Islands

[alephsebek]

Hey all, new to the boards and everything. Anyway, hope this hasn't been brought up already... but how about 'island' terrain tiles? I know there are islands now, but they don't really work like I'd think islands should. Instead, we should have a set of hybrid tiles that act simultaneously like land and water. Ships could come and go, perhaps with a movement penalty and possible defensive bonuses. Either we'd have settlers able to settle these, or have specialty settlers, ala the SMAC sea pods, with naval movement but only able to settle the island tiles.

The island cities would have to work a bit differently, and that'd have to come out in testing, but off the top of my head, I'd say lower pop ceilings at each echelon, likely a few improvements of their own, and perhaps a smaller cultural footprint. These would give some really cool possibilities, I think:

-The possibility for real archipelago situations. Something like the Caribbean (sp?) or Japan is really difficult to have on a civ3 map of reasonably large scale, but multiple colonies and settlements along a naval-porous island chain would really open up

-Navies would obviously come into their own a bit, sea strategies should evolve quite a lot.

-Possibility for ocean based resources increases. Getting that plentiful sea-based oil and holding the trade routes sounds like a fun wrinkle to me.

-Once this 'hybrid' tileset is in place, it's an easy step to the 'build canal' or navigable rivers possibilities mentioned in other threads

Well, watcha think? There'd be a whole new slew of balance issues to test out, but this sounds like it'd work to me.

 

[Jake5555555]

Great Idea. I would love to see ships and the ocean in general become as important in civ as they are in real life.

 

[Mewtarthio]

So, basically, you want islands that are smaller than one tile? It actually sounds like a good idea. Granted, you wouldn't be able to build Metropolises on them, and they'd probably be limited to Fortresses so you can attack passing ships, but even that would be good.

 

[sir_schwick]

Waht about airfields and such? That would really allow for a WWII Pacific style fight, with lots of Island hoping.

 

[alephsebek]

Not so much less than one tile - Only one civ's units could occupy. It'd just be a tile representing some mix of land and water that'd have some different parameters for movement (both land and sea units presumably), settlement, resource exploitation, naval defense, etc. These would often be chained together in multi tile configs. And, yeah, a metropolis would be tough or impossible on an isolated scrap of land - say Midway Islands - but throw a square or two of 'solid' landmass together with a chain of islands and you've got a Hawaii that could possibly support a bigger city.

 

[Colonel]

I see we are devoping a better way to devolpe a WW2 Pacific Scenerio for Civ4 great job

Anyways great idea

 

[MSTK]

I like the idea of island giving defensive bonuses to ships.

 

[thescaryworker]

It would help movement of ships to other continents or (large) islands earlier in the game.

Example:
You set the game to archipalego, 80% water, huge. You start on a very small continent and space is extremely limited. The small continent is surrounded by more than 4 layers of ocean. What do you do? You cant do anything without these islands!

Great Idea.

 

[jabancho]

I agree with the concept, although there is the fact that the island itself must have space enough for colonies and probable wars... perhaps a new editor concept of drawing islands instead of continents?

 

[earthguido]

I´m OK with ocean resources... you would need supply crawlers!

 

[alephsebek]

Much as I love covering the surface of AC with supply crawlers, I just can't see doing that in a civ setting. Seems like a one-shot colony (oil rig or, earlier, fishing outpost or what have you) would be more likely, Unless, that is, there's a substantial overhaul of land based resources

 

[sir_schwick]

I was thinking Islands would not have to be attached to a coasts, since deep ocean islands are often not on continental divides and shelfs, but mountains. If sea movement was changed more to operate around a concept of range, these would be really useful. Also, many important resources might only be able to be found in two places(1) an isolationist power, (2) a small island chain. Could lead to some intersting conflicts for one or two tiles.

 

[ManOfMiracles]

While we're changing islands...let's ditch the one- or two-tile islands that are all mountain and have the only source of iron you can find! Either that or allow colonies to have the ability to act as a harbor.

If you really are going for building on Pacific islands in a WWII scene, perhaps create a type of settler that can build on mountains (volcanic of course). Realistically there are towns built on mountains so why not allow it in the game?

 

[sir_schwick]

While we're changing islands...let's ditch the one- or two-tile islands that are all mountain and have the only source of iron you can find! Either that or allow colonies to have the ability to act as a harbor.

If you really are going for building on Pacific islands in a WWII scene, perhaps create a type of settler that can build on mountains (volcanic of course). Realistically there are towns built on mountains so why not allow it in the game?

Maybe that could be an Ancient Era tech that allowed you build on Volcanoes and Mountains, but with a population cap(besides environmental).

 

[Vizurok]

No... Civ is a global game... villages and small cities do not appear in the game, so why would small islands appear?
In scenarios they should (e.g. WWII), but in epic games... no...

 

[sir_schwick]

No... Civ is a global game... villages and small cities do not appear in the game, so why would small islands appear?
In scenarios they should (e.g. WWII), but in epic games... no...

Those are both things that should be reworked. I think there should be better graphic representation of rural and suburban communities. Maybe cities should start sprawling a little bit, especially in the industrial and modern ages.

As for epic games, in Earth history some very important conflicts occured over the Carribean Islands. They had resources that people wanted, but you could not have made a great city there. It would also allow you to have some forward naval bases, for if they ever implement some sort of logistics or port based movement.

 

[alireza1354]

No, I like canals better or travelling over rivers..

 

[MrMahk]

wow alireza...you do realize you were replying to a July 31st post?

 

[alireza1354]

No I wasnt MrMahk

Who cares?

 

[mastertyguy]

Your self. this thing would be about page 34, I think you had to search.
Anyway, the islands would be a great idea.

I was thinking Islands would not have to be attached to a coasts, since deep ocean islands are often not on continental divides and shelfs, but mountains.

From a geographical point of view, you are right. But one of the reason to control island is a 200 km range of coast you get, even on the smallest island of the world.