Or play civ 2 with the food caravans. I prefer the idea of each city operating within it's own BFC. It is a system of checks and balances. High food=Low production (except slavery) Under your sytem it would come down to a few Uber cities rather than many specialized cities. Your production, food, commerce would end up being the sum of all cities distributed as you see fit. The same result could be obtained without complex trade routes. Quite simply have a food total, commerce total and production total for your entire empire. Then assign each one to cities as you see fit.
civ2's food caravans were one of the best features in any civ game in my opinion. That's how the real world works, in your words "a few Uber cities rather than many specialized cities", with rare exceptions like Germany. And the amount of food transferred would be limited which is not equal to summing food of all your cities at all. And the last bit you said is equivalent to saying civ4 does not need explicit trade routes, just add some trade bonus to your empire based on the number of cities.
The other thing is that with the current system you might see a plot with 3-4 mining resources next to it, with no food resources. In the game this would mean some of the resources will sit there uselessly (from the point of production). Whereas in reality a mining town would be founded and food transported there from neighboring cities. Inability to simulate this aspect of human civilization is a shortcoming in a game that primarily aims to simulate human civilization.
Then what does the player do? Just build units and wage wars? And unless you completely overhaul the Ai, then basically you're talking about letting the city govenor run your cities. That may work on noble and below but it's a recipe for disaster after that. Because the computer will do exactly what the Ai opponents do, the difference being the Ai has research, growth and production bonuses. So you're just doing the exact same thing at a slower pace.
On the contrary, the player can try to run their economy, if they wish. But they don't have to, just like our Government doesn't run our farms or factories or officies.
Your economy will function in much the same way as the over civilisations, unless they are interfered with. The AIs might decide to nationalise the farms, and instal a maximum wage. They might tax fish and subsidise roads. The basic mechanics of all economies would be the same (as they are in RL), with the only major difference being the extent and type of Government interferance.
AIU bonuses could be greatly reduced.
On the subject of centralisation, it might happen. If it did, it would happen efficiently, unlike the wasteful and unrealistic system of a big food pot. You could have policies to encourage or disencourage it. You would probably get some big cities, but as the wage rate rose, so would the cost of living; people might decide to leave.
I agree entirely with +knight. Thi mechanism allows the division of labour and to be used more than every before in Civ, and properly use the principle of comparitive advantage.
As I forgot to point out, but Larklight correctly assumed, I intended to let the whole trade system be automated. All math included in my post was for the computer to handle, not the player. The computer will use the formulas to create the trade network that gives most profit globally (for your citizens that is, not you. You might experience trading away goods you don't want to, but that's how capitalism is.)
Concerning centralization, I don't think it would be problem. Remember that each time a city gets a resource from somewhere else, it has to pay for it. The emperor can't simply order Alexandria to send all its wheat to Rome. And keep in mind that every time goods is moved, a city must expend to do so. In fact it is best to keep citys as self-reliant as possible, and only transport absolutely necessary goods.
I very much disagree to any sort of "clickable" traderoutes and civ2 style caravans. It might work with a four-city classical state, but not with a large modern empire. That way lies micromanagement hell.
I'm trying to move away from the reigning civ-concept of all empires being communistic, the people working for the state (without getting paid) and the ruler deciding every little action. I want the citizens to produce resources, which they then sell to gain money so they can buy food , luxuries and housing to keep themselves happy and fed. All of this happening automatically of course. And every time a transaction takes place between citizens, a small amount is deducted and paid to the player as tax.
I know this sounds extremely different from what players normally associate with civ, but in my head it's close enough. I'm sure many "conservatives" will disagree with me, as that seems to be the way of this forum.
As to what is left for the player to actually do, I think diplomacy, warfare, city-placement, colonization, spreading and placing taxes is enough to tax a player's mind. Better players than I might disagree.
I very much disagree to any sort of "clickable" traderoutes and civ2 style caravans. It might work with a four-city classical state, but not with a large modern empire. That way lies micromanagement hell.
