[Religion and Revolution]: Should we do "2-Plot-City-Radius" ?

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

KJ has mentioned "2-Plot-City-Radius".
(If at all, then I would like to have "Full-City-Radius", meaning including the outer corners.)

Currently a city has 9 City-Plots (including city itself).

We could however implement the "(Full) 2-Plot-City-Radius" which would give a city 25 City-Plots.
(Download Full Radius)

This will of course have massive effect on gameplay.

This time I want to hear your opinions first before telling mine.

 

[KJ Jansson]

"2-Plot-City-Radius" was the first mod I implemented in my "Model" series. Taking into account the list of resources this feature is absolutely required for "Religion and Revolution" mod.

I accept any variant with 21 or 25 tiles, that is "2-Plot-City-Radius" by Nevermind or "(Full) 2-Plot-City-Radius" by Ercole Spiteri.

 

[Androrc the Orc]

I'm not sure about this... Civilization uses 21 tiles, but it's tiles produce much less, and there are many less yields, while in Colonization the diversity and production per tile is greater, so a city doesn't need as many tiles. It would also diminish the importance of transport of yields as a settlement would have access even to non-adjacent areas. That being said, I don't oppose it being done.

 

[colonialfan]

I'm kind of on the fence about this one too. Given the increased amount of resources this mod will have, would it be nice to have greater access to more resources? Sure. But on the other hand, as it has already pointed out, the diversity and production of each tile in colonization is pretty high to begin with. Now I know that the resources will be evenly spread in their appropriate geographical areas, so not every colony would have access to each type of resource, but with an increased access to resources would there not be an increased production? I always prefer to focus on a select few different resources (4-5) for each of my colonies, and depending on the map size, some of my colonies are not always too far apart. Personally I would not like colonies that produce more resources than I know what to do with and have to spend half the game trying to sell them. If there was an domestic market within the game that consumed resources, that might be different.

I can see the rationale for a 2 plot city radius but I'm not sold on the idea. Sorry

 

[thadian]

yes, you should do 2-plot radius. once i figure out how to mod, i am going to use 2-plot radius - i will make all tiles produce food in addition to one other yield (such as tobacco or cotton). i will balance this by reducing the ammount of yields per tile, increasing food consumed to 3. this allows "tall empires" to build 3-4 or 5 large cities that don't overproduce, grow too fast or eat up the whole map.

in fact, the idea i have for a mod absolutely requires this in order to make sure everyone has resource equilibrium. as for your mod, yes - i say it is appropriate. i have learned that increasing food yield to 3 is a nice balancer - the only problem is abundance of basic resources. this is why i say to reduce the yields of all tiles, so the end effect is...

each city has to work more tiles to get enough food.

the "extra resources" would depreciate faster over capacity, or sell off such as domestic market modcomp. also, reduction of ammount of resource per tile balances out the abundances.

perhaps this option should be chosen in the options menu because nobody will change their mind. either you play tall and you hate managing more than 3+ cities, especially with all the supply wagons - or you feel that part of the game is where the experience is. so having it as a menu option would be the best way to go - cater to both crowds.


edit - think about resource diversity - the 2 plot resource is a problem with 2 cities producing 80 tobacco and the ability to produce 4 cigars per turn tops. with a dynamic map script that is careful about how many plots of the same type and resources of the same type are around each other, you can avoid this problem by "diversifying" each 10x10 area or so - the flaw is it makes foreign trade less diverse but to be honest i have never ever walked a wagon 30 turns across a map to trade my guns to a native. this will simply allow less cities to produce either greater ammount of one goods or more varities of multiple goods.

 

[Gomer_Pyle]

Please dont... I do not like this idea. Played with a mod for civ4 that made an extra circle around the cities. Totally unbalanced if you ask me. Not gonna be any better in this game.

 

[raystuttgart]

So ok, most team members have given their opinion.

Here is mine:

I am totally against "2-Plot-City-Radius", sorry.
(That is why I did not bring up the idea myself.)

1. Several features and also AI-logic currently consider the City-Radius as it its.
(Possible to change, but it is effort.)

Our 2 new "City Defense Features" would need to be reworked.
koma's AI logic for Defense would need to be reworked.
Wild Animals concept would have to be reworked (or much too less animals would be spawned)
...

2. It would destroy a lot of atmosphere.

For me "Colonization" is connected to rough, hard life, struggling to build a new existence.
This concept would make generation of food too easy.

We would suddenly be able to have mega cities wiht 50 or even much more colonists.

3. On small maps you would only have space for one third of cities.
This would look very very strange.

4. We would have a lot of overlapping plots.
Especially AI would probably fight with that.

5. Our new yields and productionlines absoultely not require "2-Plot-City-Radius".

Many yields will only be available in very few locations.
The player is meant to specialize his cities and not to have every building in every city !

6. With these mega-cities the Trade-Route-System will not be as much fun, as it is.

...

I will stop here.

50% of our players might like this.
The other 50% of our players will absolutely hate this.

Seriously, let us not do this.

----------------

Other team members oppose this idea, too.
So it is cancelled and will not make it on our list, Sorry.
(But I will put it into the "Archive" of ideas.)

 

[Robert Surcouf]

Hi everyone,

I don't know about this feature. But I guess I'm too late!
I like Civilization, but it is probably difficult to implement every Civ concept and probably not a good idea for every concept.
So I guess were forgetting this idea... Sorry KJ !

