ShadowWarrior
Prince
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2001
- Messages
- 411
I think Civ 4 should distinguish between two types of populations. The first type of population lives outside the cities. They work on the landtiles that fall inside the empire boarder to produce enough food to feed themselves, the city pouplation, and still have surplus crops for pop growth. They are also those who harvest the resources from the land they work on, and sent those resources to the cities for production of improvement, units, and wonders.
The second type of population are those who live inside the cities. Those living inside the cities will perform several functions described below:
Building: City dwellers who work in this sector are responsible for building units, improvements and wonders. Their abilities to build faster depends on the number of people assigned to such a task and the resources being sent from outside the cities.
If one wants to make the game more complicated, we will need to take into account how much resource each builder can process. Let us assume that each builder is capable of processing two resources each turn. Then it a city that is assigned five builders, it makes sense to channel ten units of resources into this city. Channeling more than that means resources go to waste, while channeling less means the builders are not working at top efficiency.
As technology improves, builders will be able to process more resources per turn.
Science/technology: City dwellers who work in this sector are responsible for the progress that the civilization makes in science and technology. The ability of scientists to make new discovery depends on a)improvements such as libraries b)access to special resources c)intercity or international trade
Culture: City dwellers who work in this sector are responsible for producing "cultural" items. By cultural items, I mean things such as fine clothe, musics, potteries, calligraphy, dramma, literatures, and paintings. Like scientists, cultural workers are also responsible for discoverying. But where scientists discover new knowledges, cultural workers discover things such as a new design or pattern for pottery, a new musical piece, a new poem, or a new painting style. The higher the level of culture, the more content citizens will be. The ability of culture workers to discover new cultural items to produce depends on a)improvments such as temples b)access to special resources c)intercity or international trade
Commerce: City dwellers who work in this sector are responsible for trade. These merchants take the "cultural items" produced by cultural workers, and sell them to their trading partners. In return, they make a profit, from which tax revenues are generated. The ability with which merchants can generate for the empire revenues depends on a)improvement such as markets b)roads, railways c)cultural level of city
You may wonder what is special resources and why special resources would contribute to higher culture or higher rate of science and technology. This is my logic. If I have access to silk, then I certainly am in a better position than others to produce silk clothe. Doesn't that contribute to the culture? If I have access to horse, wouldn't that help me discover horseback riding technology much faster than those others without access to such a special resource?
Special resources are important not just for contributing to faster cultural and scientific discovery. I suggest that we program the game so that special resources will sometimes give players a VERY favorable advantage in commerce. The logic is this. Having access to some special and rare resources might enable the cultural workers in the city to produce very rare cultural items that can be sold by merchants at very high price. This will drammatically increase tax revenues and wealth of the empire. But the game should NOT be programmed so that the lack of access to such rare resources will completely hinder the ability of players to compete. In any case, the commercial advantage of having such access to special resources should be so awesome that it is enough for players to want to wage wars, negotiate trade treaties, and give rise to other actions that makes an empire building strategy game fun.
A few more things about special resources. Having access to special resources should also generate other advantages besides commerce. Perhaps, for example, having access to iron and coal will enable each city within th empire to gain additional resources shields once the empire obtains industrialization technology. Having access to alumini will make manufacturing of fighter jets several turns faster. It is however important to program the game so that the advantages of such access is big enough for players to want to wage war, negotiate treaties and do something for these resources. But the game should also be programmed so that not having access to these resources doesn't mean that players are in big trouble. It will be up to the designers to find the proper balance.
I have spent sometimes talking about special resources and their implication just above. I think it is important for Civ 4 to distingush between special resources and basic resources. Having talked about the former, I want to now talk about the latter.
Basic resources are food, and resources shields. Food are needed for population to grow. Resource shields are needed to build improvements, wonders, and units. However, I want to add some complication to the game by replacing this abstract concept of resource shield with the more tangible things like wood and minerals. In another word, I propose that in Civ 4, the non-city dwellers, those who work on landtiles outside the cities, are responsible for harvesting food, wood, and minerals. Improvements, wonders, and units require some combination of food, wood, and minerals to be build.
Lastly, I want to talk about city radius, which I suggest should be scrapped off. In place, I suggest the following:
Lets say that there are a toal of 15 units of population in the empire. Players are responsible for assigning and distributing these 15 units of population to city or non-city. Those who are assigned to work in city will perform the functions of building, research science and culture, and manage commerce. Lets say I decide to allocate five units of population to the city. Once that allocation is made, I need to allocate those five units of city population to city activities such as science and culture research, building of wonders, units and improvements, and commerce. Perhaps a slider should be used.
Assigning five units of pop to city leaves me with ten units of pop to work on non-city. By non-city, I mean those landtiles within the empire boarder, but outside the cities. I will have to allocate those ten units of pop to work on different landtiles accordingly to what I see fit.