Some of us think that level of fine-detail control is exactly what the game needs.
I'm trying to move away from the reigning civ-concept of all empires being communistic, the people working for the state (without getting paid) and the ruler deciding every little action. I want the citizens to produce resources, which they then sell to gain money so they can buy food , luxuries and housing to keep themselves happy and fed. All of this happening automatically of course. And every time a transaction takes place between citizens, a small amount is deducted and paid to the player as tax.
In gameplay terms, that feels to me like trying to do surgery with boxing gloves on. It turns into into something closer to, oh, a Wil Wright game that's more a toy than a game, where you poke it and watch it react rather than having to plan it and put some actual effort into running it and playing it well; it would not be Civ any more and I would not play it.
As to what is left for the player to actually do, I think diplomacy, warfare, city-placement, colonization, spreading and placing taxes is enough to tax a player's mind. Better players than I might disagree.
No Civ game has yet had enough to tax a player's mind. Now, if we had Civ 2-type food caravans, corruption, pollution, Civ 3 culture maybe enhanced a bit by some of the things I've suggested elsewhere, religin and corporations as in Civ IV, and about as many units and techs and options as DyP/RaR, that might be a good basis.
Well, this model isn't concerned with religions; there's room for them to function as previously, or in a different manner (though my model could allow for more organic growth, especially of holy buildings).
The system would also be taxing, in a different way. Instead of the fairly simplistic choices available now, actions would have far greater and more various effects. These wouldn't be required knowledge, but would add more depth for serious players. And there's a bit more breadth to decisions: I outlined a load of different policy options, all of which (I suppose) would be continuous, not discrete: if you really wanted to, you could calculate your Empire's Laffer Curve...
To be honest, I think your two desires are inconsistent. The more complexity in a game, the more it means stepping back and making meta-decisions. The extreme alternative is, I suppose, I button marked 'win'. @Wimsey: funny how the markets are 'progressive' in this thread, and the communal 'conservative'
Only if you can't be bothered to go in and optimise it, or you don;t find that rewarding.
There will always be people who want a game they can finish in an evening; there will always be people who want a game that has real epic scale and depth - by which I mean hundreds of hours' playing time. CivRev supports the former, and is very much on that side compared to previous Civ games; I very much hope Civ 5 is on the other side.
There will always be people who want a game they can finish in an evening; there will always be people who want a game that has real epic scale and depth - by which I mean hundreds of hours' playing time. CivRev supports the former, and is very much on that side compared to previous Civ games; I very much hope Civ 5 is on the other side.
I absolutely and totally agree with you. I realize my posts may seem a bit a schizophrenic, as I am trying to argue that my system would make a complex and interesting game, while at the same time saying that it won't be too complicated and confusing.
Right, I'll expand my idea some more and see if it gets complex enough.
What I really would like to see (but didn't dare mention in my first post from fear of bringing in too much new stuff at the same time) is to totally get rid of food, hammers and commerce. Instead, each tile produces units of resourses, for example fish, wheat, spices, iron, lumber etc. In fact like col2 is working. You are not limited to choosing one resource from each tile, you could for example get both lumber, fur, meat and iron from the same forest. It's just a matter of expending workpoints. Note that the amount of needed to extract a resource is not necessarily directly related to the amount of said resource available in the tile.
A note on geography and growing of resources:
Spoiler:
Biological bonus resources as they exist in civ4 would have to go as a result of this. Instead of being generic grassland, plain, hills etc, each tile has a set of parameters. I'm thinking: Fertility, climate zone, humidity, elevation, rockiness. In fact, not unlike SMAC. Some resources will require very specific parameters to grow well, while others, particularly animals, will be more hardy and useful for exploiting "bad" tiles (herding sheep is better than planting tobacco if you happen to be in Iceland). Rivers will generally add fertility to their tiles. A player ot AI can try to grow anything on a tile, as long as the resource is available to him (in real life you could for example not attempt to grow potatoes in Europe before you have discovered them in America). Geological resources like iron will still be available in certain spots much like the present system.
