Cities with character

[hclass]

Hello Assie Lurker,

"'Birth of the Federation'", it is a turn-based game?

I am always praying for a competitor to Faraxis. The fact that a lot of Civ fans rather "wait and see how" for a while before buying their games tells it all.
Tell you a secret, I have always love Civ game, but for Civ3 (after I have bought the Civ3 vanilla) I decided to wait until they come up with a cheap Civ3 collection which include everything. So I can skip all the torture waiting for patches, argueing (in the forums) about stupid decision of the game maker and so on ... and give myself a chance to not buying at all if Firaxis is so stubborn to keep ignoring some major problem in Civ3 series.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

'B of the F' WAS a turn-based game, made by microprose, and was set in the Star Trek, The next Generation milieu!
As I've said, it had multiple copies of certain improvements on each planet. It had a turn-based combat system where you could set 'tactics' for your different unit types or, if this was too much trouble, you could just leave it to the computer. It also had 'Minor Races' who you could form trade agreements with and, eventually, even welcome into your 'empire'. Last of all, it had a FANTASTIC Espionage and Research system!
All of these features could, in my opinion, be easily integrated into Civ4!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

 

[Denarr]

One of the things I've noticed about the different forms of Civ is that the city view only show a portion of a city.
If you were to view an entire city from the air, Seattle for instance, you would see very little detail; a bunch of differently shaped rectangles of buildings.
Real cities have hordes of temples, libraries, police stations, court houses, cathedrals, etc., but you'd have to zoom in on only a portion of the city to see any of these in any detail...only a few blocks of the city could be viewed at a time, even in games like Sim City.
Adding all these Improvements to the game, and allowing the variety of buildings in the city view would be basically adding two games together, instead of enhancing a single game.
There are games that link together (Sim City can be used to create the environment for one of the racing games) but you have to install both games, and in the case of Civ, you would need to constantly be switching back and forth between the two games.
This (in my mind) limits an expansion of this type to only the players that can afford a top of the line system with gobs of processing power.
A great thing for those who can afford it, but this ends up reducing the number of sales that can be expected for this game, and it ends up being a software version of a Mercedes or Rolls Royce.
I wouldn't mind having these sorts of features in a game, but I am one of those unfortunate saps who is limited to a 1970 Datsun in terms of what sort of computer I have access to.
When it runs, that is.

 

[Pariah]

I agree with Denarr - it would be fun to have city views which actually look like a full-sized city from the air, with thousands of buildings instead of only twenty or so, and a zoom feature to see individual structures.

Just having this visual aspect wouldn't necessitate the exponential processing explosion I mentioned in my previous post - the city view graphics can be static, not animated. Most of the picture can be randomly generated based on the population and level of technology, using a couple of hundred standard buildings.

Wonders, of course, would still have unique graphics; perhaps the small wonders, and even normal improvement buildings, could be varied in appearance for each specific civ. This would still remain manageable in terms of graphic design volume. When a city view is generated, the number of each type of improvement in that city, along with the building style of the host nation and the terrain in that location, would be enough to give any particular city its own unique appearance.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

JUdgement, could you please contact me, rcoutme, aussie, or dell19.
Nothing urgent.
thanks

 

[korossyl]

I have been thinking about this for a very long time. Obviously, nothing major could be worked into the game for reasons of space, time and money. However, perhaps something that would affect only capitals -- my idea is this: Capital-only improvements. For instance, an improvement called something like "City Effects" or "Landmarks" or something, which in whatever city it is built in, gives it a unique building/set of buildings. The capital of Germany could recieve the Reichstag or Brandenburg Gate... America's capital could have the Capitol building, the Washington Monument... the Chinese capital would have the Forbidden Palace... etc. How to make sure that Berlin doesn't have its wall in 500 BC? Either make it tech-based, such as being made possible by Nationalism, or make it Golden Age based, such as when the first UU is built. Since most major city landmarks arose during the civilizations' golden ages, this would make historical sense.
Finally, the benefits could range from decreasing corruption civilzation-wide, granting happiness, generating culture, or making increased production.\

Sorry for resurrecting this thread.

 

[dh_epic]

Not sure if this has been suggested since I'm in a hurry... but what if jumping through certain hoops enables small wonders?

Build a "manufacturing hub" in one city.
Build an "agricultural hub" in another city.
Build a "corporate hub" in another city.
Build a "silcone valley" in another city.

I'd love to see this tied into a provincial / regional system in Civ. Where you can build Silicone valley in the West, Corporate in the northeast, manufacturing in the mid-west, and agricultural in the south... giving a flavor to different regions of your society, and even developing the basic fabrics of a class system.

