City improvements- changing throughout the ages

[greekguy]

i don't know if this has been mentioned before, but i had this really good idea the other night and i've got to say it. ok, back in civ 2, when you discovered a certain tech (i think one of them was gunpowder) your barracks would be sold and you would have to rebuild them. this was so because they were "obsolete" compared to the new technology just discovered. now i was thinking what if this idea was expanded. as well in civ 3, when you reached IA and MA, your buildings i.e. barracks and colleseums, would change style to fit the new era. i think that that is too easy. changing an ancient colleseum to a stadium or arena takes time, effort, and cash. now what if you combine the 2 ideas. so say, you have barracks, in the AA, and you just hit the Middle ages. your barracks are now obsolete. so your MIL advisor, should pop up and say (or something like this) "our barracks our obsolete", then 2 options would be there: upgrade barracks for a cost or don't upgrade them. if you choose the former, your barracks work the same, no problem. if you choose the latter then if would say something like "our barracks have fallen into ruin!!" now they are useless. but why would anyone do this? in our modern world, ancient structures and sites are visted often by lots of people. so those now worthless ancient barracks in civ, would now generate culture or maybe 1 gpt. the effect could work differently for any building at all. this would allow players to choose, do i want to pay cash to keep a building running or do i want some culture or extra cash to make their structure an antique. i think this would make the game more realistic, by showing how buildings and structures fall into ruin through the ages because they are no longer useful, and they are not modernized. what do you think.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I agree that, many improvements in a city should have to be upgraded-either once per age, or at specific points on the tech tree. If you fail to, then certain things happen-depending on the improvement. For instance, failure to upgrade your medical and sanitary improvements will see happiness and health decline. Failure to upgrade industrial improvement will see waste and pollution increase, and failure to upgrade your commercial improvements will see increasing 'commercial corruption', failure to upgrade barracks will reduce the rate at which your units go up in level-and increases the cost of unit upgrades, failure to upgrade your science improvements will have an obvious effect on 'erlenmeyer flask' output, and failure to upgrade 'city-based infrastructure' improvements will prevent you from reducing population-derived overcrowding in your cities.
If nothing else, having this in the game will help to restrict the Snowball effect, and further limit the Land-Based economy problem-IMHO!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

 

[Darwin420]

If this idea is present, I think it would also be helpful to designate an "upgrage priority" either by City, or by Improvements WITHIN a City (though that might get complicated).

For sake of argument, say this is done by City. Okay, you currently have Cities A, B, C, and D. You assign each a priority level (A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4). When you get a new tech, say gunpowder, your barracks become obsolete (for producing gun units; they can still produce older units if applicable), and your advisor states: "Sire, BARRACKS have become obsolete with GUNPOWDER. Would you like to UPGRADE?"

Selecting yes, will auto-upgrade your barracks, starting with your priority 1 city, and ending with your final priority, but only if you have enough funds.

The same system could also be applied to troops. "Sire, shall we upgrade our Phalanxes to Musketmen?" Selecting yes will start with all phalanxes in CITY A (priority 1) and continue upgrading until you no longer have the necessary funds, or everything is upgraded...

Another thought (just popped in my head now): perhaps being able to specify running upgrades ONLY to cities with priority UNDER 5 (so your first 4 priorities would upgrade, but not the rest)... don't know...

Maybe one of the more eloquent among us could help flesh out this idea.