Crazy Jerome
Warlord
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2002
- Messages
- 210
The idea in this thread is actually in support/reaction to several very different ideas in several different threads. I'll note some after the basic idea, but feel free to chime in with what I miss:
Add a flag to improvements to mark them as "hub" improvements or not. Once such an improvement is built in a city, the city qualifies as a "hub" city. (Alternately, the player could simply designate a city as hub, which then allows the building of hub improvements. The default idea would allow more flexibility. However, a hub designation would be a good solution if we wanted to further concentrate hub development to simplify user interface, AI development, or simply CPU overhead to calculate the hubs. For example, what happens when two cities are both in the process of building a hub improvement, but only one is allowed to have it?)
A hub improvement needs two very key characteristics:
Also, it is very likely that an otherwise eligible nearby city should be required to have a road/harbor/airport connection to the hub city in order to benefit. If it simplified the coding, this could be simplified to a connection to the capitol, since any hub city will likely be so connected already.
For example, London and York both build a Mint, making each a commerical hub city. The nearby towns get pulled into the London or York regions for purposes of the commerce bonus this supplies. Nottingham, being between the two, is no longer eligible to build a Mint, but may build a Great Cathedral, thus becoming a religious hub--one that might even include London and/or York.
The fixed distance is built on the same idea as cities being at least one square apart. Perhaps hub cities must be at least 15 squares apart, which gives a strong likelihood that there will be two intervening cities. Unlike other ways of limiting the number of hubs, this solution scales easily with a change in map size. (Note that there is no direct attempt with hubs to limit the "snowball" effect of a winning empire--except that the availability of hubs means that other snowball limiting affects, such as OCN and corruption, can be more stringent without making the game not fun.)
The affect on other nearby cities gives some decent payback for the likely high shield cost and/or high maintenance of the hub improvments themselves. Perhaps up to 8 cities within 10 squares of the hub are affected. Together, the two characteristics lead to the development of regions, but in a more abstact manner than the province/state suggestions. (That is, this works just fine to simulate a province or state, but also lends itself to religious, scientific, commerical, and maybe even military regions. Moreover, the hubs develop somewhat naturally, but the player still exercises enough control to make it fun.)
Note that the hub regions thus defined are still very much part of the normal Civ design. Cities and the empire as a whole are still the most important things. The cities continue to produce other improvements, units, and commerce. In effect, the hub improvements are "tiny wonders" that affect a single region. There is no need to show regional borders, as other more subtle clues should be enough. Presumably, the hub flag and other settings are in the editor to give modders quite a bit of leeway.
The hub placements give several strategic choices, similiar to the forbidden palace small wonder but more localized. Far flung provinces, such as England and the American colonies, become more reasonable. Suddenly, a long narrow strip of land isn't such a bad choice. You still get more distance corruption at the extremes, but you can support more hubs. Since hubs are improvements, they can be rushed. So a far-flung colony of several cities can be made marginally useful if the player is willing to spend the cash. ICS just became slightly less effective strategy, but without arbitrary banning it. Hub cities become major military targets, because the loss of one hurts nearby cities as well.
As a starting point, I'm assuming one type of hub improvement for each major improvement area (with courthouses assumed to be in the new Civ4 "civics" area.) Perhaps a Governor's house provides the effect of a second courthouse and lowers rank corruption a bit. A Mint improves banking and trade. A great cathedral produces a bit of culture in every town in the region. If greater variety is desired, perhaps existing improvements also become hubs (e.g. Cathedrals, Banks, Airports).
As far as other ideas in this forum, hubs naturally support the state/province idea. Hubs also support the idea of having a different look/feel for parts of the empire, especially if different type of hubs are not confined to a single hub city in a region. (One civ might build each available hub in the capitol, automatically making it a center of everything and pushing other hubs out to the edges of the empire. Another civ might spread the different types of hubs to first ring of cities, thus covering the capitol while getting the hubs up and running sooner.) With hubs, certain buildings are somewhat rare, which adds some nice variety. The region can begin to take on an identity, which would seem to be a prerequisite for the various civil war ideas. If the governors have options for "All Cities in this Hub", then the various suggestions for turning over certain regions (more or less) to the AI are thus supported.
To summarize, there is nothing terribly earthshaking about the idea of hubs. It simply provides a common mechanism to support some of the other ideas discussed in this forum, but with a minimal affect on gameplay and the city-centric, strategic feel of the Civ series. And it does so in a way to give modders significant control and flexibility.
