Ideas for more realistic cities

[Marla_Singer]

Well, okay, that's only what I thaught in my bed tonight, I dunno what do you think about it.


The first city in History is considered to be Ur cause for the first time, people actually lives without as main activity to make grow or look for feeding themselves.
Today, there's megalopolis all around the world and it's hard to make it so on the game. Actually, if the world would be like in civ3, half of new yorkers would wake up each mornings to go to the fields, when the other half is a combination of scientists, tax collector and entertainers.

I think it would be maybe more category of citizens in the city:
- farmers: we put them on tiles and they make grow food.
- workers: they stay in the city, and product shields.
- merchants: they stay also in the city and product commerce.

We can also think of miners that we put on mine and product also shields.
It would be a great way to show how cities evolved with time:
- terrain without irrigation could feed only the farmer himself.
- terrain with irrigation could feed one and a half people so you need two farmers for one guy in the city.
- After the agricultural revolution: a farmer could feed 4 people (overpopulation... flee to city that triggered the industrial revolution)
- After we could create intensive agriculture: a farmer could feed 10 or more people.

road can't anymore add commerce for each tile, but a connexion of two cities with a road gives bonus trade.
two cities connected with railroads gives bonus shields.
Refrigeration could allowed food transit from a city to another.

We can also think about scale savings: the more a city has workers, the more it creates shields.
This way, it would be interesting to focus production in several cities and to make other cities that actually feed workers cities with refrigeration and railroad.

So I see how to move people from agriculture to industry, but not already how to move them from industry to services as it is today... (maybe a saturation in production...labor costs... robotization.... dunno).

Anyway, I don't know if it's possible to include such a model in Civilization... that's why I would love to know your advice.
thanx.

 

[Sodak]

What I think about in bed is not fit to print here!

Ur is not considered to be the oldest city by any means. Many sites have been found that were clearly urban, if small. Jericho, for instance, has been dated to at least 8,000bc.

Anyway, for CivII, your idea of moving from industrial to service is already a part of the game. When your city grows past size 21, new citizens become elvis. You can switch them to einsteins and taxmen as you see fit. Food caravans allow you to move even more workers into specialist positions.

Roads should give trade arrows, and railroads shield bonuses. The real analogy is easy. A road allows access to cities and consumers, represented by arrows. Shield production increases because rails allow rapid, larger scale extraction.

If you like the idea of urbanization, change the farmland graphic in your terrain1.gif to a pile of suburban buildings. Then when you "double irrigate," you instead build a town in your city radius. Change the supermarket improvement to something more appropriate, et voila! New element to the game without changing code.

 

[Marla_Singer]

yeah well... I guess I wasn't clear.
I meant that we usually divide activities in 3 categories:
agriculture, industry, services (commerce)

The goal was just to make it this way in the game. And I still don't find realistic to think that half of New Yorkers grow their tile in NYC surrounding areas when the other are tax collectors, scientists and entertainers.

Obviously to make people working IN the city doesn't fit with the game. After all, we aren't here to design reality, just a game.
Thanx for your answer .

 

[Chump]

I see where you're going, but IMHO, it wouldn't really fit for Civ2. I think that the beauty of the game is that it goes so smoothly without that many speedbumps in the middle of the game, and something like what you suggested would slow down the game heaps. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that it might not fit.

:santa: