Workable tiles around cities

[Chib]

After hearing about the hex tiles I had presumed they'd make it so all tiles within a radius of 2 around the city would eventually be workable (is that the right term?) by the city.

However after hearing about the fact that your city radius/workable tiles increases by at a rate of a single tile that you can actually choose, and then looking at the below screenshot:
http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=2766&original=1&c=36

It seems that you might be able to have workable tiles further out than just a radius of 2.

There are a few possibilities though, in that screenshot the yellow/red border could just be a cultural border and not a city border - althoug I don't think this is very likely just considering the mechanics of how you expand the workable city tiles now. What do the yellow and red lines even mean? are they just a single line or is it the joining of two different boders? (Cultural and workable city tiles.)

Anyhow, if it's one thing I've always wanted in my civ games that's been lacking it's to have cities with a LOT bigger workable tiles.

Thoughts/opinions/hopes?

 

[bite]

its been confirmed that there will be a 3 tile radius out from the cities

 

[Roald Amundsen]

Several sources mention that the city radius will go three hexes out, which will make the citys a lot bigger. There'sx also mention that building citys too close will give u penalties so huge citys are really encouraged.

 

[apelsinlax]

How do you know the cities will be larger? Maybe the tiles yield and the food system is tweaked/reworked and the whole idea with having cities work a larger radius is because maps will be larger. So the potential size of a Civ5 city might be the exact same as a Civ4 city.

Now that I think about, what does a larger city really means when comparing two different games? Size 35 in Civ5 might mean the same relative amount of commerce, food, production as a similar size 25 Civ4 city. Maybe size 35 has the same amount of population as a size 25 civ4 city etc...

 

[CTH]

How do you know the cities will be larger? Maybe the tiles yield and the food system is tweaked/reworked and the whole idea with having cities work a larger radius is because maps will be larger. So the potential size of a Civ5 city might be the exact same as a Civ4 city.

Now that I think about, what does a larger city really means when comparing two different games? Size 35 in Civ5 might mean the same relative amount of commerce, food, production as a similar size 25 Civ4 city. Maybe size 35 has the same amount of population as a size 25 civ4 city etc...

But the amount of tiles a city can work is more so it is, at least in one aspect, larger

 

[Rexflex]

How do you know the cities will be larger? Maybe the tiles yield and the food system is tweaked/reworked and the whole idea with having cities work a larger radius is because maps will be larger. So the potential size of a Civ5 city might be the exact same as a Civ4 city.

There are several references in the previews towards encouraging the building of larger cities in Civ 5 instead of the city spamming that even Civ4 wasn't entirely immune despite the economic penalties.

Not to mention that ultimately the city size limit in the entire Civ series related to the individual tile can be improved in such a way that it can continue city growth further to the next tile eventually being utilised, or otherwise the city irreversibly stagnates very early on. Civ 5 would need to have this capacity just as all the previous Civs had. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that a larger amount of tiles available will allow further growth.

Now that I think about, what does a larger city really means when comparing two different games? Size 35 in Civ5 might mean the same relative amount of commerce, food, production as a similar size 25 Civ4 city. Maybe size 35 has the same amount of population as a size 25 civ4 city etc...

Neither commerce nor production as a measurement of units is relevant to the definition of the city size, which has always been defined by the available number of "representative" citizens. Hammers and gold are just units deciding how long it is going to take to build or pay for something in the game. The game mechanics will be structured in such a way that things get built in a certain amount of time by cities of a given size that makes the game work best. What does that say about the actual size of the city?

 

[migkillertwo]

its been confirmed that there will be a 3 tile radius out from the cities

It should be any tile in your Civ. It's not like all of Pittsburg's iron and coal comes from pennsylvania.

 

[PieceOfMind]

It should be any tile in your Civ. It's not like all of Pittsburg's iron and coal comes from pennsylvania.

Indeed. However, sometimes simplicity is more important than keeping it real.

How would you change the city screen? (assuming there is one, of course!, something not confirmed yet...)

 

[Shurdus]

Welcome to civfanatics, Chib!

 

[Tomice]

The most important hope for me is that the new system might allow a more natural form of your borders. It sounds very promising so far, autospread over the most fertile hexes plus the possibility to manually "buy" hexes might prevent annoying compromises in your city placement like this(I guess you all know this situation):

XXXXX
OXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXO

When "O" are the ressources, where to put the city? They are so close, but it will never work to have both! Two cities is not always a good option. Not to mention ressources on peninsulas...

That said, I doubt it will be the best choice to build cities as far as possible from each other (to have 3 full circles around them). IMO it would be more interesting if they had an optimal size of approx 20 hexes with some malus if you exceed this size. That would help to have interesting, unique and specialized "provinces" in your empire.

I always hated the fatcross, it's just unnatural. Just imagine the Nile valley in egypt or the British Islands on an ingame world map: Wouldn't it be nice if "Kairo" would work the tiles along the river and not grow it's cultural radius into the desert? Or how stupid is it that "London" works a piece of Ireland but not Northern England? Just examples, but I guess you know what I mean...

 

[The_J]

At this point, i also wonder, how it will work, when the borders of 2 civs will get in contact.
Will it be possible to "steal" the plots via culture again?
I guess maybe not, then the culture expansion of border cities will be very important to make them productive. Because if you're too slow in the culture expansion, all the fertile lands in this area will be grabbed by the opponents.

 

[bite]

At this point, i also wonder, how it will work, when the borders of 2 civs will get in contact.
Will it be possible to "steal" the plots via culture again?
I guess maybe not, then the culture expansion of border cities will be very important to make them productive. Because if you're too slow in the culture expansion, all the fertile lands in this area will be grabbed by the opponents.

