[Feature request] City working distance as a function of Era

[AndreLMS]

I know how to change the city working distance (the distance from a city I can place a pop in a certain tile) in VP by manually changing the values of some variables in some files.

I usually play with 4 tiles work distance, as I don't like to clutter my territory with many close together cities.

Would it be possible however to have the city working distance as a function of Era instead of it being constant throughout the game?

If we think about it, it makes some sense:

• in the Ancient and Classical eras, the world is large and locomotion methods are crude, so cities can only effectively utilize the resources in their close vicinity (2 tiles)
  
  
• in the Medieval and Renaissance eras, the situation improves a bit and cities can effectively utilize the resources a bit further away (3 tiles)
  
  
• in the Industrial and Modern eras, due to the power of coal and petrol, cities can effectively utilize far away resources (4 tiles)
  
  
• finally, in the Atomic and Information eras, modern logistic and transportation networks can render even the furthest places from your territory easily accessible, and cities can effectively utilize the furthest away resources (5 tiles)

I feels this would add a nice extra layer of strategy, altough I admit the AI might be a bit challenged to adapt to it.

 

[Enginseer]

Extra performance, extra memory, extra CTD.

And this excuse is no meme. Enhancing work distances exponentially stress ur game to more CTDs. This modpack is not a Super Power Mod Pack.

http://www.picknmixmods.com/mods/CivV/Global/City Works 5 Tiles.html can be activated in VP.

 

[Bhawb]

The realism argument just doesn't properly equate either. Ancient Egypt built the Great Pyramid of Giza in ~2550 BC, representing a huge amount of resources being "worked". Nomadic peoples like Indonesia, Polynesia, and many of the Northern and Southern America tribal peoples also moved great distances to effectively "work" the land around them. Some cultures were historically sedentary due to resource abundance while others moved constantly and "worked" large portions of land. We couldn't really compare something like England to Indonesia.

If we wanted realistic tile working it would have to be a function of terrain and technology affecting "walking distance" similar to how Religious Pressure works. Roads would obviously greatly improve the ability to work resources, Villages and Towns should increase the tile working around themselves. Plains and Grasslands would make it easier to work, while Marshes, Hills, Mountains, Forests, and Jungles would impede it, with each becoming easier to traverse with certain technologies. The various boat-related technologies would also make Rivers into quasi-roads, as historically Rivers could be much faster than even Roads when it came to transporting things, which is why the Nile was such a big source of civilization and why the Songhai have their UA.

But overall it is all just very resource-heavy nonsense that unnecessarily complicates the game. Civ 6 actually addressed this somewhat with their new tile system, but it is mostly outside of the scope of Civ 5 where things are very simplified from a city aspect.

 

[tommytoxen]

It already exists: City Working Distance
Though not strictly 'by era', you have to build the required wonders, policies etc as they unlock ('by era') so effectively the same function as what you're wanting. After building Hanging Gardens for example you can work an extra 1 tile away (so 4 instead of 3)

Not sure why some is claiming it causes CTD i've never once CTD'd from working extra tiles and have a modest machine. (FX 8350 with an RX 580, 16gb ram).

 

[Enginseer]

Not sure why some is claiming it causes CTD i've never once CTD'd from working extra tiles and have a modest machine. (FX 8350 with an RX 580, 16gb ram).

Because you haven't played with a thousand mods on a mod list and wants the max number of civilizations and max number of city-states possible on one of the largest map people's games.

 

[SLGray]

Exactly during the ancient and classical eras, the known world was small. I believe that is what you meant to say. Yes there was indirect contact with people far away, but no direct contact between peoples.

 

[tommytoxen]

Because you haven't played with a thousand mods on a mod list and wants the max number of civilizations and max number of city-states possible on one of the largest map people's games.

I have a huge mods list.

Though I do only play 'large' with '22' civs so you could be right.

maybe next game i'll add the 43 civ mod and play on huge and report back if i ctd.

i really don't see how working an extra tile will have any negligible effect though, i suspect it's more myth born out of confirmation bias than fact. maybe true for those using literal potatoes with 2gb of ram or something.

 

[Gazebo]

Not feasible. Tile operation has to be set at game start. You'd be increasing tile iterations by 10x or more with this.

G

 

[Bhawb]

Exactly during the ancient and classical eras, the known world was small. I believe that is what you meant to say. Yes there was indirect contact with people far away, but no direct contact between peoples.

This is historically untrue, only the Americas remained undiscovered by Eurasian civilizations through the end of the Classical (and later) eras. Through the Ancient Era both Western and Eastern civilizations had knowledge of and direct contact between civilizations in their own region. By Classical there is direct contact between West and East, with only the Americas being essentially unknown until early 1000s AD.

