[IDEA] New Terrain Improvements

[Save_Ferris]

I would like to see a civ that has a replacement to workers, ones that can defend against barbs and others. Maybe Mayans or Ethiopia?

 

[eromrab]

I would like to see a civ that has a replacement to workers, ones that can defend against barbs and others. Maybe Mayans or Ethiopia?

Yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to that. I loooooove the Roman Legions cause they can build roads and forts. It would be nice to have some workers that could fight off bad guys

 

[Naokaukodem]

lol, you say "only" like that is short. And if they had needed to make it longer, they could have, but the lakes were there, so they just dumped it into the lakes where it could connect to the interior of America.

No, only means it's short, but "only" means it's not that short, but it still is relatively (compared to continents sizes)

And while I see your logic in making the worker consumed, that would be very annoying game-play-wise and could be better illustrated through having it take a really long time to build.

Not that annoying. You would just have to build more workers. That would represent the efforts put in such enterprise, and additionnally, the building of a canal could be ingame instantaneous, which would be better gameplay wise (for your exemple of Erie canal, if ingame it would take too many turns, you would barely reach the modern era where those canals become obsolete around having finished them)

What transport costs? Is transport costs a feature in the game? I don't recall it...

but what I would suggest is just to add +2 or +3 gold to that tile being worked. But it could be argued that it's good for productivity too, so I think the better idea would be to give a +2 or +3 productivity boost (the cities on the canal were very industrious) and then have a maintenance cost to the canal. That would prohibit someone from doing one too long (I already hate making long roads due to maintenance costs) or from covering every tile with it to get the gold benefit.

Transport costs are not directly implemented in the game but that's are their benefits. One can though simulate them in Civ5 by increasing the gold output of those comercial roads. (connection to the capital by roads earns money, by railroads earns more money yet, just make as if a canal would be a railroad in this regard)

I think that it should maybe give a +2/+3 food boost too then? I think that since we'd have it take soooo long to make and cost money to keep up, that it wouldn't hurt to give it a really nice benefit.

I think a simulation of migrations would be simply better, that along with a better population increase simulation (based on fertility/death-rate).

 

[Rex_Mundi]

I really like the canal idea, the scale of canals OP suggest would make it like the Suez or Panama canals.
There are also smaller canals, like The Grand Canal in China or Canal du Midi connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean across France.
These smaller canals had great trade benefits when created, and later they helped with industrialization.
However these smaller canals have never been able to transport warships, and I think that has to be the distinction.

The small canal could give +1 gold innitially, and later give +1 production.

The great canal could either give a larger bonus and override any other feature in the tile, or be similar to a road and cost some mentainance while allowing any other improvement.

 

[eromrab]

I really like the canal idea, the scale of canals OP suggest would make it like the Suez or Panama canals.
There are also smaller canals, like The Grand Canal in China or Canal du Midi connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean across France.
These smaller canals had great trade benefits when created, and later they helped with industrialization.
However these smaller canals have never been able to transport warships, and I think that has to be the distinction.

The small canal could give +1 gold innitially, and later give +1 production.

The great canal could either give a larger bonus and override any other feature in the tile, or be similar to a road and cost some mentainance while allowing any other improvement.

On this topic, I was thinking something like roads and railroads where you build the small one first and then later one with a better technology you can do the larger ones? Or maybe you can do both right away but you still have to build the smaller one and then if you want the bigger, you set him to build it after done with the smaller....

as for the +1 gold, I think that they need to cost gold so that they are cost prohibitive so that people aren't putting them everywhere. That would make it realistic... kinda like how roads are now. No more covering your kingdom in roads

 

[Rusty Edge]

Canals are a popular idea provide they remain limited.

How about making a canal a national or world wonder?

 

[eromrab]

Canals are a popular idea provide they remain limited.

How about making a canal a national or world wonder?

Nah, that's not really what people are looking for. Unless you're saying the wonder unlocks canals for your Civ? But then that's kinda lame... only one person can make canals?

I think someone who knows how should make it a mod. Then if you like it, you use it. If not, not.

 

[pirsq]

In order to stop the canal-through-a-continent scenario, canal upkeep should depend on distance from coast. Perhaps something like 1 gold for next to coast, 2 gold for 2 hexes away, 4, 8, etc. to really discourage it.

Thus, if you built your capital 3 tiles away from coast, you have to think, "is it worth 7gpt to be able to build boats here, or should I just make a new city?"

 

[Camikaze]

A national wonder for a canal wouldn't be a bad idea; limiting it to one canal per civ would seem to be better than allowing for a whole bunch of them.

 

[eromrab]

A national wonder for a canal wouldn't be a bad idea; limiting it to one canal per civ would seem to be better than allowing for a whole bunch of them.

National wonder would be cool. I was thinking world wonder, and that would just suck.

 

[Namaspamus]

Canals as a National Wonder would be cool, limited to 1 or 2 tiles. I'm not found of bridges but outposts would be great.

I`ve made a post earlier about this and I`d like to see your outpost. It`s just like the Civ3 colony wich unfortunately was a little ahead of its time.

I think CiV would benefit from having a outpost/colony terrain improvement. In my opinion one shoud have to sacrifice a worker and a get an outpost/colony with a influence radius of one hex. Since it is a colony it should not be possible to expand this radius. It should also have a nice upkeep to prevent outpost/colony spamming.

