dunkleosteus
Roman Pleb
I know with Civ 6 around the corner, it seems kind of the wrong time to talk about how I think the series could be improved, but I liked working it over in my head so I thought it would be more fun to share and see what other people think.
Basic idea here is that I want to model economies and city growth better. I've played Civ V a lot, plus a bit of IV and III, so that's the perspective I'm writing this from.
First radical change: most tile improvements aren't created by workers. Instead, there's a button in the city overview screen that lets you select which improvements should go on any tile. The improvements are built by your citizens ONLY when you work those tiles. The first 3-4 turns after you start working a tile, the improvement is under construction, finally being completed. The first 3-4 after you STOP working a tile, the improvement starts to decay.
Why this makes more sense: Rather than waiting around for the government to make farms, the farmers, herdsmen and miners take it upon themselves to do this themselves. The government's role is only to direct what improvement they can make. If the farmers or miners abandon the land, it returns to nature; mine support beams rot away, weeds and trees grow in the fields.
Second change: improved resources only yield resources when the tiles are actively being worked by citizens. Given that unworked tiles decay anyway, this should be a given with the first change. Stating it explicitly is important though.
Why this makes sense: population limits how many tiles you can work. Currently, an unworked horse pasture yields none of the production associated with working it, but all of the horses. Without anyone present to work the horses, the pasture should not operate.
Third change: "Domesticated" renewable resources can be translocated and replicated. This means that if you have horses, you can make as many horse pastures as you choose, "creating" new horse resources in your territory. The same applies with wheat, cattle, sheep, etc.
Why this makes sense: farmed animals and plants are bred and transported all over the world. If we were limited to only raising animals and plants in the lands they are native to, Europe would only breed horses in the eastern Steppe and wheat would only be grown in the middle east. Additionally, what are farms growing if not wheat?
Why this is balanced: In the aforementioned system where only worked tiles yield resources, the ability to replicate horses is not as over powered as it would be in the base game. Each horse tile is a tile that is not an improved source of wheat, cattle or sheep, limiting population growth.
Fourth change: trade routes and roads have to be established for trade and city connections. For cities to share or trade resources with other cities, they must be connected. Examples of this are that a secondary city with an improved horse tile will not yield horses in your capital unless the two cities are connected with a road or trade route. All [physical] international trade must be done with trade routes as well: gold and resources can only be traded between civilizations that have an active trade route between their cities. Each Civ receives many more trade routes.
Why this makes sense: the trade route system introduced in Civ V was a welcome change, giving civs a risk/reward option to improve their own cities or conduct international trade for gold. Introducing such a system while simultaneously allowing the trade of resources and gold freely creates an inconsistency. In this system, all trade is risky- like the silk road that connected Europe to China and the trade ships that brought gold from the new world back to Spain, the movement and trade of resources across the world poses a risk to every civ that they have to deal with- for the silk road, traders were often plagued by bandits, and for Spain, by pirates and privateers. Both often necessitated the use of armed military protection, something that becomes supremely more useful.
Fifth change: The happiness system changes and luxury resources provide +1 happiness once per city. This means 4 cities would get +4 happiness by consuming 4 copies of the same luxury resource. More details on happiness later.
Why this makes sense: rather than being limited to the resources native to your cities, you may grow as many copies of domesticatable resources as you like. Additionally, as empires grow, the demand for resources grows as well. Examples from history include the farming of sugarcane (native to pacific islands) in the Caribbean. Because Civs will be limited as to which resources they can grow by the climate (such as the inability to grow sugarcane in cooler climates), there will be an actual impetus to settle colonies in tropical areas in order to fuel plantations to grow luxuries for your other cities.
Sixth change: Because bonus and luxury resources can only be grown by the civs that are located near their native locations, it becomes necessary for such resources to travel. For bonus resources such as cattle, sheep, wheat, etc. and horses, conducting trade with civs that have these resources gradually results in these animals and plants being introduced to the trade partners. Renewable luxuries can only be transferred via the actions of spies.
