I was going to post this in the resource thread originally, but it got really long. I figured that I should make another thread)
I didn't read the whole thread, but I'd like to see the whole resource system be completely overhauled, the current system doesn't reflect the real world.
Food - One of the strangest things about the Civ/SMAC system is that more food makes more people. All we have to do is look at the population growth of Sweden vs. China to know that is a flawed a way to think. Instead, I'd like to see population growth be determined entirely by the Social engineering table. Now, a surplus of food would give a boost to happiness, more in tune with the real world.
1000 unhappy people can gruel
100 content people can eat rice
1 happy person can eat a burger
I'd also like to see food distribution (as well as education distribution) be determined by Social Engineering. If you were running Planned, you might have 4 content citizens, while in Free Market you may have 1 talent and 3 drones. Yet another SE choice could allow you to distribute food any way you want through your faction (crawler movement of resources without the micromanagement).
Production - Production in Civ also very unlike the real world. Two of the most productive countries on the planet (Japan and Tawian) have almost no natural resources to speak of. Instead, I'd like to see production achievable in only one way: citizens working in the base (not on a tile).
I think the generic mines on every rocky tile should be gone. Instead, I'd like to see a model of natural resources like tungsten and copper can be mined, but would give no innate hammers. Instead, they would provide a bonus to production for units and buildings requiring the resouce similar to how marble works for the Oracle (and other wonders) in Civ 4.
Speaking of Taiwan, one of the ways I'd like to see production turned into money and happiness is consumer goods luxury resources instead of some more esoteric fungal resources mentioned earlier in the thread.
Energy - For the most part I like the current energy model, but I'd like to see a few things added. For example, I'd like to see more power plants based on the natural resources available. Here is some quick ideas:
Solar: Now would not give more energy the higher it went, instead give a +1 or 2 everywhere. Takes less turns to set up with silicone natural resource.
Wind : Wind would give 0 energy at sea level, +1 every thousand feet. Bonus +1 for every +4 with graphite natural resource.
Fossil fuel: can only be built on fossil fuel strategic resouse. Give +5 or 6 energy as well as a large increase in polution. Would consume the resource (Both in that the plant would eventually consume the resource after 100 turns or so, and that the resouce could not be used to build other things faster while being used for power.)
Fission plant: similar to fossil fuels, may be redudant
Geothermal: similar to solar (but different
)
Fusion : base facility, would make all other power obselete.
In this implementation, power does not directly translate to wealth. Instead, each base facility requires a certain amount of energy. If you have an excess of power. To simplify things, all power in one on contiguous territory would be shared through all bases similar to food distribution. Any excess of power would not help.
This is getting a little long and off the origingal topic, but let me keep these ideas going.
Base facilities would now require two resources: energy and citizens. So now, our new network node may look look this:
+2 lab points
+50% lab points this base
requires 3 energy
requires 2 citizens to run
This would discourage spamming every facility for the hell of it, and instead just ones you will actually allocate your population to. As I mentioned before, under my model, the only way to generate production (hammers) is for a citizen to be in a base. A citizen that is not being used by a facility may generate 1 hammer/ turn. However, our new robotic assembly plant may look like this:
+2 hammers per citizen working
requires 10 energy
requires minimum 5 citizens
No more building the fusion lab, then the quantum lab, then the singularity lab, then the blah blah blah lab that just add +50% each time. Here is one more example of a new base facility
Toy factory
generates 1 credit per citizen working
requires 5 energy
requires minimum of 2 citizens
Education (in place of the psych slider)
I see two different economies in my ideal new version, the citzen economy and the talent economy. In a citizen economy, most people have blue collar jobs working at the base facilities and do not require a huge amount of education. However, a regular citizen could not be turned into a specialist, only a talent could. A citizen would turn into a talent using a model similar to the great people model. Here is an example:
+4 eduction (education, labs, etc. would all be wealth, I'm just using those terms for easier reading right now) for base A (talent bar 0/20)
5 turns later: A citizen in base A has become more educated and turned into a talent!
Now, base A has one talent (each talent consumes 2 education per turn) If you were to cut back education to 2 a turn for base A, no new talents would form. If you were to cut funding completely, the talent would turn back into a citizen 10 turns later.
I would not make this a linear model like the current GPP work, but instead use a constant number each time ( maybe this number could be affected by a SE value?). You likely would not ever want your entire base to be talents, as some base facilities need to be worked. On the other hand, unless you are playing as maybe Yang, some talents would definitely be useful. Talents could also require more happiness than a normal citizen.
That's all the ideas I have for now, I'd be shocked if anyone read this whole thing.
