posted July 31, 1999 00:19            

Hosted by Harel

Hello again! Time for a new version. This time I tried to group things better, into more catagories. I think you would find it much easier to understand and read the points suggested. I also tried to combine ideas, and think of a way it can be implamnted in the game. AND tried to dig up VERY old ideas, and looked up to a year back in the old forums. ( I am still sure I forgot some ideas ).
As ever, feel free to post anything, and if i forgot something, let me know!
( and guys, you have no idea how much time this took )

A. Resoucrce managments.
B. Economy in general
C. Trade in general
D. Caravan issues
E. Trade and diplomacy
F. List of posters

A. Resource managment

1. Option A: keep the shield system as normal.

2. Option B: make two "general" values: labor and minerals. Labor is equal 1 per every citizen, minerals are produced by mines. Factories and such increase labor, not minerals.

3. Option C: insteed of one "overall" value, minerals, use 3 basic resources: fuel, metal and exotic. Special tiles can give a bonus to a certain mineral production.

4. Option D: have commodities, ala colonization. End amount of around 20, and evolve them as time progress ( bows replaces by muskets, etc. ). Request and demand makes the value of each commodity flux all the time: much like in stock exchange.

5. Option E: use Imperliasm II system, with the roads, mines on the tiles, etc.
( In otpion B,C,D the cocnept of "labor" being different then resource exist ).

6. You can build a "carrier" unit which function like master of orion freighter ships. They automaticly move X items to a required city. For example, if you build 3 "carrier" you can pass up to 3 minerals from city A that produce many minerals, to city B that have a great labor party. When you "activted" a carrier unit ( by giving her work ), it cost you 1 gold unit. The exchange is done automaticly: any surplus minerals are automaticly passed to were they are needed the most. ( maybe you can also pass food this way? ).

7. Have two specialist: one to increase labor ( 2 insteed of 1 ), and a miner who gives +25% to mining.

8. Having a large variaty of trade goods increase the happiness and economy of your people.

9. Since the automatic delivery carrier units from A.6 are not very realistic, you should be able to group regions, a number of cities into a shared pool of resources. The higher you are on the tech tree, the bigger the region can be ( in term of range and number of cities in the region ).

10. A development to A.9 is a new building called "regional headquarters". When you build it, you select a several cities which must be connected to the home town via roads, river, etc. Now, all those cities act like one city: bonus from wonders or city strcutres are given to all cities ( only from the home town. A minor town can't effect the other ones. So, if the minor town has a temple, NO city [ not even herself ] shell get the bonus. If the temple was at the home town, all the cities would have gotten the bonus ). Popultion, food, labor, all are pooled like it's one big city. ( seems very, very un-balanced. Maybe make the support cost for that building HUGE? )

11. Specail resource should be handled like Birth of the federation dilitium mines. In Birth, several rare solar system had dilitium mines. You can only produce a military unit per mine, even if it doesn't have to be in the same city. Meaning? If you have two mines, you can produce up to two ships, at the same time, max. In civ III, you could have some rare tiles with special resource, like coal, oil or uranium. The name is not important. Point is, you need that support to create a military unit. ( or, maybe, only a fixed number of more powerful units ).

12. You should be able to place several workers on each tile, but every new one would produce less then the original one ( anyone has any idea how can be graphicly displayed?

13. Support for units, ofcoruse, would only got materials, not labor.

14. Another idea is to scrap commodites: the items can be represnted by labor. How? If you are in industrial era and got a coal tile, insteed of trading with coal you simply get a bonus to production. A dye tile, or gold, for give a bonus to trade.

15. An improvement to A.14: if you got a special trade tile that no other country has, you gain a very big trade bonus.

B. Economy in general

1. You can buy your units from a black market for a cheapr price, but it would cost you in repution ( maybe in -1 police or -1 corruption? ).

2. You can hire mercenries ( extra morale, extra support units? )

3. AI players as companies, and human players can play a company. In older times it could represent arsitocarts and noble-man. Maybe even allow pirates as players? You have a limited form with companies: can only create contracts with them. ( only in a free market? )

4. To show the burden of war, you need to pay an X amount of money every turn. When you end the war, that cost is decreesed along time ( maybe this can be represented by increased supply cost? Or readiness level like in CtP? ).

