ShadowWarrior
Prince
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2001
- Messages
- 411
Since the rise of Silicon Valley as a science/technology powerhouse, economists have been studying "clusters". Clusters refer to a region that tends to specialize in some kind of economic activities. For example, Silicon Valley tends to be pretty good at technological innovation, especially in IT/computers. San Diego is an emerging cluster in biotech. New York is a cluster specializing in global finance, law, and trade. Hollywood is indisputably a cluster in pop culture. Hong Kong is a financial cluster, while China as a whole country is a gigantic low end manufacturing cluster. Taiwan is a pop culture cluster for all Greater China region.
Cluster isn't just a modern phenomenon. There have been clusters for as long as there has been civilization. The Chinese city of HanZhou was a silk cluster in ancient time, while SuZhou was a cluster for salt trading.
I mention this because I thought it would be cool to bring the cluster concept into Civ 5 expansion (or Civ 6). If certain conditions are met, a city can become a cluster in something. This cluster can confer certain kind of benefit.
Here are some examples of what I have in mind:
An iron cluster:
Must have three great engineers installed in this city. Must have a workshop in this city. Must have one iron resources worked by the city. The civilization must have access to at least 3 iron resources, one of which must be located within the city radius of the city designated to be iron cluster. The other two can be located within the civ border, or traded. Should iron access through trading be severed for whatever reason for more than 5 turns, the city will loose iron cluster status and all the benefit that goes along with it.
Benefits of an iron cluster is that all units requiring iron will build faster in this city. Hammer production in this city is improved by a certain percentage. A min of three great engineers must be installed in this city for iron cluster to be formed. But each additional great engineers beyond three that are installed in this city will further boost hammer production by a few more percentage.
There can be only one of a kind cluster in the world. For example, if Beijing has built an iron cluster city, other Chinese city and other civ can't built another iron cluster unless Beijing loses that status.
Military science cluster:
The civilization must be the first to obtain three kinds of military technologies. Military technologies are any tech that allows a new kind of unit to be built, such as archery, horseback riding, and bronze working. The city designated to be military science cluster must have some kind of military improvements such as city wall and barrack. Obviously, it must have a library. Maybe the civ must have a great general and a great scientist living in that city too? (or maybe that's too many requirement?)
The benefit of a military science cluster is that when researching a military technology, the rate of research is significantly shortened. Research of any other kind of technology (not necessarily military in nature) will also require less time, but the reduction of research time won't be as much as if it was researching a military tech.
A wheat trading cluster must have city access to a wheat, and civ wide access to at least two more wheat resources. It is a wheat trading cluster, so the civ must at all time be trading its wheat for something else. The city must have a granary and a market. If the civ has x number of cities, half of that number must also have granary. The benefit of a wheat trading cluster is increase in food production and commerce revenues for any city in the civ that has wheat within its radius.
Spiritual cluster:
The civ must have discovered three natural wonders, one of which must be within the city's radius. The city must have temple. Two great artists must call this city its home. The spiritual cluster will eliminate all unhappiness from this city.
Financial cluster:
Wall Street must be built. Half of the total number of cities in the civ must have stock trading improvement. One great merchant must live here. Then, if three engineering specialists are in this city, this city will get a hammer production boost. If three merchants specialists live in this city instead, this city will get commercial revenue boost. If three scientist specialist live in this city instead, the city's science output is improved.
There can be many kind of clusters, and its limited only by one's imagination. Some more examples are:
Literature cluster will improve cultural output of a city
Pop culture cluster will generate additional happiness
Military industrial complex cluster will reduce all military production time (and perhaps reduce military upgrade cost?)
Industrial technology cluster is available immediately to the civ that first reaches industrial era. If two civs reach industrial era at the same time, the civs with greater hammer production is awarded this cluster. Time needed to research all technologies from this point on will be reduced.
