Multiple Improvements per City.

I know that much of the improvement building you do in civ is an abstraction, but it still bothers me when you build ONE factory or ONE library. I would like to be able to build MORE than one of an improvement. It doesnt have to be too complex-just make it that you can build a no. of improvements equal to 1/2 your city's size, rounded up. So, in a size 8 city, you can build up to 4 of each type of improvement. You can build more than this, but it will cause overcrowding and hence increase unhappiness. That aside, though, the more improvements you have, overall, the higher the employment stat of that city and, therefore, the wealthier it is overall!
Anyway, just a thought!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

You have really become the harbinger of complexity, Aussie_Lurker!

Perhaps you should play Sim City...?

If you could build multiple libraries then universities wouldn't make much sense. They are just more expensive. The same goes for marketplaces versus banks. And some improvemnts would simply be too powerful. Imagine 10 factories and 10 hydroplants in a size 20 city, that would be able to make a nuke everu turn. Or a temple city that produces 20K in no time.

Anyways I think that one improvemnt in some cases actually represents more than one of that building. For example a cit would only need one coloseum but would need several libraries.

I agree, when i buil "factory" i imagien that i build more then one factory in a city, just as one worker isnt jus 'one' worker, or one settler isnt just 'one man'

I don't think my idea is THAT complex!
In fact, it was used to very good effect in 'BOTF', a game I LOVE immensely. I do agree, though, that if it were brought in then many of the existing civilization rules regarding production, research and culture would need some kind of overhaul-in order to prevent multiple improvements from overpowering the game! But an overhaul of the games existing rules doesn't sound like such a bad idea to me (and, might I add, the 'rules overhaul' approach sounds like the path that Firaxis plans to go down!)
The other reason that I wanted multiple improvements per city is that, under the current system, things can get boringly repetative. You know, found the city, then build improvement x, y and z-rinse and repeat ! With a multiple improvement system, though, it would allow me to make my cities much more specialized! Which is the way I would prefer it to be!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I don't know about you but none of my cities get building X,Y then Z. I build the few improvements I need, in the specific cities I need.

I think that you should be able to build one improvement for every citizen, to represent employment. So you could have 20 factories in a size twenty city, but you could have no specialists and no other buildings.

the fact that each factory/marketplace/library improves their corresponding city output by a percentage covers the idea of 'multiple improvements.' Factories increas production by 50%, so if a city with 30 production builds a factory, it will gain 15 more shields. A city with 50 production gains 25 shields. Assuming factories to be identical in their output, this simulates that their are simply 'more' factories in the second city than in the first, though you really only build 'one' factory.

That being said i do understand the idea behind having to build more improvements, and i would also like to have more specialization in cities, but what i don't want is to have to control each city like a sim-city mini-game.

I think that it should be up to the individual player, though, how much 'micromanagement' you want within the game. If you dislike MM, then you apoint governers for your biggest cities-then focus your attention on diplomacy, trade, research and warfare!
As another point, I do think that the demographic of employment being represented within a city-and being affected by how many shields, beakers, trade your city produces-with specialists increasing employment levels even further. Of course, the downside to high employment would be high maintainance costs for the improvements that create these jobs. Whilst the downside to low employment would be increased discontent within your city! Putting aside a portion of your budget for welfare, of course, could help to alleviate unhappiness caused by unemployment, though!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I agree that the game is merely simplified, one worker, army whatever actually represents more than one laborer or more than 3 cavalry etc

thats too many, why not decrease the number much much more?

I like the idea. I do want to add that if each building had an area of each it then it could change things alot. Adding 1 more factory would prevent 2 libraries from being built making you decide between the two possibilities. And the second building of each type might not be quote the same as the first. It might not have as much culture or it might cost more than the first. a Uni could in fact cost less than a second library. If you already have both though it might be good to build a second library.

You see, Slothman, that is EXACTLY the point I make in my original post! The 'law of diminishing returns' means that each new improvement you build, of the same type, gives you slightly less benefit than the one before-but still costs the same to maintain! Thus, having 6 libraries might give you a research benefit, but the cost is far greater than simply having maybe 2 universities, for the same new benefit! Of course, if you have money to splurge, then there would be nothing to stop you from having the 6 libraries AND the 2 unis!
So the only two factors which would dictate how many total improvements you can have in a single city are (a) city size and (b) available maintainance funds!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I think they should add a whole slew of new improvements to the game. So much so that it would be hard to keep up with them all and you would have to choose between which ones you want to build in which cities. This would lead to specialized cities, some would have many military buildings and some would have a lot of religous and learning buildings. If you have to make a choice between what to build in which city it would be more strategic than simply building everything in each city, which is pretty much how it is now.

I think Plastiqe makes the most compelling proposition. The idea that instead of building *everything* in *every* city, you're forced to make hard choices. They started to have some of this in C3C, some of the scenarios. There were improvements that gave you bonuses with slight penalties, forcing you to make tough decisions. And there were enough improvements floating around that you had to be picky.

