posted June 30, 1999 17:16            

THE SYSTEM
Wheathin: Public works system is less hassle than engineers. But “terraforming” is an anachronism in the present. Glaciers-to-grassland should require heavy future tech, maybe weather control. Terraforming must be appropriately scaled. Forest-to-plains and forest-to-grassland should come early, but swamp-to-mountain should come much later.
For TI’s, having an older TI in a square should reduce the cost/build time of upgrade, but should not be a prerequisite. I.e., building a railroad from scratch would take longer and cost more, but would not require a road in the square.
Kris Huysmans: Public works isn’t as fun as using engineers.
Wheathin: At the beginning of the game, yes. But with 30 engineers, the fun is gone.
Theben: All construction costs should vary by government type. Transform terrain should bring up a menu listing possible terrains and transform times/costs.

THE MAP
Kris Huysmans: No 3-D terrain; without 3-D units it’s useless, and 3-D units rule out customization.
Climate modeling issues: more attention to water modeling, climate changes over time, long-term effects of irrigation, effects of deforestation in late game
NotLikeTea: Would like to see gradual climactic change, deserts expanding/receding, swamps forming/drying up.
JT: Altitude should be an aspect of terrain, as in SMAC.
Rathenn: Better resource seed, something more random than Civ II without regular patterns.
EnochF: There’s potential for continental plates, but it would be hell to program.
NotLikeTea: But some geological realism would be nice. Volcanos and faults could be logically placed, and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge might make a nice geographical landmark.
DickK: Dynamic maps, global climactic change, rivers changing course, new resources uncovered, old resources peter out, areas get wetter or dryer, and all this reacts to the human interaction with the environment. Or the whole climate of the planet may change, temperatures rise or fall, humidity increase or decrease. All over the course of the game and very, very slow.
DickK: Also, random maps seem too random. Deserts don’t occur in 1-2 square patches. Mountains should divide forests from plains. Terrain should be 3-D in the SMAC sense.
Theben: I want a round planet. Keep the square/diamond tiles. Less importantly, the computer could generate a tectonic plate map, with volcanic activity, etc. The player won’t see the tectonic map until the proper tech is developed. Windward mountain or hill slopes are forested and receive +1 food and +1 shield.
Harel: Bigger maps, 1000 x 1000.

THE GRAPHICS
Eggman: Avoid terrain types that look alike. Make sure jungles don’t look like forests. In SMAC, “rolling,” “rocky” and “rainy” all tended to blend together.

NEW IMPROVEMENTS
Theben: Important: Build Canals. Upgrade Fortress (from Fort to Keep to Fortress to Castle/Base). Aqueduct as tile improvement: mountains with aqueducts generate +1 food. Naval Base, extends range of ships. Mountain Pass lowers movement cost, allows mounted units to cross a range.
Kris Huysmans: Animal Farm, +1 food, +1 trade when you have discovered… sigh… Fast Food and have a Free Market (as in SMAC social engineering).
Harel: Agriculture improvements. Irrigation (+1 food, +2 for deserts), Fields (+1 food, +2 for plains), Farms (+1 food), Fertilized Crops (+1 food), Industrial Farm (+1 food). Transport improvements: Path (1/2 movement), Road (1/3 movement), Railroad (1/4 movement), Monorail (1/5 movement), no unlimited movement. Add deep-core mines to upgrade mines. Wall TI’s, which can surround a city or a civilization.
Mzilikazi: National parks. Any tiles within your borders can be designated a national park (with an advance, say, Conservation). No roads may be built there or other improvements. There are benefits to the nearest city in gold and happiness. Moving units through national parks would cause unhappiness.
Theben: Those national park rules seem harsh (and unrealistic). Plus, you’d have to have roads there anyway.

NEW TERRAINS
Harel: Lush land, a rich form of plains, found around volcanos or like in the Nile delta. Areas of nutrient-rich soil.