A diplomacy cluster (New York and Washington DC is kind of like diplomacy cluster since it locates the headquarter of many global institutions in the world such as United Nation). This cluster may require several wonders, several improvement, several great people, and whatever. The benefit of diplomacy cluster is that it is far FAR easier to establish good relationship with city states. Also, rival civs are more likely to trade resources with you, and enter into some kind of agreement with you.
We can also have a special kind of cluster where the civ must have no more than certain number of cities. Once that civ has exceeded that number of cities, it will loose that cluster. For example, we can have a seafaring cluster. One of the requirement for this cluster is that the civ must have no more than 2 cities. It must have some kind of sea related improvements such as harbor, and must have 3 ships (galley, frigates, caravel, whatever). A great merchant must live in this city. When this searfaring cluster is established, this city will be given a boost in commercial revenues. Any additional great merchant that lives in this city will boost gold production by a certain percentage more. Also, any worked water tiles adjacent to land will have extra food and commerce.
I propose this kind of cluster that has a MAX (not min) number of city requirement because I thought it would be great to allow cities with bad starting location unable to easily expand a chance to compete.
Some other non cluster features I like to add:
Currently, when we capture a city from rival civ, we can choose to control it completely. This option gives me a lot of unhappiness, but we can control where we want the population to work in the city radius. The other option is to install puppet government. This reduces unhappiness, but will mean we can't assign population to work where we like them to.
I want to introduce another option. This option will allow the captured city to become a totally new country. This means that this city's output won't contribute to my output at all. But I won't have increased unhappiness to deal with at all. Also, this country will be super friendly to me, so I can trade whatever resources I need from it. This new country will initially be dependent on me for protection. So like any city state, a good relationship with it is sustained by helping this new country fend off invasions from its former master who will try to take it back.
If I capture another city, I can choose to establish another new country, or I can give that city to the first country I established. This new country will eventually develop a mind of its own especially as it starts to become militarily independent and can fend off invasion by itself.
I suggest this feature as another way to give tall civs another method of competing. Currently, any tall civ that invade and take over another city will immediately be faced with the problem of unhappiness. This will put a huge restriction on their abilities to wage further war because even if they are successful in taking more cities, this tall civ will eventually face happiness bankruptcy. This problem is eliminated with the option to establish a new country. By doing so, I don't have to deal with unhappiness, but I have a super friendly new country who is willing to trade with me the resources I need. And this takes away that conquered city's resources from my rival civ. Although I do not get to build a bigger empire by incorporating this conquered city and its output, at least I weaken my rival civ.
Other random suggestions:
Be able to transform useless landtiles like desert into something more productive, subject to several conditions.
For example, a desert tile located next to a flood plain can be transformed into plain. Certain technology must be required for workers to have this ability to transform. Also, the civ must be at certain era. Moreover, it will take a LONG time for transformation to complete. And just to prevent abuse, a civ can transform no more than certain amount of land tiles in each game.
Another suggestion: Workers can establish satellite villages. These villages lies two tiles outside outer reach of a city radius, but not more. The village, when established, will generate the same kind of output as any worked landtiles inside a city radius. The minute this village is part of any city's radius, the village disappears. Road must connect the village to the city which is intended to be destination of the village's output.
For example, there's a luxury resource that's four tiles away from Beijing. A worker is sent there to build a village. This village will produce food/hammers/commerce and transfer it to Beijing. The minute a new city is built whose city radius covers this village's location, the village disappears. Again to prevent abuse, each city can not have more than 3 villages. Or as a variation on restriction, the city can't establish a new village until it has grown three more population. Therefore, a city that has 3 population can establish its first village, but won't be able to establish a second one until it has 6 population.
Final suggestion: This I think will be very controversial. I think every 30 turns, the computer can generate some kind of random benefits/advantages. For example, on the 30th turns, I get a random benefit, which is a free military unit without maintenance cost. On the 60th turns, I get another random benefit, which is 100 free beakers added to my current research. On the 90th turn, I get another random benefit, which is that Beijing's hammer production is increased by 3 forever (or for the next 30 turns).
