Limited Cities

[duckofspades]

One thing that always botherd me in civ was by the end of the game the world was nonething but cities, roads and iragation. From civ 3 on they tried to curb this. however I have never been happy with the results. I say they add a option when setting up the game to declare the maximim cites allowed on the map, of course one could always not cap the number if the so wished.
I have moded civ 3 and 4 to do this. I always gave civs alot of settlers to start with and that worked. It really kept the frontier space around in the late game. With the new combat system I think it would be even better.

 

[Schuesseled]

And why is is having people living near the border of another country a bad thing?

 

[Ahriman]

And isn't cities, roads and farms basically what Europe, most of Japan and most of non-central US looks like?

 

[Schuesseled]

My thinking exactly, us humans are pretty much everywhere nowadays. I eman sure maybe in the middle ages there be huge amounts of rough terrain that hadn't been populated and worked on but by the end of the game the world should be pretty much filled to bursting.

 

[ukcivfan]

I think he has a point in terms of game play. I think the game would be better if you had to choose X or Y more. Rather than X and Y later.

I'm not sure about the mechanics, but a "earth" where you don'ty have every single square used for output would be better.

 

[duckofspades]

It's not that having cities next to your opponet is bad or that world dosen't have insain amounts of people today. But even today thier are sparcely populated areas of the world. Also with limited amounts of cities. Cities stand out more and become something over greater intrest in taking. Plus it's not like you would set the cap at each civ only have 3 cities. You could have a map with with a city cap of 100, 200 or what ever you wanted. It simply gives the player the ability to define how much wilderness they want in the game. In any case it would be a option to set for a new game, if the player wanted to cap cities.

 

[Schuesseled]

but then what would be the point in the extra land being in the game, if you could build acity there without experiencing dire maintenance penalties why wouldn't you.

 

[Ahriman]

But even today thier are sparcely populated areas of the world

Yes, but these are all places with low tile yields.

Also with limited amounts of cities

All places without cities have low tile yields, or are urbanizing rapidly.

 

[duckofspades]

Or what if you wanted to play a city state challenge. You got 18 civs on a small map. So you set the city cap to 18. Granted thier would be other ways to do this but this would be quick and easy to set up.

 

[Ahriman]

Or what if you wanted to play a city state challenge.

Then you turn on the No Settlers game option.

 

[12agnar0k]

Well natural obstacles help, like a massive stretch of desert of a mountain range in Civ generally stops EVERY single tile being occupied .

But i'm sure we can all agree if you start next to a vast expanse of un-settlerable land you aren't extatic about it.

 

[Auncien]

CiV is supposed to have limited roads this time around. Well, more precisely, they aren't limited but rather they incur additional costs. That will clean up the map quite a bit. I hope they still provide gameplay incentives for keeping your forests growing. Good politics. Good land use policy. Fun to look at in-game.

 

[imperiex1]

CiV is supposed to have limited roads this time around. Well, more precisely, they aren't limited but rather they incur additional costs. That will clean up the map quite a bit. I hope they still provide gameplay incentives for keeping your forests growing. Good politics. Good land use policy. Fun to look at in-game.

Maybe you could designate forests/jungles/marshland etc. as protected land? That way you could still get a small commerce and happiness bonus from otherwise useless land.

 

[asboethius]

Maybe you could designate forests/jungles/marshland etc. as protected land? That way you could still get a small commerce and happiness bonus from otherwise useless land.

Who gets commerce or happiness from it in real life?

 

[bjbrains]

Who gets commerce or happiness from it in real life?

Tourism brings commerce, everyone else likes having some relatively untouched green area. It's the same reason that cities have parks.

 

[asboethius]

Tourism brings commerce, everyone else likes having some relatively untouched green area. It's the same reason that cities have parks.

A "protected" wetland doesn't have tourism. You aren't allow to build or travel on it. That would be like a city fencing off a park and telling people they can't use it, or keep it up.

 

[Ahriman]

A "protected" wetland doesn't have tourism. You aren't allow to build or travel on it.

Umm... what?
National parks are protected areas. They can have plenty of tourism.
The Everglades are a protected wetland, for example.

Protected doesn't mean nobody can go there, it means low impact. You can still have boats, hiking trails, etc.

 

[bjbrains]

A "protected" wetland doesn't have tourism. You aren't allow to build or travel on it. That would be like a city fencing off a park and telling people they can't use it, or keep it up.

National forests and national parks certainly do. And most protected wetlands do allow tourism, I have personal experience in the matter.

 

[Shurdus]

Welcome to civfanatics, duckofspades!

 

[asboethius]

Umm... what?
National parks are protected areas. They can have plenty of tourism.
The Everglades are a protected wetland, for example.

Protected doesn't mean nobody can go there, it means low impact. You can still have boats, hiking trails, etc.

A National Park, ok, I can see that.

But I have lived in areas where land has been taken by the government because they need to "protect it" and no one is allowed to go on it or tend to it.

People who don't live around it like the idea of a "wild natural area", but they don't have to deal with all of the problems that go along with untended natural environments. They like to visit it or know that it's out there.

But when you know a farmer that has had to completely change his irrigation system and stop shooting destructive varmits who live down in the bog on his land because some forestry personnel have decided that his bog should be a "protected wetland", then you might have a different perspective of the power to just declare someone else's land a "protected wetland" and get commerce and happiness out of it.

Ask the farmers in central California what they think about water laws in their State.