TILE ISSUES
NotLikeTea: Devolution of tiles: Tile improvements might degrade and disappear if not used. Archaeology as a science could uncover “ancient farms.”
Wheathin: TI’s should not be available on all terrains at the same time or cost. Roads on grassland is easy, but roads in forests, mountains and glaciers are different. Mines on hills before mines on mountains.
Wheathin: Maybe maintenance costs for TI’s, higher costs the further away they are from a city.
Theben: Sources (iron, coal, uranium, oil): maybe a source must exist within your borders before you can utilize it; if you don’t have it, you’ll have to trade. Lack of resources might inhibit research.
Theben: Grasslands, plains and hills can always be irrigated unless adjacent to the leeward side of a mountain range. Desert, tundra and glacier cannot be irrigated unless there’s a river in the square or contains a suitable resource (oasis, hot spring) or a certain level of technology has been reached. Jungles and swamps should have at least 1 production for available wood.
Harel: Mines should only get a bonus if there’s a road connecting it to the city. Nearby tiles should affect one another. E.g., mines harm nearby farms, but increase productivity of nearby mines. Roads cannot be built on mountains until explosives or rivers until bridge building.
Eggman: Less tile improvements are better than more. Keep things simple. Five different farming upgrades may be more realistic, but it adds little to the game, and it would get confusing. (The graphics would have to be pretty distinctive.)
Theben: Irrigation: grassland and plains should always be irrigable, but never desert. If a river is over-irrigated, it might dry up. Transforming desert to plains or grassland should require maintenance over time.

GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES
Widowmaker: The player (or computer) should name geographical locations.
Octopus: Take each civ’s starting positions into account, so that the Nile will be near Egypt or the Andes Mountains near the Incas.
Kmj: Whoever is the first to discover a region gets to name it.
Eggman: Natural Wonders like in SMAC. Sahara Desert, Grand Canyon, the Nile, the Amazon, Everest or the Himalaya, the Marianas Trench, etc., could provide small bonuses.
DickK: Major named features with unique benefits or penalties.

MILITARY:
Wheathin: Terrain should limit military movement. Some units get terrain bonuses for certain terrains, others will find certain terrains impassable. Mounted units, siege weapons can’t move on mountains.
Russellw: Armies should be vulnerable while crossing rivers.
Theben: Forts on coasts can incorporate sea defenses or anti-aircraft capability. Important: extreme climate can damage units. Some units (chariots, tank) may not enter swamp or mountain without roads or mountain passes. Other units take damage as they move through swamp or desert or glacier. Some special units would have certain climate immunities (alpine in mountains & tundra, marines in jungle & swamp). Special units would be immune to movement penalties, but would not have road-bonus movement. Some units (explorer, partisan) are immune to all climates.
Alexander’s Horse: City squares should not receive defense bonuses for terrain. Cities are built on plains, near rivers or the sea. Fortresses are built in the mountains, but not cities.
Eggman: Cities do receive defense bonuses. Quebec, built on high ground, was nearly impossible to take.
Wheathin: Nukes should not only pollute the city radius, but also destroy all tile improvements on the surrounding 8 squares.
Harel: Artillery, etc., can “bombard” tile improvements.
Diodorus Sicilus: Certain improvements should be attackable with barrage or bombard from the sea or air. Railroads, canals and roads can be bombed; offshore platforms destroyed from the air (or by natural disaster). However, bombing farmland from the air would be ineffective; it requires a ground unit to pillage.

RIVERS
Russellw: Increase trade depending on number of cities upstream. Increase aqueduct, hydro power, sewer system effects for cities on rivers. Armies should be vulnerable while crossing rivers. Borders should tend to conform to rivers.
EnochF: More rivers. Maybe begin random map generator with river systems.
Diodorus Sicilus: Include a “head of navigation” point on a river. Between that point and the sea, cities receive a trade bonus, but above that point only defense. Canal building could push the head of navigation upward later in the game.