I actually personally prefer that this random benefit feature has some major strategic implication rather than delivering minor benefits like free military units. If it was just delivering minor benefits, then discovering ancient ruins/old relics by exploring units would do the job. What I mean by having strategic implication is that the benefit must be large enough that it will make a substantial difference such as significantly increasing the rate of building a particular wonder.
Cluster isn't just a modern phenomenon. There have been clusters for as long as there has been civilization. The Chinese city of HanZhou was a silk cluster in ancient time, while SuZhou was a cluster for salt trading.
I mention this because I thought it would be cool to bring the cluster concept into Civ 5 expansion (or Civ 6). If certain conditions are met, a city can become a cluster in something. This cluster can confer certain kind of benefit.
Here are some examples of what I have in mind:
An iron cluster:
Must have three great engineers installed in this city. Must have a workshop in this city. Must have one iron resources worked by the city. The civilization must have access to at least 3 iron resources, one of which must be located within the city radius of the city designated to be iron cluster. The other two can be located within the civ border, or traded. Should iron access through trading be severed for whatever reason for more than 5 turns, the city will loose iron cluster status and all the benefit that goes along with it.
Benefits of an iron cluster is that all units requiring iron will build faster in this city. Hammer production in this city is improved by a certain percentage. A min of three great engineers must be installed in this city for iron cluster to be formed. But each additional great engineers beyond three that are installed in this city will further boost hammer production by a few more percentage.
There can be only one of a kind cluster in the world. For example, if Beijing has built an iron cluster city, other Chinese city and other civ can't built another iron cluster unless Beijing loses that status.
Military science cluster:
The civilization must be the first to obtain three kinds of military technologies. Military technologies are any tech that allows a new kind of unit to be built, such as archery, horseback riding, and bronze working. The city designated to be military science cluster must have some kind of military improvements such as city wall and barrack. Obviously, it must have a library. Maybe the civ must have a great general and a great scientist living in that city too? (or maybe that's too many requirement?)
The benefit of a military science cluster is that when researching a military technology, the rate of research is significantly shortened. Research of any other kind of technology (not necessarily military in nature) will also require less time, but the reduction of research time won't be as much as if it was researching a military tech.
A wheat trading cluster must have city access to a wheat, and civ wide access to at least two more wheat resources. It is a wheat trading cluster, so the civ must at all time be trading its wheat for something else. The city must have a granary and a market. If the civ has x number of cities, half of that number must also have granary. The benefit of a wheat trading cluster is increase in food production and commerce revenues for any city in the civ that has wheat within its radius.
Spiritual cluster:
The civ must have discovered three natural wonders, one of which must be within the city's radius. The city must have temple. Two great artists must call this city its home. The spiritual cluster will eliminate all unhappiness from this city.
Financial cluster:
Wall Street must be built. Half of the total number of cities in the civ must have stock trading improvement. One great merchant must live here. Then, if three engineering specialists are in this city, this city will get a hammer production boost. If three merchants specialists live in this city instead, this city will get commercial revenue boost. If three scientist specialist live in this city instead, the city's science output is improved.
There can be many kind of clusters, and its limited only by one's imagination. Some more examples are:
Literature cluster will improve cultural output of a city
Pop culture cluster will generate additional happiness
Military industrial complex cluster will reduce all military production time (and perhaps reduce military upgrade cost?)
Industrial technology cluster is available immediately to the civ that first reaches industrial era. If two civs reach industrial era at the same time, the civs with greater hammer production is awarded this cluster. Time needed to research all technologies from this point on will be reduced.
A diplomacy cluster (New York and Washington DC is kind of like diplomacy cluster since it locates the headquarter of many global institutions in the world such as United Nation). This cluster may require several wonders, several improvement, several great people, and whatever. The benefit of diplomacy cluster is that it is far FAR easier to establish good relationship with city states. Also, rival civs are more likely to trade resources with you, and enter into some kind of agreement with you.