5. You should have BUDGETS, like in real life. The bonus gotten from libaries, for example would be decided by how much you put in Eductation. That money is divided between all libaries and universties. The higher the gold per institue, the bigger bonus they give. Hospitels bonus by health, wealthfare gives happiness ( divided by all the populs, like Luxary ), military would be divided between the support cost of all units and dedice what morale bonus/minus you get, etc. ( In democracy/republic, the senate should demand a minimum portion to some section. Suggested sections: Science ( labs and science rate ), Eduction ( libaries, universties ), Health ( hospitels ), Military ( military infra-structre and units ), Internal affairds ( Police, intelligence and reducing un-rest ), Wealthfare ( happiness bonus, like luxary ), Transportion ( Support of road tiles and Mans transpot building ), Construction ( reserve money to buy city building and wonders ), Arts ( support for wonder ), Argiculture ( support for farms ), Religon ( the bonus for temples ) and Trade ( caravans are bought of a pool created here ).

6. Cities should be able to build several times, with slider bar to decide how much labor each section gets.

7. The city tile ( center ) doesn't produce anything, but it does give +1 trade/farm/mine to all near-by hexs.

8. Docks, railroads, farms and such can be simply bought, or use a system like CtP public works. If B.5 idea is used, you can buy the improvement from the budget pool available to that improvment section.

9. Inter-city resoruce level should dictate the amount of minerals a city can produce without lost. In earlier times, it took lots of time to bring the ores from the distant mines to the city. High amount of resources can flood the system. You should have a "max-per-tile" output: a farm can't prodcue more then 2, a mine no more then 3, etc. As technology advance, you can build special structre which can increase the maximum level of output. A tile with a road or river in it can has a max+1 ( notice! If a farm can max produce 4, it doesn't mean she always produce 4. Only that she can't produce more. If the farm had a river, beyond the bonus to farming she could produce a max of 5 ).

10. If commodites are used, they can be deptled.

11. Ofcourse, you should have build queue.

12. The economy should flux, like in real life. Every turn, a number between +1 to -1 would dedcide the level of your income ( maybe a +1 or -1 to the economy Social change? ). This should effect free market countries more then controled market ones. ( double to bonus/minus for free market, half the bonus/minus for planned one? ). The number isn't totaly random, and slowly move up and down. If you are doing well, more chance the number would go up.

13. Buy off limiting: if you have commodities, you may only buy the resources ( twice the amount of resource in gold ), but still have to build it with labor. If still using shields, you may only pay to double the construction cost, no more.

14. Once you gain insdustralization, you shouldn't be able to set any tax setting at any extream ( 100/0 lux, 100/0 science, etc. ).

C. Trade in general

1. You may "raid" trade routes. This is either standing in an area where a trade route pass, or where caravan passes in a close radii. A certain percent would be lost from money and resource profit. The amount would be dictated by the raiding unit quality, quantity and adaptbility ( a pirate can do better then a scout plane ). The raid option would be available to every combat unit: you select a spot and press R. Spys can destroy the trade routes competly, killing the caravan. Raiding is an act of war.

2. Keep trade just like SMAC: fully automatic.

3. You should be able to trade with barbian cities.

4. The higher your technology level above the level of the second side, the more bonus you get to profit. However, it increase the research rate of the second side on every tech you have and he doesn't.

5. If you use a commodity system ( see A.2,A.3,A.4 ), trade basicly gives you minerals, not money. However, you should still get a small amount of money for creating the deal. If you don't have a commodity ( using civ II old shield system ), then trade should give you some shield bonus as well. However, the goverment still guys a cut by taxes.

6. On a general note, trade should be much more profitable. Some countries were based only on trade. AI should also use trade much more then he is now.

7. Inertial trade: every city can have an X amount of trade routes. Cities can estibled intertial trade routes to pass to swap them between themself. Meaning? Cities around your empires which are inland, can estblish a trade route to a major harbor city. That habor city can now support her original trade routes + what the other cities passed her. This can even be a chain-reaction: from city A to city B to city C... etc.

