Constant City Number

[KrikkitTwo]

The idea is that the 'average' number of cities of an empire of given strength is roughly constant throughout the game eras, (in the same way the tech rate is constant...you are continually producing more research but each 'tech' costs more)

So with cities, the Number of tiles potentially under the cities control would be more dependent on transport tech, so an Industrial/Modern city could have 1/4 of a continent, wheras an Ancient one could have 1/100 of a continent.

This would mean that as time went on, one city would be able to take tiles that other, previously reasonably spaced cities, could control. The two cities would then be merged into one city ie

LA*+Orange+Good Roads->LA Area
LA+Sandiego+Better Roads-> Southern California
Southern California+Northern California+Nevada+Best Roads->American Southwest**

*Biggest 'City' possible in Early Ancient Era
**Biggest 'City' possible in Late Modern Era

This would assume that all of those were controlled by the same Civ. So the 'cities' of South and North Korea don't merge into the 'Korea' City unless they are both controlled by one Civ.

They would have to account for which squares were previous City squares, because those squares are where buildings and population are located for military purposes. That would mean 'Developed' squares where a 'city' keeps some of its 'stuff'.

 

[sealman]

Getting rid of the city tile just seems wrong to me. It seems so, non-civ like.

 

[Tatran]

Something like they did in Call to Power 2?
I believe each city could work 60 tiles maximum.

After more than 10 years,the 21 tiles concept
needs to be re-shaped,especially the city main
screen.As cities grow more (different) functions/
options should be available other than the production
box.

 

[Hyronymus]

Cities could occupy more terrain, that sounds fair to me. It would mean less squares to work if you (they) stick to 21 tiles. That shouldn't be a problem if productivity of the farmlands increases more often than it does in Civ3. Currently there is no change situated around the Dark Ages but during this period in our history there was a significant improvement in the productivity of farmlands. So instead of a higher productivity with railroads alone there should be a(n) (new) advance that allows this Dark Age-improvement in farming.

 

[dh_epic]

I'm not sure I understand the idea. If city number is constant, don't you end up with one city?

 

[Commander Bello]

Voted for impractical, as the explanation given by the author doesn't make clear how his idea is assumed to work in the game.

 

[Dida]

How is the number of cities under your control supposed to remain constant through out the game??

 

[Hyronymus]

I thought Kirkkitone meant that cities could occupy more than 1 land tile, judging from the explanation in his first post. The topic subject doesn't reveal much and now I'm confused too .

 

[dh_epic]

I'm politely holding off on my vote. I do like edgy ideas, as some might be able to tell. (Although from the sounds of it, I'm realistic enough to say this one won't happen, not anytime soon ... even if it's a good idea.)

 

[Kosez]

Well, I understand Krikkitone`s frustration with limits of cities (whatever that means). Fact is that a city`s evolution is very much dependant on tiles within its city limits. It could be solved in a less revolutionary way though (if it had to be), intercity trade with food and shields is one example (If I`m not wrong trading with food was possible in CivII).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

moved clarification to first post

 

[dh_epic]

So what you're talking about is the formation of mega cities from two major cities?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yeah, so there would be a possibility of having ancient 'small' empires without a loss of detail Ie you could have an almost realistically sized Japan and still have early battles between various cities on the island. But by modern times it would be one 'city'..just like it is now on a standard map.

You could accomplish some of the same game effect with extreme amounts of cultural osmosis and intercity trade of resources, but this would combine those and simplify the interface (and production issues)

 

[Hyronymus]

That might be realistic for Japan but certainly not for smaller nations such as The Netherlands. When you reach the modern times you can't speak of civilizations btw, all you have then is a nation centered around some cities. It would also be more difficult to attack such cities, I suppose. Well, maybe not. If every civilizations has a max. of 10 metropole-sizrd cities you can only produce units in 10 cities too. It would take ages to assemble something of an army then, let alone defense units.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That depends on how long it takes to build a unit and how many units are required for an army...after all a city should be able to build a unit in a reasonably small amount of time (or even multiple units per turn, if you carry over production), and if all of Europe can be covered by several cities, an army won't need to consist of that many units.

This could help solve a major amount of MM in the late game if the player only had a few cities to manage, since most cities tend to be handled nearly identically within certain categories and a few exceptions.

 

[Hyronymus]

True, but I still have my doubts. I think the massive MM can be prevented too by having a RoN-like unit solution. Each single infantry unit consists of 3 troops when build. If 1 of the 3 is killed the unit still exists though. That should at least do the trick for infantry and if you carry it over to mounted units you would get a decrease too. In the mean time you can still steal the show with >10 cities.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

MM involves Both units And Cities (units more because there are more of them, but if units also 'expanded their territory' (currently cities are stuck with 21 tiles and units with one tile) then you could have a reasonable number of each for the 'standard' empire size for an era

 

[dh_epic]

What happens to the city improvements of two cities when they amalgomate?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well there are a Few ways that could be handled.

The simplest would be to allow multiple improvements in a city so they just Sum,
New York has 2 Temples, Philadelphia has 3 so the new 'Northeast' city has 5 Temples.
an improvement limit could be based on population (since the population numbers would just add as well)

To keep with 1 improvement per city

You could make it if one city has it they both have it (ie New York has a Factory but no Cathedral and Philadelphia has a Cathedral but no Factory so the new City has a Factory and a Cathedral)

You could say which city has the greater population, or the chance that a mega city has an improvement is a chance based on the citys or population of cities that are going into it with that improvement (so with the above example if New york had a population of 20 and Philadelphia a population of 10, you could either have
50/50 (city based) for both Factory and Cathedral
or
66% and 33% (pop based) for Factory and Cathedral respectively


I'd tend to favor the 1st way

 

[sir_schwick]

I know you already posted here Krikkitone, but it handles what your asking in a sense. My system could be ammended by the ability to place several cities under an 'administrative' bubble b/c of techs.