We can also have a special kind of cluster where the civ must have no more than certain number of cities. Once that civ has exceeded that number of cities, it will loose that cluster. For example, we can have a seafaring cluster. One of the requirement for this cluster is that the civ must have no more than 2 cities. It must have some kind of sea related improvements such as harbor, and must have 3 ships (galley, frigates, caravel, whatever). A great merchant must live in this city. When this searfaring cluster is established, this city will be given a boost in commercial revenues. Any additional great merchant that lives in this city will boost gold production by a certain percentage more. Also, any worked water tiles adjacent to land will have extra food and commerce.
I propose this kind of cluster that has a MAX (not min) number of city requirement because I thought it would be great to allow cities with bad starting location unable to easily expand a chance to compete.
Some other non cluster features I like to add:
Currently, when we capture a city from rival civ, we can choose to control it completely. This option gives me a lot of unhappiness, but we can control where we want the population to work in the city radius. The other option is to install puppet government. This reduces unhappiness, but will mean we can't assign population to work where we like them to.
I want to introduce another option. This option will allow the captured city to become a totally new country. This means that this city's output won't contribute to my output at all. But I won't have increased unhappiness to deal with at all. Also, this country will be super friendly to me, so I can trade whatever resources I need from it. This new country will initially be dependent on me for protection. So like any city state, a good relationship with it is sustained by helping this new country fend off invasions from its former master who will try to take it back.
If I capture another city, I can choose to establish another new country, or I can give that city to the first country I established. This new country will eventually develop a mind of its own especially as it starts to become militarily independent and can fend off invasion by itself.
I suggest this feature as another way to give tall civs another method of competing. Currently, any tall civ that invade and take over another city will immediately be faced with the problem of unhappiness. This will put a huge restriction on their abilities to wage further war because even if they are successful in taking more cities, this tall civ will eventually face happiness bankruptcy. This problem is eliminated with the option to establish a new country. By doing so, I don't have to deal with unhappiness, but I have a super friendly new country who is willing to trade with me the resources I need. And this takes away that conquered city's resources from my rival civ. Although I do not get to build a bigger empire by incorporating this conquered city and its output, at least I weaken my rival civ.
Other random suggestions:
Be able to transform useless landtiles like desert into something more productive, subject to several conditions.
For example, a desert tile located next to a flood plain can be transformed into plain. Certain technology must be required for workers to have this ability to transform. Also, the civ must be at certain era. Moreover, it will take a LONG time for transformation to complete. And just to prevent abuse, a civ can transform no more than certain amount of land tiles in each game.
Another suggestion: Workers can establish satellite villages. These villages lies two tiles outside outer reach of a city radius, but not more. The village, when established, will generate the same kind of output as any worked landtiles inside a city radius. The minute this village is part of any city's radius, the village disappears. Road must connect the village to the city which is intended to be destination of the village's output.
For example, there's a luxury resource that's four tiles away from Beijing. A worker is sent there to build a village. This village will produce food/hammers/commerce and transfer it to Beijing. The minute a new city is built whose city radius covers this village's location, the village disappears. Again to prevent abuse, each city can not have more than 3 villages. Or as a variation on restriction, the city can't establish a new village until it has grown three more population. Therefore, a city that has 3 population can establish its first village, but won't be able to establish a second one until it has 6 population.
Final suggestion: This I think will be very controversial. I think every 30 turns, the computer can generate some kind of random benefits/advantages. For example, on the 30th turns, I get a random benefit, which is a free military unit without maintenance cost. On the 60th turns, I get another random benefit, which is 100 free beakers added to my current research. On the 90th turn, I get another random benefit, which is that Beijing's hammer production is increased by 3 forever (or for the next 30 turns).
I actually personally prefer that this random benefit feature has some major strategic implication rather than delivering minor benefits like free military units. If it was just delivering minor benefits, then discovering ancient ruins/old relics by exploring units would do the job. What I mean by having strategic implication is that the benefit must be large enough that it will make a substantial difference such as significantly increasing the rate of building a particular wonder.