Why this makes sense: domesticated animals quickly spread throughout the old world after their domestication. Many countries had stricter controls on the communication of more valuable resources however, such as China which tried to hide how silk was produced for hundreds of years in order to maintain their monopoly. Since luxuries are so much more valuable for the happiness and economic value, these resources can only be "learned" by successfully conducting espionage against a foreign civilization.
Seventh change: Resource brokering. Since civilizations require more than one copy of each resource and trade can only be conducted between cities in range of each other, it becomes both economical and necessary to broker resources between civs.
Why this makes sense: the historical silk road was actually a chain of trade routes and cities. The exorbitantly high prices of eastern commodities in Europe such as spices and silk was actually a product of this trade network: each city along the silk road bought and traded the resources to their neighbouring cities. As traders in each city took a profit from the trade, the price of the resources increased alone each node. Strategically placed cities become much more useful for conducting trade and building an economic empire. A civ in such a location may buy many more copies of a luxury than they need, trading the rest to other civs without trade access to the source civilization.
Eighth change: urbanization control and limiters. In Civilization, specialists and unemployed citizens represent the urban population of each city. Sustaining an urban centre requires management of resources and organization to ensure that waste is properly dealt with and citizens are able to feed themselves. This resulted in some of the first government systems in ancient cities like Ur and Uruk in ancient Sumeria. With this change, the number of unemployed citizens or specialists you can have is capped similarly to the housing cap used in Civ VI. There are a number of important changes however: buildings or bonuses that provide yields for each citizen in your city ONLY provide these bonuses to your urban population. There are two types of urban population cap: the hard cap and the soft cap. The soft cap represents how large a population your city can maintain in an organized and stable way. Imagine the soft cap is the limit of your infrastructure and administration, and exceeding it results in crime, corruption, and chaos. Exceeding the soft cap results in penalties to growth, gold, production, culture, and science. The hard cap is absolute and can't be exceeded. This represents the absolute capability for your cities to support humans. The soft cap is less than or equal to the hard cap. The soft cap can be increased first with a new specialist, the civil administrator. Later increases to the soft cap come from courthouses, police stations, military garrisons and additional civil administrators. The initial hard cap for your city comes from adjacent sources of fresh water: being on a river provides the greatest starting boost to the hard urbanization cap, with a lesser bonus for adjacency to a lake or oasis and no bonus for no fresh water access. A well building provides a marginal increase to the hard urbanization cap only for cities without access to fresh water of any kind. The hard cap can be increased by granaries, aqueducts (which provide a larger bonus to cities without fresh water access), sewers, hospitals, markets, and grocers. Without these buildings, citizens don't have access to the food and water they need to survive.
It's important to note that the above limitations have no impact on rural population: the number of citizens working tiles is unfettered by the urban limitations. The disadvantage is that science, production, culture, and gold bonuses per unit of population provided by buildings such as markets, banks or libraries only apply to the urban population.
Ninth change: more bonus resources. Civilization V only has one farmable bonus resource: wheat. As I've already mentioned, I have disagreements with how wheat functions, that it can't be replicated or moved and that it grows all over the world. In this system, each Civ receives access to a bonus resource when they settle their first city, depending on where they settle. Cities in warmer, drier climates (akin to the middle east) will have access to wheat. Cities in drier, hillier climates (such as the Andes) get potatoes, which are uniquely interesting in that they can also be farmed on hills without access to freshwater. Cities in hot, wet climates like jungles will find them selves with access to rice, cities in more temperate forests might find themselves with corn. There will not be a unique farmable resource for each civ, but every civ will have a farmable resource. Farmed resource diversity results in better nutrition, increasing the hard cap of your cities. Mineable bonus resources are added for mines. These are neither strategic nor luxury resources. These resources might something like tin or lead which give bonus production or nickel which give bonus gold. The resources are revealed as new techs are discovered.
A note about resource relocation: since non-renewable luxuries like gems, gold and silver can't be replicated or moved, they are always much rarer than resources such as sugar, cotton, or cocoa. Because of this, demand for these resources will be higher, especially for cities that require these resources for "We love the king" day. Civs that control these resources would benefit from trading most of them away in return for more common luxuries and gold due to the value difference.