Here, I feel more like I have a universal order which I make minor adjustments on according to the current need and budget.

i can understand were your coming from aussie, but imagine what ppl would do to this, build 300 factories and production 600 or something, but not a bad idea

OK, Josh, just a few points to better explain my position:

1) Under my model, no city would ever be able to build 300 factories-in fact, it wouldn't even be able to build 300 improvements TOTAL! City size would dictate the maximum number of improvements a city could build, with the largest number being around say 40-80! Less depending on the number of wonders in that city!

2) Even if the city COULD build 300 factories, under my model it would not get 600 production, due to the 'law of diminishing returns' I mentioned previously. This would mean that the first factory might grant a 200% production bonus, the second one only a 100% bonus and the next one only a 50% bonus-and so on! The maintainance costs of each new factory, however, would remain the same, forcing you to weigh up whether the additional cost of these extra improvements is worth the ever decreasing effectiveness of them!

3) As a city approaches and/or exceeds its improvement limit (based on city size), the peoples happiness will slowly decrease as the city becomes grossly overcrowded-therefore you are much better off building only a moderate number of improvements per city to maintain citizen contentedness!

4) Rather than have multiples of ONE improvement, I would be happy enough if they had many more improvements of a given category in each age! For instance, I would be happy if each age you could access around 10 commercial improvements, 10 production improvements, 10 happiness improvements etc etc! Of course, space, money and time limitations would force many of the 'hard choices' that DH_Epic mentioned above, opening the way for cities to become specialised in a particular area (like production, happiness generation, commerce, governance, education etc). This specialisation could be even more enhanced by allocation of specialists within each city (like labourers in production cities, farmers in agricultural cities and civil servants in governance cities!) This is the crux of what I want in civ4-the power to more greatly specialise city roles as time goes by!

Anyway, I hope this has better explained my position.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I think you are making it to complicated in #1 and #2 with the max improvements and diminishing returns. #3 doesn't make sense to me. Don't say you can only build this many improvements, let the player decide how many they can build. If they can get every single improvement built in a city, then more power to them.

#4 I totally agree with. There should be many more improvements added to the game. Also these improvements should all be linked on the tech tree. For example if You start as Religous/Scientific you should immediately be able to build a basic building for each of those traits with your starting tech (like the burial mound). And then as you go up that side of the tech tree you would get a little more advanced buildings for your religion and science.

I think the principals of diminishing returns might make sense though. Then again, maybe it's not necessary. Even with an upper but linear limit, you still discourage users from building one thing over and over. And I could see how some would argue against an upper limit -- if you have to pay maintainance, the limit will make itself.

Still, forcing tough choices is the real goal. I'd rather have tough / fun choices, than to always do the same thing every single game no matter what.

My approach looks at this from the angle of providing buildings per citizen, rather than limiting citizens per building. Buildings now have variable cost, depending on how many citizens it will provide for. Imagine you are building a factory, but only have 2 citizens in the city. It makes no sense to build a facility that provides for 10 citiznes(assumption for current factory), so you build one that is only 1/5 the cost. I'll explain how bonuses and demographics work, but first is cost.

Cost:
There are several stages to cost, but two types of stages. One is fixed, the other is variable. Fixed costs represent the basic infrastructure needed for that level and size of complex. It only needs to be paid once in order to build to the next level of variable facility. Variable costs are those based on how many citizens you are providing for. You get to choose the exact number. As a side note, you can add on to facilities anytime you want.
Here is an example, made up numbers, for the stages for lets say a factory. THese names would not necessarily appear, it would all say factory. They are their for discussion purposes.

Rudimentary Infrastructure(20 shields, Fixed)
Factories(1-4 citizens, 10 shield per new section/citizen, Variable)
Incoporated Stucture(30 shields, Fixed)
Large Factories(5-12 citizens, 15 shiled per new section/citizen, Variable)
Integrated Facilities(40 Shields, Fixed)
Manufacturing Complexes(13-25 citizens, 20 shields per new section/citizen, Variable)
Jumbo Inudstiral Operations(50 shields, Fixed)
Super Manufacturing Facilities(26+ citizens, 25 shields per new section/citizen, Variable)

Effects of Buildings:
Lets say you have a size 6 city with a size 3 factory. that means only the top 3 sheild producing squares get the benefit of the factory(+50% production). This might be useful for a city with only 2 or 3 high shield squares, since the cost would be 40-50 shields instead of 160.

Demographics
The important part fo demographics is they are who recieve the products of the buildings, not produce them. Remember, each building allows for a certain number of citizens to utilize the bonus, but the products go to that smae number of the 'richest' citizens. Basically the first citizen on the left of the screen gets each thing that is avalaibel first. Some people may have one service but there was nto enough of another to enjoy its use. I'm not sure the ultimate consequences of this division of welath, but it could be very useful.