sailormouth1
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2021
- Messages
- 2
I've been noodling about what changes I'd like to see in Civ, and I'd like to see the map be more flexible and require less player-directed management. In general that means things like letting your Civ develop some of its own infrastructure, like roads and trade routes providing the player puts conditions forward that encourage them. My big wish on this point is to get rid of settlers, at least in the early game, and replace them with different units and mechanics that spread districts and tile improvements that later combine to evolve into cities and provinces.
Empires would be spread by units that create districts more narrowly focused on the desires of their population and/or their leader at the given time (so founding a city to later create a mega industrial zone with a killer spaceport in the ancient era would be unlikely). For example, instead of sending a settler to found a city to then create an encampment in a particular location, the player creates a unit that founds the encampment directly without any city attached to it (yet). That encampment is supported by a farmer/worker working a title or two in the ancient game or it requires support from its home city until it can support itself. Likewise, districts would be set up for a variety of reasons, some of which are player directed (encampments, campuses, theater squares, industrial zones, dams, aqueducts etc.) while others are driven by the needs of the home city and are population driven (commercial hubs - driven by luxuries and +$ adjacency; harbors to facilitate trade and respond to adjacency, pilgrims to create holy sites, etc.) Upon reaching a critical mass (say 6 population), the player can convert their own selected districts into a city/province by creating a city center/provincial capital. My thinking is that at the end of the ancient era it would be typical for an empire to have 1-3 to cities as we now them now that they developed (plus any conquered cities) and the non-incorporated but settled portion of the maps continue like this more or less to the end of the industrial era for wide civs, earlier for tall ones. So for a typical successful civ at the end of the classical era you'd have 3-5 native cities along with a heap of semi-controlled districts/settlements outside of your empire proper, scaling up as time goes on.
Let's use America as an example:
1) America founds Washington DC on turn one like normal and starts growing its city and exploring and developing land.
2) America wants to forward settle a neighboring civ to the north and sends out an encampment colony 8 tiles north, founding Fort West Point, which grows to size 2 over ten turns.
3) Meanwhile, 2 tiles east of Fort West Point diamonds are discovered. Citizens in Washington DC create a commercial colony to exploit them. The population on their own send out people to create the commercial hub (we'll call it Manhattan) support it and mine the diamonds. Roads are built supporting the new endeavor and the profits flow into Washington.
4) After another ten turns or so you have six of your own population between Manhattan and Fort West Point. You can incorporate those two districts and any tiles that they're working as New York City. A city center can be on any of the two old districts, any tile being worked, or any tile adjacent to either of those. Now we have a normal city. Stacking districts and wonders is possible and has both advantages and disadvantages.
5) At the end of the ancient era let's say America would have Washington and New York as normal cities, while outside of those are districts of various sorts that haven't become a city yet (so to the north there is the religious colony of Plymouth that, if the area is taken by America, will eventually become the city of Boston (those perfidious Canadians might make a play for it before it becomes Boston and truly American, and attempt to capture or destroy it: America could let it go, allow minor fighting (like in Humankind's early game) or start a full blown imperial war to keep it.
As the game goes on you can create and support expansion in different ways (clearing, or stealing, farm land for your growing population and retiring veterans to encourage food growth and stability, sponsoring pilgrims to settle lands, having an East India Company that allows directed forts and commercial hub expeditions, tax choices and military protection to encourage certain types of growth, eventually leading to colonial settlers the players can build that can found cities directly in the later game).
I think this proposal would also help develop interesting other mechanics, including migration ("German pilgrims create a small religious settlement near New York and they are willing to join your empire if you let them keep their traditions: you can try absorb them peacefully into your empire giving you population and a religious district, but they are from a rival civ and religion, creating both an ethnic and religious minority group and possibly a fifth column if Frederick starts getting bold).
Empires would be spread by units that create districts more narrowly focused on the desires of their population and/or their leader at the given time (so founding a city to later create a mega industrial zone with a killer spaceport in the ancient era would be unlikely). For example, instead of sending a settler to found a city to then create an encampment in a particular location, the player creates a unit that founds the encampment directly without any city attached to it (yet). That encampment is supported by a farmer/worker working a title or two in the ancient game or it requires support from its home city until it can support itself. Likewise, districts would be set up for a variety of reasons, some of which are player directed (encampments, campuses, theater squares, industrial zones, dams, aqueducts etc.) while others are driven by the needs of the home city and are population driven (commercial hubs - driven by luxuries and +$ adjacency; harbors to facilitate trade and respond to adjacency, pilgrims to create holy sites, etc.) Upon reaching a critical mass (say 6 population), the player can convert their own selected districts into a city/province by creating a city center/provincial capital. My thinking is that at the end of the ancient era it would be typical for an empire to have 1-3 to cities as we now them now that they developed (plus any conquered cities) and the non-incorporated but settled portion of the maps continue like this more or less to the end of the industrial era for wide civs, earlier for tall ones. So for a typical successful civ at the end of the classical era you'd have 3-5 native cities along with a heap of semi-controlled districts/settlements outside of your empire proper, scaling up as time goes on.
Let's use America as an example:
1) America founds Washington DC on turn one like normal and starts growing its city and exploring and developing land.
2) America wants to forward settle a neighboring civ to the north and sends out an encampment colony 8 tiles north, founding Fort West Point, which grows to size 2 over ten turns.
3) Meanwhile, 2 tiles east of Fort West Point diamonds are discovered. Citizens in Washington DC create a commercial colony to exploit them. The population on their own send out people to create the commercial hub (we'll call it Manhattan) support it and mine the diamonds. Roads are built supporting the new endeavor and the profits flow into Washington.
4) After another ten turns or so you have six of your own population between Manhattan and Fort West Point. You can incorporate those two districts and any tiles that they're working as New York City. A city center can be on any of the two old districts, any tile being worked, or any tile adjacent to either of those. Now we have a normal city. Stacking districts and wonders is possible and has both advantages and disadvantages.
5) At the end of the ancient era let's say America would have Washington and New York as normal cities, while outside of those are districts of various sorts that haven't become a city yet (so to the north there is the religious colony of Plymouth that, if the area is taken by America, will eventually become the city of Boston (those perfidious Canadians might make a play for it before it becomes Boston and truly American, and attempt to capture or destroy it: America could let it go, allow minor fighting (like in Humankind's early game) or start a full blown imperial war to keep it.
As the game goes on you can create and support expansion in different ways (clearing, or stealing, farm land for your growing population and retiring veterans to encourage food growth and stability, sponsoring pilgrims to settle lands, having an East India Company that allows directed forts and commercial hub expeditions, tax choices and military protection to encourage certain types of growth, eventually leading to colonial settlers the players can build that can found cities directly in the later game).
I think this proposal would also help develop interesting other mechanics, including migration ("German pilgrims create a small religious settlement near New York and they are willing to join your empire if you let them keep their traditions: you can try absorb them peacefully into your empire giving you population and a religious district, but they are from a rival civ and religion, creating both an ethnic and religious minority group and possibly a fifth column if Frederick starts getting bold).