 

[agaro]

I agree, I don't like the idea of going to a 25 plot settlement.

I checked some things in TAC2.02B. On a huge map at normal speed, the duration of 1 turn is 4 months. A person on a horse, on roads, can travel 4 squares in a turn, so the distance of 1 square is as far as you can ride a horse in 1 month on roads, or walk in 2 months. So a 9 plot settlement, is already fairly large - it takes 6 months to walk from one boundary to the opposite boundary, on roads.

Plus the population reading for each plot was 100 persons, not just 1 farmer icon. So on each plot you probably have 25 farms not just 1 farm.

With all the extra resources I can understand why people would want to use them. However, a better option would probably to have 2 outputs from one plot (two halves, adding to the current level of output), rather than adding more plots.

 

[thadian]

Raystutgard and agaro have changed my mind. for this mod, it would NOT be a good thing to have a 3 city empire that exists of 2/3 a continent that takes 6 months to walk from central park to the suburbs.

i will stand by the idea that if reworked with less tile yields there is a beautiful balance that could be found - even if only Euro-King or Native colonies (cities?) had this apply and not everyone, another idea that only a city with a "palace" of some kind gets a third tile yield or perhaps a legendary city reward of some type.

i would like to see the idea of 2-plot radius somehow included - but perhaps the way the game civ4colonization works up front means that 2-plot radius is almost more of a project-mod to itself. i will enjoy this mod no matter what you do with it, ill splice in any changes i want that you don't - so count my vote along with agaro and raystutgart - perhaps this is just not the right time for the overall mechanics involved with working a cities tiles, moving through friendly borders and resource balance/distribution / resource plot yields on map generation etc.

i began reading and divulging those how-to mod articles and i have no choice to accept there are just not enough reasons for this feature to be included as the main way to play.

 

[raystuttgart]

... ill splice in any changes i want ...

Everybody is free to change this mod to his liking in his private version.
(Do whatever you like. )

However, before publishing something like a ModMod for Religion and Revolution, please talk to the team first.

There are things like Copyrights for music and Credits.
(Only this project has gotten permission to use the music from René Osmanczyk for example.)

It will be possible to create and publish a ModMod for Religion and Revolution, but a few things should be considered.

 

[Willi_Tell]

Personally, I really enjoy the beautiful graphics and landscape in TAC (compared to vanilla) and I've always found it a pitty, that the cities are that close to each other. As cities visually grow and overlap adjacent tiles (which looks great and I like it) that looks just weird on the map. This has been improved in TAC, as we changed the minimum city distance from 1 to 2, what means there has to be at least 2 "empty" plots between cities. But still, the map looks much too urban in my point of view.

IMHO, the "new world" should not look like a giant urban metropolis. The colonies are wilderness, travelling from city to city means distance and danger (which I find historical and atmospheric). The "2-Plot-City-Radius" could provide exactly that feeling, because minimum city distance then could be set to 3. Still every plot would be in reach to be worked by a city, but there would still be a lot of "green" between cities. In the face of the incredibly increased diversity of resources/yields in R&R, 2-Plot-Radius would also make sense. There are players out there, who like to build small(er) empires. I personally don't wanna build 20 cities....

People may say: Oh no, then we must re-balance such a lot of things, but I don't think so. The movement point system will still fit (I don't see any sense in the fact, that a settler by feet can travel from city to city within 1 turn. Well, maybe the timescale needs to be adjusted, so that 1 turn no longer means 1 year (how long does it take to walk from New York to New Orleans?)

Finally as a compromise, the 2-Plot-Feature could also be implemented for only ONE of the player's city, the capital. The player could define that particular city by building a special kind of palace (perhaps "Congress House"). Just some thoughts of a lazy TAC veteran, who will be very pleased to enjoy your mod some day, no matter what you do...

 

[raystuttgart]

There are people that want 2-Plot-City-Radius, I know.
But also, there are people that really don't like it.

For Religion and Revolution this feature will not be implemented, sorry.
(In no variation whatsoever. Not as "Game Option", not "Only One City", not ...)

We could be discussing about 10 different variants, but the result will always be the same.
There will always be reasons that some team members will not like it.

• Technical problems
• Enormous efforts for a really special variant
• Other style of playing
• Atmospherical considerations
• Problems with small maps
• ...

It really is dead / cancelled for this mod.

If somebody wants to make a ModMod including this feature, that is fine of course.
(But again, talk to us first, to clarify some things.)

 

[Willi_Tell]

no problem, ol' buddy Those were just my (delayed) thoughts...

 

[raystuttgart]

no problem, ol' buddy Those were just my (delayed) thoughts...

Just wanted to clarify, before people would think, that we are still working on a concept for this.

 

[thadian]

There are players out there, who like to build small(er) empires. I personally don't wanna build 20 cities....

im one of them, i would rather quit a game than build any number of cities over 4-5 or so. 5 cities becomes a burden to manage, especially the transport wagons and relocating specialists to min/max cities.

i have always prefered "Tall" over "Wide" because i can engage the parts of the game i enjoy without 10 mins of management per turn. i suppose this is why i like 2 plot radius so much, it lets me build small, tall empires that expand without cluttering up the map or giving me too much more to do than i want to.