A Population Game

[VGhost]

This proposal is about tying all of your empire more closely to its actual population - it has always bugged me about Civilization - and 6 exaggerates this problem - is how city population count is not really tied into other "units" that are produced, other than settlers. It's also a little odd to have territory assigned to a city when the city isn't working it at all. And finally, I really don't care for the current "builder with x charges" unit.

Now, there's a little bit of management you can do already - I'm guessing really good players may do more of it - in manually overriding the AI decision which tiles new population units "work". I'm imagining tying that into this unified system too.

Population Spawn

Basically: depending on whatever calculation, every so often a new population unit - let's call it a "citizen" - spawns. The player then would have three options:

1. Assign the citizen as a generic "worker". Workers left in the city center add something to production, but affect food, happiness/loyalty, etc. Workers can also be used to create some buildings, improvement, or districts - for instance, building an encampment, or a campus, or a road/railroad/airport.
2. Train the citizen as another unit based on available tech - this would include settlers, traders, military units, and any diplomatic or religious units. I think this means it might make sense to have a second, "training", queue for each city's production - at least one that could be unlocked either at a certain pop size or as a tech tree item.
3. Assign the citizen to work a specific tile. I'm not thinking to limit to one citizen per tile: I'm thinking this could be tied into development. For instance, a second citizen on grassland creates/enables you to create a farm; three (or five, or however many) on a specific tile create/enables an appropriate district, etc. This could work with districts: for instance, once you build a campus, you can assign new citizens to it to boost science; or assign to a harbor to increase trade route value; or you could even assign citizens to wonders to boost tourism - these are just brainstorming, not specific mechanic demands. Some tile/district assignments might require training first - or citizens assigned to a district for a sufficient time could "promote", for instance a citizen left to work a campus could become a "scientist".

Implications for Cities

Paired with this I'd like to see only tiles actually worked as part of each city. Initially I'd want worked tiles should be contiguous: tech or civic developments could let you work further away: either connected by roads/rivers/coasts, or within a "loyalty band" (like Civ 4 showed early game) or using loyalty per tile (as in Civ 6) where units (and improvements) working too far out risk going rogue or flipping to other civs. A further "colonialism" or "nationalism" civic/tech tree item could then allow settlement anywhere (e.g. significantly reduce distance from the loyalty calculation). Could also be a "fade" mechanic where a tile not worked at all over time drops out of city control, or if a district is undermanned it reverts to a normal tile, etc. to limit players trying to grab land with a work-a-turn-then-move.

New Cities

I'm guessing this would mean relatively faster growth as far as how often cities get new population. But actually I'm thinking this affects new cities too - or even the first. I'm supposing that you couldn't found a city at all until acquiring several total population: a second or third citizen working the same tile would create/enable a "city center", name, etc. As worked tiles expand, assigning multiple citizens to a tile far enough away from your other city/cities would create/enable a new city; a "settler" would be a specific unlockable unit type that can move faster/further away/noncontiguous, or e.g. if it takes 3 units in one place to start a city normally, maybe a "settler" unit is created with linking 2 available citizens and spawns a 3rd on city founding... or whatever.

Unit Conversion

Implied in all this is that population units ought to be convertible between different types. If you've got a citizen working a tile, it can be reassigned as an archer (or whatever), maybe with additional drill time. Got a worker sitting idle? Assign it to a city tile. And of course "disbanding" a military unit would really mean not deleting it but turning it back into a citizen. This also suggests possibilities with techs or policies - e.g. if re-training a worker as a military unit normally adds x production to the cost of the unit normally, a "national service" civic could reduce or eliminate the extra.

Drawbacks?

Obviously, this would be a pretty major change. I'd guess the most resistance to this idea would come from the fact that it would be one more thing to manage - either that, or an objection that this level of detail isn't what Civ is about. As far as the first, it certainly doesn't seem to me liable to be worse than having to keep making builders to get anything done, far less the purely stupid number of religious units floating around by the end of a game. As to the second, adding in explicit districts and spies and religion and all the shades of agreement and alliance has changed and expanded the game in ways not found in earlier versions, too. Maybe I'm really imagining a different, non-Civ game here. But to me, the "civilization" ought to depend on what the population's doing more than on playing games with policies... even if that's fun too.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

Train the citizen as another unit based on available tech - this would include settlers, traders, military units, and any diplomatic or religious units. I think this means it might make sense to have a second, "training", queue for each city's production - at least one that could be unlocked either at a certain pop size or as a tech tree item.

I had this idea too but then changed my mind.
My problem with this approach is, just because a military unit is generated within a city, I don't know why population has to decrease by the same amount in the same city.
(This is what Humankind does, but in that game, you gained "stars" for population growth which was undone by having too large of an army, so there was some reason for it.)
To me it's unrealistic. Realistically, forming an army would pull citizens from several different cities. So a change in one's city population would be negligible.

Perhaps if there was some city defense unit (conscripts, civil defense corps, militia, etc.) that sacrificed workers for increased only that one city's defensive strength, I could see why limiting population would make sense.

 

[Marla_Singer]

This proposal is about tying all of your empire more closely to its actual population - it has always bugged me about Civilization - and 6 exaggerates this problem - is how city population count is not really tied into other "units" that are produced, other than settlers. It's also a little odd to have territory assigned to a city when the city isn't working it at all. And finally, I really don't care for the current "builder with x charges" unit.

Now, there's a little bit of management you can do already - I'm guessing really good players may do more of it - in manually overriding the AI decision which tiles new population units "work". I'm imagining tying that into this unified system too.