ROADS
Wheathin: Roads are ugly. Don’t link them to trade bonuses, or players will build them in the entire city radius.
EnochF: Roads/railroads provide no trade bonus, but superhighways can still be built, providing +1 trade per road square. Encourages road building near developed cities.
Eggman: No unlimited movement on railroads. Too easily misused militarily.
Wheathin: Superhighways encourages ugly road building.
EnochF: Roads in the city radius simulate urban sprawl. What about unlimited movement on maglevs for the late game?
Diodorus Sicilus: Roads and railroads should effectively extend the city radius. Maybe after the development of concrete, things like suburbs or hinterland could be built to extend city radii without the ugliness of roads.
NotLikeTea: Railroads should only provide unlimited movement within your own borders. Not in enemy territory.
Ecce Homo: Citizens can work any square within 2 movement points of a city. Production will be penalized for any square requiring more than 1/3 movement points to reach the city. Double this after automobile.
Eggman: There are loopholes in railroad movement being unlimited within your borders. Perhaps combat movement would be limited, i.e. after six steps, a howitzer can no longer attack. And air units should be able to take advantage of the infinite movement as well.
Wheathin: Suburbs don’t reach 200 miles away from a city. Excessive roads ruin the aesthetic experience of the game.
Theben: All civs may use enemy roads, but may not use enemy railroads or better. Noncombat units may use railroads of civs with peaceful relations. All units may use railroads of allies. Rails may be “claimed” by a military unit if at war. Perhaps color-coding would be a good solution.
Eggman: When a city is captured, along with “partisans” there’s a chance that the surrounding railroads are sabotaged. Partisans may also destroy both railroads and roads crossing a river (blow up the bridge).
NotLikeTea: Interesting… maybe give partisans a free pillage on the first turn of automatic creation.
Kris Huysmans: Then you just kill the partisans and bring along 10 engineers. No, you can’t use enemy railroads.
Wheathin: How about player-specific railroads? Color code them to the building civ, like Theben said. There can be only one player’s rails in a square. Building your own rail would destroy the enemy’s rail and change colors.
Harel: Have “support costs” for tiles, with roads being the most expensive, to prevent over-building of roads. Roads cannot be built on mountains until explosives or rivers until bridge building.
Kris Huysmans: Railroads can never be built faster than 2 turns, no matter how many engineers are working. Prevents railroad/howitzer blitzing.
Ecce Homo: Color-coded railroads, but the color changes depending on which unit occupies it. The railroad should be “converted” at the beginning of the next turn.
DaBods: There should be several different kinds of roads. Roads should give a trade bonus. No unlimited movement for railroads.
Theben: Color-coded rails. On the turn that you remove control from the enemy, the railroad (maglev) has no color: no one owns it. At the beginning of the next turn, if your unit is still there (hasn’t been destroyed), you gain possession of the railroad.

THE SEA
Wheathin: “Ocean roads” for sea transport. Shipping lanes, or ferry routes, which increase sea movement for transports. Perhaps late game TI’s would provide instant ocean transport like railroads.
Bridges and tunnels could provide transport across shallow water (one ocean tile).
Eggman: Perhaps increase movement rate of all ships, but increase movement cost when sailing into unexplored territory. Negates the need for shipping lanes.
Diodorus Sicilus: Sea transport was way too slow in Civ II, should be faster. Perhaps sea lanes or trade routes could simulate this, 2 or 3x movement rate.
Bubba: Get rid of nets from Call to Power. They’re ugly.