All citizens demand , , and . This is satisfied by consuming food and luxury resources. Each food resource basically gives 1, and each luxury 1. However, the first instances of every resource gives additional bonuses, and these get better for bigger cities. Food resources will generally give bonus for the first instances.
Example: a city needs 12 to be at maximum happiness. Because of the size of the city, the first instance of any luxury resource gives 2, while the rest only gives 1. If this city only has accessability to wine, it needs 11 units of wine (2 for the first and 1 each for the next 10). It can however make do with 6 units of different luxuries (2 for each).
This encourages variation of resources, and therefore stimulates trade. Now, I think most readers will agree wiyh me that a system with so much flow of resources must be automated in order to not consume all the time and intellect of the player (agreed Rysmiel?). Note that in contrast to col2, I will not have any storage of resources, ever. Everything is produced, transported, refined and consumed in the same turn.
Strategic resourceses requires and industri requires a bit more thought. I'll get to this in a later post, as well as more details about how trade routes work.
Right, I'll expand my idea some more and see if it gets complex enough.
What I really would like to see (but didn't dare mention in my first post from fear of bringing in too much new stuff at the same time) is to totally get rid of food, hammers and commerce.
OK, so I disagree with you from the get-go. (Except about hammers. Which should be got rid of because I want shields back, darn it.)
Instead, each tile produces units of resourses, for example fish, wheat, spices, iron, lumber etc. In fact like col2 is working. You are not limited to choosing one resource from each tile, you could for example get both lumber, fur, meat and iron from the same forest.
I had been thinking more in terms of a specific resource per tile, but quantified resources; I suppose more than one per tile is workable, though it might make it harder to balance.
Note that the amount of needed to extract a resource is not necessarily directly related to the amount of said resource available in the tile.
How are you envisioning costing the extraction of resources, then.
A note on geography and growing of resources:
Spoiler:
Biological bonus resources as they exist in civ4 would have to go as a result of this. Instead of being generic grassland, plain, hills etc, each tile has a set of parameters. I'm thinking: Fertility, climate zone, humidity, elevation, rockiness. In fact, not unlike SMAC. Some resources will require very specific parameters to grow well, while others, particularly animals, will be more hardy and useful for exploiting "bad" tiles (herding sheep is better than planting tobacco if you happen to be in Iceland). Rivers will generally add fertility to their tiles. A player ot AI can try to grow anything on a tile, as long as the resource is available to him (in real life you could for example not attempt to grow potatoes in Europe before you have discovered them in America). Geological resources like iron will still be available in certain spots much like the present system.
This one does feel to me like realism at the expense of gameplay, though. Plantable or movable bonus resources are essentially terrain improvements rather than resources, no ?
Example: a city needs 12 to be at maximum happiness. Because of the size of the city, the first instance of any luxury resource gives 2, while the rest only gives 1. If this city only has accessability to wine, it needs 11 units of wine (2 for the first and 1 each for the next 10). It can however make do with 6 units of different luxuries (2 for each).
This encourages variation of resources, and therefore stimulates trade.
Not bad, though I still prefer the Civ III notion, that the more resources you connect to, the more bonus you get from each new resource.
Now, I think most readers will agree wiyh me that a system with so much flow of resources must be automated in order to not consume all the time and intellect of the player (agreed Rysmiel?)
Don't be silly. You think I'd trust the computer to handle that for me ? I would want the flexibility of the option (at very least) to manage every single square of it.
Note that in contrast to col2, I will not have any storage of resources, ever. Everything is produced, transported, refined and consumed in the same turn.
Whatever happened to decreasing marginal utility? The first glass of wine'll make people very happy: adding new movies to a population already living luxuriously isn't going to make so much difference.
Possibly we need a new understanding of 'happiness'. Perhaps instead of the current model, we ought to have various special interest groups (based on their class specialism, or just general labourers) who strike when they predict it'll raise their wage rate? Hmm, not sure about this.
