Dawn of Civilization General Discussion

[Cosmos1985]

What is the max. number of cities that the various corporations can be present in at the same time?

 

[merijn_v1]

SIlk route: 10
Trading company: 12
Cereal industry: 16
Fishing industry: 10
Textile industry: 12
Steel industry: 12
Oil industry: 6
Luxury industry: 10
Computer: 12

 

[Force44]

In my experience, only the tile that the city itself spawns on needs to be clear of foreign culture.


The Civilization Revolution mobile game I occasionally play makes use of local sliders, and allows each individual city to choose whether it devotes itself to or , and it does lead to me specializing my cities much more strictly than in Civ 4. And while I do agree that excess / points are no fun, I don't know if implementing local sliders and negative sliders are the way to go about fixing it. It just seems like adding another degree of micromanagement that I don't necessarily want to get involved in. I think it'd be a better idea to add an additional feature or two to "fix" the issue, rather than rewrite the economic aspect of the game from the ground up. For example, I wrote a post some months ago talking about the idea of adding a National Culture Bar, which would give the player a reason to pursue culture in and of itself, rather than just to unlock more wonders for a specific city. It would also allow the that Legendary cities produce to not be wasted.

For excess points, maybe there could be a civic (Democracy/Egalitarianism?) in the mid-late game that pools all the points of the civilization into one national pool, insuring there are no more wasted points. Or maybe instead this could instead be a wonder/project unlocked at Radio, or Television. I'm just spitballing ideas here, but I am all for adding neat features like this into the Industrial/Global eras, that really bring a certain style of playing the game (specialist economy here, for example) to the next level.

I don't think I'm tracking what you're saying about surplus science, though. There is no excess science in Civilization 4, there is always another technology to be researched, even if that technology is Future Tech 43. And surplus science from researching one technology is added to the next turn of research that you do.



Small correction: There is currently no central pool for culture, only local pools. Local cities must individually achieve their status as a Legendary city to win a Cultural Victory.

Considering science and culture, I stand corrected. Thank you.


~


The complexity of civ4's current economy (imho) stems from the integration of three different mechanics.

The Harvesting of Commerce.
The Multiplication of Harvested Commerce.
The Harvesting of Hammers.

Commerce is harvested and subsequently divided and designated to a category (gold, science, culture, espionage) through the taxsliders.
To the divided commerce is added a modicum of the category the commerce was designated to.
This amount is subsequently multiplied (eg through the effect of libraries for science)
Finally a seperate amount of converted hammers might be added.

The modica added differ widely. (eg Late game the amount of either gold or science acquired through specialists and buildings pales in comparison to the amount of culture acquired in a similar manner)

- (imo) Decraesing the amount of intermodica variation would clarify the situation somewhat.

The multiplied amount tends to vary a lot. This obscures the value of multiplication assets (usually buildings). Fortunately buildings in civ4 come with no cost beyond their constructionvalue. So mistakes made in this regard won't punish beyond their opportunity cost. Still the weighing of pros and cons is unnecessarily veiled when preparing for potentially adverse eventualities.

- Having (eg) libraries provide an amount of science based on the total economy, instead of only the part dedicated to science (as is currently the case), would help predict their benefit.

Converted Hammers are added separately at the end. This further obstructs ascertainment of multiplication assets yields.

- Allowing conversion into economy (gold coins), and subsequent increase by multiplication assets, of hammers would (imho) also aid clarification.


~


Finally another idea for the terrible ideas thread.

I would love to attempt to modify (one of these changes) into the game myself.
(which imho would actually be the best way to share them with the community)
However, I am currently no longer in the posession of a PC or laptop able to process civ4...

...Ah well, I do have a dog who vehemently dislikes wet paws. So, pending the terminus this summer heatwave, at least I have my inflatable swimming pool all to myself...

...whilst playing CivIII RoC.

 

[Publicola]

SIlk route: 10
Trading company: 12
Cereal industry: 16
Fishing industry: 10
Textile industry: 12
Steel industry: 12
Oil industry: 6
Luxury industry: 10
Computer: 12

Is there a reason why there's a hard limit for some of these? Especially the modern corporations -- it makes sense that Silk Road would be limited, given that there really aren't that many cities in Central Asia. But why would 'fishing industry' be limited to 10, when it could feasibly be present in any coastal port city on the map? Likewise for the rest.