CITIES
Harel: Instead of a single city square, have “city tiles.” The technology level determines the population a single tile can hold. Huts: 2 pop/tile, Masonry: 4 pop/tile, Concrete: 5 pop/tile, Urban: 8 pop/tile, Skyscraper: 10 pop/tile, Arcology: 15 pop/tile. Eventually, city tiles will become adjacent to one another, and the two adjoining cities will merge to become a megalopolis.
Don Don: A city square is huge. Suburban sprawl in a 50-mile radius is covered in that one city square.
Harel: But if the map were 1000 x 1000, then a city square would be on 20 miles or so. Thus, large cities would be better represented by multiple city tiles.
Diodorus Sicilus: All use of resources comes down to roads. Railroads increase food production because they allow farms to move more of their production to the cities. Therefore, I think the city radius should vary according to terrain and transportation. Cities on rivers should have larger radii in the early game because rivers were the only form of long-distance transportation of food. With railroads, the city radius ultimately amounts to wherever railroads connect to. Urban sprawl can only come with superhighways, ocean ports, railroads, etc. Only with modern transportation do we get modern metropoles such as New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Mexico City and Moscow.
Don Don: We may have to move away from the idea that a “city” in civ is in fact a city, but rather consider it a province with a capital city in the middle. The surrounding tiles represent small cities whose names are relatively unimportant.

FOOD
Wheathin: Something should be done to free cities from the limitations of their own farmland. Huge cities should no longer operate on the food-from-city-radius principle.
Don Don: When railroads became a viable economic factor, food allocation ceased to be local.
Alexander’s Horse: Irrigation should be severely limited, to rivers. Only a tiny percentage of land is irrigated in the world today. Then provide several “upgrades” for farmland tiles.

TILE-BASED CITY IMPROVEMENTS
Wheathin: Like harbors and supermarkets. Civ III should have many of these. Or perhaps certain city improvements allow certain tile improvements, i.e. no fisheries without a harbor.
Kris Huysmans: Hates supermarkets and superhighways in Civ II. TI’s should provide bonuses without needing a city improvement.
Theben: Environmentalism tech adds +1 trade to wilderness squares (mountain, jungle, swamps, tundra, forests) with roads in them.

POLLUTION
Theben: Important: Pollution within the city radius should cause unhappiness. Nuclear pollution = twice the unhappiness. Nuclear pollution takes longer to clean. Only engineers may clean (not settlers). Fallout may cause pollution downwind of the target. Nuclear pollution may lower population for X number of turns. Nukes should also damage terrain.

WEATHER
NotLikeTea: Add in random effects, like earthquakes, tidal waves, floods, volcanos, continental drift…
Bird: Natural conditions like those could be random events. Tornados, hurricanes, monsoons, etc., could cause food losses, population decreases, destruction of TI’s, etc. Volcanos could crop up on plate edges, but oil/gas resources would also increase there.
DickK: Random climactic/geographical events with minor effects. Famine (loss of food, though irrigation/farmland lessens the effect), Flood (for cities next to rivers, lessened by sewer system, city walls), Epidemic (lessened by hospitals, Cure for Cancer), Mine Failure (decreases production in tile), Bumper Crop (increased food), Gold Strike (iron, silver, uranium, etc.), Oil Strike.

COMPREHENSIVE LISTS
Diodorus Sicilus: Complete list of improvements. Land: Roads, permanent roads, railroads, maglev line; roads extend city radius 1 tile, railroads and maglevs extend radius to regional distances. Farms, factory farms (along with several incremental improvements to farms, advance-based, like moldboard plow, improved grain, crop rotation, artificial fertilizer). Irrigation, canals (canals allow irrigation beyond rivers; irrigation turns desert/plains into grassland for farming purposes). Mines, deep mines, open-pit mines (deep mines require steam, open-pit mines are 20th Century). Fortifications, fortresses (fortresses are 19th Century concrete and steel). Airfield.
Sea: Fishing boats, fishing trawlers, factory ships (“mobile improvements,” can be moved to where the fish are, but are useless without fish). Fish farm, aquaculture station (stationary). Offshore platform (useable on resources at sea). Mine belt, mine array, SONAR array, MAD array (mines to damage/destroy ships, SONARs to detect them).
Also wants lots of eye candy in the form of visible improvements. Canals with boats, detailed roads, visible harbors, things like that. Pillaged improvements could be just as visually striking.
Theben: Seems like a lot of those TI’s could be advanced techs, granting small percentage gains to overall food/shield/trade production. Fishing boats sound like they should be units (like SMAC’s supply crawlers), not TI’s. Irrigation: grassland and plains should always be irrigable, but never desert. If a river is over-irrigated, it might dry up. Transforming desert to plains or grassland should require maintenance over time.