If you really wanted to, you could nationalise everything, and run absolutely everything yourself: but most players would prefer to let their empire develop at least partially guided by an invisible hand.
Given this, you could exert a considerable amount of influence by taxing, subsidising or buying certain goods.
Neither am I: why shouldn't speculators, at a cost, be able to stockpile goods? Or the Government (you) buy a warehouse and fill it with guns? Obviously, there are costs involved here: but the benefits could well exceed the costs. A speculating firm would 'bet' on rising prices, if such a thing seemed likely (e.g. armies approaching the oil wells). It wouldn't happen very much in peacetime (they'd have to cover the rent on the warehouse)
Whatever happened to decreasing marginal utility? The first glass of wine'll make people very happy: adding new movies to a population already living luxuriously isn't going to make so much difference.
What happend to decreasing marginal utility is that it's realism working against the benefit of gameplay; in Civ III, snagging those last few luxuries is a motivator to keep you trading or otherwise making an effort that will have a non-trivial effect rather than just sitting back and letting the game run itself once you get up to a reasonable size.
If you really wanted to, you could nationalise everything, and run absolutely everything yourself: but most players would prefer to let their empire develop at least partially guided by an invisible hand.
What happend to decreasing marginal utility is that it's realism working against the benefit of gameplay; in Civ III, snagging those last few luxuries is a motivator to keep you trading or otherwise making an effort that will have a non-trivial effect rather than just sitting back and letting the game run itself once you get up to a reasonable size.
And this worked fine in civ3 as an incentive to grab and trade resources beyond the first instance. Under my system, this would encourage just growing heaps of one luxury in a few good cities, which is much less challenging than colonizing and trading to get at least one unit of each luxury for each of your cities.
Different systems, different approaches.
This one does feel to me like realism at the expense of gameplay, though. Plantable or movable bonus resources are essentially terrain improvements rather than resources, no ?
Basically, yes. You assign a resource to each tile more or less as you would build an improvement. Note that you still have to find a resource natively before you can plant it anywhere else, so it's not like the player starts off with all the resources available at the beginning of the game. I also think there should be a heavy cost connected to moving a resource far from it's native area, maybe also with a chance of failure. Rather than building cities to get those few tiles with special resources as it is now, tiles with high fertility rating etc. would be very valuable.
As to storing of resources, I admit I'm not entirily sure on that point. My experience with strategy games that involves extracting and storing, is that you usually get so much of some resources that they virtually become unimportant. I don't want a situation where a German leader says:
"The British just bombed all my industry in Ruhr to bits! Oh, never mind, I have enough iron and weapons to keep up the war for another 134 years."
I know this problem can be solved with limited storage capasity, but there is still something deep in my soul that feels bad about storing. I want the economy to concerned with the constant flow of resources and money.
Concerning weapons, I have been thinking of a system where you train soldiers, and then let go back to their farms as reserve forces. You sort of store guns as troops.
If you can think of a way to allow storage without too much exploits and micromanagement, I'm happy to hear it though.
How are you envisioning costing the extraction of resources, then.
The best tiles will still be best, don't worry about that.
An example: Rice is very area-effective, but requires a lot of work force. Sheep tend themself a good deal of the time, so is labour-efficient, but also requires a lot of space. In other words; rice is good for fertile tiles in heavily populated areas, while sheep are good for utilizing marginal tiles.
On this point I am willing to back down though, if it proves to be a case of too much realism on the expence of gameplay. Playtesting would show.
Basically, yes. You assign a resource to each tile more or less as you would build an improvement. Note that you still have to find a resource natively before you can plant it anywhere else, so it's not like the player starts off with all the resources available at the beginning of the game.
Are you still envisioning resources becoming visible as tech advances, as part of this ?
