Kuriotates and sprawling
- Thread starter Ekolite
- Start date
The only part about sprawling I did not like is the cap on the number of cities. I would happily give up the ability to have a switchable trait to have more cities. Most of my sprawling cities weren't even able to make full use of their sprawling nature due to capping out in happiness at size 16 or so.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
Although the city cap is quite frustrating, I don't think that a new leader for the Kuriotates is likely, or even necessary. For one thing, all future versions of FfH will be on BtS, which means that you could use the unrestricted leaders option to play the civ with any leader.
Personally, I think that (if possible), the trait should be changed to allow settlers to only build settlements (perhaps they should also be made cheaper, since the inability to build real cities early on could really hamper expansion), no city hubs (with the exception of the first city, which would get a free hub). The cost of the city hub building should then be made dependent on map size, speed, (possibly difficulty level), and, most importantly, on the number of hubs currently owned. The limit should be removed, but the getting more hubs should become increasingly difficult. It might also be nice if there was an intermediate step in between a settlement and a hub, which would act like a normal city (or at least if captured cities didn't automatically become hubs or settlements).
Personally, I think that (if possible), the trait should be changed to allow settlers to only build settlements (perhaps they should also be made cheaper, since the inability to build real cities early on could really hamper expansion), no city hubs (with the exception of the first city, which would get a free hub). The cost of the city hub building should then be made dependent on map size, speed, (possibly difficulty level), and, most importantly, on the number of hubs currently owned. The limit should be removed, but the getting more hubs should become increasingly difficult. It might also be nice if there was an intermediate step in between a settlement and a hub, which would act like a normal city (or at least if captured cities didn't automatically become hubs or settlements).
Pandemonis
Warlord
I like the idea. I always had trouble with expanding with Kuriotates as I was really trying to find the best spots to expand, and therefore needed a lot more exploration before deciding on cities, which is usually a big slow down on my expand. This would give an opportunity to build early cities with more flexibility to cover resources, and then expand wisely to sprawling to develop your supercities.
However, I disagree with the non-rushing option. If it is crazy expensive to get by hammers, it should be crazy expensive to get with rush options.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
The reason I said to make them unrushable was because of complaints I got the last time I proposed this. Some one said it would be incredibly unbalanced because you could save up Great Engineers to rush your latter cities. I don't really mind if you can rush them. After all, there is a limit to how many hammers a Great Engineer can provide.
yes, and then you might need 2 or 3 engineers if you want to rush one. i can imagine if i was playing it i would have a super city with unyielding order or tower of complatency. then run a lot of specialists in the super cities, with one of scolarship, religious discipline, guilds, or liberty(depending on which specialists i value) but there is no civic that allows for unlimited engineers. so there is a limit of how many engineer slots you can have in your GP city, by byilding forge etc. and with all the other specialists i doubt i'd ever get a great engineer in my great person city while playing kuriotates.
Pandemonis
Warlord
True, I haven't thought of that.
But/besides, I believe engineer give a bonus of hammers based on population x variable or something like that, that follows the same pattern as tech rush for all GP (including GScientist, I believe). So you could pop GMerchant and get gold, to rush hubs. Though you would lose a lot in the process.
I simply believe it can be balanced, anyways. And think of it, you need those first hubs to get to get more.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I wonder if we could get a system working/balanced in time for Shadow. The sprawling trait hasn't been implemented yet in BtS, so if the mechanism is ever to be changed now it the best time to do it.
Bad Player
Deity
The Kuriotates have some extra buildings that use resources to make happiness goods. Perhaps they should have more of this type of building?
Bad Player
Deity
I like the idea of being able to build a hub building to allow players to choose their (e.g. 3) cities. Why not make the hub building really cheap so that it doesn't inconvenience Kuriotate players?
Actually, I really like the idea of hubs being able to be built, only the cost increases depending on the number of hubs already built. Something that also would be interesting is if my enhanced size cities mod component could be worked into FFH in some manner. Fanatic Demon made a version where each culture level adds more workable tiles such that eventually cities get very massive.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
What I would really like (but don't think would fit nearly as well in FfH as in vanilla, or a "historically accurate" mod) would be if cities didn't have a specific radius of tiles they could work, but instead could work any tiles in your territory. There would then be a distance modifier that reduces the yields of tiles depending on their distance (perhaps calculated by how far a unit would have to travel, so roads and railroads increase a cities effective radius), to represent the inefficiencies associated with transporting people and goods so far away. The distance modifier would be quite crippling at the start of the game, but as more technologies are researched and more tile improvements (roads, rail, etc), buildings (mass transit, airport, etc), and wonders (probably none that are in the game at the moment), it would gradually become negligible. This system would be far more realistic, especially for the modern age.