posted July 01, 1999 00:50            

I like the ocean tile improvements in CTP. Nets and fisheries. If these are included in Civ3, then we'd have to rehash the settler/engineer built improvements. If the ability to have settlers build farms/raods/mines as in CivII is included, then we could have a "raft" unit so they could also place nets in sea tiles. The raft would have a very low shield cost and could hold one settler/engineer, no military units could board a raft. Then they could build nets and fisheries on sea tiles located near the coast.

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"BEEFCAKE, BEEFCAKE!!!

posted July 01, 1999 15:50            

Fort/keep/castle:
May also be a city improvement. TI such as this (also naval/air bases, coastal/AA def) cost $ to maintain. Feudal govts. may generate $ from fort/keep/castle, if area around is populated. Fort, etc. also extends borders, supply (forgot to mention before). In both cases must connect to supply 1st.

Naval base:
Also repairs naval units quicker; may combine with other bases (fort/airbase) as well as with coastal def/AA def.

Bombing TI's: Give low % chance of success until laser-targeting.

posted July 06, 1999 20:14            

Now to stick closer to terrain:

DISASTERS:A natural disaster feature (optional) would be nice.

SEASONS: Have some tiles be programmable with seasons. Just like the tile editor have a flag that would activate any changes depending on time of the year. simulating the russian feature would be nice. Weather would be cool too.

ANIMALS: some animals like horses and elephants came from certain parts of the world, have them be a resource to add cultural character to civs and make it so native americans don't have horsemem (until the europeans show up). Same story with the elephant, they weren't in europe so the english don't have an elephant during the middle ages.

RESOURCES: I'm all for the resources thing aleady mentioned and make it like AOE too, you need to store and you can use it all up too.

IRRIGATION and MINING: with my city improvemnts idea they would fit in that category instead of being some thing on the outskirts of a city.

AGRICULTURE: Rice vs. wheat vs olives. Asian populations were much larger and more community oriented because of the rice harvest, produced greater yields of food and required more community effort (and a higher liklihood of being authoritarian). Wheat in north europe was different and led to a differnt type of farming. In the mediterrean food harvesting was different too (thats why the rommans never pushed to far into north-east europe or russia besides the pesky barbarians) agriculture in certain areas should yield harvesting technology in that area, and you need to borrow or learn from other civs if you want to break out (i.e. thanksgiving ring a bell? or you can try to occupy and develop from scratch).

EXTRA SPACES: If anything if Firaxis doesn't want to incorporate a lot of the other terrain ideas give us extra spaces so we can, customizing is what made Civ2 great!

I like a lot of the other ideas like naming places, terrain of differnt altitudes. This thread has a lot of orginial and hard work!

posted July 07, 1999 01:36            

topic: settlers (or the like)

there should be settlers like in civ that improve the terrain

the biggest reason for this instead of public works is that public works does not make sense in military situations

One thing I hated in call to power is that I could not send a settler to build forts, railroads, roads, and airports when fighting in enemy territory

I always in civ send settlers or engineers for an attacking army

of course you should be able to build stuff in enemies land whenever you want (that is the reason they have that limitation there) but you should also sometimes be able to and that distinction can only be had with a unit

also if one civilization is invading another the defending civilization should not be able to improve at their own leasure, no, the invader should be able to destroy the improvers

this of course leaves the tiring mircomanagement of improving during peace with settlers

this can be solved, as I see it, in either of the following ways (maybe both):