8. Trade inside your empire it done automaticly ( you get a small, auto bonus, like SMAC ). Outside trade is done by trade routes. This works well with idea A.7: you can move all your "trade power" to a several cities which are in a good spot to do mass trade.

9. Black market: in a high corruption city, some of the trade routes you have turn "rouge": they give you no income. Even if you lower the crime rate they don't disappeer: you need military units to route them. ( according to idea B.3 on the pirates, they become the properity of a pirate AI and give him income ).

10. All trade will be automaticly ruled by the trade advisor. He builds the caravans, send them, etc. You can see this moving around the map. However, you can give his special guidelines: what not to trade, what you want him to try to get the most, what you want despertly to get rid off, etc.

11. As your market and goverment becomes more free, more of the trade options become automatic.

12. Some wonders and city structres should increase trade profit ( local or global ) generated by caravans. Some wonders should also increase caravan speed to increase the usefullness of early trade.

13. As strange as this sound, cities with a big food production should give a small bonus to trade. Cuisine is a very important thing for trade and tourism, and big city which makes lots of surplas food would probaly create some new sort of kitchen.

14. Showing the trade routes graphcily would be a pure mess. Create an economic map where you see all the trade routes. Better yet, make caravan on the map invisible to all but on the economic map.

15. Trade goods should be a conversion of minerals to goods ( by labor ) and sold automaticly for profit.

16. How about that insteed of building caravans, we would have a building ( depot, warehouse, etc ) that automaticly generate trade? You get +1 gold per every city in a certain range from you ( increased with technology ). Like idea C.7, it would be inertial - city A is close to 5 cities and city B. City B is close to a DIFFERENT 5 cities. Therefor, since city A is connected to city B, BOTH would get +11 gold ( ten cities +the other city, A or B ), and so does all the other 10 cities. with idea E.1, you can pay to be able to use the depot of side B city to gain access to a new batch of cities, gaining a very high bonus. Side B would get a cut of all profit gotten this way ( reflects very well the great importance of harbor cities that , more then trading themself, traded for others. Like Constantinopol ).

17. Trade technology: if you trade with a civ that doesn't have trade, he automaticly gets it. Before you discover currency, any trade is X items for X itmes ( barter system ). Only after currency are you able to trade, for example, 100 wood for 10 iron.

D. Caravans issues

1. Caravans should move automatcily. They generate money after X turns it takes them to move. For example, if it would take the caravan 5 turns to reach the city, then the bonus would be automitcly given. Beside building the unit and sending it, you can't control her. Since there is no path-finding or graphics, we can support tons of caravans.

2. You should have special kinds of caravan: one on boat, a plane, etc.

3. The caravans automaticly moves to the most profitable city upon completion ( in comptution of range, size and ETA ).

4. Caravans are not built: you gain one per X number of popultion. They are only replaced when they die.

5. Caravans can build "trade posts", that acts like a airport and fortress, and gives a trade bonus to near-by cities ( only on border-region tiles ).

6. Have a better version of caravan, a one who carry finished goods. Cost more but gains more profit.

7. Caravans can bring support to besieged cities. Side A ( you ), gives side B food when under attack from side C. You get a very big profit, and the attitude of Side B toward you is increased greatly, and your repution. Side C, however, becomes more hostile to you.

8. You can have the caravans moes by fixed way-point.

9. You can give caravans military support: either ordering a combat unit to protect the caravans, or build a new type of caravan: "armed covoy", which is 2/2/2 but cost about three times more.

10. A caravan acts like a limited spy: trade routes slowly reveal the enemy known maps.

11. Caravan, when helping a wonder, should decreese the cost of the production, not give extra shield. Thier bonus is given by offering new apporch to construction.

12. If you got free-market, you can "hire" privateers to trade for you. You pay no construction cost, only a fixed support cost in gold. You also get a lower cut of the profit.

E. Trade in diplomacy

1. Free-pass trade: allow your caravans ( only ) to go over the side B to trade. Side B get a cut of the profit.

2. Fixed trade: a swap that occurs every turn: you give X items to side B, side B gives X items to you. Can also trade food.

