I just don’t have the POWER captain!

[Hydromancerx]

As we all know "power" has been a greatly neglected part of civilization. This is not Zap's fault its the makers of Civ4's fault. So it got me to thinking, how would or even could we make it better. Here are some ideas ...

Power Plant Types

Biofuel Power Plant
Req: Biofuel

Biomass Power Plant
Req: Fertilizers

Coal Power Plant
Req: Coal

*Fusion Power
Limit: Only 3 Allowed

Geothermal Power Plant
Req: Geothermal Energy

Hydro Power Plant
Req: River City, Cement and (Iron or Steel)

*Microwave Power Plant
Req: Solar Power Satellite

Methane Power Plant
Req: Methane Ice

Nuclear Power Plant
Req: Uranium and Lead

Oil Power Plant
Req: Oil

*Shale Power Plant
Req: Coal

Solar Mirror Power Plant
Req: Glassware and Silver

Solar Cell Power Plant
Req: Glassware and Chemicals

*Solar Updraft Tower
Req: Glassware and Steel

*The Three Gorges Dam
Req: River City, Cement and (Iron or Steel)

Tidal Power Plant
Req: Coastal City and (Iron or Steel)

Wave Power Plant
Req: Coastal City and (Iron or Steel)

Wind Power Plant
Req: (Iron or Steel)

* = Wonder or Civ Specific

Power %
We have science, culture, and espionage but what about power? If culture can be enabled later on why not have power enabled later on too? Also how would it work? Well you could have power plants generating power. Each building would need to use up some power %. This would mean that you could and might need to build more than one type of power plant to sustain larger cities with more buildings. Also should older buildings need no power? Or since the invention of electricity older buildings would get power anyways. Now the question is what happens if you don't have enough power? Well then all the buildings that need power would not work.

Power Connecting
Next question is how would it be distributed? I am thinking via road connections. This would mean that not connected cities would not get power unless they had their own power plant. And some cities would not need to build a power plant at all if they were connected to the grid (aka roads).

Conclusion
Power by % and power by connection might be impossible, however the power plant types I posted would all work except for Microwave Power Plant which would need a "Solar Power Satellite" wonder of some kind. Or even make the whole thing a wonder.

Please let me know what you guys think. I have not got it all worked out but i think some alternative to the current power system could work.

 

[Galacticat42]

Interesting concept, upon reading this the fuel mod came to mind, just change the name and the way it's distributed (buildings + population instead of units).

 

[Afforess]

Interesting concept, upon reading this the fuel mod came to mind, just change the name and the way it's distributed (buildings + population instead of units).

If I remember correctly though, the fuel mod was plagued with problems and the AI had troubles using it... That's why it never went any where.

 

[generalstaff]

You forgot Waste-to-Energy, i.e. using the Methane from garbage and garbage incinerators as power. It is included in my Modular Civics Buildings module for Green.

/shameless plug

 

[Hydromancerx]

Ok so I was thinking it over and I had a few more ideas ...

Power as a Resource
If electricity was a tradeable resource then it would be limited to trade like any other resource you could also trade it.

Electric Company
Basiclly there would be a neutral building that would provide power for the city. Power plants would not give power directly but would give hammers. Thus the more types of power plats you have the more hammers you would get (and any other effects such as unhealthiness from coal).

 

[Afforess]

Power as a Resource
If electricity was a tradeable resource then it would be limited to trade like any other resource you could also trade it.

The problem is the limited resource system. Resources, as they stand now, are a national resource, so one power plant would provide power for an entire country.

Electric Company
Basiclly there would be a neutral building that would provide power for the city. Power plants would not give power directly but would give hammers. Thus the more types of power plats you have the more hammers you would get (and any other effects such as unhealthiness from coal).

Isn't that what power plants do already?


The real problem is the power system. It was obviously a last minute addition to Civ4, with hardly any thought given to it.

Oh, and I just now noticed, Nice Star Trek reference.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Afforess

Do they? I thought you can only build one power plant at a time. Can you build more than one kind at once?

 

[Afforess]

@Afforess

Do they? I thought you can only build one power plant at a time. Can you build more than one kind at once?

No, each city, with the current system, can only have one power plant. But, if you made electricity a resource, like Iron or Copper, then, you would have the problem I described above.

 

[zappara]

The real problem is the power system. It was obviously a last minute addition to Civ4, with hardly any thought given to it.