have a competent auto ai with a lot of choices to choose from like farm and road only or road only between cities or improve only in a certain city radius or improve only within the bounds I set (which would then be set by clicking certain points that have a line connecting then and ending when you click the original point), of course this would be devided into different sections such as what improvements do I make and a lot of choices (multiple ones can be picked such as: mine mountains, mine hills, irrigate plains, road plains) and then a seperate section of where do I make them and a lot of choices (such as the bounds choice or the city radius choice or the road between cities choice) and finally there would be a third section with special choices like as soon as a foreign unit moves within seeing radius alert and then when such a thing occured you would get a message at the beginning of your turn asking if you want the unit to cancel action or continue on auto

long paragraph

an alternate idea (or maybe both should be included) would be to give each settler a building queue that would show you the order of their jobs, where their jobs are to be done (the location numbers and maybe if you click on that entree it shows a picture of that square and moves your cursor there), and what they (the settler) are going to do there

as I mentioned previously in the units thread, the time it takes to do an improvement project should be a factor of the size of that unit but this idea would only work if my size idea was accepted

settlers should be able to be protected by small armed attachments that are hooked with the unit, modern settler type units would have guns with them providing some defense, their unit in actual combat would have a large subtraction because of its type (if my size idea is used)

canals and terrain changing as well as bridges and tunnels should be possible, maybe not as drastic of height changing as smac though

thanks for reading,

posted July 07, 1999 10:48            

I agree that the idea of glaciers becoming grasslands is unrealistic. But I've always conceived this not as the LAND changing, just what it PRODUCES. The grasslands don't really become hills which you can mine. Instead, your engineers work intensively on the grassland so that it produces less food, but much more material for building stuff.

"DISASTERS:A natural disaster feature (optional) would be nice."

This doesn't really fit with the scale of the game, unless you're running a scenario. But as an option, I guess it would be OK, as long as Firaxis doesn't spend too much time programming it.

"SEASONS: Have some tiles be programmable with seasons. Just like the tile editor
have a flag that would activate any changes depending on time of the year."

Again, doesn't fit with the scale unless you're running scenarios.

posted July 07, 1999 00:09            

Auto settler: Have a preference list for EACH type of terrain, including specials. The list will include irrigation, mining, road building, etc. In addition, you can add a priority to which tiles the settler will go to 1st to terraform. An auto settler will look at your list and do to the tiles exactly what you specify. It'd be a pain to set up at 1st, but afterwards I think it would greatly ease micromanagement. You should also be able to set the AI's preferences in the ??.txt to make them more challenging, and for scenarios.

Roads tra cities:
'r' still creates a road, 'R' would allow you to plot a path from point A to point B, between which the settler will faithfully build the road/rr/maglev you specify.

Jon M, an alert that woke up EVERY unit in a certain radius of the enemy would be useful (no penalty to settlers if they continue terraforming). Good call.

Building TI's should cost $ or production if "public works" isn't used.

The building of TI's on a tile should extend your border to include that tile if:
-It is adjacent to your border
-It is not within another civ's border (unless border is contested)
-It can connect to your supply grid
Having shifting borders is okay, but one shouldn't be able to move a border next to another city by dropping your own city next to it. During war borders are meaningless so they would all be contested (tip o' the tentacle to the Squid Kid ).

posted July 07, 1999 16:01            

"Think about how much area one tile covers."

posted July 17, 1999 23:19            

Each engineer (terraforming unit, whatever) should have its own menu, in which you can choose which tiles are to be terraformed, with checkboxes for farms, roads, fotress etc.

All you would need to do is click on each tile, or multiple select with control, or drag a square over tiles to be terraformed.

These would then turn a different shade (only when the engineer menu is up). You would then check the relevant checkboxes. (The closest thing I can think of is sort of like SimCity Zoning Controls). Then just click on the GO button, and it would go and terraform, farm, irrigate, etc.

Perhaps also an option to copy one engineers map, to another engineers.

There could also be some stats in the menu saying how many turns total it will take to complete all terraforming.

Also, if you choose to automate the engineer, it will show you the same type of menu with shaded tiles. Maybe with a MAX TILE option.