As to storing of resources, I admit I'm not entirily sure on that point. My experience with strategy games that involves extracting and storing, is that you usually get so much of some resources that they virtually become unimportant. I don't want a situation where a German leader says:
"The British just bombed all my industry in Ruhr to bits! Oh, never mind, I have enough iron and weapons to keep up the war for another 134 years."
I know this problem can be solved with limited storage capasity, but there is still something deep in my soul that feels bad about storing. I want the economy to concerned with the constant flow of resources and money.
I'm inclined to think of this as best solved with exponential growth in cost and strength plus tech advances.
Consider this; you start the game with a basic mining tech. You can find an iron mine with 40 units of iron, and you can build a legionary with attack 4 and defense 2 for 2 units of iron. You can stock up on legionaries, or you can wait and build knights with attack 16 and defense 4 for ten units of iron each. But if you stock those up, and then somebody else who has been pushing research instead of building an army discovers, say, gunpowder or whatever tech allows more advanced mining, and suddenly they can get 200 units of iron out of a mine, you are not in an advantageous situation. Likewise, if you stock up on knights, and then someone can build tanks for forty units of iron apiece with attack 64 and defence 30. Basically that way, stored units become obsolete, and stored resources are of limited use because you need to be out there developing and reworking resources in order to be able to keep up.
What happend to decreasing marginal utility is that it's realism working against the benefit of gameplay; in Civ III, snagging those last few luxuries is a motivator to keep you trading or otherwise making an effort that will have a non-trivial effect rather than just sitting back and letting the game run itself once you get up to a reasonable size.
I diaagree; I think that gives large Empires too great economies of scale. There should be other things to keep you playing (wars, internal strife, technological developement) rather than bagging one last trinket. If you want to micro-manage your empire through controls, the complexity will increase exponentially: you wouldn't be stuck for things to do.
How many players run through each of their cities, every turn, and check which tile are being used? For the entire game? Obveously, my knowledge of other players' habits is limited, but from what I've seen and read, most leave the game increasingly to autopilot as it goes on.
Not that it's important, as you can nationalise if you wish.
I haven't really thought about that. It doesn't really matter much, as resources won't be extracted anyway unless there is a demand for it, and that demand will only come once the appropriate techs for using that resource is discovered. And most "unlockable" resources are geological so they can't be moved anyway (only exception I can see is horse). At least you won't experience the weird situation of civ4 where you mine a hill for thousands of years without finding the aluminium there, as you can't build a mine in a tile without there being anything to mine in the first place.
I'm inclined to think of this as best solved with exponential growth in cost and strength plus tech advances.
Consider this; you start the game with a basic mining tech. You can find an iron mine with 40 units of iron, and you can build a legionary with attack 4 and defense 2 for 2 units of iron. You can stock up on legionaries, or you can wait and build knights with attack 16 and defense 4 for ten units of iron each. But if you stock those up, and then somebody else who has been pushing research instead of building an army discovers, say, gunpowder or whatever tech allows more advanced mining, and suddenly they can get 200 units of iron out of a mine, you are not in an advantageous situation. Likewise, if you stock up on knights, and then someone can build tanks for forty units of iron apiece with attack 64 and defence 30. Basically that way, stored units become obsolete, and stored resources are of limited use because you need to be out there developing and reworking resources in order to be able to keep up.
Could work I guess, though I fail to see how storing of resources would help significantly in this example. You wouldn't get too knihts out of 40 units of iron anyway. Do you mean that the mine contains 40/200 units of iron, or that you can extract 40/200 units per turn?
I still feel that storage gives more management than it is worth in terms of good gameplay. Having no storage at all is very unrealistic though, as is storing heaps of goods for hundreds of years. On a side note, I would like cities to store food in a granary as a preparation for sieges or other bad situations.
I diaagree; I think that gives large Empires too great economies of scale. There should be other things to keep you playing (wars, internal strife, technological developement) rather than bagging one last trinket.
Well, with unhappy citizens who can cause civil disorder rather than just stop working, variety of luxuries is very much keeping internal strife under control.
