Proposal: techs that jump-start your new cities

[elprofesor]

There's a small issue right now with the game: there's no point in settling new cities after the renaissance (or even sooner), unless it hooks up a new luxury, because you will get less from the new city that what it will cost you.

To sort this out in advanced starts, the game offers you jump-started settlers, with more citizens and buildings. So my idea is that, once you get far enough in the tech tree, your new cities should get freebies.

To give a rough idea, new cities get all terrain/resources unrelated buildings that are 3 eras (or more) old, and one extra citizen for every 2 eras, or something like that (untested balance, obviously). That way, it would be easier to keep expanding in older eras, and it may even be beneficial to keep doing so, and your disposable land would end up covered, instead of being a giant empty gruyere.

Any thoughts, or why would this completely and definitively ruin the game's balance forever, instead of making it more fun?

 

[m202]

Doesn't sound like a horrible idea to me, but it would take a bit of work.

 

[BARBEERIAN]

I like the sound of it, but there would have to be some checks and balances or it would be too powerful. The techs should unlock new settler units (ie: Medieval settler, Renaissance settler, etc). The 'new' settlers would cost more, but come with certain buildings and a bigger base size. Otherwise you could just build some cheap settlers, research the tech, then plant a bunch of better cities down for 'free'.

 

[m202]

I like the sound of it, but there would have to be some checks and balances or it would be too powerful. The techs should unlock new settler units (ie: Medieval settler, Renaissance settler, etc). The 'new' settlers would cost more, but come with certain buildings and a bigger base size. Otherwise you could just build some cheap settlers, research the tech, then plant a bunch of better cities down for 'free'.

This sounds better.

 

[Babri]

I like the sound of it, but there would have to be some checks and balances or it would be too powerful. The techs should unlock new settler units (ie: Medieval settler, Renaissance settler, etc). The 'new' settlers would cost more, but come with certain buildings and a bigger base size. Otherwise you could just build some cheap settlers, research the tech, then plant a bunch of better cities down for 'free'.

This.

 

[aatami]

There's a small issue right now with the game: there's no point in settling new cities after the renaissance (or even sooner), unless it hooks up a new luxury, because you will get less from the new city that what it will cost you.

... And this is based on what?

 

[King_Course]

I don't see the issue either. Rushbuying a Granary and maybe Aqueduct. Available workers ready to improve the land and that city willl be at 10 pop in no time.

 

[Camikaze]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions.

 

[MadDjinn]

the bigger issue is that the AI will have better settler spam potential as the game goes on.

Few of us are still spamming post-renaissance, due to a) no room or b) we took the AI cities that didn't suck.

Only the AI thinks that spamming cities into every last spot is a good thing.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

the bigger issue is that the AI will have better settler spam potential as the game goes on.

Few of us are still spamming post-renaissance, due to a) no room or b) we took the AI cities that didn't suck.

Only the AI thinks that spamming cities into every last spot is a good thing.

Well if the new Settlers cost more (say 300 for a Renaissance Settler, and 1000 for a Modern Settler) then it might minimize spam (assuming the new ones obsolete the old settlers)

Renaissance: starts with Granary, Monument, Library, Walls (requires Banking)
"Modern": starts with above + Aqueduct, Marketplace, Temple, Workshop (requires Electricity)

 

[MadDjinn]

Well if the new Settlers cost more (say 300 for a Renaissance Settler, and 1000 for a Modern Settler) then it might minimize spam (assuming the new ones obsolete the old settlers)

Renaissance: starts with Granary, Monument, Library, Walls (requires Banking)
"Modern": starts with above + Aqueduct, Marketplace, Temple, Workshop (requires Electricity)

unfortunately, the AI gets production and gold bonuses. All a higher hammer cost would do is prevent the player from following suit.

At 1000 hammers (nuclear missile level) you could buy one for under 2000g, which is easier to do than hammering it out. (even less with Big Ben/Commerce)

If you went Liberty, it'd already be down to 500 hammers in your capital, which is easy enough to do.

I'm not saying the concept is bad. (later settlers are more likely to bring more 'stuff') I'm just a little worried about the consequences of playing 'pop the new big city' with the AI.

 

[elprofesor]

I don't see the issue either. Rushbuying a Granary and maybe Aqueduct. Available workers ready to improve the land and that city willl be at 10 pop in no time.

Settling a city costs, per se, happiness and SP adquisition, and it gets you next to nothing (excluding resources) until you develop the infrastructure, the surrounding land, and the city gets enough citizens. A new city in the industrial era has to catch up 4 whole eras, while there are only 2 left, less if you are beelining a specific victory condition.

If you let it develop normally, it will take forever to catch up with your productive cities, and it will be a constant strain to your global happiness and your SP adquisition, for next to no gain, and it may actually never catch up.

If you choose to rush-buy buildings, then the city will take less time to get on par with your other cities, but you will have to add to its cost the gold you will have spent on it, which can be a lot for more recent eras, and then again it won't have time to give you your investment back.

Being at 10 citizens is not the only condition for a city to become useful, it's just the easier and cheaper (if you aren't short on happiness) half of it. And don't forget that as you settle cities, the AIs grow increasingly nervous about you, so you will have to invest on military units too...

Note that I don't mean popping 10 sized city with everything up to public schools and older once you tech the radar. Whatever the game gives you in an advanced start works nice enough already, although it would need a lot of tweaking to get it right. The city shouldn't be productive right off the bat, but it should become if you have some time (say, in the late modern era, instead of having to rushbuy workshops, watermills and windmills for production, and then start a factory and a hydro plant, start already with the first three built, or whatever is balanced enough).


Only early cities make a real difference (again, late resource hookers excepted). You may argue that even if late settlers cost you more than they can ever give you back, it's fun to keep expanding, and I won't argue against that. Or that settling late shouldn't be useful, because it is a sign of bad planning, or whatever. But I am of the opinion that softening the cost of making your cities productive in late eras would make the game more fun.

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MadDjinn: I don't play the higher difficulties (my best is emperor), so I can't really tell, but doesn't the AI stuff the map with cities from the very beginning? If it's the case, then this wouldn't make a big difference; if it's not, I understand your concern... as you said, it's never the best move to fill the map with cities, because settling a city costs a lot, and later settlers give so little back; my idea tries to ease the problem, but it does have nasty consequences for a game where one of the players ignores the costs.

 

[awesome]

i don't really like the idea of new settlers, unless the newer ones can defend or something like that. i know it's not really kosher to compare the two games, but you got certain buildings and population points when you built a new city in later eras in civ 4 and i think that should make a comeback.

 

[ViterboKnight]

Maybe, after a certain period (for example, in the renaissance or later), when you found a city, the game asks you a couple of buildings to have for free.
The buildings could be picked among the cheapest one available (granary, barracks, monument,...).

 

[elprofesor]

That works too. It nets you less than my idea, but allows you to specialize the city quickly, so it becomes productive earlier too. And the AI doesn't quite know how to do it, so it would help it less.

 

[headcase]

The idea of trading food between cities may help with this too.

For example, any city can export to other cities; each food to another city cots a food and a hammer from the providing city, or a food and .1 hammers for each tile the city is away.