3. Embargo: you may ask side B to cancel all trade with side C, in a UN meeting or on direct contact.

4. Funded trade: side A gives side B a sum of money to build caravans. Side B trades with side C, and side A get's a cut of the trade profit.

5. War automaticly destories all trade routes: caravan return to thier home city.

6. Trade increase the diplomatic realtion between the two nations.

7. Trade treaty: like Master of orion II, signing this treaty gives an automatic trade bonus. Caravans are not needed. Another way, is that you use caravans till a certain tech level ( railroads? or maybe advanced sea navigation? ), and after that it's automaticly done via the diplomacy screen.

8. Demand monopoly: you can demand from a certain country to only buy a specfic commodity from you. Therefor, allowing you to greatily increase the cost. Microsoft rings a bell? ( see Idea A.5. ).

9. Ask for harbor: you can pay Side B to build for you a habor or airport in his terratory.

F. List of posters

Special thanks: Pythagoras.

posted August 02, 1999 13:09            

I'd like to suggest an option between C and D in resource management: Have more than 3 natural resources, but don't worry about manufactured commodities. Natural resources can still be traded, but all the nightmare with manufactured goods, where to manufacture them, how to manufacture them, what to do with them, how to transport them, whether to store them, etc.

The natural resources could still be grouped more or less into 3 categories, but would be further divided.

Fuel: instead of being abstracted to oil/gas/coal, make it oil, gas, and coal. Each requires different techs to become useful, and their use makes different amounts of pollution. Shortly after these become useful in making units, they are also required by cities, with a happiness penalty if not supplied.

Material: Here are Wood, Iron, Stone, Copper/Bronze, Bauxite, Uranium, and maybe one or two others. Wood or stone are required for the expansion of cities, and the metals are used primarily for units. Perhaps even go back further in history than bronze working, and allow units that require stone for production?

Exotic/trade: It's not really exotic if it's growing in your civ, is it? These are numerous, and the particulars are not important. Gold, Silver, Gems, Spices, Salt are the obvious choices. Cash crops, a TI, could make similar goods: Tobacco, Silk, Cotton, Sugar, Indigo. These would all be traded as the trade goods in Civ2 (or, more accurately, CtP? I never played it). Better if the caravan never had to be built, though. Trade through roads, as in the summary. However, don't let routes go for infinite distances. It would be too easy to build a network of roads on a continent (everyone does it anyways) that would be making WAY too much money. Instead, add in a component for diminished returns over distance, but make cities in between add to the maximum distance.

ember and I were discussing how to purchase production in a split-resource system, at the very end of the last thread. I suggested you could buy, as 1 gold per, as many resources or industry as you were already producing. ember suggested that this be a sliding scale, where you gould buy 50% of your produce at 1 per, another 50% at 2 per, another 50% at 3 per (or is this one 4 per?), etc. I think that's a good idea, ember. Still, the actual values need to depend upon SE choices. To repeat my previous example, in a Socialist economy, production is largely controlled by the government; in CIV, socialist countries get a bonus to industry and resources. However, this means that there isn't so much private industry to hire in times of need, so a socialist country would not be able to get as much of a bonus.

posted August 02, 1999 16:21            

Graneries and such could jsut affect the rate of decay, to produce a similair effect to a higher max stock.

The point on costs more to add more resources is for illustration. The 50% blocks would be a different amount for different SE.

On regions. The building in the capital shouldnt affect all cites, with a few exceptions. When you build a temple the AI chosses a location, based on where it would be best suited(you can change it). It builds it in that location, affecting that city. Some improvments are regional in effect, like a stock market, or superhighways. Most woders could be limited to a region to avoid some aspects of ICS.

posted August 03, 1999 00:19            

During a war, the state may claim a higher percentage of the production output of the private factories. Thus, while the factories aren't really producing any more than they were during peace time, they're now producing more tanks and fewer tractors.