It could have been so much better... all kinds of building modifiers tied to power consumption, building power lines to your empire, selling/buying power from neighbours and so on. Let's hope Civ 5 will have improved power system.

 

[Afforess]

It could have been so much better... all kinds of building modifiers tied to power consumption, building power lines to your empire, selling/buying power from neighbours and so on. Let's hope Civ 5 will have improved power system.

I know. Just thinking of other games where it was implemented correctly, like Sim City, makes me wonder why then even tried. Either make the feature good, or not at all.

 

[Baskedyt]

I've also though about another way to manage power in CIV4. What I can read from the other posts here, it is so difficult to change the way it works, that it probably won't happen. But that won't keep me from describing my idea

The simple version of my idea is that each power plant produces a certain amount of power and each power consuming building takes up a part of that power and/or each population point (or inhabitant) also consumes a certain amount of power.

Example: One Coal PP have a 100 MW output (whether this is similar to a real Coal PP I don't know). Then let's say that each population point uses 5 MW and a factory uses 20 MW. Then the coal PP can power a factory and a city of size 16.
The problem with this is, if you have a large city of more than size 20, with the values above, one PP will not be enough to begin with.

So the more complex idea, is still that each PP has a certain output, but the consummation of energy is based on the size of the city - much like the current maintenance or trade routes. So as a default each citizen use a certain amount of energy, lets say 1 MW per population size, and then the buildings gives a modifier to the consummation.
So for instance a factory increases the power consummation of each pop. point by 20%, a computer network increases by 15% and a supermarket by 10%. So each new building and each time the city grows, the need for power increases. If there is not the sufficient amount of power each "unpowered" citizen will become . You can then either compensate with changing the / ratio or make more PP.

Multiple Buildings
For this to work you must be able to make more of the same PP. Maybe not of all the kinds, but that can be discussed later. In the current system you can't build more of the same building, but like vertical farm, there could be for instance 3 coal plants, I, II, and III. You should then get the 4 penalty for each coal plant.

Biofuel plants could give power with a food penalty, something like +100MW for -10

Waste plants could give power and , but significantly increase the maintenance of the city, because you need to gather and sort the trash.

The NW PP (Three Gorges Dam, Fusion plants etc.) could then either give a certain amount og power per city or it could produce an amount of power which is then spread among the cities. So if the TGD produce 1GW (1000 MW) and you have 10 cities on the continent it is build on, each city get 100 MW - if you have 20 cites they each get 50 MW.

Civics could also influence the power consumption. Green could reduce the need for power per citizen with 20% and corporate could increase the need with 10%. This modifier should be on the original 1MW, and there by before the building modifiers.

Techs
Through time and progress the need for power for each citizen has also gone up, because of refrigerators, radios, TVs, stereos, computers, etc. This way certain techs, such as Mass media and Computers, could have the same effects on the power need for each pop. point as civics above.

Improvements
If you really want to make it complex, you could make improvements like wind- and watermills (and in modmods offshore vindfarms etc.) produce power as well. You would then have to make a difference between the old and the new kinds.

The drawbacks
Of course some will now say that 1) it will require too much micro managment and 2) it will restrain the computer with all these new calculations it now has to make each turn.

1) Not more than /, / and Maintenance does at the moment. Yes, there will be one more variable you need to look at, but like I described earlier, if there isn't sufficient power you will only get , which can be dealt with the usual way. But if you neglect the power shortage and keep producing power consuming buildings, and the city keeps growing, the amount of can be very high.

2) Correct. But at the moment the power variable is a Boolean (on/off). You can't make any change to that without making more calculation for the computer to make.

Like I said earlier, I know this isn't feasible at the moment, but this is the way I would like it to be.

If you have any questions or probable problems I'll be glad to hear them.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I've also though about another way to manage power in CIV4. What I can read from the other posts here, it is so difficult to change the way it works, that it probably won't happen. But that won't keep me from describing my idea

The simple version of my idea is that each power plant produces a certain amount of power and each power consuming building takes up a part of that power and/or each population point (or inhabitant) also consumes a certain amount of power.

Example: One Coal PP have a 100 MW output (whether this is similar to a real Coal PP I don't know). Then let's say that each population point uses 5 MW and a factory uses 20 MW. Then the coal PP can power a factory and a city of size 16.
The problem with this is, if you have a large city of more than size 20, with the values above, one PP will not be enough to begin with.