The only reason we really think that there wasn't contact is because there are so few sources that we can study, paired with a massive loss of records every time an empire fell, which was pretty common. But lasting merchant documents have shown that there are even entire civilizations that have been completely lost to history. For example we know Egypt traded with some other African civilization but since literally the only documents surviving are trade documents, all we know is they traded with someone, and that's it. We don't even know the name of the civilization because no one at the time considered it that important. This happened a lot. We also know some yet unidentified "confederation" of seafaring people came through the Meditteranean and demolished most of the major civilizations around the time of Ramses II.

And we know American civilizations had a lot of contact between themselves well, but due to their different cultures we don't have as good of record keeping as we do from others.

TL;DR realistically the known world was frankly, roughly as large as it gets represented in game on say, Communitas. Only oceans provided a long-term barrier to movement. But this is all largely irrelevant, if you want more tiles in game go for it, it just isn't going to happen in base VP.

 

[SLGray]

Americas early 1000s AD? Are you referring to the Vikings that went to Iceland, Greenland, and parts of northern Canada?

Yes there were some sources that referred to a land west of Europe, but it was not until after Columbus landed in the Caribbean and others who proved that the new land was a separate continent, not Asia (India).

Also there is evidence that there were earlier contact made by the Chinese on the Pacific coast. I believe there was also a story that some Egyptian items were found in New England.

 

[Enginseer]

Hol up, everybody knows the Africans colonized and discovered the American continent FIRST. Why else would their descendents, the olmecs, be there?

 

[Gazebo]

Hol up, everybody knows the Africans colonized and discovered the American continent FIRST. Why else would their descendents, the olmecs, be there?

Olmecs...old mechs...mechwarriors confirmed first colonizers.

G

 

[Bhawb]

Americas early 1000s AD? Are you referring to the Vikings that went to Iceland, Greenland, and parts of northern Canada?

Yes there were some sources that referred to a land west of Europe, but it was not until after Columbus landed in the Caribbean and others who proved that the new land was a separate continent, not Asia (India).

Also there is evidence that there were earlier contact made by the Chinese on the Pacific coast. I believe there was also a story that some Egyptian items were found in New England.

The Vikings were the first we can prove, as we have found an old Viking site. But just because the major powers of the Old World didn't know anything didn't mean it didn't happen, information wasn't exactly shared openly. All Columbus did was establish a solid trade route for soon-to-be colonial powers. So as far as major trade between major powers, yes that was established in 1500, but that doesn't discount the fact that the Vikings, Basque, and likely other seafaring cultures were fishing off the Americas long before.

The point being, trying to ground it in "reality" as an excuse just doesn't apply to Civ 5 properly when it comes to working tiles. The entire concept of working tiles is just a game-ified way of representing population centers using nearby land. It is nowhere near realistic to how some civilizations lived, which is fine, its a game. That's why we don't complain about the fact that the ton of nomadic cultures represented in game somehow found sedentary cities despite the fact that we know people like those represented by Indonesia live most of their lives sailing the ocean, or some tribes in America and Asia had annual migratory patterns of hundreds of miles.

Its a game that is loosely grounded in reality for enjoyments sake, because it is more fun to see Napoleon get his ass kicked by the alliance of Gandhi and Caesar than the exact same situation but with completely made up characters. The question is, what makes the most sense for the game's mechanics, and the answer is working 3 tiles all the time is just the best way to do things for the mod at large.

 

[SLGray]

Native Americans are closely related to people from Asia. Yes, first humans came from Africa then to Europe and Asia. Then from Asia to North and South America and Pacific islands.

 

[anl93]

not neccessary imo becuase you expected to have your claimed lands 2 tile away from city center in first two eras with exceptions of course.
of course you may have farther than that but you cant work more far than 3 tiles anyway so it will not be a game changer.
Edit: ı personally don't approve more than 3 tile far because it may force us to play larger maps which not all of us have good PC specs.

 

[tu_79]

This game is called Civilization, not Nomadism, for a reason.

 

[dpshw]

hijacking this thread, because i tried to get that pick'n'mix mod linked in here to work without success. I edited the file to have

<Name>MAXIMUM_WORK_PLOT_DISTANCE</Name>
<Value>4</Value>

and

<Name>MAXIMUM_BUY_PLOT_DISTANCE</Name>
<Value>4</Value>

cleared cache, activated the mod as per usual but I can still found cities with 3 tiles distance between each others. The motherland does not approve, how can I please my mistress Catharine before I go for world domination the next time?

 

[vyyt]

What are you trying to achieve? Bigger distance between cities or wider diameter around cities to work tiles?

If you just want bigger distance between cities, you have to edit Worlds.sql in the Balance folder. There is something like MIN_CITY_DISTANCE for each map size. I can check the exact wording when I get to my computer, but it is easy to find.

You don't need a mod for this.

 

[dpshw]

actually: both. will try the .sql file for my next game, thanks!

 

[vyyt]

actually: both. will try the .sql file for my next game, thanks!

The city distance setting is save game compatible (unlike the working tile diameter mod probably), you can try even for your current game.