I think the Civ games do a damned poor job of modeling the interactions between public and private sectors. Why is the government building a church in every city? And why does the construction of this church take centuries and prevent the simultaneous construction of military weaponry and the training of soldiers? Buildings like temples, banks, etc. should simply appear when market forces bring about conditions in which they are needed/useful. They should be supported entirely by the private sector -- no drain on the state treasury. In fact, the state should BENEFIT from them through taxation. By changing the tax rates you levy against the private sector, you can encourage growth and investment (lower taxes) or siphon money into public projects (higher taxes, giving you (the state) the capital necessary for police/military, civil engineering like public roads, etc.).

Even SimCity has a better model than Civ1/Civ2/CTP. (Note: I haven't played SMAC.)

So... depending on your military readiness setting (or other factors, whatever works), you might be able to usurp a certain amount of production capacity from private industries. Modifying existing factories to produce military hardware should require some time, but once all of the adjustments are in place, weapons can be mass-produced much more quickly. Of course, this leaves fewer consumer goods, so that would have to be modeled -- unhappiness is one way, but there should be greater long-term ramifications on the economy. At a minimum, industrial efficiency should drop -- a lot of those consumer goods that aren't being produced any more would have gone back into the industrial infrastructure and fuel the economy. With their quantities reduced, industrial output should slow down -- just a bit at first, but it should accelerate as the war continues.

posted August 03, 1999 15:32            

My original idea is to have resource/commodity catagories, differentiated by tech level (or age). Thus one resource would be fuel, with a progression of:
firewood
animal oils
coal
petrolium
uranium
geothermal

Additionally certain techs will be able to provide power (shields?) without using resources:
Water/windmill
windfarm
Dam
Solar plant
etc...

posted August 03, 1999 17:40            

The population of cities are recorded as x.xxx. This allows fractional population points. The fraction has no gameplay effect until it reaches the next number. It allows groth rates to be experesed as an increase per turn. Attacks that hit population centers can now do fractional pop. points of damage. maybe 0.1 or 0.05 per hit.

The purpose of this proposal is to seperate growth from straight food production.
Growth rates can be expressed as a percentage per turn, (eg 2.5%) to give a familiar sort of look. What this means for gameplay terms is that 0.025 pop points are added every year. This gives a groth of 40 turns.

Pop is recorded as fractional points, but it is easy to convert that to a real pop number.
The formula:
Actual pop = 5000 x (pop points + 0.5)^2 - 1250
Follows the civx model exactly for whole numbers, and can give good values for fractional numbers.

Effects on population growth. All numbers are arbitray and should vary depending on SE choices and tech. This system is desigend to be compatable with the idea of villages.

I have made use of a 'happyness rating', which is (#happy - #unhappy) / # total. This gives 0 for all content, 100 for all happy, and -100 for all unhappy. This can be applied to a city, a region, a civ or the entire world.

Base growth: 10%
Happyness : + city happyness / N. N depends on SE.
villages : + 0.2% per village
medicine : + 2%
etc.

Immigration. To take into account people moving around in your civ and between civs.
The advantages of including this is that large unhappy cites will tend to slow down growth or shrink, while your smaller cities will pick up the extra people.

In civ immigration = (city happyness - civ happyness) / Y. Y depends on SE and the overall level of transportation availabble. In cty immigation tends to have larger volume than between civs.

between civs migration = (city happyness - world happyness) / Z. Z depends on SE and transport of all players. For this calcualtion government types can influence the happyness used. democracy might add 10 points, while communism subtarcts 10 points, to reflect that democracies never have had problems with too many people trying to flee from them.

Wonder: Iron curtain. Prevents all between civ emmigration. (for gameplay all cities count as average happyness level)

posted August 03, 1999 17:49            

I don't see why it should be any more complicated than that. Bauxite, for example, becomes a substitute for iron in the post-industrial economy. Copper is initially a "substitute" for iron, which isn't discovered until later. Just treat both as minor sources of the generalized "iron."

posted August 04, 1999 11:47            

I think it's a good idea, ember, especially as far as fractional population growth. The only thing that worries me about the i/emmigration factor is processor time. There are lots of nice effects that could be made by summin gup all sorts of things at the end of each turn, but a lot of them can end up really CPU heavy. This one only requires: determine the happiness of each city, take average by civs, take world average, compare averages, add/take away citizens. If I'm correct, you don't need to keep track of where a citizen from city a goes... There ends up being the right number anyways. However, if ethnicity/religion is implemented, which you didn't suggest but I, tentatively, am, in relation to this immigration/emmigration scheme, you end up with a lot of stuff to keep track of.