 

[Dwarven Zerker]

A lot of these suggestions are currently possible in Civ3 with modding. Try the Double Your Pleasure mod to get an idea of a massive number of buildings. You are pretty much forced to specialize your cities into revenue or production before the end of the Industrial Age. Few cities are capable of doing both as the maintenance of the IA tax boosting buildings gets expensive and cities that only have 2 gold per square can't afford to pay the maintenance and still turn a profit while the coastal cities can really make a bundle in money but don't have enough production to be able to build all the improvements as the shield cost for improvements gets pretty high.

IN all of my DyP games I have only 3 or 5 cities that are high shield production cities. Most cities stop building money boosting improvements with banks or stock exchanges. There's still Coporate Offices, Skyscrapers, Superhighways (after stock exchanges) that can boost taxes but each take something like 500 shields to build and cost 4 or 5 gold per improvement in upkeep. Mind you I'm not even out of the Ind. Age yet! DyP does a great job of making cities have character for Civ3. WArning: DyP utilizes a mind boggling number of techs - 44 per age!

As for "small" small wonders? Wouldn't those be small wonders with low shield requirements? Say 20 to 100 shields to build a special small wonder?

Granted doing all the additions for the improvements could take a lot of time or you could mod the DyP mod to add the special small wonders.

 

[Pariah]

As for "small" small wonders? Wouldn't those be small wonders with low shield requirements? Say 20 to 100 shields to build a special small wonder?

Granted doing all the additions for the improvements could take a lot of time or you could mod the DyP mod to add the special small wonders.

If built into Civ4, this should be done automatically for the human player's cities as well as the AIs' - unless you overrule it. Cities should develop their own charater without every facet of that character having to be specified by the user.

 

[Mgoering]

That's a great idea !!!

And I thought about a way to do it. Civ 4 Conquest has begun with it : scientific leaders. In this case, a scientific leader can appear when you are the first to discover a tech. You use it in rushing a building or add him into the city's scientific production. How about doing the same for all of the caracteristics ?

For science : Just a little change. Cities produce a certain number of science per turn, which you can change every turn. Let's say that a scientific leader will appear when you reach miles stones (such as 100, 300, 1000, etc). Those scientific leaders cann't be used to rush anything, just added to the scientific production of a city. Big scientific leaders would still potentialy appear when reaching a tech first, but those ones make you able to rush a building. But if you decide to add them to the scientific production, they should also give 1 cultural point per turn (or maybe a fraction, like 1 every 3 turns).

For culture : Same idea than science. This time, the mile stone might be culture per turn, as it doesn't change like science %. The caracteristic of the cultural leader shall depend on what brought the civ to mile stone. A great preacher for temples, a great athlete for a Colosseum, a pope for a cathedral, a great author for a library, a philosophe for a university and a researcher for a Research Lab.

For trading : Also same principle, but more like science. This time, miles stones should be an average of the last 5 turns' revenues. Just like science, that trade leader can be added to a city, increasing its revenues. Miles stones could also be when you are the first civ to have built a certain number or percentage of a certain trading improvement (markets, banks, harbors, airports and stock exchange).

For production : Same thing than culture. The leader increases the production of the city by a certain percentage.

For happyness : The building involved would be Aqueduct and Hospitals for sanitation; Courthouse and Police Station for security; Mass Transit and Recycling Plant for ecology. Those give out points and those points are the miles stones. The result of an emotional leader is both higher happiness in the city and a by turn party. This party can be canceled by war and happiness reduced.

For military : The Heroes can actually be used to form an army (what I recomand) or rush a building (what recomand for Forbidden Palace). They should also be used to be incorporated in a city, in order to reduce it's military building (units or building : City Walls, Barracks, Coastal Fortress, SAM and ,halfly, harbors) costs.

When added to a city, a leader can tell his toughts about the whereas of the civ, through a Leaders Screen (like the council in civ 2) or by a message between turns. This message would depend on the situation, like war or not, the tax/science/leisure percentages, the number of such buildings or units. For example, a scientific leader might say "There are enough Libraries. Let's build some Universities." a Military leader might say "We need to build more Artillery to protect our coast !". That Leaders' Council can be consulted every turns.

You can add a leader to a city, only if that city has the improvement that created the leader (science, culture, production and happiness) or a least 2 improvements of a kind(military and trading).

How about this idea ? It may complicate the game a little bit, but it would be pleasant to me.

 

[CivEconomist]

I like the idea of using reasons to create more unique cities, like maybe statue of zeus type wonders for other luxuries or strategic resources like iron works