How many players run through each of their cities, every turn, and check which tile are being used? For the entire game?
I wouldn't say I do that, quite. But probably more often than not.
Obveously, my knowledge of other players' habits is limited, but from what I've seen and read, most leave the game increasingly to autopilot as it goes on.
Could work I guess, though I fail to see how storing of resources would help significantly in this example. You wouldn't get too knihts out of 40 units of iron anyway.
The object is that stored resources are effectively declining in value because of the increase in unit costs and potential, so it's mouch more worth building ten legions when you've just extracted the iron than saving it for later and only being able to build two knights with it. On the other hand, storing for just a few turns - until you finish building a barracks, for example - seems a reasonable thing to do.
Do you mean that the mine contains 40/200 units of iron, or that you can extract 40/200 units per turn?
That the mine contains a fixed amount of iron, 40/200 in this situation, but that the amount of iron in the mine changes with advanced tech allowing better iron mining, so that a 40-unit mine if you are mining with Iron Age tech can become a 200-unit mine once you have technology allowing digging deeper and do the appropriate terrain improvement, basically. This need not of course be true of every iron mine in the game.
You'd also get the case where you mined it dry. Maybe every mine/oil field/etc... would have a set amount in it in total, so that eventually it would die out. You could even add wonders/techs that let you extract out more, or perhaps let you be more resourceful (ie. build an oil refinery in a town, and all units that require oil now use 50% less of it).
Or you could even have "maintenance" costs in terms of resources. So your knight may require 1 iron per turn for maintenance, otherwise he gets "rust, -50% strength".
Well, with unhappy citizens who can cause civil disorder rather than just stop working, variety of luxuries is very much keeping internal strife under control.
You think Kosvow would have been content, or the Kurds been happy, if they'd had a few more luxturies? I think internmal strife has to be for real reasons: lack of rights, religion, quatering of troops in peacetime, cultural groupings.
You don't micro-manage everything: any you're probably a few sd's from the mean. For most players, the option of the economy ticking along by itself would be welcomed: hard-core gamers would like the increased realism, and if you want to, you can nationalise everything.
You think Kosvow would have been content, or the Kurds been happy, if they'd had a few more luxturies? I think internmal strife has to be for real reasons: lack of rights, religion, quatering of troops in peacetime, cultural groupings.
I think that luxuries are a reasonable abstracted mechanism for representing this in gameplay, in a way that a "realistic" representation would not be, because a) it would risk being overcomplicated in an ungood way, and b) it would cause endless arguments based on precisely whose political perspective went into what supposedly makes people happy and what makes them unhappy; you're not going to convince an extreme libertarian player, and a socialist like me, with the same underlying assumptions about human nature.
I think that luxuries are a reasonable abstracted mechanism for representing this in gameplay, in a way that a "realistic" representation would not be, because a) it would risk being overcomplicated in an ungood way, and b) it would cause endless arguments based on precisely whose political perspective went into what supposedly makes people happy and what makes them unhappy; you're not going to convince an extreme libertarian player, and a socialist like me, with the same underlying assumptions about human nature.
Again, I still think the same: filling people will silk or gold isn't going to make them forget their kinsmen were lined up and shot. This mechanism allows you to ignore internal strife, and simply stuff your people with consumer goods, and I can't really think of historical examples where this has happened.
Secondly, didn't you earlier argue that more complexity is a good thing? I think this is a very useful extra level of gameplay, much more so than simply adding extra units.
Additionally, I don't see how ideology affects this. A liberal might think Nationalism is silly but still recognise that it causes strife. Capitalists realise that anti-globalisation protesters exist, and that unions do strike, even if they think they shouldn't. Authoritarians recognise that Amnesty does write letters, and people go on hunger strikes, and socialists also know that people like having consumer goods, and dislike arbitrary controls. This section isn't to do with what ought, it's to do with what the populace thinks ought.
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to do so. In fact it is best to keep citys as self-reliant as possible, and only transport absolutely necessary goods. 
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