Obviously, this would require changing all tile yields to doubles instead of integers, and would require rewriting the city governors code.
ps. You already can build Hubs in cities with settlements (at least up through version .22. I Sprawling isn't implemented in the BtS Beta yet, and I left my Vanilla CD at home, so I've never played version .23. I think I may have heard that this might be removed because the option giving you a choice of whether you want a Hub or settlement was causing glitches in multiplayer games.), it just isn't very efficient to do so (they are expensive, and settlements don't often have the production power to build one in less than a century). I still think that making Kuriotates cities always start as settlements (except for their first city; their capital could be given the same effect as a hub or just give its city a free hub) and be able to build hubs at an increasing cost is a much better model. (it would also get around the multiplayer bug)
Obviously, this would require changing all tile yields to doubles instead of integers, and would require rewriting the city governors code.
ps. You already can build Hubs in cities with settlements (at least up through version .22. I Sprawling isn't implemented in the BtS Beta yet, and I left my Vanilla CD at home, so I've never played version .23. I think I may have heard that this might be removed because the option giving you a choice of whether you want a Hub or settlement was causing glitches in multiplayer games.), it just isn't very efficient to do so (they are expensive, and settlements don't often have the production power to build one in less than a century). I still think that making Kuriotates cities always start as settlements (except for their first city; their capital could be given the same effect as a hub or just give its city a free hub) and be able to build hubs at an increasing cost is a much better model. (it would also get around the multiplayer bug)
jeff_vandenberg
Chieftain
- Joined
- May 27, 2006
- Messages
- 36
I've played the Kuriotates for quite a while, and I've had no real problems with the sprawling. The Kuriotates demand a different strategy from most other Civs. If you want to not deal with happiness issues: get Archmagi or Liches with Law 3. Next problem. Though the last game I had with them, health was more of a concern than raw happiness. Either way, I still had size 35 cities.
Second point: you don't really need completely perfect city spots. You can afford to have a plot or three of oceans or mountains. You're going to have enough other tiles to work and specialists. The only thing I make sure to do as the kuriotates is to establish one of my cities on a coast. Landlocked kuriotates are sad pandas.. generally speaking. The first thing I tend to build as the Kuriotates is a second scout. This ensures that by the time i've built my first settler i've got a plot or two marked for potential settlement.
Most often one city ends up being production city, another science city, and the third specialist city.
These are just my thoughts on the Kuriotates at least.
Second point: you don't really need completely perfect city spots. You can afford to have a plot or three of oceans or mountains. You're going to have enough other tiles to work and specialists. The only thing I make sure to do as the kuriotates is to establish one of my cities on a coast. Landlocked kuriotates are sad pandas.. generally speaking. The first thing I tend to build as the Kuriotates is a second scout. This ensures that by the time i've built my first settler i've got a plot or two marked for potential settlement.
Most often one city ends up being production city, another science city, and the third specialist city.
These are just my thoughts on the Kuriotates at least.
Caradoc
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2005
- Messages
- 1,010
I agree, finding yourself landlocked can really suck. But what's the problem with ocean squares? With a lighthouse, a coastal city can feed itself and the ocean squares generate good gold. Also coastal cities can profit from Harbors and even the GL.
onedreamer
Dragon
very good idea Magister. Let's hope Kael likes it too ^^ It would fix the current multiplayer bug, where you can't choose which cities to make hubs.
About the happiness cap, Kuriotates do get several bonus buildings that help with that (jeweler, tailor, etc). The trait sprawling is closely related to the civ not just the leader, so a leader without that trait wouldn't work.
Sureshot
Goddess
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2006
- Messages
- 3,771
Given that Cardith has Philosophical, he doesnt really even need more than 1 super city to be competitive. Giving them unlimited regular cities on top of their super cities is too much. Even their settlements are a big pain since they spam them everywhere.
Having the super cities start as settlements, capable of eventually becoming normal cities, then eventually becoming super cities seems like a good way of doing it but only if theres some serious restrictions on it. Like:
For every 7 settlements you can have 1 normal city.
For every 3 normal cities you can have 1 super city.
First city starts as a normal city, but to upgrade it you need 2 more normal cities, which would need 14 more settlements (7 for each city), in order to make your first super city.
Otherwise you'd always see a ton of super cities packed into small spaces.
Having the super cities start as settlements, capable of eventually becoming normal cities, then eventually becoming super cities seems like a good way of doing it but only if theres some serious restrictions on it. Like:
For every 7 settlements you can have 1 normal city.
For every 3 normal cities you can have 1 super city.
First city starts as a normal city, but to upgrade it you need 2 more normal cities, which would need 14 more settlements (7 for each city), in order to make your first super city.
Otherwise you'd always see a ton of super cities packed into small spaces.
Then I would use normal cities and not super cities.
That would mean I have to found 8 cities to get two normal(!) productive cities?
I prefer the city hub costs 50+ (x*25) to produce version.Where x is number of cities.
Of course that are only some numbers I just threw in here and they would need balancing (for example x^2 or whatever) but it could work very well