If anyone doesnt understand, i'll try explain again.

posted July 18, 1999 02:20            

Road Improvements:
-Path: 1/2 movement, can be built any place once "roads" tech is discovered, allows horse/chariot/tank/etc. to move in mtns., swamps, etc. Trade bonus if between two friendly cities.
-Road: 1/3 movement, can be built only on plains/mountain passes/hills/grassland/etc. until Explosives tech advance. Requires "roads" tech advance, of course. Trade bonus if between two friendly cities.
-Improved Road: 1/5 movement, replaces all Roads automatically, improved trade between interconnected cities, requires "highway" (or whatever) tech advance, more difficult to bombard to smithereens than a normal road.
-Railroad: 1/10 movement until "bessemer steel" (or whatever) tech advance, at which time it provides 1/15 or 1/20 movement. Improved trade between cities. CAN BE USED BY ANY CIVILIZATION, NO MATTER WHO BUILT IT!!! (has any of you ever seen "The General" with Buster Keaton? Two rival civilizations used the same rail lines in that movie quite effectively). Improved trade between interconnected cities.
-Maglev: Unlimited movement, requires advanced techs, CAN ONLY BE USED BY CONTROLLING CIVILIZATION, improved trade between interconnected cities.
-Tunnel: Built on shallow water, can only be one tile space in length total, allows Improved Road/Railroad/Maglev to be built on the sea space (acts as a Path).
-Vacuum Tunnel: Can be built anywhere (sea spaces, land spaces, don't matter). Acts as a maglev. (for transporting units across the ocean quickly--much more expensive than Maglev, so only a moron would build this on land instead of building a Maglev).

posted July 18, 1999 06:05            

To prevent the devastating of enemy civs in Civ2 by getting a few howitzers on their railway network, a simple solution would be (since Civ3 will in all likelihood include borders) to forbid rail movement by units outside their home territory. This is not strictly historical, but IMO it solves more problems than causes.

Another possibility is to rule that whenever a combat is fought in a tile, there's a chance of railroads being damaged/destroyed.

Finally, the (ab)use of other civs' railroads could be solved by adding a small feature: railway gauges. When your civ starts building its first railways, a pop-up window appears, asking if you want to build standard-gauge railways or have a unique gauge. Standard gauge would allow the use of other civs' railroads (perhaps with the above restrictions), while a unique gauge would force you to convert rails (half construction time) to your gauge. There should also be a slight penalty to trade with civilisations having different gauges.

Zakalwe

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"Ambitions that fall sort of their aim have all along helped produce excellent histories" - Ernst Breisach, Historiography

posted July 18, 1999 14:27            

What is terraforming? Making something more like the Earth (terra). We can terraform Mars, we can terraform Planet, but we're already on earth, so we can't terraform our own planet.

posted July 18, 1999 15:42            

In the beginning Jungles would produce 1-1-0, with a road 1-1-1. Through discovery of certain technologies ( a bit like Fungus in SMAC ), it would increase to 1-3-3 to reflect the increasing value of exotic wood.

If you wunder why I post such small messages; it's because I don't want to type 10 minutes and then get a message you didn't type the right message.

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M@ni@c-SMAniaC
depends on what site I am.

posted July 18, 1999 16:17            

Forest/Jungle/Offshore Platform( see my previous posts)
Irrigation /Mine/Farm/Fortress/Airbase/Road/Railroad(same as in Civ2, sorry if I forgot one)
Radar(= SMAC sensor)
Canal(can only be 1 square long, can be used to combine two seas and to connect a city, that is 1 square off the sea, to the sea)
Condenser(transforms the square to something more fertile)
Solar Collector/Wind Mill(instead of Superhighways I would use this)
0-2000m = +1 trade
2-4000m = +2 trade
4-6000m = +3 trade
6-8000m = +4 trade

Want to help me complete the list?

