different types of settlements

[nebuchadnezzar]

i have a new city idea (somehaw inspired from empire earth and AoM)
we just build settlers and found a new city if we find a good location. we cannot declare land as ours without a city. our colonies are also overrun with enemy cultural expansion.
now, my suggestion comes.
have 4 different city types: town, colony, settlement and fort. town is what we know in civ3.
colony: need not be built on resources, but have to have resources in 1-square borders. requires a colonist to be build. can have commercial city improvements such as harbors. no cultural improvements can be built until colony "upgrades" to town. can be upgraded to town with some city improvements. requires a certain tech development. (possibly age of discovery). no support to army. produces only deffensive units in a slow rate. high chance to cultural flip.

settlement: ancient age settlements. limited improvements can be built, such as temples. no unit prodution. can be used to declare land. can be upgraded to town. built by scouts. no defensive support or unit support. cannot be built after some certain teh.

fort: military bases. can be used as forward bases. supports army, great defensive values. built by engineer. requires construction (or similar) tech. only barracks, harbors and airports can be built. low chance to cultural flip.


i only stated my ideas. i know it won't be implemented in the game, but what about the ideas?

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Actually, there is a chance of your idea entering. It's not particularly radical, and the largest part of it would consist of finding good art for these things. Not to get your hopes unduly up, but it might just work.

 

[Colonel]

Forts sort of remind me of the Military bases idea.

 

[dh_epic]

I appreciate this idea. A lot of towns aren't based on "we were settlers looking for a place to live", but because of some strategic purpose. Forts or mining colonies or even just a small collective farm are often the embryonic stage of a city.

 

[crimson238]

What if, instead of you the player upgrading your fort/settlements/bases
there was a chance that they'd on their own upgrade. Depending on proximity to your home country, proximity to cities if yours near by ect..
Or, if you wanted to do it on your own, you can open up your domestic screen, (it'll have 4 lists, cities, settlements, colonies, forts) you can click on the one's you want to upgrade in the lists (they'd show their minimap next to them) and click on upgrade. Enter in some algorithm here to figure out time it'd take (1 turn, 3 turns ect.. perhaps based upone the same values reguarding the self upgrading of them, or perhaps chaning from turns to gold (per turn or lump sum.)

 

[Colonel]

How about this, seeing as no cities really every started as cities but rather colonies near something of value or they just were nomadic settlements. All cities would start off as either a colony, fort or settlement and you had to either work on it for awhile to have it become a town or leave and it would do it on its own after awhile. This would considerably slow down mass expansion which is always what happens, and nothing of the world is left by the time you hit AD years. But you would need some way to keep in check with technolgy so you would have at least average tech, as the only way to get more science pre writing is to expand alot.

 

[Commander Bello]

I second the idea of having different forms of settlements. Especially the idea of having forts is a good one. It should allow you to claim a certain area around it, as well. This could be dependant on your overall military power in combination with the respective garrison there.

 

[Heat Miser]

I think the idea of settlements would be cool in a prehistory kinda setting (might have to make settable as an option). Using initial settlements instead of cities would wind the clock back further to 6000 bc. A modified tech tree would be implemented to discover the basics like irrigation, road building, etc. Do not allow higher levels of research until your first settlement graduates to city status. As far a basic research, I'd like to see some of the following:

Basic Agriculture (ie. tacking the seasons and knowing when to sow and reap)
Irrigation
Pottery
Track building (pre-roads with a 50% movement penalty vs. roads)
Animal husbandry ( this would allow you to use thr cattle benefits)
Fishing (Allows use of fish resource)
Copper working
Spirituality ( a precursor to religion, would allow holy places)
Trade (establishes first economy, no gpt until discovered)

Evolution to city status would require settlement growth and some rudementary building (eg Holy Place, corrals (spelling?), water supply (cisterns))

Initially settlements would only have the center square and one additional square to work

 

[mastertyguy]

Having different types of settlements is a good idea. In history, some "cities" weren't founded to be a major cultural point. Originally, North America was only a few European settlements and, in civ4, to reprsent this idea, they should be easily flippable settlements. Colonies should not only be able to flip to another civ, but revolt against their masters, like the american colonies. This would create an all new civ if it succeeds. When a colony wants to revolt, all the surrounding colonies could try to do the same thing. During this process, it would be a revolutionnary civ, with a lower production and no cultural production. Rev civs would only be able to ask for military help from other countries, they can't have trade deals. For a predefinite time, they have acces to the ressource their master had, but later they won't be able to use them. To succeed, the revolt has to survive say 30 turns, so some will be only with interior trading, or receive peace from their opponent.