Islands, Citystates, and Map Generation

[Thalassicus]

Right now it doesn't seem worth it to make a real effort to settle small islands after we unlock Optics and/or Astronomy. I loved the thrill of settling islands in SMAC and Civ4, and I'd like to find a way to make islands exciting again.

Any ideas?

Second thing to ask about. Strategic resources are placed as described in the how players/resources get placed thread.

Spoiler:

Each player has a "territory," tiles closer to us than other people. A quantity of each strategic resource is scattered around this territory. Citystates are placed without regard to where strategic resources are. Right now only 25% or so of citystates have a strategic resource on the Continents-Plus map script.

An idea I've had is the quantity in our territory could be slightly less, but each citystate is assured of a small random strategic like in vanilla. Do you think this would make it too easy to get strategic resources, or would you like the flexibility? What are your thoughts?

[black213]

Make islands and other continents have more unknown resources compared to the Old World.

[Pouakai]

Thats what I'd suggest. Make it so each different continent as defined by the game has different resources - So Africa might have Ivory but lack Dyes.

[Nefliqus]

1) Advanced sea food farms and lux resource available only close to small islands like whale or sth.

2) New gameplay element: Touristic Industry -> new source of money -> new building -> Hotel -> extra money from every cost and ocean title from cities on small islands (less then 5 title) or from cost and oceans from cities built on other continents or islands

[jacktannery]

1. Naval units lose hp outside cultural borders. Just like in the New World scenario, this means that settling small outposts outside of our continent becomes important for establishing a powerful world-wide navy. 1 hp/turn is a little steep, so perhaps we could make it 25% chance of -1hp per turn.

2. Certain units only buildable/usable outside of our starting continent. I believe this mechanic already exists in CIV V in the Conquistador and the Foreign Legion (I never played with either of these but I seem to recall both have special powers only activated when off the starting continent). Thus we might have settlers able to build a 'free' city (ie does not count for policy cost; perhaps begins as a puppet?) or workers able to build special extra-good improvements.

You have to be careful not to create a mechanic that increases the lead of whoever is already winning.

[Babri]

Originally Posted by black213

Make islands and other continents have more unknown resources compared to the Old World.

This. Also cities on a different landmass (islands or a new continent) generate more trade income.

[Thalassicus]

For reference... whatever I do is going to be "automatic" so the AI can handle it. Trade boosts, resources... stuff like that is good because it can happen while the AI goes about its normal business, even if the AI isn't aware of it.

Keep the ideas coming! Depending on what's possible in the files, I'll pick something from this discussion to add to the mod.

[albie_123]

I think that, while having new resources available in the new world that are unavailable in the old world is a great addition for both strategic and historic flavour, the issue with settling on new continents / islands is more one of the cities themselves. They tend to be quite underwhelming, due to being founded in territory that is completely undeveloped, as opposed to cities settled closer to already large and developed cities that may have a few extra farm / village / mine plots to use, they tend to have little military use as well, unless the AI has already settled there, and there isn't much it can do apart from make some extra units / wonders, until you get enough villages to increase the of the city.

Like you've done several times, I think the best way to sort this out is to divide the use of cities on the old world into the tall / wide / conquest archetypes.

TALL

Obviously, for tall, you'd want a well developed city that can grow fast in order to get enough to support specialists. I, off the top of my head, can't think of why when playing tall you'd actually want to settle another continent, unless the terrain there is somehow more beneficial, or the AI has expanded to the point that settling new cities is unavilable. Therefore, in order for settling on other continents to be attractive in this regard, you would have to make some kind of feature, be it buildings, improvements, units, or policies* that are unique to the new world, that increase citizen growth and the territory these cities control ( and , respectively), or directly increasing the amount of specialists or usefulness of specialists on the new world. Apart from this, the extra you'd get from the unavilable resources would be beneficial to a tall player, due to the relatively large that you can get if you don't already have enough luxuries.

I can't write on wide or conquest at the moment due to a lack of time, but I think you're right in that something needs to be done.