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M@ni@c-SMAniaC
depends on what site I am.

posted July 18, 1999 16:32            

Railroads should increase Minerals with 50%
Perhaps Maglevs with another 50%
Together increasing Minerals in a square with 100%

New TI = Genetic Farm(with genetically engineered food). Together with Farm, it increases Food production 100%

Rivers should have a 1-0-1 bonus. That extra food reflects the fertile ground braught on by the current.
It also makes the Egyptian and Babylonian civs more realistic.

A volcano gives a 1-1-1 bonus. It can appear on any terrain, so also in the Ocean.

Grassland should also have special resources.

posted July 18, 1999 23:27            

I do not feel that having rockyness\moistness variables can sufficiently model earths various terrains.

posted July 18, 1999 23:41            

Technophile,

posted July 19, 1999 01:50            

The following post wanders a little bit, but the reason is that I'm trying to convince you folks to not have railroads be 'owned' by a civilization.

"The General" was an old silent film made by Buster Keaton and is based on an actual occurrence during the Civil War. "The General" is the name of a train (owned by Buster Keaton) which is stolen by Union soldiers and brought back to the Union base somewhere around Tennessee (along with Keaton's girlfriend). Keaton takes another confederate train, "The Texas", and chases the Union soldiers back to their base, steals "The General" back again, and saves the day. It's a wonderful movie and I suggest that you rent it sometime (although it is difficult to find).

The point? Things like this really happenned. (the movie is based on a true story and even has the actual train "The General" which was used in the skirmish). Two opposing civilizations CAN use the same rail lines, logically; all you really need is something on rails and you can travel as far as your heart desires, assuming that nobody blows you or the rails up first. Maglevs, however, require a power source to work and would therefore NOT be instantly accessible but would instead have to be occupied by the civ for one turn before the civ could use them.

But then comes the problem of rush tactics, which I am no fan of.
-First solution: roadblocks and ambushes, and stationing units on the railroad tracks.
-Second solution: you can only get on and off a railroad track from a city or at a Rail Center TI, otherwise you use up an entire turn (perhaps two) getting off the railroad (perhaps getting on? this must be decided--I think that units should be able to get off anywhere for a turn sacrifice, else they would get stranded, but what about getting back on?)
-Third solution: Alter the method in which railroads/meglevs are built (this need not apply to roads/paths). Railroad/maglev tracks would require a direction in which they would be built, and junctions not located at cities would be costly (in both time and money). This would eliminate the current "build a railroad everywhere for the land bonus" problem with railroads, because you just cannot defend yourself with a network like this (but you have to build one in order to get the most output from your land). Instead, railroads/maglevs would be built more sparingly and, preferably, only as connections between cities. This single-line rail system would make railroads much easier to defend and would justify allowing enemy civs access to your railroad(s). The current rail bonus should, IMHO, be replaced with a city improvement which would confer the same benefits or else the benefits should be automatically conferred with the discovery of the Bessemer Process (or something). It would also be much more difficult to perform a rail-blitz (with an army of engineers) with the increased price of railroad laying.
-Fourth solution: it will always take more than one turn to complete a section of track, no matter how many engineers you put on the job. The new rail tile square will confer a Path bonus (due to the clearing of trees and whatnot) but will not confer the Rail (or Maglev) bonus.

posted July 19, 1999 02:11            

This should handle your "tanks on rails" problem, since the tanks have to spend time getting off of the rails before they can attack (and, if not unloaded at the proper location, then the tank/howitzer/whatever could not attack that turn).

posted July 19, 1999 10:38            

Did I ever mention I wanted rockyness or moistness variables on earth? Again I think good for a fiction world/game but not for a historice game on earth.

Your idea for a dike is OK. However there should be limits to prevent you to make the Atlantic Ocean land.

TI's until now: Civ2 TI's/Forest/Jungle/Offshore Platform/Radar/Canal/Condenser/Genetic Farm/Highway/Maglev/(Solar Collector?)/Dike...