Rivers and Hydro Power

[Crimean Lord]

Well....
First of all: I think it is really great idea to incorporate ROCK' claim
But in the China, Netherlands, Ukraine and Brazil there are a lot of non-mountain ones so...
Perpaps there is possibility to represent the most powerful hydro-plants as Wonders...

 

[brett0007]

tbh I don't even know what a levee is, why it gives production, and why it is included in civ4 as an important building. I don't think we even have a translation for that word in Turkish and I have never seen one I guess (?)
are they really important in western architecture/industry?

I can understand something like wharf giving commerce, but levees never made sense to me personally and I wouldn't miss them if they were completely removed.

We already have watermills as a source of production from the rivers which makes more sense universally I guess.

Levies are large embankments along rivers that are built to prevent flooding and slow down a rivers gradual shifting of course over time making them more navigable. Essentially they prevent seasonal flooding where its a handicap to agriculture and make rivers easier to navigate by boat. They can also be used on coasts prone to flooding to help prevent or lessen storm flooding.

Personally I always found it weird that they were a building and not an improvement.

 

[Leoreth]

Levee is a mostly American English term for what you would rather call a dike or an embankment in British English, i.e. a riverside construction that straightens the course of the river and protects against flooding. I always thought it represents straightening of rivers that happened during the Industrial revolution and how this enabled increased industrial transport of resources to riverside factories. It could also be an abstraction for increased canal construction.

Maybe that doesn't make as much sense in Turkey due to how the local geography worked out? Don't know too much about Turkish rivers but it seems the trade infrastructure is less structured around them than in some European countries.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

Levees could also be changed to only affect the tiles bordering the river the city is actually at. As per the "determine river connections" logic I was talking to above. It would make sense logically, take care of most of the overpowered city sites with Levees and bring its power back to roughly where it is in base BtS.

I think that would be pretty confusing for not a lot of benefit. Between tributaries, rivers that flow through lakes, tiles that are along two rivers, and general map busyness, I don't think it will always be obvious to the player exactly what tiles would benefit from building a levee, especially in city view where such decisions are generally made.

 

[Seakin]

enabled increased industrial transport of resources to riverside factories

If that is the main reason for the production bonus, it could be connected to the factory building, watermils or workshops.

 

[BaneFire]

Does the levee make sense as an abstraction of the increased canal infrastructure? If I understand, tying it to the Hydraulics tech which you'll get in the 1700s represents the Western European hydraulics projects (first Dutch large-scale damming projects, and major British cities introducing large scale canals), but these aren't necessarily technologically innovative, they were more a result of the concentration of capital in those societies that previously had only been achievable for large-population empires (that concentration of capital through trade/colonialism). So in a sense the "levee" as a building would be in a bunch of Chinese cities by 1500CE.

 

[brett0007]

Does the levee make sense as an abstraction of the increased canal infrastructure? If I understand, tying it to the Hydraulics tech which you'll get in the 1700s represents the Western European hydraulics projects (first Dutch large-scale damming projects, and major British cities introducing large scale canals), but these aren't necessarily technologically innovative, they were more a result of the concentration of capital in those societies that previously had only been achievable for large-population empires (that concentration of capital through trade/colonialism). So in a sense the "levee" as a building would be in a bunch of Chinese cities by 1500CE.

Even earlier than that, the Harappans built the earliest known levies in 2600 BC.

 

[Leoreth]

Does the levee make sense as an abstraction of the increased canal infrastructure?

Yes, I also see it as representative of that.

 

[Lord Roanino]

This is sort of a hot take but I think you should be able to build another improvement on a tile with a watermill.

 

[Hickman888]

maybe bombers should have a "dambuster"-option. in ww2 the allies bombed some german dams to oblivion to devastating effect. it would be a neat little way to represent the fragility of waterworks in a context of war.

EDIT: for that matter missiles and drones should have it, too. lotsa nervous chinese generals right now what with the three gorges being one giant ass target for taiwanese missiles (yeah, they would only crack it a bit, still...).

The Road to War mod with Civ 4 actually has a couple of extra bomber missions IIRC: Target civilian infrastructure (granaries, radio station, etc.), and target military infrastructure (barracks, tank factory, etc). I'm not sure if that sort of thing would fit in with RFC: DoC or not, but it could be interesting!

 

[Visard]

Another idea:
Levee requires the river but gives flat bonus of +2 and +1 for watermills.

 

[Leoreth]

This is sort of a hot take but I think you should be able to build another improvement on a tile with a watermill.

Oh yeah. I have been thinking about this in the context of windmills too. Many improvements are more like rural "buildings" that could be built next to a primary improvement to modify its effects in some way. I imagine windmills, watermills, workshops, forts and maybe others to fall in this category.

 

[triplebassist]

I'd love something like that with forts. I almost never use them in vanilla, let alone DoC, where space is at much more of a premium, so anything that made them a little bit less niche would be a great improvement in my book

 

[Caesar Augustus]

Oh yeah. I have been thinking about this in the context of windmills too. Many improvements are more like rural "buildings" that could be built next to a primary improvement to modify its effects in some way. I imagine windmills, watermills, workshops, forts and maybe others to fall in this category.

Oh I really like this idea. There's always been this weird disconnect for me between wanting to be realistic (in which case farms and maybe cottages should be pretty much everywhere populated) and wanting interesting decisions for improvements (and a more appealing map). Having a small number of base improvements that could be specialized with the more niche improvements would nicely split the difference. I mean it could get a little tedious but I personally love that kind of micromanagerial optimization. It could even replace or augment the way improvements upgrade with tech so that you are encouraged to more actively manage your land rather than the "upgrade once and forget it until railroad" that we currently have.

 

[Leoreth]

The problem with this idea is that I could easily add a secondary improvement attribute to tiles, but getting it to render graphically is near impossible. To make that happen, the best solution I could think of is having an improvement for every conceivable combination (farm + windmill, farm + fort, cottage + windmill...) and then do some trickery in the interface tooltips to make it seem as if you are actually adding a secondary improvement to a primary one. Doable, but a lot more work.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

The problem with this idea is that I could easily add a secondary improvement attribute to tiles, but getting it to render graphically is near impossible. To make that happen, the best solution I could think of is having an improvement for every conceivable combination (farm + windmill, farm + fort, cottage + windmill...) and then do some trickery in the interface tooltips to make it seem as if you are actually adding a secondary improvement to a primary one. Doable, but a lot more work.

Yeah that does sound complicated for maybe not a ton of benefit compared to a lot of the other things you're working on or considering.

 

[Leoreth]

As usual.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

The problem with this idea is that I could easily add a secondary improvement attribute to tiles, but getting it to render graphically is near impossible. To make that happen, the best solution I could think of is having an improvement for every conceivable combination (farm + windmill, farm + fort, cottage + windmill...) and then do some trickery in the interface tooltips to make it seem as if you are actually adding a secondary improvement to a primary one. Doable, but a lot more work.

So I know literally nothing about the code so this could be a distinction without a difference, but could they be made to work like a terrain feature like jungle or forest, since those can be combined with improvements?

 

[Leoreth]

That would probably have more side effects than the workaround I was proposing. Also, both improvements would still have to be able to coexist with features, at the very least on floodplains.

 

[Vectors]

For what it is worth, cities not being able to trade directly if they are on separate tributaries could have an interesting effect, strongly encouraging cities at confluences of rivers, such as St. Louis, Chongqing and Khartoum.