Border expansion should be manual

[pezit]

Why can't you plan the border expansion manually? And even if that's not a possibility then at least improve the AI's choices. If there are two tiles that are exactly the same but one has a forest on it that's obviously the better one right? Not according to the AI it isn't, for some reason it always picks the non forest tile.

Manually controlling the border would also give the player more stuff to do early in the game, which would be nice.

 

[Peng Qi]

Good news! You CAN manually control it! Just click that little "buy tile" button and you're good to go!

 

[Unbeatable]

lmao lol

 

[Gordon Brittas]

Good news! You CAN manually control it! Just click that little "buy tile" button and you're good to go!

I think he meant being allowed to choose when the border will naturally expand.

 

[Ellye]

The natural growth of a city is meant to simulate natural expansion. It isn't really supposed to pick the "best" tile, and that's propositional.

This way, it makes tile purchasing a bit more tempting. Otherwise, that option would be used very, very rarely, and would become kinda silly to have.

The way things currently, tile purchasing is a way to spend gold to both accelerate your city growth and have some control over it, and it's already not used with much frequency (as far as I know, at least), and abilities that give you a discount for tile purchasing are already regarded as very weak.
If natural city growth was manually controllable, making tile purchase simple a way to accelerate the process, it would become almost pointless.

 

[Ranos]

The natural growth of a city is meant to simulate natural expansion. It isn't really supposed to pick the "best" tile, and that's propositional.

This way, it makes tile purchasing a bit more tempting. Otherwise, that option would be used very, very rarely, and would become kinda silly to have.

The way things currently, tile purchasing is a way to spend gold to both accelerate your city growth and have some control over it, and it's already not used with much frequency (as far as I know, at least), and abilities that give you a discount for tile purchasing are already regarded as very weak.
If natural city growth was manually controllable, making tile purchase simple a way to accelerate the process, it would become almost pointless.

Except natural expansion would happen based on what is needed by the city. Border expansion in Civ 5 is biased towards food tiles (not counting resources). If a city has a plenty of food but is low on production, it should expand into forest and hill tiles.

 

[pezit]

The natural growth of a city is meant to simulate natural expansion. It isn't really supposed to pick the "best" tile, and that's propositional.

This way, it makes tile purchasing a bit more tempting. Otherwise, that option would be used very, very rarely, and would become kinda silly to have.

The way things currently, tile purchasing is a way to spend gold to both accelerate your city growth and have some control over it, and it's already not used with much frequency (as far as I know, at least), and abilities that give you a discount for tile purchasing are already regarded as very weak.
If natural city growth was manually controllable, making tile purchase simple a way to accelerate the process, it would become almost pointless.

But the AI does try to pick the best tile available, it's only forested tiles that for some reason is considered bad? And this punishes the Iroqiuos more than any other civ.

 

[Peng Qi]

Except natural expansion would happen based on what is needed by the city. Border expansion in Civ 5 is biased towards food tiles (not counting resources). If a city has a plenty of food but is low on production, it should expand into forest and hill tiles.

But the civilians don't care how many archers they're making. They want food.

 

[pezit]

But the civilians don't care how many archers they're making. They want food.

Production isn't only used for military though, pretty sure they want that colosseum built.

The natural growth of a city is meant to simulate natural expansion. It isn't really supposed to pick the "best" tile, and that's propositional.

This way, it makes tile purchasing a bit more tempting. Otherwise, that option would be used very, very rarely, and would become kinda silly to have.

The way things currently, tile purchasing is a way to spend gold to both accelerate your city growth and have some control over it, and it's already not used with much frequency (as far as I know, at least), and abilities that give you a discount for tile purchasing are already regarded as very weak.
If natural city growth was manually controllable, making tile purchase simple a way to accelerate the process, it would become almost pointless.

It would still get some use, but I do agree that it would make an already weak ability weaker.

 

[Ranos]

But the civilians don't care how many archers they're making. They want food.

As was said, production is used for buildings as well as military units, and the civillians would want both. Buildings for their various benefits and military units for protection. Plus putting the game aspect aside, they would need forests to build their houses and other various tools (especially before the industrial age) and hills for their other resources used throughout time.

 

[Smokeybear]

But the civilians don't care how many archers they're making. They want food.

This is a bizarre oversimplification, assuming 100% of the civilians in all civilizations that ever existed, only wanted to plow dirt and grow food. Wrong. There always were, and always will be, many intelligent individuals who realize the value of those trees and rocks and ores, and set about claiming those areas and learning to utilize them to help their civilizations grow and move beyond being mere peon dirt scrabblers. Entrepreneurs, adventurers, prospectors and builders of all stripes. The world does not live by the acquisition of dirt alone- only in CiV, apparently.

