at most to work in a mine. Maybe this is different where you live?

I personally think that population booms due to gold (or silver or gems) are more worthy of inclusion into the game than those for other mined resources, or at least should have a greater effect. People in general aren't interested in iron, aluminum etc. (not in their raw form at least). Corporations can handle that.

Clam Spammer said:

Mining in modern times is controlled by corporations. Which, funnily enough, are already in the game. Mining companies (where I live at least) hire a few hundred people at most to work in a mine. Maybe this is different where you live?

I personally think that population booms due to gold (or silver or gems) are more worthy of inclusion into the game than those for other mined resources, or at least should have a greater effect. People in general aren't interested in iron, aluminum etc. (not in their raw form at least). Corporations can handle that.

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Towns are often founded in unhospitable locations on the basis of a mining operation. Typically these towns will grow much faster than the direct employment requirements of the mining operation, how do you explain that?

I could explain it, but i would have to go into too much detail,,, a brief analogy would be to say that a core population of people employed by a mine will be the spark that burns brightly in the middle of a much larger flame of town growth that cannot be justified by the physical location of the town or its surrounding terrain. This is a big part of human history that is totally ignored by civ4 at the current moment.

Yes but yer taking a good idea, the possibility of a Gold/Gem/Silver Rush, and trying to extrapolate it into complete realism to apply it to too many other resources. Which just diminishes the idea. By tying it to nearly everything it just becomes another game mechanic and would likely throw balance out of wack.
Cities already grow naturally, certain things are a given. The idea of preciousResource rushes for population spurts is a good one. Don't ruin it

Balderstrom said:

Yes but yer taking a good idea, the possibility of a Gold/Gem/Silver Rush, and trying to extrapolate it into complete realism to apply it to too many other resources. Which just diminishes the idea. By tying it to nearly everything it just becomes another game mechanic and would likely throw balance out of wack.
Cities already grow naturally, certain things are a given. The idea of preciousResource rushes for population spurts is a good one. Don't ruin it

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Point taken!

I guess you can look at game architechture and say "success is not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"!

Towns founded on poor farmland grow naturally because they get food from other parts of the country. What this really comes down to is the ability to transfer food between your cities, which isn't represented in Civ, and has already been discussed on these forums.

Clam Spammer said:

Mining companies (where I live at least) hire a few hundred people at most to work in a mine. Maybe this is different where you live?

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It's more than just those few hundred people that have an impact on the local employment situation. Those few hundred will create a few more hundred jobs through support services, things like grocery and retail stores, banking and entertainment facilities etc. Plus the company itself will spawn various businesses that pop up in order to service the needs of the mine. A few hundred initial jobs could very well end up becoming a few thousand spinoff jobs that go along with them.

That said, I really don't see this as being part of the game itself. It just wouldn't work right having more people showing up just because you build a Mine on a Hill IMO. It may be realistic but I don't think it would make for good gameplay.

I think the "gold rush" should be a random event that is triggered by mining. Has a chance of occuring in city with at least one gold/silver/gems and a better chance of occuring in a city with more than one. Do you think a 2-4% chance each turn would be resonable? This would last the whole game because there is always new gold being dug up and new innovations in mining technology. Should it be obsolete with anything?

Tibur753 said:

I think the "gold rush" should be a random event that is triggered by mining. Has a chance of occuring in city with at least one gold/silver/gems and a better chance of occuring in a city with more than one. Do you think a 2-4% chance each turn would be resonable? This would last the whole game because there is always new gold being dug up and new innovations in mining technology. Should it be obsolete with anything?

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It should not be random. When gold is discovered, it attracts people, simple.

There is no logical reason to explain why people could possibly not be attracted when gold is discovered?

I agree in part that it should have a permanent affect on population, but only in the sense that it can maintain the population achieved during the boom time.

I had a few ideas bouncing around in ma head about this:
Since Gold is available/visible from start of game, no Tech required aside from Mining.
I was wondering about reducing its initial Commerce bonus to that of Silver +4C instead of +6. I haven't fine-tuned the idea yet, but there could be 2 (maybe 3) Tech's that give gold a +1 bonus.
The Gold Rush itself could occur at these Tech-jump-points, either as a random event that will occur (an ever increasing chance per turn) or just automatically at the Tech-jump-point... I kinda prefer the random-ever-increasing chance.

