small is good?

[frekk]

National Wonders, eh?

Hmmmmm .... I'm wondering if somehow one of the differences there might be that you can, maybe, devote production from more than one city to a National Wonder. I've always found it's difficult to build a Wonder when you have only a few cities, because one of them is not producing anything for so long, whereas it's easier when you have more cities to give up production in one of them for awhile. If you could direct production from multiple cities to a National Wonder, then you'd be back to regular production faster.

 

[The_Architect]

But Aussie,
the problem in Civ 3 (and civ 4?) is that if you don't have enough money and resources your cities simply won't grow (in terms of pop.). While this is not the case with India, i.e. the real world. India's population is growing but lacks skill, hence production is less. On the other hand Japan - with only a pop. of 100 mil. is second largest ion terms of GDP because it's pop is skilful.

There should be a skill poarameter which depends upon culture and education (yet another parameter) and should decide upon how productive people are (time to complete a task, production per turn, etc.) and how wise they are in terms of cooperating with the govenment (hence lesser chances of civil riots), increasing culture (hence culture increases literacy and literacy helps culture), population growth (not too high, not too low), allowing different religions (liberal), etc.

Tell me what you think about this, Aussie and others?

 

[Sub]

But Aussie,
the problem in Civ 3 (and civ 4?) is that if you don't have enough money and resources your cities simply won't grow (in terms of pop.). While this is not the case with India, i.e. the real world. India's population is growing but lacks skill, hence production is less. On the other hand Japan - with only a pop. of 100 mil. is second largest ion terms of GDP because it's pop is skilful.

There should be a skill poarameter which depends upon culture and education (yet another parameter) and should decide upon how productive people are (time to complete a task, production per turn, etc.) and how wise they are in terms of cooperating with the govenment (hence lesser chances of civil riots), increasing culture (hence culture increases literacy and literacy helps culture), population growth (not too high, not too low), allowing different religions (liberal), etc.

Tell me what you think about this, Aussie and others?

Sounds like it would be a solid feature.

 

[HourlyDaily]

Not often you hear the words "with a population of only 100 mil."

Presumably if you have a city whose population has grown very quickly, but there isn't proper saniation or other facilities - then the city health will be low, and workers may lay down tools. This could simulate large populations with low productivity.

That said, your skill parameter idea seems to add another control, which is not a bad idea at all.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think its a great idea The_Architect, but is one which we-the players-might need to add in ourselves, because it doesn't really fit in with the 'Streamlining' philosophy for Civ4. That said, if someone were to come up with a really good mod which incorporated education/skills, then I feel certain that Firaxis would include it in an expansion (i.e., if they saw something which worked, I reckon they would include it, because I know thats what they did in Civ3).

However, I think that they have found ways to partly simulate what you have highlighted, based on what Soren has suggested here. Lets see if I can summarise it:

1. India covers a large land area-as well as having a high population. The combination of these two factors have left it with precious little income to spare.

2. Of the income it has, in RL terms, India seems to have most of it currently invested in Culture and Religion-not technology (though this is now starting to change).

3. The overall effect of this is that they lack the high tech necessary to build the industrial improvements with which to turn their labour into lots of hammers. They also lack the money to properly maintain them.

4. India also lacks the income necessary to maintain quality infrastructure, leading to low health and high unhappiness-both of which further reduce the productivity of their cities.

5. Because many of India's cities are smaller and more rural, they probably also have very few specialists-instead using the labour they have available to farm the land, not produce extra commerce, science or labour.

To be fair, though, India has certainly come a very long way in under 65 years of self rule-a heck of a lot further than, say, Indonesia.

Back to my point, though, many of the things I have described do simulate, albiet in a very abstract fashion, a country that lacks both high education and high skills (i.e. low tech rate, low specialisation, no access to high-tech production). To continue the RL analogy, Japan has-in Civ4 terms-about 4-6 major cities, all of them VERY HIGH population. Since 1945-using a combination of money saved from disbanding units and money recieved from Western nations-Japan has invested heavily in tech advancement. Then, because of its small size, it has found it easier-and cheaper-to implement the fruits of its technological advances in its cities. This has allowed Japan to specialise its labour, thus moving more and more away from its rural base (instead obtaining the food it needs to grow/maintain its population via trade). Now Japan has a financial and production base which is far greater than that of a nation 3 times its size-in either size or population.
Again, though not perfect, I would not be suprised if Civ4 goes some way towards allowing players to simulate what I have described here.
Anyway, sorry for rambling, but I hope that explains things !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[frekk]

There should be a skill poarameter which depends upon culture and education (yet another parameter) and should decide upon how productive people are (time to complete a task, production per turn, etc.) and how wise they are in terms of cooperating with the govenment (hence lesser chances of civil riots), increasing culture (hence culture increases literacy and literacy helps culture), population growth (not too high, not too low), allowing different religions (liberal), etc.

Tell me what you think about this, Aussie and others?

I'm just guessing, but to me that list of things sounds an awful lot like a potential description for how the new health feature might work.

 

[The_Architect]

I'll try and mod it in. Let's see.

 

[IslandFox]

That sounds like a good description of how small civs coping could fit in, Aussie.