Especially when there is an extreme overabundance of crop lands already existing within the realm, so much so that much of it can't even be worked already as it is. To expand and grow and be able to better utilize all that land, the people need more than just more swaths of fertile dirt to move onto- they need resources to build and expand cities, and all of the myriad buildings and services and entertainments, and military-related things to protect themselves so that their nice little farms and cows aren't pillaged by barbarians and neighboring civs... etc, etc.

If you understand history, then you realize those farmers *really did care* about how many archers their people had to protect them- they weren't pure stupid peons, like the zug-zugs from Warcraft 2. They understood about getting pillaged and killed and so forth. Except in CiV, apparently. There, the only way citizens ever start to develop those kinds of production lands, is if the King is forced to buy them using their hard-earned taxes, and then forces them to work on those lands. They are apparently too ignorant to understand the usefulness and benefits of mining and logging, otherwise. Whoa, those trees can build our houses? Getouttahere! That ore can make better weapons and stuff so that we aren't always getting raped and pillaged by the barbarians? No wai! Good thing we have a Great King to buy those lands for us and force us to work on them! Oh, wait... who is he buying them from, exactly? The barbarians? There are no other people for 50 days travel from here, and never have been- dawn of time, and all that... (major logic collapse, there).

 

[turtlefang]

Farmers might have really cared about how many archers people had to protect them but individuals did not chose the lands that they moved to settle in based on whether the city/state needed more soldiers. They settled in lands that provided food - especially in ancient days.

Now, as the modern era continues, cities would do better planning. But even in the US, most cities don't "planned" their expansion. They absorb areas that will increase their overall tax base, which usually means population for property taxes and retail networks - NOT industrial areas which pay a lot less taxes. Or forest that don't provide much in a tax base.

Civ (all versions) give the player Godlike power over where the population and what the population actually does. Something no ruler in history had - or for that matter, no population in history can do - other than general conscription in an emergency. Cities can't switch from farming to production to money production activities at the drop of a hat.

If they could, you wouldn't have seen Detroit population drop from a high of 1.8 million people in the 1970s to just over 700k in the most recent census. They would have switched from production to food or money (or, in Civ, just continued with production). In general, Civ cities don't go backward and shrink except due to violence (being conquered or nuked).

Its a game mechanic. Otherwise, logically, it should take at least 10 to 20 turns to change a population point from working one hex to a different one. You literally have to pick up those folks, retrain them, and move them - plus all the infrastructure to support them.

If you looking for a major logic collapse, don't play computer games or boardgames. All of them create a world viewpoint based on major logic collapses. Disease wiped out, depending on your sources, 25 to 40% of Europe during the Dark Ages. It killed 25 to 30 million people right after WWI. But Civ cities population don't ever shrink due to disease - a major logic collapse. Why? The developers chose not to include the impact of disease.

The good games are ones that are internally generally consistent with their logic. The really good ones are internally consistent with their logic and fun to play.

Just accept the choices the designers made in certain areas. If the game can be improved or an imbalance exist, we should scream like hell. But some things should be outside the player's control.

 

[Smokeybear]

Farmers might have really cared about how many archers people had to protect them but individuals did not chose the lands that they moved to settle in based on whether the city/state needed more soldiers. They settled in lands that provided food - especially in ancient days.

Of course. But they *didn't* ignore the forests and hills around them, once they learned to utilize trees and minerals and so forth. Those, also, were included within their people's 'lands'. Just because those resource areas couldn't be lived on, or have corn planted on them, didn't mean they weren't considered an important part of their lands/country. Hence, they were 'owned tiles', even though no(few) settlers moved onto them and put their huts/tents/yurts on top of them. So the fact they are basically ignored by the land acquisition engine in CiV, in inordinate favor of food tiles, is anything BUT historically 'accurate'.

An intelligent and accurate method of tile acquisition, would have been for the settlers to plop down on and improve 3 or 4 food tiles initially, which makes sense- gotta have the food base. But by then, you've already outstripped the citizens to work even those food tiles, and your city is choking for lack of lumber and ore. So the citizens, not being total idiots, venture into the nearby hills and forests and 'acquire them (those production tiles)' for their immediate needs. And they sure as hell didn't pay anybody any gold for those trees and hills, either- it's all open virgin land, be it farm or hill. So, they didn't just keep moving outwards on the flat ground and plowing more fields that couldn't even be utilized yet, until they had the other resources needed to build their homes and make towns, and support their further development of more lands. Not to mention improving their ability to protect themselves from external evildoers. The default land acquisition system totally ignores those realities, and has no claim whatsover to 'historical realism'. It assumes all of the people who explored and moved into new lands were always just farmers- they weren't. They were a big part of it, yes- but not 100% of it, by any stretch. Once metals and other minerals were discovered, whole cities were sometimes deliberately centered near their locations for production- copper, gold, the bronze age, iron age, etc. Such things weren't ignored just because 'everyone was a stupid farmer who didn't know any better'.