Add a flag to improvements to mark them as "hub" improvements or not. Once such an improvement is built in a city, the city qualifies as a "hub" city. (Alternately, the player could simply designate a city as hub, which then allows the building of hub improvements. The default idea would allow more flexibility. However, a hub designation would be a good solution if we wanted to further concentrate hub development to simplify user interface, AI development, or simply CPU overhead to calculate the hubs. For example, what happens when two cities are both in the process of building a hub improvement, but only one is allowed to have it?)
A hub improvement needs two very key characteristics:
- It can only be built in a city that is at least a certain fixed distance from any other city containing the same improvement (and of the same civ, of course).
- Other, nearby non-hub cities get a lesser effect from the hub improvement--provided that they are within some fixed distance, not closer to another hub of the same type, and not over some fixed amount of cities within that hub's influence.
Also, it is very likely that an otherwise eligible nearby city should be required to have a road/harbor/airport connection to the hub city in order to benefit. If it simplified the coding, this could be simplified to a connection to the capitol, since any hub city will likely be so connected already.
For example, London and York both build a Mint, making each a commerical hub city. The nearby towns get pulled into the London or York regions for purposes of the commerce bonus this supplies. Nottingham, being between the two, is no longer eligible to build a Mint, but may build a Great Cathedral, thus becoming a religious hub--one that might even include London and/or York.
The fixed distance is built on the same idea as cities being at least one square apart. Perhaps hub cities must be at least 15 squares apart, which gives a strong likelihood that there will be two intervening cities. Unlike other ways of limiting the number of hubs, this solution scales easily with a change in map size. (Note that there is no direct attempt with hubs to limit the "snowball" effect of a winning empire--except that the availability of hubs means that other snowball limiting affects, such as OCN and corruption, can be more stringent without making the game not fun.)
The affect on other nearby cities gives some decent payback for the likely high shield cost and/or high maintenance of the hub improvments themselves. Perhaps up to 8 cities within 10 squares of the hub are affected. Together, the two characteristics lead to the development of regions, but in a more abstact manner than the province/state suggestions. (That is, this works just fine to simulate a province or state, but also lends itself to religious, scientific, commerical, and maybe even military regions. Moreover, the hubs develop somewhat naturally, but the player still exercises enough control to make it fun.)
Note that the hub regions thus defined are still very much part of the normal Civ design. Cities and the empire as a whole are still the most important things. The cities continue to produce other improvements, units, and commerce. In effect, the hub improvements are "tiny wonders" that affect a single region. There is no need to show regional borders, as other more subtle clues should be enough. Presumably, the hub flag and other settings are in the editor to give modders quite a bit of leeway.
The hub placements give several strategic choices, similiar to the forbidden palace small wonder but more localized. Far flung provinces, such as England and the American colonies, become more reasonable. Suddenly, a long narrow strip of land isn't such a bad choice. You still get more distance corruption at the extremes, but you can support more hubs. Since hubs are improvements, they can be rushed. So a far-flung colony of several cities can be made marginally useful if the player is willing to spend the cash. ICS just became slightly less effective strategy, but without arbitrary banning it. Hub cities become major military targets, because the loss of one hurts nearby cities as well.
As a starting point, I'm assuming one type of hub improvement for each major improvement area (with courthouses assumed to be in the new Civ4 "civics" area.) Perhaps a Governor's house provides the effect of a second courthouse and lowers rank corruption a bit. A Mint improves banking and trade. A great cathedral produces a bit of culture in every town in the region. If greater variety is desired, perhaps existing improvements also become hubs (e.g. Cathedrals, Banks, Airports).
As far as other ideas in this forum, hubs naturally support the state/province idea. Hubs also support the idea of having a different look/feel for parts of the empire, especially if different type of hubs are not confined to a single hub city in a region. (One civ might build each available hub in the capitol, automatically making it a center of everything and pushing other hubs out to the edges of the empire. Another civ might spread the different types of hubs to first ring of cities, thus covering the capitol while getting the hubs up and running sooner.) With hubs, certain buildings are somewhat rare, which adds some nice variety. The region can begin to take on an identity, which would seem to be a prerequisite for the various civil war ideas. If the governors have options for "All Cities in this Hub", then the various suggestions for turning over certain regions (more or less) to the AI are thus supported.
To summarize, there is nothing terribly earthshaking about the idea of hubs. It simply provides a common mechanism to support some of the other ideas discussed in this forum, but with a minimal affect on gameplay and the city-centric, strategic feel of the Civ series. And it does so in a way to give modders significant control and flexibility.