Overall, I think this would add nuance to the standard city growth system and allow for games that play out more historically than a Civ game currently allows.
Basic idea here is that I want to model economies and city growth better. I've played Civ V a lot, plus a bit of IV and III, so that's the perspective I'm writing this from.
First radical change: most tile improvements aren't created by workers. Instead, there's a button in the city overview screen that lets you select which improvements should go on any tile. The improvements are built by your citizens ONLY when you work those tiles. The first 3-4 turns after you start working a tile, the improvement is under construction, finally being completed. The first 3-4 after you STOP working a tile, the improvement starts to decay.
Why this makes more sense: Rather than waiting around for the government to make farms, the farmers, herdsmen and miners take it upon themselves to do this themselves. The government's role is only to direct what improvement they can make. If the farmers or miners abandon the land, it returns to nature; mine support beams rot away, weeds and trees grow in the fields.
Second change: improved resources only yield resources when the tiles are actively being worked by citizens. Given that unworked tiles decay anyway, this should be a given with the first change. Stating it explicitly is important though.
Why this makes sense: population limits how many tiles you can work. Currently, an unworked horse pasture yields none of the production associated with working it, but all of the horses. Without anyone present to work the horses, the pasture should not operate.
Third change: "Domesticated" renewable resources can be translocated and replicated. This means that if you have horses, you can make as many horse pastures as you choose, "creating" new horse resources in your territory. The same applies with wheat, cattle, sheep, etc.
Why this makes sense: farmed animals and plants are bred and transported all over the world. If we were limited to only raising animals and plants in the lands they are native to, Europe would only breed horses in the eastern Steppe and wheat would only be grown in the middle east. Additionally, what are farms growing if not wheat?
Why this is balanced: In the aforementioned system where only worked tiles yield resources, the ability to replicate horses is not as over powered as it would be in the base game. Each horse tile is a tile that is not an improved source of wheat, cattle or sheep, limiting population growth.
Fourth change: trade routes and roads have to be established for trade and city connections. For cities to share or trade resources with other cities, they must be connected. Examples of this are that a secondary city with an improved horse tile will not yield horses in your capital unless the two cities are connected with a road or trade route. All [physical] international trade must be done with trade routes as well: gold and resources can only be traded between civilizations that have an active trade route between their cities. Each Civ receives many more trade routes.
Why this makes sense: the trade route system introduced in Civ V was a welcome change, giving civs a risk/reward option to improve their own cities or conduct international trade for gold. Introducing such a system while simultaneously allowing the trade of resources and gold freely creates an inconsistency. In this system, all trade is risky- like the silk road that connected Europe to China and the trade ships that brought gold from the new world back to Spain, the movement and trade of resources across the world poses a risk to every civ that they have to deal with- for the silk road, traders were often plagued by bandits, and for Spain, by pirates and privateers. Both often necessitated the use of armed military protection, something that becomes supremely more useful.
Fifth change: The happiness system changes and luxury resources provide +1 happiness once per city. This means 4 cities would get +4 happiness by consuming 4 copies of the same luxury resource. More details on happiness later.
Why this makes sense: rather than being limited to the resources native to your cities, you may grow as many copies of domesticatable resources as you like. Additionally, as empires grow, the demand for resources grows as well. Examples from history include the farming of sugarcane (native to pacific islands) in the Caribbean. Because Civs will be limited as to which resources they can grow by the climate (such as the inability to grow sugarcane in cooler climates), there will be an actual impetus to settle colonies in tropical areas in order to fuel plantations to grow luxuries for your other cities.
Sixth change: Because bonus and luxury resources can only be grown by the civs that are located near their native locations, it becomes necessary for such resources to travel. For bonus resources such as cattle, sheep, wheat, etc. and horses, conducting trade with civs that have these resources gradually results in these animals and plants being introduced to the trade partners. Renewable luxuries can only be transferred via the actions of spies.
Why this makes sense: domesticated animals quickly spread throughout the old world after their domestication. Many countries had stricter controls on the communication of more valuable resources however, such as China which tried to hide how silk was produced for hundreds of years in order to maintain their monopoly. Since luxuries are so much more valuable for the happiness and economic value, these resources can only be "learned" by successfully conducting espionage against a foreign civilization.
Seventh change: Resource brokering. Since civilizations require more than one copy of each resource and trade can only be conducted between cities in range of each other, it becomes both economical and necessary to broker resources between civs.
Why this makes sense: the historical silk road was actually a chain of trade routes and cities. The exorbitantly high prices of eastern commodities in Europe such as spices and silk was actually a product of this trade network: each city along the silk road bought and traded the resources to their neighbouring cities. As traders in each city took a profit from the trade, the price of the resources increased alone each node. Strategically placed cities become much more useful for conducting trade and building an economic empire. A civ in such a location may buy many more copies of a luxury than they need, trading the rest to other civs without trade access to the source civilization.
Eighth change: urbanization control and limiters. In Civilization, specialists and unemployed citizens represent the urban population of each city. Sustaining an urban centre requires management of resources and organization to ensure that waste is properly dealt with and citizens are able to feed themselves. This resulted in some of the first government systems in ancient cities like Ur and Uruk in ancient Sumeria. With this change, the number of unemployed citizens or specialists you can have is capped similarly to the housing cap used in Civ VI. There are a number of important changes however: buildings or bonuses that provide yields for each citizen in your city ONLY provide these bonuses to your urban population. There are two types of urban population cap: the hard cap and the soft cap. The soft cap represents how large a population your city can maintain in an organized and stable way. Imagine the soft cap is the limit of your infrastructure and administration, and exceeding it results in crime, corruption, and chaos. Exceeding the soft cap results in penalties to growth, gold, production, culture, and science. The hard cap is absolute and can't be exceeded. This represents the absolute capability for your cities to support humans. The soft cap is less than or equal to the hard cap. The soft cap can be increased first with a new specialist, the civil administrator. Later increases to the soft cap come from courthouses, police stations, military garrisons and additional civil administrators. The initial hard cap for your city comes from adjacent sources of fresh water: being on a river provides the greatest starting boost to the hard urbanization cap, with a lesser bonus for adjacency to a lake or oasis and no bonus for no fresh water access. A well building provides a marginal increase to the hard urbanization cap only for cities without access to fresh water of any kind. The hard cap can be increased by granaries, aqueducts (which provide a larger bonus to cities without fresh water access), sewers, hospitals, markets, and grocers. Without these buildings, citizens don't have access to the food and water they need to survive.
It's important to note that the above limitations have no impact on rural population: the number of citizens working tiles is unfettered by the urban limitations. The disadvantage is that science, production, culture, and gold bonuses per unit of population provided by buildings such as markets, banks or libraries only apply to the urban population.
Ninth change: more bonus resources. Civilization V only has one farmable bonus resource: wheat. As I've already mentioned, I have disagreements with how wheat functions, that it can't be replicated or moved and that it grows all over the world. In this system, each Civ receives access to a bonus resource when they settle their first city, depending on where they settle. Cities in warmer, drier climates (akin to the middle east) will have access to wheat. Cities in drier, hillier climates (such as the Andes) get potatoes, which are uniquely interesting in that they can also be farmed on hills without access to freshwater. Cities in hot, wet climates like jungles will find them selves with access to rice, cities in more temperate forests might find themselves with corn. There will not be a unique farmable resource for each civ, but every civ will have a farmable resource. Farmed resource diversity results in better nutrition, increasing the hard cap of your cities. Mineable bonus resources are added for mines. These are neither strategic nor luxury resources. These resources might something like tin or lead which give bonus production or nickel which give bonus gold. The resources are revealed as new techs are discovered.
A note about resource relocation: since non-renewable luxuries like gems, gold and silver can't be replicated or moved, they are always much rarer than resources such as sugar, cotton, or cocoa. Because of this, demand for these resources will be higher, especially for cities that require these resources for "We love the king" day. Civs that control these resources would benefit from trading most of them away in return for more common luxuries and gold due to the value difference.
Overall, I think this would add nuance to the standard city growth system and allow for games that play out more historically than a Civ game currently allows.