 

[Leoreth]

So that they are not present in every coastal city on the map.

 

[Dominus the Mentat]

Shouldn't South India be at least historical to Buddhism? Its very difficult to maintain and even spread the religion there. It always dissapears even when temples are built in the cities, making the Indian and Tibet UHVs more difficult to achieve than they should be.

 

[Leoreth]

Isn't it periphery?

 

[FinalLegendZero]

Isn't it periphery?

No. The Deccan region is completely outside of Buddhism's spread map - as it has been ever since the current religion spread rules were first implemented.

 

[ThreeBlackSevens]

Is Tibet supposed to be unable to declare war on independents? For some reason I seem to have started with open borders with them. Not sure if this is a bug or not.

 

[merijn_v1]

Their UU has the ability to cross border without OB. A side effect of this is that this feature overrides the war declaration popup, which disables their UU to declare war on independents. However, all other units still can. Use one of you other units to declare war and then you UU can wreak havoc as normal. (If you try to move your non-UU to an impassible tile in the independents border, like a peak or water tile, you will still get the war declaration popup, but the unit does not move)

 

[DarkLunaPhantom]

You should also be able to ALT+click on the Independents on the scoreboard to declare war (but you might need to guess which are the ones that you want to attack).

 

[Bu77Trout]

Do Russia's settlements in Siberia count as "colonies" under "colonialism" civic or is it only overseas colonies?

 

[Leoreth]

No. Siberia is considered part of "Europe", so it is the same continent as Russia's capital, so no colonies.

 

[DanLT3]

Vladivostok used to count as a colony. Don't know if thats still the case.

 

[Force44]

Aesthetics in civ4
(opinion)

I think the designers got cottage growth and culture backwards.

Cottages are the only plots that change their properties after n amount of turns. All other plots yield the same (modified) amount each turn.
I think it is cool cottages increase in value over time, but it would be fitting to increase each turn. (in increments between one and zero)

Culture is acquired each turn by all sources that yield culture (iirc building and wonder culture yields do increase after the passage of a certain amount of time, nut completely unlike cottages in their current implementation).
After a certain amount of time this results in a huge pool of acquired culture.

Unike cottages I prefer buildings (and wonders) to generate 1 culture every number of turns in stead of a number of culture each turn.

(eg. If a library provides 3 culture each turn and a temple 2 culture this could be changed to a library producing one culture every two turns and a temple one culture every three turns. (these are culture gains from civ3, they may differ in DoC))

This has the (imo benefical) sideeffect of plots with competing culture probably switching owner a couple of times before getting fully assimilated.

 

[Leoreth]

Vladivostok used to count as a colony. Don't know if thats still the case.

If the tile is labeled as Siberia (and it should) it is considered part of Europe.

 

[Force44]

Opportunities yet unimplemented in DoC regarding cottages.

1) The improvent is boring.
If you do decide to increase the yield of cottages discretely every couple of turns when they are exploited, it would be neat if the reward was a bit random.

Right now the increase is alway +1 commerce. I'd like that to be +1 commerce or +1 food or +1 production.

The growth right now stops at t4 cottages (t1 = cottage, t2 = hamlet, t3 = village, t4 = town)
I'd like that to continue to t6.

t6 cottages will always give all six rewards once (4x +1 gold, 1x +1 food and 1x +1 production) but i'd like for some hamlets (t2) to have a bonus yield of one commerce and one food or production in stead of always two gold.

2) The duration of turns is not taken into account
The growth of a cottage takes turns in stead of years. Early cottages should require less turns to turn into hamlets to account for the relatively low value of commerce compared to production and food early in the game. (in vanilla civ 4 lack of commerce is the main brake on expansion, in DoC that role is taken by expansion stability)

3) The lengthe of the game is taken into account in a way I dislike
Right now there is always an amount of turns required to upgrade your cottages. At the end of the game this means you simply may not have the turns left to reap the benefits from high commerce compared to high production (workshops and mines can be created instantly).
I suggest being able to improve cottages with workers after certain discoveries (iirc modmods have attempted this in the past maybe there are some obvious downsides to this I am not yet aware of)

4) Like cities I'd like cottages to equalize the terrain somewhat.
The first bonus that cottages give (t1) I'd like it to be predetermined by the terrain.
(food for tiles lacking food or production or desert tiles, production for tiles lacking production (and not desert tiles))

summary:

Cottages could be improvements that over time give lots of commerce and a little bit of production and food.
This in a fashion as by improvements not unlocked yet by the techtree when exploited over time.