On resources: Splitting into

lumber
stone
iron
silver
coal
oil

Does represent all the necessary components. Indeed, it looks like you are dividing into:

Temporary building material/primative fuel
Permanent building material
Practical Metal
Trade goods
mid-grade fuel
high-grade fuel

posted August 04, 1999 16:29            

quote:

---

6) Culture

Some threads ago, I said culture would determine population happiness. I've made that a separate SE factor.

1)Culture determines how much it costs for you to bribe a unit or a city.

2)If a neighbour civ has a lower culture rate, his cities become slowly and automatically converted to your culture. Cities converted to your culture get your city stile. If two civs already have the same city stile, I don't know yet what should represent the conversion. If the capital is converted you get a higher Diplomacy rate. If that civ attacks you, the citizens of the converted city become unhappier = lower happiness rate.

3)A civ with a high culture rate has more population immigration from other countries.
Immigration : citizens from other civs migrating to your civ. Immigration/emigration has been suggested in the 'City Growth' thread in Civ3-General/suggestions.
Im- and emigration should depend on your culture rate and the happiness of the concerning city.

4) A high Nationalism(=Probe) rate lowers emigration. This is to simulate the Iron Curtain( or whatever it's called in English).

5) Your culture rate determines how long it takes for conquered cities to assimilate to your culture and cause less happiness.
In SMAC it was 50 turns. For every +Culture you have more than the city of the previous owner, the city needs 10 less turns to assimilate.
If you have a lower Culture rate, the city doesn't adapt. Means more unhappiness and increases the likelyness of revolting and forming a new civ.

6) Can't say numbers. Testplaying needed.

maximum+6
+? : less money needed for bribing; immigrating people from lower cultures; conversion if higher culture; fast assimilation

-? : possible emigration and conversion if lower culture; no assimilation if lower culture
minimum-5
[This message has been edited by M@ni@c (edited August 02, 1999).]

---

posted August 04, 1999 19:47            

Resources:
Building materials. Only really need one here. If you really want at modren ceramics and composits.
Trade goods should not be resources in the building units sense. Don't need to get 3 silver from that hill...
Iron/bronze
Advanced alloys (upgarde from Iron)
Ancient fuels, up to coal
Modern fuels, oil and uranium.
6 catergories, of which only 3 are used at a time.
Can even call them the same things throughout, but change the production value of each square with certain techs:

Building materials
Metals
Fuels

only 3 needed. To me that is the most that is managable.

posted August 07, 1999 00:30            

• Make oil (or some other special terrain resource) worth some huge amount of shields and trade (10 each).
• Watch the wars fought over them!

• You can't build ships, seige engines, or wagons (necessary for large scale military units) out of stone or brick!
• There are large areas of the world without useable timber.
• There are areas of the world without quarry stone.
• There are some areas without either; brick is all they've got.
• Timber can be traded economically at any tech level.
• Timber can be can be used for fuel and, with moderate tech, naval stores and other derivatives.

• Coal (or lignite, or even poorer substitute peat) can be extracted and utilized in its raw form at any tech level.
• The usefulness of crude oil and amount extractable is proportional to some function of tech level.
• Oil also requires investment in facilities to use and to process for use, chiefly wrt/internal combustion engines.
• There are large areas without coal, or oil, or both; trade ensues.
• Oil is so necessary to the late industrial era that wars are fought over it.

• They (and goods made from them) are the only trade materials that have intrinsic value out of proportion to usefulness.
• They inspire trade or war far more than common resources or goods made from common resources (except oil).

posted August 08, 1999 07:48            

Copper: copper deposit
Bronze: copper and tin deposits+labour.
Iron: iron deposit+fuel+labour
Steel: iron deposit+fuel+labour
Alloyed Steel: iron and alloy deposits+fuel+labour

Copper and tin would still be traded after the bronze age, but only as luxury goods.

posted August 08, 1999 14:28            

Culture will be adapted and it won't affect immigration anymore. Purely determined by Happiness of city/world (, and emigration also determined by Nationalism).

posted August 08, 1999 23:38            

quote:

---

Bauxite, for example, becomes a substitute for iron in the post-industrial economy. Copper is initially a "substitute" for iron, which isn't discovered until later. Just treat both as minor sources of the generalized "iron."