Now lets say that these ten units of pop generate a total of 10 unit of food, 8 units of wood, and 9 units of minerals per turn. We then have to allocate these wood and minerals accordingly to the cities. A city with a very small builder population shouldn't be allocated with too much wood and minerals, while a city with a huge builder population should be given more wood and minerals.
As for food, there isn't a need to allocate them to the cities. As long as the ten units of population generate enough food to suppor themselves, the city dwellers and still have surplus crops, then there will be population growth. The rate of population growth depends most importantly on surplus crops. Without it, population will stay the same size or decline. But other factors that contribute to faster population growth depends on how happy the citizens are, the form of government, etc. But they should only contribute to faster population growth conditioned on the existence of surplus crops.
A lot of you might be complaining by now that there's too much allocation, and therefore too much micromanagement. Yes, we need to allocate population three times. The first time, we allocate between those living in cities and those living on landtiles. The second time, we allocate the city dwellers to build, research, and trade. The third time, we allocate landtiles dwellers to different landtiles.
Then we need to allocate resources to different cities.
So I agree that this seems like a lot of allocation. But with proper interface, I am sure this problem can be eliminated. Allocate resources through proportion instead of through individual units might eliminate the problem since we just need to tell the computer to keep certain proportion at all time. I can not honestly say I have an idea about how to go about doing it yet. Therefore I leave this task up to the designers. I also hope that discussions regarding this issue within the forum may perhaps eventually generate a proper solution.
Lastly, I want to say something about corruption. I've mentioned in another thread that corruption should be reduced as technology improves that "shrinks" the distance between the capital and the regional cities. Other things that should also have positive effect on fighting corruption is building of roads and railways, which should contribute again to less corruption. Having airport and seaports should also help fight off corruption. Roads, railways, airports and seaports fight off corruption by creating tigher transport and communication link between capital city and the rest fo the empire so that it is easier for the central authority to check on their regional officials.
I just thought of something about allocation. The game should be designed so that it is possible to change allocation any time we want. For example, it is possible to shift two units of population from one city to another, or two shift a unit of population from landtiles to city. However, for the sake of realism, I think any change in allocation should not neccessarily take just one turn to go into effect. The number of turns that pass until the new allocation becomes effective depends on the magnitude of the change. For example, if I have simply shifted one unit of population from the city to an adjacent landtile, the change should immediately go into effect. If I am however shifting ten units of population from one city to some landtiles in another continent, then the change will prolly not take place until about three turns later. Having roads, railways, and other transportation facilities as well as better technologies should reduce the number of turns needed before the new allocation becomes effective.
The second type of population are those who live inside the cities. Those living inside the cities will perform several functions described below:
Building: City dwellers who work in this sector are responsible for building units, improvements and wonders. Their abilities to build faster depends on the number of people assigned to such a task and the resources being sent from outside the cities.
If one wants to make the game more complicated, we will need to take into account how much resource each builder can process. Let us assume that each builder is capable of processing two resources each turn. Then it a city that is assigned five builders, it makes sense to channel ten units of resources into this city. Channeling more than that means resources go to waste, while channeling less means the builders are not working at top efficiency.
As technology improves, builders will be able to process more resources per turn.
Science/technology: City dwellers who work in this sector are responsible for the progress that the civilization makes in science and technology. The ability of scientists to make new discovery depends on a)improvements such as libraries b)access to special resources c)intercity or international trade
Culture: City dwellers who work in this sector are responsible for producing "cultural" items. By cultural items, I mean things such as fine clothe, musics, potteries, calligraphy, dramma, literatures, and paintings. Like scientists, cultural workers are also responsible for discoverying. But where scientists discover new knowledges, cultural workers discover things such as a new design or pattern for pottery, a new musical piece, a new poem, or a new painting style. The higher the level of culture, the more content citizens will be. The ability of culture workers to discover new cultural items to produce depends on a)improvments such as temples b)access to special resources c)intercity or international trade
Commerce: City dwellers who work in this sector are responsible for trade. These merchants take the "cultural items" produced by cultural workers, and sell them to their trading partners. In return, they make a profit, from which tax revenues are generated. The ability with which merchants can generate for the empire revenues depends on a)improvement such as markets b)roads, railways c)cultural level of city
You may wonder what is special resources and why special resources would contribute to higher culture or higher rate of science and technology. This is my logic. If I have access to silk, then I certainly am in a better position than others to produce silk clothe. Doesn't that contribute to the culture? If I have access to horse, wouldn't that help me discover horseback riding technology much faster than those others without access to such a special resource?