Population Spawn

Basically: depending on whatever calculation, every so often a new population unit - let's call it a "citizen" - spawns. The player then would have three options:

1. Assign the citizen as a generic "worker". Workers left in the city center add something to production, but affect food, happiness/loyalty, etc. Workers can also be used to create some buildings, improvement, or districts - for instance, building an encampment, or a campus, or a road/railroad/airport.
2. Train the citizen as another unit based on available tech - this would include settlers, traders, military units, and any diplomatic or religious units. I think this means it might make sense to have a second, "training", queue for each city's production - at least one that could be unlocked either at a certain pop size or as a tech tree item.
3. Assign the citizen to work a specific tile. I'm not thinking to limit to one citizen per tile: I'm thinking this could be tied into development. For instance, a second citizen on grassland creates/enables you to create a farm; three (or five, or however many) on a specific tile create/enables an appropriate district, etc. This could work with districts: for instance, once you build a campus, you can assign new citizens to it to boost science; or assign to a harbor to increase trade route value; or you could even assign citizens to wonders to boost tourism - these are just brainstorming, not specific mechanic demands. Some tile/district assignments might require training first - or citizens assigned to a district for a sufficient time could "promote", for instance a citizen left to work a campus could become a "scientist".

Implications for Cities

Paired with this I'd like to see only tiles actually worked as part of each city. Initially I'd want worked tiles should be contiguous: tech or civic developments could let you work further away: either connected by roads/rivers/coasts, or within a "loyalty band" (like Civ 4 showed early game) or using loyalty per tile (as in Civ 6) where units (and improvements) working too far out risk going rogue or flipping to other civs. A further "colonialism" or "nationalism" civic/tech tree item could then allow settlement anywhere (e.g. significantly reduce distance from the loyalty calculation). Could also be a "fade" mechanic where a tile not worked at all over time drops out of city control, or if a district is undermanned it reverts to a normal tile, etc. to limit players trying to grab land with a work-a-turn-then-move.

New Cities

I'm guessing this would mean relatively faster growth as far as how often cities get new population. But actually I'm thinking this affects new cities too - or even the first. I'm supposing that you couldn't found a city at all until acquiring several total population: a second or third citizen working the same tile would create/enable a "city center", name, etc. As worked tiles expand, assigning multiple citizens to a tile far enough away from your other city/cities would create/enable a new city; a "settler" would be a specific unlockable unit type that can move faster/further away/noncontiguous, or e.g. if it takes 3 units in one place to start a city normally, maybe a "settler" unit is created with linking 2 available citizens and spawns a 3rd on city founding... or whatever.

Unit Conversion

Implied in all this is that population units ought to be convertible between different types. If you've got a citizen working a tile, it can be reassigned as an archer (or whatever), maybe with additional drill time. Got a worker sitting idle? Assign it to a city tile. And of course "disbanding" a military unit would really mean not deleting it but turning it back into a citizen. This also suggests possibilities with techs or policies - e.g. if re-training a worker as a military unit normally adds x production to the cost of the unit normally, a "national service" civic could reduce or eliminate the extra.

Drawbacks?

Obviously, this would be a pretty major change. I'd guess the most resistance to this idea would come from the fact that it would be one more thing to manage - either that, or an objection that this level of detail isn't what Civ is about. As far as the first, it certainly doesn't seem to me liable to be worse than having to keep making builders to get anything done, far less the purely stupid number of religious units floating around by the end of a game. As to the second, adding in explicit districts and spies and religion and all the shades of agreement and alliance has changed and expanded the game in ways not found in earlier versions, too. Maybe I'm really imagining a different, non-Civ game here. But to me, the "civilization" ought to depend on what the population's doing more than on playing games with policies... even if that's fun too.

Most of the concepts you are describing here already exist in a game called "Sid Meier's Colonization" from 1994. It's been later developed in 2008 as a Civ4 spin-off called Civ4 Colonization (or "Civ4Col") which is still expanded today by an active modding community here on SSC.

I would indeed love to see how such concepts could integrate in a game from Neolithic to Space Age. That may not fit the Civ main series enough to make a Civ7, but it could make an interesting spin-off.

 

[Patine]

I had this idea too but then changed my mind.
My problem with this approach is, just because a military unit is generated within a city, I don't know why population has to decrease by the same amount in the same city.
(This is what Humankind does, but in that game, you gained "stars" for population growth which was undone by having too large of an army, so there was some reason for it.)
To me it's unrealistic. Realistically, forming an army would pull citizens from several different cities. So a change in one's city population would be negligible.

Perhaps if there was some city defense unit (conscripts, civil defense corps, militia, etc.) that sacrificed workers for increased only that one city's defensive strength, I could see why limiting population would make sense.

I agree. The vast majority of citiies in world history had only a tiny amount of their population serving in active (or ready-to-go) military status.. Rowsing a militia or citizen's defense look a bit more time, and typically required someone attacking, or actively threatening to do so (or a great fearmongering camapign).

 

[Marla_Singer]

I agree. The vast majority of citiies in world history had only a tiny amount of their population serving in active (or ready-to-go) military status.. Rowsing a militia or citizen's defense look a bit more time, and typically required someone attacking, or actively threatening to do so (or a great fearmongering camapign).

Now let's assume that you need to take a citizen and equip it to make of it a unit, but you could also do the other way around and transforming your unit back into a citizen (therefore adding back population to the city). The idea here would be to rise an army when needed and disbanding it when unneeded so that in peaceful times citizens would do more productive tasks than hanging around in the barrack... Is that a good or bad idea?

It's an open question, I don't have any hard opinion about that as it all depends how it will be played. I'm more interested by your feeling, whether that would be "fun" or "tedious".