Now onto it's effect, either:

1. The same as a Golden Age, only localized to that city.
2. Similiar to a Golden Age, but +1 per tile, instead of +1
   • Possibly +1 Pop for 8 turns.
3. Or Just Bonus Pop = 1 + ( 1 / GoldMine in the BFC ) for 8-12 turns.

Personally I'm leaning towards

• Reducing Gold's initial Commerce to 4; with + bonuses for 2 different Tech-jump-points.
• An ever increasing random chance for a Gold Rush at at least one of the Tech-Jump-Points.
• and Option 2 for its effect, not sure if I like adding temporary Pop or not.

Thoughts?

The more complicated you try to make it, the more issues of fact come in to play that can disturb things.

These are the facts:

1) I do not know if there was any majour population booms created by a gold rush in ancient times?

2) All your gold in civ4 is discovered in ancient times. The massive gold rush population booms of recent history took place as a result of discovering gold in the 'new worlds'. This cannot happen in Civ4.

3) New deposits of recources are discovered as time goes on due to deeper examination of terrain and or technological advancements, this is not represented in civ4. And the tiny little 'luck' factor to reveal a recource dousn't count because you already need to be mining the location.... which is another thing, mining in hills where there is no recource, what's with that anyway??

I didn't play CIV-III enough, briefly to make sure it was working fine when I installed it on my brother-in-laws machine - so I don't know if CIV-III had resources as such.

But in CIV-III and possibly in the previous incarnations of the series you could Irrigate (nearly any tile), or you could mine the tile. Irrigating = +1 Food; Mining = +1 Shield. For some reason Production/Hammers were referred to as "Shields". You'll still see that when old civ players use terminology when talking about CIV-IV.

So yes, Gold is available immediately after mining. Yet the gold rushes that were most familiar with happened in what in CivLand would be considered early-Modern times.
Which was why I started to think, reduce Gold's initial commerce - thats easy.
Increase it at a couple Tech-points - thats easy too.
So at a couple different tech-points you can mine/refine gold easier than in Ancient times, which was what I was thinking would be the catalyst for the gold rushes.

If gold is just left at +6 commerce, plus a guaranteed GoldRush bonus as soon as you mine it (even in ancient times) - that seems a bit wack to me

The only actual complicated bit of it at all, is causing the tiles to change Value, but that shouldn't be complicated either. There are RandomEvents already that change Tile values. So we look at how that is done, setup a python turn counter, when the counter expires change the tiles back.
Its possible code for Golden Ages - could be modified/duped and used, but I haven't looked for that yet - and it might be in the DLL. Recompiling the DLL for a minor feature add-on is probably too much hassle.

I'll prolly play around with the idea and code in July after I move. I have some stuff in BUG-Mod I've been working on - and that's taking longer than I'd hoped. Between getting ready to move, and making some time to Play ... this is just a thought I've been mulling. If you wanna do it - go for it. But I like the idea enough to make a mini-mod out of it - which should be able to be distributed modularly for the most part. But feel free to hack on it yerself.

Right now just been tossing out ideas, of course this thread currently has absolutely nothing to do with the Subject-line *chuckle* but aaaaanyways

Off topic? yea, i think it is my fault!

I got to thinking about desert and why you cannot irrigate desert and that led me to thinking about what makes succesful cities in desert/harsh locations in reality.

I think this is a very important issue for the game because the way our actual history developed is precisely what this game is all about, hence the name 'civilisation'. And no one can deny the role 'Gold rushes' played in the development of countries like America and even my country Australia.

mystikmind2005 said:

Off topic? yea, i think it is my fault!

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Partly my fault too - I encouraged it by saying it was a good idea (sorry for my ignorance before, btw - I get it now ).

If you wanted gold rushes to play out like they did in the real world, you would have to use a Terra map. Otherwise I don't see why you couldn't have a gold rush anytime the resource is discovered.

Clam Spammer said:

Partly my fault too - I encouraged it by saying it was a good idea (sorry for my ignorance before, btw - I get it now ).

If you wanted gold rushes to play out like they did in the real world, you would have to use a Terra map. Otherwise I don't see why you couldn't have a gold rush anytime the resource is discovered.

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Thats ok,

Through this discussion i can get a better feel for the difficulties.... how simplifying the real world into a PC game is often like trying to shove a sqare peg in a round hole! Anyone can see it is not rite, but it is the best you can do at the time.

It is definately human nature to appreciate realism in computer games, especially if the game is very playable like civ4. And realism is always a part of what makes computer games improve over time. So discussions like this one going on for various different games all over the world are at the cutting edge of what will be to come in the future!