Special resources are important not just for contributing to faster cultural and scientific discovery. I suggest that we program the game so that special resources will sometimes give players a VERY favorable advantage in commerce. The logic is this. Having access to some special and rare resources might enable the cultural workers in the city to produce very rare cultural items that can be sold by merchants at very high price. This will drammatically increase tax revenues and wealth of the empire. But the game should NOT be programmed so that the lack of access to such rare resources will completely hinder the ability of players to compete. In any case, the commercial advantage of having such access to special resources should be so awesome that it is enough for players to want to wage wars, negotiate trade treaties, and give rise to other actions that makes an empire building strategy game fun.
A few more things about special resources. Having access to special resources should also generate other advantages besides commerce. Perhaps, for example, having access to iron and coal will enable each city within th empire to gain additional resources shields once the empire obtains industrialization technology. Having access to alumini will make manufacturing of fighter jets several turns faster. It is however important to program the game so that the advantages of such access is big enough for players to want to wage war, negotiate treaties and do something for these resources. But the game should also be programmed so that not having access to these resources doesn't mean that players are in big trouble. It will be up to the designers to find the proper balance.
I have spent sometimes talking about special resources and their implication just above. I think it is important for Civ 4 to distingush between special resources and basic resources. Having talked about the former, I want to now talk about the latter.
Basic resources are food, and resources shields. Food are needed for population to grow. Resource shields are needed to build improvements, wonders, and units. However, I want to add some complication to the game by replacing this abstract concept of resource shield with the more tangible things like wood and minerals. In another word, I propose that in Civ 4, the non-city dwellers, those who work on landtiles outside the cities, are responsible for harvesting food, wood, and minerals. Improvements, wonders, and units require some combination of food, wood, and minerals to be build.
Lastly, I want to talk about city radius, which I suggest should be scrapped off. In place, I suggest the following:
Lets say that there are a toal of 15 units of population in the empire. Players are responsible for assigning and distributing these 15 units of population to city or non-city. Those who are assigned to work in city will perform the functions of building, research science and culture, and manage commerce. Lets say I decide to allocate five units of population to the city. Once that allocation is made, I need to allocate those five units of city population to city activities such as science and culture research, building of wonders, units and improvements, and commerce. Perhaps a slider should be used.
Assigning five units of pop to city leaves me with ten units of pop to work on non-city. By non-city, I mean those landtiles within the empire boarder, but outside the cities. I will have to allocate those ten units of pop to work on different landtiles accordingly to what I see fit.
Now lets say that these ten units of pop generate a total of 10 unit of food, 8 units of wood, and 9 units of minerals per turn. We then have to allocate these wood and minerals accordingly to the cities. A city with a very small builder population shouldn't be allocated with too much wood and minerals, while a city with a huge builder population should be given more wood and minerals.
As for food, there isn't a need to allocate them to the cities. As long as the ten units of population generate enough food to suppor themselves, the city dwellers and still have surplus crops, then there will be population growth. The rate of population growth depends most importantly on surplus crops. Without it, population will stay the same size or decline. But other factors that contribute to faster population growth depends on how happy the citizens are, the form of government, etc. But they should only contribute to faster population growth conditioned on the existence of surplus crops.
A lot of you might be complaining by now that there's too much allocation, and therefore too much micromanagement. Yes, we need to allocate population three times. The first time, we allocate between those living in cities and those living on landtiles. The second time, we allocate the city dwellers to build, research, and trade. The third time, we allocate landtiles dwellers to different landtiles.
Then we need to allocate resources to different cities.
So I agree that this seems like a lot of allocation. But with proper interface, I am sure this problem can be eliminated. Allocate resources through proportion instead of through individual units might eliminate the problem since we just need to tell the computer to keep certain proportion at all time. I can not honestly say I have an idea about how to go about doing it yet. Therefore I leave this task up to the designers. I also hope that discussions regarding this issue within the forum may perhaps eventually generate a proper solution.
Lastly, I want to say something about corruption. I've mentioned in another thread that corruption should be reduced as technology improves that "shrinks" the distance between the capital and the regional cities. Other things that should also have positive effect on fighting corruption is building of roads and railways, which should contribute again to less corruption. Having airport and seaports should also help fight off corruption. Roads, railways, airports and seaports fight off corruption by creating tigher transport and communication link between capital city and the rest fo the empire so that it is easier for the central authority to check on their regional officials.
I just thought of something about allocation. The game should be designed so that it is possible to change allocation any time we want. For example, it is possible to shift two units of population from one city to another, or two shift a unit of population from landtiles to city. However, for the sake of realism, I think any change in allocation should not neccessarily take just one turn to go into effect. The number of turns that pass until the new allocation becomes effective depends on the magnitude of the change. For example, if I have simply shifted one unit of population from the city to an adjacent landtile, the change should immediately go into effect. If I am however shifting ten units of population from one city to some landtiles in another continent, then the change will prolly not take place until about three turns later. Having roads, railways, and other transportation facilities as well as better technologies should reduce the number of turns needed before the new allocation becomes effective.
