Grain/Construction Caravans

[Civ4Gandalf13]

To: Xyth:

Reading older posts I noticed that at one point using a worker to speed Great Wonder construction was discussed. Was it ever tested and/or implemented? What was its contribution per turn?

In my testing over the last few years, I considered the possibility of a Food Caravan. In the game, for various reasons, Cities enter periods of starvation. In the real world, other Cities often provide food relief. Currently in the game, but only as a random event, foreign cities provide food to "allegedly" starving friendly cities (even if the starving city has a surplus of food). Using the World Builder, I would allow the creation of a food caravan (assign the City to do Local Crafts for a set number of turns as there is no caravan unit) but the City had to have a surplus in food. Then after say ten turns I would - using World Builder - transfer 50 food to the starving city as a Food Caravan. It seemed to work quite well and was quite realistic. Perhaps creating a Food Relief Caravan might be a good idea?

I did the same with a Construction Caravan. If a building or Wonder with a high cost was being built, I would allow the building of a Construction Caravan in the same manner as a Food Caravan and then use it to add say 50 production points to the City building the expensive building/wonder. The building being built had to be either stone or wood and the Construction Caravan had to be built in a City which had either Limestone as a resource or Prime Timber as a resource, respectively (or Copper, for say the Colossus, or Marble for the Great Library or the Parthenon, etc, etc). This limited any abuse of the process. I think it was Howard who noted that the process had been allowed in an older version of Civ (I remember it and remember unrealistically using multiple Trade Caravans to build Great Wonders in very short order) but that it used Trade Caravans which were too powerful and unbalanced the game. It worked quite well. Perhaps creating a Construction Caravan might be a good idea? As it stands at this point, it requires a more than a century to build some Great Wonders which seems too long.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[Xyth]

Reading older posts I noticed that at one point using a worker to speed Great Wonder construction was discussed. Was it ever tested and/or implemented? What was its contribution per turn?

Never implemented. Mechanics like this that allow food to be repeatedly converted into production can be exploited too easily.

In my testing over the last few years, I considered the possibility of a Food Caravan. In the game, for various reasons, Cities enter periods of starvation. In the real world, other Cities often provide food relief. Currently in the game, but only as a random event, foreign cities provide food to "allegedly" starving friendly cities (even if the starving city has a surplus of food). Using the World Builder, I would allow the creation of a food caravan (assign the City to do Local Crafts for a set number of turns as there is no caravan unit) but the City had to have a surplus in food. Then after say ten turns I would - using World Builder - transfer 50 food to the starving city as a Food Caravan. It seemed to work quite well and was quite realistic. Perhaps creating a Food Relief Caravan might be a good idea?

I would like to add the ability to redistribute food between cities but probably only in the later part of the game (cos of balance and scale) and probably not via a unit (cos of the AI but also the ability to 'store' food as units for a long time is unrealistic and potentially exploitable). See this thread for an alternative idea.

I did the same with a Construction Caravan. If a building or Wonder with a high cost was being built, I would allow the building of a Construction Caravan in the same manner as a Food Caravan and then use it to add say 50 production points to the City building the expensive building/wonder. The building being built had to be either stone or wood and the Construction Caravan had to be built in a City which had either Limestone as a resource or Prime Timber as a resource, respectively (or Copper, for say the Colossus, or Marble for the Great Library or the Parthenon, etc, etc). This limited any abuse of the process. I think it was Howard who noted that the process had been allowed in an older version of Civ (I remember it and remember unrealistically using multiple Trade Caravans to build Great Wonders in very short order) but that it used Trade Caravans which were too powerful and unbalanced the game. It worked quite well. Perhaps creating a Construction Caravan might be a good idea? As it stands at this point, it requires a more than a century to build some Great Wonders which seems too long.

In Civ4 and HR this function is fulfilled by Great Engineers.

 

[Civ4Gandalf13]

I see your point about using workers for construction, as food is used to produce the workers.

Thanks for the link about the food distribution. Give me some time to evaluate it.

As to the purpose of construction caravans being fulfilled by Great Engineers, I would counter with the point that Great Engineers do not appear very often and cannot be built at a time when they are needed - construction caravans could be built at the time they are needed - when the Great Wonders are being built. Also, Great Engineers usually completely (or mostly in later times) build the Great Wonder whereas construction caravans would realistically contribute only a small part of total construction cost.