Well that's the real question. I am not sure if its possible to make a power plant give an amount of power. But if you based it off the Sim City idea where buildings consumed power and power plants produced it, then it should work. However can it be done for civ 4? If not then we need to figure out an alternative idea using the limitations of Civ 4.

EDIT: Also what happens if you do not have enough power or the power plant gets destroyed?

 

[Afforess]

I really like this idea. However, you have to all some cities to "sell" or trade power to other cities. That way, you can have major power centers. However, to make this more realistic, the farther away the city is, the more power is wasted along the way. For instance, a city getting power from another city 10 tiles away should have 10% waste (1% waste per tile distance, scalable based on map size.)

Let me break it down, and tell you what I know for sure I can do, what I might be able to do, and what I'll need help with or cannnot do (or what's impossible.)

So the more complex idea, is still that each PP has a certain output, but the consummation of energy is based on the size of the city - much like the current maintenance or trade routes. So as a default each citizen use a certain amount of energy, lets say 1 MW per population size, and then the buildings gives a modifier to the consummation.

I could add new XML tags for power generation and power consumption.

So for instance a factory increases the power consummation of each pop. point by 20%, a computer network increases by 15% and a supermarket by 10%. So each new building and each time the city grows, the need for power increases. If there is not the sufficient amount of power each "unpowered" citizen will become . You can then either compensate with changing the / ratio or make more PP.

Question. When will citizen start demanding power? How does one determine that? Some people today still don't have power, and some don't know what they are missing out on, so aren't unhappy.

Multiple Buildings
For this to work you must be able to make more of the same PP. Maybe not of all the kinds, but that can be discussed later. In the current system you can't build more of the same building, but like vertical farm, there could be for instance 3 coal plants, I, II, and III. You should then get the 4 penalty for each coal plant.

Biofuel plants could give power with a food penalty, something like +100MW for -10

Waste plants could give power and , but significantly increase the maintenance of the city, because you need to gather and sort the trash.

All very do-able.

The NW PP (Three Gorges Dam, Fusion plants etc.) could then either give a certain amount og power per city or it could produce an amount of power which is then spread among the cities. So if the TGD produce 1GW (1000 MW) and you have 10 cities on the continent it is build on, each city get 100 MW - if you have 20 cites they each get 50 MW.

I think we need to expand on the trading power ideas, but otherwise, this is okay.

Civics could also influence the power consumption. Green could reduce the need for power per citizen with 20% and corporate could increase the need with 10%. This modifier should be on the original 1MW, and there by before the building modifiers.

Easy enough to do.

Techs
Through time and progress the need for power for each citizen has also gone up, because of refrigerators, radios, TVs, stereos, computers, etc. This way certain techs, such as Mass media and Computers, could have the same effects on the power need for each pop. point as civics above.

Technically speaking, the code for this would almost be identical as the code for the civics. Again, I could do it.

Improvements
If you really want to make it complex, you could make improvements like wind- and watermills (and in modmods offshore vindfarms etc.) produce power as well. You would then have to make a difference between the old and the new kinds.

Eh, I'm for leaving improvements out of power generation. However towns and cottages could consume power and generate extra revenue. I think this is do-able, with some work.

Of course some will now say that 1) it will require too much micro managment

We're playing Civ here, the more Micromanagement, the better.

and 2) it will restrain the computer with all these new calculations it now has to make each turn.

True, but not by that much. AI logic is far more complex than simple adding and subtracting. At worst, it would slow games down probably by 15%.

I think I'm seeing the real problem in the way this is displayed to the user. I'm terrible at any sort of graphics work, and not very good at python, which is needed. We would need to add a new button in the UI for power generation, and a screen displaying a breakdown of power consumption and usage, but I doubt I could do this. Also, where in the city display would the power usage be displayed? The screen is already fairly full as it is.

Anyways, your idea is 100% feasible, but you would need to recruit more help. We probably need a graphics designer, one or two medium-expert skilled python coders, and probably one more SDK coder than me. That's the real problem. There are only three people on RoM forums who can code C++. Jooyo, who is never on anymore, I think he's moved on to other games. Os79, who I doubt (no offense to you, OS79), has much talent in C++ other than merging, and me. I'm not much more than a novice myself. The python front is just as bleak. Dancing Holskund can code python, and Civ Fuerher might, oh, and Zappara seems pretty good at python, but he's always busy making the next RoM. (Anyone else I forgot?) And with the graphics, there are no real graphics designers on the RoM forum, a major problem. We definitely need more.