Workers could have to build a harbor if oversea, a road if not, the outpost itself and the mine/plantation, maybe a fort then stay to work on the resource tile. Later you can turn it into a city.

Engineers are covered by having faster workers. That was Civ II though. They could terraform and such. It WAS awesome. Mountains into mole hills my friend.

But I meant COMBAT engineers. They can fight somewhat, not too strong, but they could put up fortifications like bunkers and trenches and such.

Terraforming was great, especially planting forest. Trenches would be nice, maybe workers could make them.

I don't know if this belongs to this thread, but World Wonders could be made by workers in their own tile. This would give them a nice visibility, and we wouldn't be forced any more to make all of them in our "hammer-cities". A trading post could be placed around them in the tile.
Parthenon, Mt Rushmoor would require a hill tile, a river tile for the Dam, coast for Lighthouse etc...

This somehow requires worker-stacking, but it would be a good thing anyway (pathfinding) and not affect warfare.

 

[Save_Ferris]

National wonder would be cool. I was thinking world wonder, and that would just suck.

Just like Scotland Yard in IV.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Nah, that's not really what people are looking for. Unless you're saying the wonder unlocks canals for your Civ? But then that's kinda lame... only one person can make canals?

I think someone who knows how should make it a mod. Then if you like it, you use it. If not, not.

I was just trying to suggest a way to limit spam and make it more realistic.

A national wonder would limit spam and allow various civs to have one. If in addition there was an ocean linking world wonder such as the Panama or Suez canal, that should satisfy those who want more.

 

[eromrab]

I was just trying to suggest a way to limit spam and make it more realistic.

A national wonder would limit spam and allow various civs to have one. If in addition there was an ocean linking world wonder such as the Panama or Suez canal, that should satisfy those who want more.

I understand, but isn't that what the maintenance fees do? I don't know about you, but I don't make any unnecessary roads now because they're too darn expensive paying 1g for each. I really hate it and have tested out a mod that makes them free. I think I'm going to see if I can't do .25g or .5g per turn though. 1g just seems like too much.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I understand, but isn't that what the maintenance fees do? I don't know about you, but I don't make any unnecessary roads now because they're too darn expensive paying 1g for each. I really hate it and have tested out a mod that makes them free. I think I'm going to see if I can't do .25g or .5g per turn though. 1g just seems like too much.

Yes, I play V much the same way. I can't say I applaud the fee approach, but perhaps it could be tweaked. I like the limit on railroads, but I preferred the old way of hooking up special resources with roads. It seemed more realistic to me in terms of a trade network, and besides, on a national level, don't roads pay for themselves?

But anyway, the wonder approach was just a simple way of preventing wholesale spamming/terraforming of what I consider to be a major project.

 

[eromrab]

Yes, I play V much the same way. I can't say I applaud the fee approach, but perhaps it could be tweaked. I like the limit on railroads, but I preferred the old way of hooking up special resources with roads. It seemed more realistic to me in terms of a trade network, and besides, on a national level, don't roads pay for themselves?

But anyway, the wonder approach was just a simple way of preventing wholesale spamming/terraforming of what I consider to be a major project.

I think what their idea with roads is that there are "roads" in every space that is yours. But the roads that you build are more "highways." But that doesn't really make sense either because the romans (I believe) were the first nation to ever use highway type roads.

I don't mind the fee approach, I just feel that 1g per turn is way too much for a road. At least an early game road. Later game they should have a "highway" that costs 1g per turn and lets you move much faster, but not the early one.

 

[Save_Ferris]

I understand, but isn't that what the maintenance fees do? I don't know about you, but I don't make any unnecessary roads now because they're too darn expensive paying 1g for each. I really hate it and have tested out a mod that makes them free. I think I'm going to see if I can't do .25g or .5g per turn though. 1g just seems like too much.

Agreed on roads. They shouldn't cost more per tile than a working mine, which costs nothing!

 

[eromrab]

Agreed on roads. They shouldn't cost more per tile than a working mine, which costs nothing!

So... any of you guys know how to "program" in Civ5? lol. I've been trying to download some mods, play them and see how they work, and then looking at the code.

I'm going to try some mods that add tile improvements and check it out. I'm assuming there should be a "switch" that you can set that will allow ships to enter (kinda like how the forts were in Civ4 if they were on the coast).

Maybe you could do something like a fort, change the image to be like that of a river (or something like that?), set the "switch" to allow water, set it to provide and cost something, and then viola. Sounds simple enough lol.

I think that it should be like a fort or other improvement in that it stops you from being able to have any other improvement on that tile, so you'll want to be super careful in planning it so that you don't make it so you can't get special resources.

Any thoughts?

 

[Camikaze]

This is slightly off-topic, but I find the fee approach to roads quite interesting. The reason for creating road maintenance was ridiculous; to make the map look prettier. They could've easily gone with a realism argument instead. Roads in themselves do cost money. The point is that the benefit you get out of them outweighs that cost, so long as you're not building useless roads.

 

[eromrab]

This is slightly off-topic, but I find the fee approach to roads quite interesting. The reason for creating road maintenance was ridiculous; to make the map look prettier. They could've easily gone with a realism argument instead. Roads in themselves do cost money. The point is that the benefit you get out of them outweighs that cost, so long as you're not building useless roads.

Agreed. That's why I play with the no road maintenance fee mod. I wouldn't mind .25g or .50 maybe, but I tried that and it still does 0g... so...