 

[urbestfriend]

I don't see why cottages need to randomly provide different bonuses then commerce. We have other improvements for hammers and food, if I put down a cottage, it's because I want to increase that city's commerce. I'd be upset if I tried to make a dedicated commerce city and the game just told me no for no reason. I also don't think they need even more tiers of effectiveness, I think towns are already quite strong if you build around them and don't see why they need to be buffed. I understand you want cottages to be improved with technology, but we already have that through civics, highways, and the printing tech.

 

[Force44]

I don't see why cottages need to randomly provide different bonuses then commerce. We have other improvements for hammers and food, if I put down a cottage, it's because I want to increase that city's commerce. I'd be upset if I tried to make a dedicated commerce city and the game just told me no for no reason. I also don't think they need even more tiers of effectiveness, I think towns are already quite strong if you build around them and don't see why they need to be buffed. I understand you want cottages to be improved with technology, but we already have that through civics, highways, and the printing tech.

Thanks for your reply.

It is a valid criticism that if you want to improve your commerce you can build cottages.
I see a certain beauty in the simplicity of building farms if you want more food, mines if you want more production and cottages if you want more commerce.

However I feel like four out of eight improvements are missing in this scenario though.

no improvement V (none)
Food V Farms (+ fishing boats iirc, or do they also give additional commerce?)
Production V Mines (+ lumbermills)
Commerce V Cottages (+ plantations on incense iirc + nature preserves)

Food + Production X (pastures in current DoC though pretty much fills the role)
Food + Commerce X (some plantations + wineries + windmills)
Production + Commerce X (also mines on certain resources + quarries + watermills + lumbermills on rivers)
Food + Commerce + Production X (maybe wailing boats) But this is where I'd like cottages to be.

Furthermore there is "negative"Food + Production in DoC in the form of workshops.

So there is already a lot to choose from. If one wants more dedicated commerce resources I suggest replacing the role of the cottage with a number of resources of which you are only alowed a limited number of to build. (eg. monuments, sights (natural wonders), festivals, holy locations)

~

(some clarification)
I'd like to be able to improve the tier of the cottage by improving the spot with the cottage further with a worker after unlocking a certain technology.
eg. if it takes four workerturns to build a cottage after the discovery of pottery on an unimproved tile it would take 8 workerturns to improve the spot with a cottage to a hamlet (t1 to t2) after the discovery of Feudalism (keeping my fingers crossed that tech is actually in the DoC techtree ;-) ).

Urbestfriend (or anyone els who shares a similar sentiment), could you elaborate a bit on what frustrates you when you want to build a dedicated commerce city and the game gives you a dedicated commerce city that also provides you with a modest amount of additional production?

(I actually thought about this problem before making the post and a table that would show the next upgrade for a tier would solve it.

It would like something like this.

Cottage, production, commerce, food
Hamlet, commerce, food, production
Village, commerce, food, production
Town, commerce, production, food
Suburb, commerce, food, production

(eg. for cottages if production is eligible then the hamlet will produce one additional production, else the hamlet will produce one additional commerce.)

If you want dedicated commerce cities you can build those, but you will also have to build cottages in other cities to account for the occasional early production or food. But you would also be able to get some additional production or food out of some your cottages (actually hamlets and further tiers), if you desire so, by building a lot of them. The proposition/idea is not so much a buff to (although in general production and food are 'stronger' than commerce) as it is a diversification of cottages.

~

proposed terminology:

cottage (t1) cottage
cottage (t2) hamlet
cottage (t3) village
cottage (t4) town
cottage (t5) suburb
cottage (t6) agglomeration

~

final thought

I understand a fear for additional tier cottages being overpowered. But the diversification of bonuses away from commerce will hopefully act somewhat as a rubber band mechanic. To turn the additional food into commerce you will need to build corresponding buildings first.

 

[JHLee]

If the tile is labeled as Siberia (and it should) it is considered part of Europe.

So if an Asian civ conquers/settles cities in Siberia, it should count as overseas colonies?