I didn't read the whole thread, but I'd like to see the whole resource system be completely overhauled, the current system doesn't reflect the real world.
Food - One of the strangest things about the Civ/SMAC system is that more food makes more people. All we have to do is look at the population growth of Sweden vs. China to know that is a flawed a way to think. Instead, I'd like to see population growth be determined entirely by the Social engineering table. Now, a surplus of food would give a boost to happiness, more in tune with the real world.
1000 unhappy people can gruel
100 content people can eat rice
1 happy person can eat a burger
I'd also like to see food distribution (as well as education distribution) be determined by Social Engineering. If you were running Planned, you might have 4 content citizens, while in Free Market you may have 1 talent and 3 drones. Yet another SE choice could allow you to distribute food any way you want through your faction (crawler movement of resources without the micromanagement).
Production - Production in Civ also very unlike the real world. Two of the most productive countries on the planet (Japan and Tawian) have almost no natural resources to speak of. Instead, I'd like to see production achievable in only one way: citizens working in the base (not on a tile).
I think the generic mines on every rocky tile should be gone. Instead, I'd like to see a model of natural resources like tungsten and copper can be mined, but would give no innate hammers. Instead, they would provide a bonus to production for units and buildings requiring the resouce similar to how marble works for the Oracle (and other wonders) in Civ 4.
Speaking of Taiwan, one of the ways I'd like to see production turned into money and happiness is consumer goods luxury resources instead of some more esoteric fungal resources mentioned earlier in the thread.
Energy - For the most part I like the current energy model, but I'd like to see a few things added. For example, I'd like to see more power plants based on the natural resources available. Here is some quick ideas:
Solar: Now would not give more energy the higher it went, instead give a +1 or 2 everywhere. Takes less turns to set up with silicone natural resource.
Wind : Wind would give 0 energy at sea level, +1 every thousand feet. Bonus +1 for every +4 with graphite natural resource.
Fossil fuel: can only be built on fossil fuel strategic resouse. Give +5 or 6 energy as well as a large increase in polution. Would consume the resource (Both in that the plant would eventually consume the resource after 100 turns or so, and that the resouce could not be used to build other things faster while being used for power.)
Fission plant: similar to fossil fuels, may be redudant
Geothermal: similar to solar (but different
)Fusion : base facility, would make all other power obselete.
In this implementation, power does not directly translate to wealth. Instead, each base facility requires a certain amount of energy. If you have an excess of power. To simplify things, all power in one on contiguous territory would be shared through all bases similar to food distribution. Any excess of power would not help.
This is getting a little long and off the origingal topic, but let me keep these ideas going.
Base facilities would now require two resources: energy and citizens. So now, our new network node may look look this:
+2 lab points
+50% lab points this base
requires 3 energy
requires 2 citizens to run
This would discourage spamming every facility for the hell of it, and instead just ones you will actually allocate your population to. As I mentioned before, under my model, the only way to generate production (hammers) is for a citizen to be in a base. A citizen that is not being used by a facility may generate 1 hammer/ turn. However, our new robotic assembly plant may look like this:
+2 hammers per citizen working
requires 10 energy
requires minimum 5 citizens
No more building the fusion lab, then the quantum lab, then the singularity lab, then the blah blah blah lab that just add +50% each time. Here is one more example of a new base facility
Toy factory
generates 1 credit per citizen working
requires 5 energy
requires minimum of 2 citizens
Education (in place of the psych slider)
I see two different economies in my ideal new version, the citzen economy and the talent economy. In a citizen economy, most people have blue collar jobs working at the base facilities and do not require a huge amount of education. However, a regular citizen could not be turned into a specialist, only a talent could. A citizen would turn into a talent using a model similar to the great people model. Here is an example:
+4 eduction (education, labs, etc. would all be wealth, I'm just using those terms for easier reading right now) for base A (talent bar 0/20)
5 turns later: A citizen in base A has become more educated and turned into a talent!
Now, base A has one talent (each talent consumes 2 education per turn) If you were to cut back education to 2 a turn for base A, no new talents would form. If you were to cut funding completely, the talent would turn back into a citizen 10 turns later.
I would not make this a linear model like the current GPP work, but instead use a constant number each time ( maybe this number could be affected by a SE value?). You likely would not ever want your entire base to be talents, as some base facilities need to be worked. On the other hand, unless you are playing as maybe Yang, some talents would definitely be useful. Talents could also require more happiness than a normal citizen.
That's all the ideas I have for now, I'd be shocked if anyone read this whole thing.
you hit the nail on the head, Maniac.
