Integrated Interface for Civ 4

[Trade-peror]

A logical solution to the "city on a square problem" is to merge the parallel universes of the city and the "physical" Civ world. To do so, every non-information element in the city screen must be included in the physical world. So far, it seems that the city population can easily be distributed on the map. The other primary tenet of the city screen, improvements, is much more difficult to adopt to the physical world, however. The most obvious method of simply having the improvements appear on the map is not necessarily a good idea, because it will be a *massive* amount of micromanagement for players to be able to place structures on the map (like SimCity). Instead, perhaps a compromise method can be used--the number of improvements a city can build is limited by the number of its inhabitants. The reasoning is that the original method of placing every structure would have required improvements to be built only on inhabited spots belonging to the city or province (since they are built for people to use). Keeping that requirement, but not actually specifically designating the locations of the improvements, leads to this compromise method. Also, I see no reason why there can only be one of each city improvement (perhaps another board game precedent), because that does not reflect real life and has no logical explanation (that I can think of, other than as an uncreative method of restraining human players). Again, the population factor will limit most excesses of this system.

While Sean Lindstrom previously mentioned, only in passing, harbors as part of a list of improvements, it raises an interesting issue--what about the workers of the ocean? Certainly there will be no "floating houses" or some other absurd thing. My solution would be to have these workers house themselves on the coast instead (I suppose "population stacking" should be allowed, then)--but also have a "fishing boats" graphic or something to distinguish the specific squares being used. This is realistic and prevents strange effects such as a navy sweeping along a coast line having the ability to directly kill many people just by passing through; the "water occupation" merely prevents the square from being used. The fleet certainly could still have the ability to bombard the dense coast with devastating effectiveness--a logical and realistic threat throughout history.

I think that's enough from me for now. What do the rest of you think?

 

[Trade-peror]

This is may appear slightly off-topic, in a way, but that is because this post has to do with my Military Population Drain idea.

I think the population point should represent a small number of citizens, say 1000, to allow more flexibility with population-based calculations. For example, it would be excessive if building units used up population points representing tens or hundreds of thousands of people each.

As for urbanization, I think it would be interesting to have workers on a square be limited to producing only a certain number of resource per square; for example, an irrigated (and roaded) grassland tile might require two workers to utilize the fertile square completely, while a desert with a mine would only require one worker. As is apparent, I think a worker should be able to wring two "resources" out of a square max (two food, one food and one trade, one trade and one shield, etc.). Therefore, a fertile spot will require several workers to use completely while a barren area will only need one. Such a method can easily reflect the clumping of populations in fertile areas and lower population densities in deserts and other arid regions.

What do the rest of you think?

 

[Pongui]

Tiles supporting different worker densities? That makes plenty of sense. Now that I think about it, a mature world in Civ now has workers spread evenly across the whole planet; this is clearly absurd, and worse still: dulls strategy.

You can assign multiple workers to tiles in Sid Meier's Colonization (see Colonization in the "Other Games" forum of this site). In that game, certain cities grow because of the valuable resources near them, or the specialised industries within them, or because they're located at a nexus of trade and so more conveniently produce goods to be traded. The result is a realistic and meaningful distribution of cities, with vast regions of unimportant wilderness disdained by settlement.

I've always wished for some way to make settlement in Civ less homogenous, without actually barring civs from settling marginal areas. Allowing greater densities of workers in rich lands like flood plains or perhaps bonus resources might just solve it.

 

[troytheface]

ctp had wrkers on wrkble squares.

 

[covenant]

but "Build a Settlement" orders the settler to settle down on a square and work it. In other words, it is the new method of settlers to "join city," since there is now clearly no point to somehow "joining" on the city square. Once a settlement is established, however, it will automatically join the province it is in, but can later be absorbed by a city. A long established civ will therefore tend to have a number of provinces with both cities and settlements in it.

This would also slow down expansion... if you have to slowly settle each part you would get a much more nartural expansion that would lead to many places not having been settled half way into the game....

 

[Longasc]

We should continue this debate, developement of Civ4 is still in an early change, perhaps they like the idea.

I appreciate this idea greatly *taps shoulder*, trade-peror.

 

[Turner]

Moderator Action: Thread moved to Civ 4 - Ideas & Suggestions

 

[Trade-peror]

Thanks, Longasc. I have actually worked this integrated interface into a wider system, the Unified Economic Theory (UET), which is a rather ambitious overhaul of the entire economic system in Civ. That thread, which essentially has all of my Civ4 ideas (since everything can relate to economics somehow ), gives an idea of how I would see this Integrated Interface and Urban Sprawl model, ideally, in the context of the entire game. I am glad that you support the Urban Sprawl idea, which could actually be implemented into Civ even as it currently is, although I am also curious as to whether you like the Urban Sprawl in the context of the UET (link in my signature). Please post any UET comments in the UET thread!

Anyway, I am actually somewhat surprised that this old thread of mine has been revived. I have no problem continnuing this discussion, though!

@Sean Lindstrom:
Exactly! I think modelling different population densities would add a new level of strategic considerations, and allow more realistic portrayals of trends in reality that have been important to history.

@covenant:
I agree that this population model would slow down relentless expansion, because the many settlements would most likely not hold together well unless there is a significant amount of culture binding them. Early on, culture will likely be insufficient to hold together large populated expanses.


Now, to an unsolved problem. I had mentioned that city improvements may be a problem if the city screen is eliminated, because they would exist on the map. Since specifying the location of each structure would be too much micromanagement, I propose assuming that the improvements are part of the settlements, and destroying a settlement has a chance of destroying an improvement of the city that the settlement is part of. For example, a city with population 10 and 4 improvements means that destroying one of the settlements has a 40% chance of destroying an improvement. I suppose the particular improvement destroyed could be random.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome!

 

[Trade-peror]

Well, looking back at this old thread, I find it interesting that I now have the UET II to serve as an overarching framework that this model could fit into. However, the UET II's take on culture allow me to resolve a lingering problem with the Integrated Interface/Physical Population model--namely, how to deal with the city improvements. My suggestion is simply to have all the city improvements concentrated in the City Center, or City square.

This would be most logical in terms of gameplay and reality because of my designation of the City square as the "urban center" of the city, with the outlying villages as the city's hinterland. With this in mind, it would be silly to have the city improvements lying all over the place--why would the city randomly distribute the libraries, temples, and government buildings among the fields? These buildings would most reasonably be in the urban city center, with their effects radiating out to the surrounding farmland. In addition, this would allow the city center to be the cultural, economic, and political center for its area, a feature that distinguishes City squares from simple Village squares.

By the way, if the above references or concepts seem out of context, then please glance through at least the last page of the UET II thread, which describes population and cultural features. This model should fit quite well into the broader UET II model.

One more issue is city walls. Now that the city concept has been revamped, I suggest that the city improvement "City Walls" should only protect the City square. However, the outlying territory might be protected through constructing Fortresses and/or a new terrain improvement called Walls.

While I am not sure whether to have Walls exist between squares or on squares, their function is to prevent movement by acting as a physical obstacle with, say, 10 HP (or some other significant number of hit points). In a sense, they act as nonattacking, nonmoving units with a lot of health.


Any comments or suggestions are welcome!