So it is just another piece of gameyness, conjured out of thin air, and no better than having to pay gold for your production tiles. I'll accept it as a gamey feature, but not as being anything approaching historically realistic. It is simply not.

 

[Peng Qi]

Farmers might have really cared about how many archers people had to protect them but individuals did not chose the lands that they moved to settle in based on whether the city/state needed more soldiers. They settled in lands that provided food - especially in ancient days.

This. Buying tiles represents the administrators of your civilization providing the infrastructure and convincing necessary to get people to do something other than subsistence farming. Choosing not to buy tiles is essentially choosing to forgo administration of the land of your cities, and as such allowing the civilians to sprawl out wherever they think is best. Typically, this means individuals are going to move to ripe farming areas.

There's a reason Rome often had to use slaves to man their mines. Rare indeed is the individual who, given an option between farming or risking death mining about randomly hoping for riches every day, would pick the mine. More common, however, are those who would go work in the mine when the opportunity is already there and the government has already expended the resources necessary to locate and provide infrastructure for mining operations, and all they need to do is show up for guaranteed profit. That flood plain is a sure bet. That hill just isn't.

 

[pezit]

This. Buying tiles represents the administrators of your civilization providing the infrastructure and convincing necessary to get people to do something other than subsistence farming. Choosing not to buy tiles is essentially choosing to forgo administration of the land of your cities, and as such allowing the civilians to sprawl out wherever they think is best. Typically, this means individuals are going to move to ripe farming areas.

There's a reason Rome often had to use slaves to man their mines. Rare indeed is the individual who, given an option between farming or risking death mining about randomly hoping for riches every day, would pick the mine. More common, however, are those who would go work in the mine when the opportunity is already there and the government has already expended the resources necessary to locate and provide infrastructure for mining operations, and all they need to do is show up for guaranteed profit. That flood plain is a sure bet. That hill just isn't.

This thread kinda went crazy with the realism which isn't really my concern. I'm generally quite pleased with how the borders expand regarding mines and food tiles it's really just how it ignores forests at all costs that bothers me, I've had the border envelop forested tiles ignoring them until they are the very last choice. Now this would be fine (but irritating) if it didn't hurt the Iroquois more than any other civ.

 

[Becomedeath]

The computer really should prioritise it's next tile aquisition based on the city emphasis. Default, it just does what it wants, production focuses on production tiles etc etc.

But the long and the short of it, is that if you don't like what the computer has selected, you can still buy a tile of your choosing.

Personally I don't think there is a problem with the way it currently works, certainly not enough of a problem to warrant a change and require further city management.

 

[Camikaze]

The good thing about the AI controlling tile acquisition is that it's exactly the same for you as it is for your opponents. I agree that in some cases it would be good if the prioritisation was changed around a little, but at least you aren't being hard done by compared to other civs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Realism arguments fail instantly.

Fortunately, there are some gameplay arguments for leaving it as-is, even if the algorithm could be improved/more predictable. Maybe a hybrid mechanic where you get to pick between tiles only if they're rated identically in value.

 

[Trias]

The 'natural' automatic border expansion is not meant to get the best tiles, instead it follows the path of least resistance and gets the tiles that are the easiest to claim. That is, it will claim flat tiles first and stop expansion at rivers. On top of this it has some bias to tiles with a higher yield.

(In other words, the border expansion is not controlled by the AI (in the sense the it would be based on a simulated rational decision). Instead it is a game mechanic that tries to simulate a natural process of cultural expansion.)

 

[CoolLizy]

I honestly prefer border expansion the way it is now. Because there's a level of randomness to what tile you get next, it makes it all that more enticing to spend money and buy the tiles you want instead of hoping the dice roll in your favor the next time your culture gauge fills up. If border expansion was completely manual you would lose this interesting trade-off of deciding whether to buy tiles or save your money and wait. Likewise, if there was some way to influence what random tile gets picked, there would be little reason to buy tiles.

The only change I would suggest in Civ5 is to make tiles on the other sides of rivers even more expensive to get than they are now, maybe even going so far as to only giving the player tiles on the side of the river they've settled when they settle on a river (in other words, they wouldn't get all six adjacent tiles initially in this case). I kind of like seeing borders follow the major rivers on the map.