Oh we might get more help by spinning this off as a separate modcomp/mod, talking about it in the main C&C forum, and later, when it's done, merging it into RoM.

 

[os79]

... Os79, who I doubt (no offense to you, OS79), has much talent in C++ other than merging,...

If you are just describing with no malicious feelings, then no offense taken. I am just good at merging and, to be honest, I'm a little leery of that after few attempts because C++ seems to require more thought and careful merging and potentially more knowledge of various functions to be sure I don't get bugs in by accident.

I actually got me a book on C++ programming recently that is now in my computer for future reading. I'm very skillful at reading and understanding the books as opposed to understanding lectures so when I eventually (read when I'm not in school) I just may read through it and read Xienwolf's C++ for Idiots or something similar ot that title. Only then, may I kneel and plead for title of basic c++ modder .

 

[generalstaff]

I actually got me a book on C++ programming recently that is now in my computer for future reading. I'm very skillful at reading and understanding the books as opposed to understanding lectures so when I eventually (read when I'm not in school) I just may read through it and read Xienwolf's C++ for Idiots or something similar ot that title. Only then, may I kneel and plead for title of basic c++ modder .

That is very good news for future, since there are many ideas floating around which would make very good Modules.

After I the 2.8 updates of my mods, I plan to start learning German. Which means that my future modules will be XML with possibly minor Python edits.

 

[Afforess]

If you are just describing with no malicious feelings, then no offense taken.

I had no malicious intent. I am just trying to describe, in an purely objective way, the skill levels of various modmoder's here in RoM, and emphasize our need for outside help, if this idea is ever to get off the ground.

I am just good at merging and, to be honest, I'm a little leery of that after few attempts because C++ seems to require more thought and careful merging and potentially more knowledge of various functions to be sure I don't get bugs in by accident.

Learning from the mistakes of others, I take it. . I seem to add another bug for everyone I fix.

I actually got me a book on C++ programming recently that is now in my computer for future reading. I'm very skillful at reading and understanding the books as opposed to understanding lectures so when I eventually (read when I'm not in school) I just may read through it and read Xienwolf's C++ for Idiots or something similar ot that title. Only then, may I kneel and plead for title of basic c++ modder

Glad to hear it. I can't wait for more great ideas and modmod's to come out. I'm learning Java (it's very very similar to C++.) right now, in college, but I always feel like the class is going too slow.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Anyways, your idea is 100% feasible, but you would need to recruit more help. We probably need a graphics designer, one or two medium-expert skilled python coders, and probably one more SDK coder than me. That's the real problem. There are only three people on RoM forums who can code C++. Jooyo, who is never on anymore, I think he's moved on to other games. Os79, who I doubt (no offense to you, OS79), has much talent in C++ other than merging, and me. I'm not much more than a novice myself. The python front is just as bleak. Dancing Holskund can code python, and Civ Fuerher might, oh, and Zappara seems pretty good at python, but he's always busy making the next RoM. (Anyone else I forgot?) And with the graphics, there are no real graphics designers on the RoM forum, a major problem. We definitely need more.

Oh we might get more help by spinning this off as a separate modcomp/mod, talking about it in the main C&C forum, and later, when it's done, merging it into RoM.

What sort of graphics help do you need? 2D or 3D. I have done both for games before but I have never modded civ 4. Here is some of my work.

I would really like to see this implemented and am willing to help out if I can.

 

[Afforess]

What sort of graphics help do you need? 2D or 3D. I have done both for games before but I have never modded civ 4. Here is some of my work.

I would really like to see this implemented and am willing to help out if I can.

We need to flesh this idea out more, but once that's done, We'll need someone to design a new screen and several new buttons.

 

[Afforess]

Okay, I think having a list of things we need to overcome before this project can begin would be helpful:

Problems:
We need at least one person who is good at coding python
We need to determine when citizens should start demanding electricity
I would really like another SDK coder.
We need to figure out two systems of power trading. Inter-nation and Nation-to-Nation trading.

 

[Hydromancerx]

We need to determine when citizens should start demanding electricity

I know it sounds dumb but why not just have it once electricity tech has been invented. I mean we could make up a million diffrent reasons why or why not, but this just seems the most practical way to do it.