It will be interesting to see if there is a difference between land claimed through culture and land claimed through gold and how they will play-out when two civs eventually reach each other.

 

[Tomice]

@ The_J: That's probably why they implemented "buying" tiles, to allow speeding up the process. Additionally, they hinted you might be able to trade tiles with the AI, although the info wasn't precise.

If there's change of control through culture, I would hope that provinces shift as a whole (like most of the time in history).

@ bite: I interpreted the infos so far as "buying tiles next to them makes them angry", so I think there will be a difference...

 

[Ahriman]

Will it be possible to "steal" the plots via culture again?

I would be very surprised if you couldn't. Culture would be very weak (past the early game) if you couldn't do this, and captured cities would be near useless.

What I am wondering is how it will work with allocating plots between your own cities; a 3 tile range is huge, so there is a lot of scope for overlap. What I really hope is that "shared" blots can be worked by either city, at the player's discretion. I hate having it forced on you, and having your big city lose plot access because you captured a nearby enemy city.

I'm also wondering how cultural tile capture is going to work across cities; it LOOKED from the screenshots we saw like there might be a single empire-wide culture counter. Which would be great; its lame that culture only matters for border cities and cultural victory. So, how does the game choose which new plot (across all your cities) gets a newly captured tile, and how do enemy controlled tiles function relative to friendly tiles?
Maybe new tile capture happens more near cities that produce more culture, but also more for nearby tiles and "valuable terrain" (non-mountain, swamp etc) tiles.

It will be interesting to see if there is a difference between land claimed through culture and land claimed through gold and how they will play-out when two civs eventually reach each other.

I'm guessing not; I'm guessing that these are simply two different ways of reaching ownership.
Your empire-wide culture level passes another level, you get an extra tile somewhere. You buy a tile for a particular city, you get a tile somewhere near that city.

 

[PieceOfMind]

What I am wondering is how it will work with allocating plots between your own cities; a 3 tile range is huge, so there is a lot of scope for overlap. What I really hope is that "shared" blots can be worked by either city, at the player's discretion. I hate having it forced on you, and having your big city lose plot access because you captured a nearby enemy city.

Disregard this if I'm mistaken but it sounds like you believe this to be a problem in Civ4. In that game, tiles can be shuffled around between cities. It takes clicking on a greyed-out tile in the city screen to bring it back into focus of the current city.

Capturing nearby cities can cause the newer city to "steal" a tile from another of your cities but you can always reassign it again.

 

[Ahriman]

<feels foolish>

I've been playing mods where you could do that for ages, but but for some reason I thought that was an added "feature" that didn't work in vanilla. Doh....

Serves me right for not having played "vanilla" in ~2+ years.

 

[The_J]

@ The_J: That's probably why they implemented "buying" tiles, to allow speeding up the process. Additionally, they hinted you might be able to trade tiles with the AI, although the info wasn't precise.

Oh, yes, good point, forgot that.

I would be very surprised if you couldn't. Culture would be very weak (past the early game) if you couldn't do this, and captured cities would be near useless.

It has been mentioned, that captured cities will not loose their city radius .

What I am wondering is how it will work with allocating plots between your own cities; a 3 tile range is huge, so there is a lot of scope for overlap. What I really hope is that "shared" blots can be worked by either city, at the player's discretion. I hate having it forced on you, and having your big city lose plot access because you captured a nearby enemy city.

That both cities would be able to work the plot would be unrealistic.
Also it would encourage settling masses of cities at small fertile spots.

And i don't understand the second part: In civ4 you simply can change what city is working what tile.

Maybe new tile capture happens more near cities that produce more culture, but also more for nearby tiles and "valuable terrain" (non-mountain, swamp etc) tiles.

That sounds somehow a bit random, i would not bet on it.

 

[Ahriman]

It has been mentioned, that captured cities will not loose their city radius

I hadn't seen that. However, that makes things confusing; do tiles belong to the city, or the empire? In Civ4 they belong to the empire, but based on a constant level of cultural control emitted by the cities.

But if we move to an empire-wide culture counter, then how does that work? If you capture the city, you get all the tiles it could work within a 3 tile radius, unless they are in the 3 tile radius of another enemy city (in which case the enemy retains control)?

Of course, its entirely possible that we may still have entirely city-based culture, but the screenshot we have makes it difficult to see that; why would there be a "0/40" on the empire screen if cultural thresholds were still all managed at the city level?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=356433

My interpretation of the UI is that getting 40 culture will buy you your first extra tile, and then maybe another 50 will buy you your second, etc.

This could also be an interesting mechanic for reducing the scope of large empires, if successive tiles cost you increasing amounts of culture to "buy".

That both cities would be able to work the plot would be unrealistic.

I meant either, not both. But see post #16.

That sounds somehow a bit random, i would not bet on it.

How else would new cultural expansion be allocated across your cities, IF we had an empire-wide culture counter?

 

[Tomice]

In Civ 4 we had unit-based experience AND empire-wide experience for great generals. Maybe we have regional and empire-wide culture in Civ5?

But this topic starts getting very speculative, I just hope we get better info soon, the lack of new info starts annoying me big time...

 

[Ahriman]

In Civ 4 we had unit-based experience AND empire-wide experience for great generals.

Yeah, but those were somewhat different.

Maybe we have regional and empire-wide culture in Civ5?

Maybe. Its hard to imagine how it might work.

I just hope we get better info soon, the lack of new info starts annoying me big time...

Yeah, it would be great to get some more info on the economy side.

I also really want to know what that green face (looks like an unhealth icon?) on the empire screen is. Health gets handled at an empire-wide level??