Interesting idea for a new Civ Ability/Leader Bonus

[Softly]

Never posted before, but a longtime Civ player and I’ve been reading these forums for years. Had an interesting idea for a Civ Ability/Leader Bonus.

“All worked tiles provide double yields, but require two citizens to work.”

This seems game-breaking overpowered at first glance, but would be balanced by the fact that odd numbered citizens would consume additional food without working additional tiles. For example a city with a population of 9 would consume more food, but have the same yield as a city with a population of 8. Obviously some mechanism would need to be put in place to make sure that cities with a population of one would be able to grow, something like “all cities gain an additional +2 food to the city center” or something else that serves that purpose.

Strengths: (beyond the obvious some tiles are better than others).

- Save a ton of builder charges as in theory you would be building about half the improvements.

- Versatility: This civ could have powerful cities on the coast, in desert, or tundra as long as there are nearby resources.

- Better district/wonder placement: How many times have you had to put a district in a sub-optimal spot since the optimal spot was a tile that you needed the city to work. Would make this less common.

- Closer more compact cities, which can help you hit district adj. bonuses as well as farm adj bonuses.


In my opinion, the best Civ Ability/Leader Traits are ones that allow for a unique and interesting playstyle, which this definitely would. Let me know what you guys think. Looking for comments/opinions and also trying to crowd source which future Civ/Leader this could belong too.

 

[unpossible251]

mmm. outside the box thinking, huh?

Obvious problem number one - what to do about a 1 population city. On paper, it wouldn't do anything. in fact, any city with an odd numbered population would go a bit haywire. It would be really fiddly and need a lot of micromanagement.

cons aside, i think you're right and the empire would grow really tall. It would also not need as many workers. Mayyyybe, maybe it might work for a Javanese (old Indonesian) civ, which were densely populated kingdoms... overall it might just be too hard. a bit simpler perhaps to allow 2 pop to work 1 tile.

 

[Sostratus]

Depending on what kind of flavor you are going for (density? intensively working terrain?) you could try to make it not quite a doubling and do something like giving all your terrain the Torres del Paine effect, which doubles base tile yields (usually +2, sometimes 3 yield.) The balance would be making citizens consume 3 food and appropriately more amenities.

That is very terrain focused- it seems like something you'd give to a country that is really focused on minimizing its impact to nature/environmentalism. Maybe the leader bonus could be similar nature attuned: bonus yields/adjacencies from natural wonder tiles.

If you wanted a 'dense city' theme in the district sense, you could do something like giving all districts adjacent to the city center a major adjacency bonus (like what harbors get,)
Or maybe any contiguous set of districts connected to a city center get some bonus. (Potentially getting more powerful the larger the connected district chain is, ie "at least 4 contiguous districts grant an extra +2 gold each" etc.)
that one could be for any leader of a very dense and urbanized nation.

 

[Softly]

mmm. outside the box thinking, huh?

Obvious problem number one - what to do about a 1 population city. On paper, it wouldn't do anything. in fact, any city with an odd numbered population would go a bit haywire. It would be really fiddly and need a lot of micromanagement.

cons aside, i think you're right and the empire would grow really tall. It would also not need as many workers. Mayyyybe, maybe it might work for a Javanese (old Indonesian) civ, which were densely populated kingdoms... overall it might just be too hard. a bit simpler perhaps to allow 2 pop to work 1 tile.

There would need to be a mechanism for getting around the pop 1, such as giving a passive that adds +2 food to the city center. I think that the problems that arise from odd number populations would make for an interesting mechanic that you need to keep in mind when making decisions, and would serve as an important handicap that keeps this ability from being too overpowered.

I honestly don’t think that this ability would require you to play tall at all, but it might encourage densely packed cities. More importantly it would allow you to settle some truly fantastic cities in places that are just mediocre for other civilizations. Think Mecca on earth maps. Surrounded by great resources but half the tiles in range are useless dessert or ocean tiles. Just going off the earth map the same could be said about Iceland, the lower Nile, Siberia, Northwest Russia, Western Canada/Alaska, North Africa, the western Andes, and most islands.

 

[Softly]

Depending on what kind of flavor you are going for (density? intensively working terrain?) you could try to make it not quite a doubling and do something like giving all your terrain the Torres del Paine effect, which doubles base tile yields (usually +2, sometimes 3 yield.) The balance would be making citizens consume 3 food and appropriately more amenities.

That is very terrain focused- it seems like something you'd give to a country that is really focused on minimizing its impact to nature/environmentalism. Maybe the leader bonus could be similar nature attuned: bonus yields/adjacencies from natural wonder tiles.

If you wanted a 'dense city' theme in the district sense, you could do something like giving all districts adjacent to the city center a major adjacency bonus (like what harbors get,)
Or maybe any contiguous set of districts connected to a city center get some bonus. (Potentially getting more powerful the larger the connected district chain is, ie "at least 4 contiguous districts grant an extra +2 gold each" etc.)
that one could be for any leader of a very dense and urbanized nation.

I think this would make this ability too weak, especially in the late game when improvements give more yield than the base tile itself. I do like the nature/environmentalist idea, could fit well with a Native American civilization such as the Iroquois or one of the Great Plains civilizations.

On your second point, Japan basically has this covered already. Encourages densely packed cities via stronger district->district adjacency bonus.

 

[Lee Duane Fitzsimmons]

Sounds like an interesting idea, but it would need to be tested first in order to see how it works in actual game play.