Infrastructure Realism

[Eirian]

I think a valuable addition to the realism of the game to add some infrastructure items.

And by infrastructure, I mean roads, towns, mines, etc..

How is possible that a mine that i built in the year 4000 BC is just as efficient as it was 6000 years ago in 2005?


I propose:

1. Every time you change eras, your infrastructure must be rebuilt or upgraded.

A. A complete rebuilding gives the infrastructure item a slighty upgraded bonus than before. (We did learn how to mine more efficiently in six thousand years)​

For example, lets say you have a farm giving 4 :food in the industrial era. When you advance to the modern era, the farm will only give 4 food unless you upgrade (Giving 1/2 the bonus from fully upgrading) or rebuilt it (Giving lets say... 2 more bread,hammer or gold per era.).​

I feel this adds more realism and makes it possible to have bigger, more powerful cities as time progresses because we know that Roma can support more people now than it did in the year 400.​

2. Additonal Infrastructure items.

A. Canal. A city not near a huge body of water to still launch naval vessals or trade using the sea. The canal would take up the whole tile and look like a sea plot with a slight wall on two sides. (Also changes as era goes on, Stone to Concrete to Iron to Steel to Alloys)​

B. Optic Cable. After a civilization discovers fiber optics, they can construct these cables across water bodies to connect cities giving the two connector cities 10% science and money bonus for each city their cable connects to.​

Tell me what you guys think.

 

[Walkin]

I like it in general. I have also thought about things like your optical network in this way...

Before telecommunications trade should take a turn or two to begin (travel). This same delay could also effects civics etc (change in tax rate). Once telegrams invented then allow creation of the networks... this gives instant access etc. Obviously the balance between benefit/cost would need to be good. Doing this for telegrams would probably be too tedious - phone/internet cable good though. Also, perhaps you should have to have a pipeline before you can trade oil?

That way it also opens up espionage through intercepting communications (e.g. why should I automatically know who is trading what with whom?)

I like the science bonus idea... also could effect happiness (contact with families).

 

[Scilly_guy]

I watched a program about the British telegraph network that was constructed and heavily defended during the great wars. Something to represent that in Civ would be good. Perhaps some sort of "Cable and Wireless" National Wonder, requiring buildings on each continent/island to be linked.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I like your recommendations

There should be maintenance costs for roads and RR.

 

[Onionsoilder]

In some form, that is already implemented. Biology gives Farms +1 . Railroads give Mines, Quarries, Lumbermills, and other things +1 . On the other hand, I do sort of like the upgrading idea. I always seem to run out of things for my Workers to do, this might make then useful again.

Regarding the maintenance on roads idea, I agree with that 100%. However, I think there should be different levels of roads. For example, Dirt Roads would cost little or no maintenance, and only connect resources and provide the small movement bonus. Paved Roads(Stone early on, Asphault later) would provide better movement and maybe some trade route benefits, but costs more maintenance. This could continue through progressively better roads, with progressively higher maintenance.

 

[Tholish]

Reality is an excellent idea source for fun game design, like nature is a great source for painting subjects. Sure, you want a great artwork and can take artisic license if it is what you need, but respect the source and you will likely find it richly rewarding.

In Civ 3 roads provided money rather than costing money. I guess he idea was that they promoted trade, and thus made money. Presumably, in Civ 4 they are thought to be break even, making enough money in increased trade to pay for maintenance. But in Civ 3 there was no reason not to build roads everywhere, even those not being used.

Its a detail, but I guess what would be most "realistic" would be for roads and other infrastructure to decay. If the improvement or route is on a tile that is being worked, it is presumed maintained, but you get a "maintenance" slider that determines the chance of each non worked improvement to randomly get wiped out (better than random Events, or possibly combinable with them). This would work well with a random chance of techs getting forgotten if you don't invest enough in Education.

As for progressively more advanced improvements, that can be modded into Civ IV. You could do an Ancient Mine that only taps mineral deposits. In fact, I like the idea of more deposits becoming available with higher tech. Basic Iron working gets you the really easy ores, Steel gets you new Iron deposits that require more processing. Scientific method shows basic Oil deposits, but some later tech gets you the ones that require special rigs to access. The tech "concrete" gets new Stone deposits. Biology and Genetics get you progressively more new Spices.

Another idea is a Building slider. How come one Temple is all you can build in a city, regardless of its population? How about instead building 3.4 Temple units, 2.3 Market units and 4.5 Wall units in your city? How about buildings needing population to staff them like improvements ( 2 percent of modern Americans work on Farms).

How about Power being a fourth yield? How about two improvements per tile?

 

[Naokaukodem]

This idea would be way too much micromanagement. How could you be possibly warned that an improvement decayed or obsoleted?

 

[Tholish]

The graphic gets a run down look.