*Interesting idea here, actually - perhaps the Commerce policy tree can become focused on both and giving bonuses to cities on other continents, in much the same way that the Diplomacy mod changes the Patronage tree into both increasing the effects of and the production of diplomatic units. This would serve well both strategically, as the optics - astronomy path would then have a definite bonus associated with it, and as well as historical flavour: Britan, Portugal, Spain, France, and other great powers made a lot of money off of colonizing areas far away from their own lands.

[black213]

Free worker per city on other continent?

[Tomice]

A happiness boost for cities on small islands, making them essentially free in terms of happiness?

A coastal improvement polynesia style? Of course we'd have to rebalance the civ then.

[Arksa]

Trade route bonus if harbor on harbor.

[Babri]

Originally Posted by Arksa

Trade route bonus if harbor on harbor.

That would disbalance the game. Instead cities on a different land mass than capital would generate extra trade route income as I said before.
Another idea I have is that resources present in New World but absent in old world would give greater boost to happiness. In other words if your capital is in Asia & you build a city in Africa, you'll get 50% more from luxuries brought from Africa & so selling them to other civs on your continent would generate more income (like 360 instead of 240).

[Sneaks]

Some things to consider:

Currently small islands have several benefits in terms of wide empire.

• Very easily defensible
• Water tiles allow steady, albeit minor gold income
• Controlling full coastlines guarantees no pestering neighbors

I really don't see too much reason to add to this too much. Small islands should only be able to support small populations and production with the trade offs being minimal need for improvements and easy defense. While creating scenarios like having a Singapore or Hong Kong are appealing, the nature of food and goods trade intraempire in Civ V tends to hamper this.

I tend to thus view Island cities the same way I would cities located in Tundra or Desert. These cities are specialized based on environment. However, I do believe there are ways to address this in a manner that will provide fun without the cost of balance:

Proposed Solution 1:
Create a separate building class set for coastal cities and use LockedBuildingClasses to make them either/ors.

Examples:
Pier
+1 on Sea tiles
10% Production
Cannot be built in a city with a Workshop or Smithy

Fish Market
+2
+1 on Sea Resources
Cannot be built in a city with a Granary

By creating a set of buildings that make coastal cities both unique in flavor and the nature of yields, we increase decision making while still not penalizing those without sea access on pangea maps and such.

Proposed Solution 2:
A larger and vastly more gamechanging solution would be to develop a system in which bonus resources are consumed in a way akin to strategics. This would allow on the macro level what we already do on the micro. Rather than having simply farm tiles feeding cities, we could in fact have cities that exist only to feed other cities.

This could be implemented via creating buildings that consume Cows, Sheep, Deer, Fish, Stone and Wheat, and perhaps even luxuries.

An example would be creating a Grain silo building that consumes 1 Wheat similar to Factories and Coal. The silo in turn would provide 2 food or so. In turn, bonus resources would need to lose their inherent tile bonuses, as these bonuses would move to the city in which they were consumed, rather than produced.

In this way, one could theoretically build a supercity anywhere with a large enough cottage economy. I would avoid letting the AI trade the resources, as I doubt it could handle the concept, but it should be able to grasp that it can consume these resources in cities it wants to grow.

[mitsho]

I like your second proposal very much. Strategic non-tile dependent food distribution has always been something which lacks in Civilization. It would make Cities non-dependent of their environment, and allows for Trade to be much more important. However, this is no solution to Civilzation V as this is based on another system.

The Problem I see with Civ V is that unlike Civ4 sometimes it doesn't make sense to expand anymore. I feel no reason to expand to other places in the midgame as I a) would lose Social Policies, b) they are farter away and thus more difficult to defend and they take a long time to reap benefit. In Civ4 it was logical to expand more and more. I just simply feel that's not the case in Civ5, wether it is an island or not... And the map feels empty without it.

So, what can one do? I guess some new modells would need to be introduced: International Trade, Intercontinental Trade. And the Happiness Nerf doesn't help at all: Ressources are weaker now, so why expand...

If you can't incorporate Trade Routes (or Corporations) that make exploring foreign lands (to colonize OR trade) worthwhile, I guess I would buff Ressources (Luxury...) and/or implement a system that makes them worthwhile (See Corporations of CivIV?). But then of course we end up again at too much happiness and too much Expansion. vicious circle...

[Sneaks]

Therein lies a more fundamental issue of Tall vs. Wide.

Before the latest patch, wide empires clearly were not only ideal, but necessary at high difficulty for science and to a lesser extent diplo victories. Conquest obviously, as well.

Now, expansion endlessly is suboptimal in almost all cases. So, how does one fix this? Does it need fixing?

A simple, but ugly, solution would be to have late game policies or techs that immediately grant a Monument and Library in every newly founded city.

Another solution would be to have a very late game building that reduces policy cost by 5-10%, effectively making empire size immaterial to policy cost past a certain technology threshold. Once again, rather inelegant but effective.

[Seek]

Originally Posted by Sneaks

A simple, but ugly, solution would be to have late game policies or techs that immediately grant a Monument and Library in every newly founded city.

I was going to suggest something similar. This can also be effected by reintroducing the 5 per city in the order tree - it gets those new cities up and running very quickly.

Btw, welcome back!

[Thalassicus]

To be clear, the problem is not that island cities are underpowered. Expanding to islands improves policy, science, and gold rates in most playstyles. The problem is island cities are just uninteresting - they all have basically the same characteristics and we can mostly ignore them after settling. That's why I chose the word "exciting" in my goal in the OP, not "buff."

Adding a city increases policy rate in non-culture victory games if the city produces at least 5. It's only when we have 100+ player-specific culture in a culture game (from sources like landmarks) that adding cities slows policy rate. I discuss this in more detail in the policy cost increase per city thread. The only real downside to expansion is happiness.

[void_genesis]

Would it be possible to base the trade-route income of harbor connected cities to scale in proportion to the distance from the capital? That way you have an interesting decision to put them as far away as possible without losing your settler to barbarians or being unable to defend the city from the AI.....
This metric means distant small cities later in the game can repay investment in cash bought buildings in a reasonable time.

It complements nicely with road trade routes where the aim is to put cities as close together as is reasonable.

[Sneaks]

Originally Posted by Thalassicus

To be clear, the problem is not that island cities are underpowered. Expanding to islands improves policy, science, and gold rates in most playstyles. The problem is island cities are just uninteresting - they all have basically the same characteristics and we can mostly ignore them after settling. That's why I chose the word "exciting" in my goal in the OP, not "buff."

Adding a city increases policy rate in non-culture victory games if the city produces at least 5. It's only when we have 100+ player-specific culture in a culture game (from sources like landmarks) that adding cities slows policy rate. I discuss this in more detail in the policy cost increase per city thread. The only real downside to expansion is happiness.

I think the separate building tree as per city location might be a fantastic way to handle this, though I believe that level of change might be beyond the scope of this mod.

[Sporhund]

Originally Posted by Sneaks

Therein lies a more fundamental issue of Tall vs. Wide.

Before the latest patch, wide empires clearly were not only ideal, but necessary at high difficulty for science and to a lesser extent diplo victories. Conquest obviously, as well.

Now, expansion endlessly is suboptimal in almost all cases. So, how does one fix this? Does it need fixing?

A simple, but ugly, solution would be to have late game policies or techs that immediately grant a Monument and Library in every newly founded city.

In the Rise of Mankind mod for Civ4, when you discovered certain key technologies, your settler unit would be upgraded to a colonist, bringing an increase in production cost, but also a larger base city upon settling. These upgraded settlers came with a basic set of buildings and a slightly larger population, giving them a headstart good enough that they would be viable within a close future.

I do not know if something similar is possible with the current tools, but concept-wise, I do not think an upgraded settler once you research astronomy is outside of TBC's scope.