---

Changing the resource type may be an unnecessary complication. Since the tiles are likely to be large (~100 miles) rather than small we can assume that small iron deposits could be located in the same tile. Also, bronze may not be used for swords after iron is developed, but common tools would only be made of iron as larger sources are discovered.

If anything, the discovery of ironworking should make new resources appear. They would be bigger than the little resources that represented copper, lead, and tin necessary for bronze.

posted August 09, 1999 18:53            

Happiness affects everything. It is probably the single most important SE choice. If you've played MOO2, think of the morale bonus given to citizens. Happiness gives a bonus/penalty to pop growth, labor production, trade, how much your citizens will support your foreign/domestic actions in diplomacy, research, etc. For this reason the bonus/penalty should be 1/2 of regular SE choices, about 2% per +1 happiness modifier.

Growth is affected positively by:
happiness
Food surplus
Certain techs-medicine, sanitation, public health, etc. Note that some of these techs add to both happiness (better quality of life) and growth (live longer lives, which also allows more time for having kids)
Certain buildings-Granaries, aqueducts, sewers, hospitals
Possibly fundementalism or a animist/poltheistic religion that stresses pop growth
Random events
(Most SE choices affect happiness, not growth)

Negatives:
negative happiness mods-Rebellion, units dying, SE choices, etc.
Lack of food
Certain techs, notably contraception (which may incidentally increase happiness)
Plagues
Random events
Pollution, including nuke pollution

I had no ideas for villages; yours is good. Immigration & emmigration should be assumed in the rise & decline of your population.

don Don,
While having some resources necessary for construction is okay (or have contruction penalty), I think it should be assumed that wherever a major civ arises it has plenty of quality wood & quarry nearby. Otherwise it would have some serious penalties to overcome. Unless you had some other ideas for balance (start with extra techs, on fertile continent by yourself)?
Or is this for trading commodities only?
Also not having oil, uranium be important until modern times is a good idea.

Gordon, I like your's (and ember's) ideas (posted 8/2).

posted August 14, 1999 01:20            

Mesopotamia had neither quarry stone nor heavy timber. Even their city walls were made of brick. They just made them 100+ feet thick!

posted August 15, 1999 11:55            

A system of labour split from resources, and that divided into, metals, fuels and buildign materials, would be a huge burden if the production system is as it is now. If you only have 4-8 regions to manage, instead of 20-60 cities, things are more reasonable.

posted August 21, 1999 16:31            

Colonization/Migration

“How to simulate the migration of the ‘barbarian’ people at the end of the Roman Empire?” I asked myself. Cause they were in Civ2 terms some kind of settlers with a big attack and defense.
There should be a unit that represents some migrating people. Good, simply 4-2-1, settlers, one could say. But that would be an expensive unit. But the fact is that migration was unorganized and didn’t require 40 shields. It was instantaneous. In fact, there was never an organized migration of 10000 people, or just 10000 people saying “let’s found another city”.
So I began thinking about something else…

In Civ3 the Terrain Improver/Former could be deleted, well, now I suggest the City Founder unit would also loose much of it’s use until late in the game when planned colonization exists.
I am against automatic city building by the AI as some people suggest. What I suggest is you can point a tile where people may found a city. It may be any square 1) on a continent where there is already a city of yours and 2) not next to another city. All the rest is automatic with a migration system. People will move to that spot gradually if conditions are good.

I think there isn’t a migration system yet, except one based on happiness. I would let it play a much larger part in the game.
The automatic migration system would try to find a balance between labor and resources in a city.
This is to represent unemployment. If there is more labor(people) than resources(work) there is unemployment. And no work means that people migrate to parts where there is more work to do.
If there are more resources(work) than labor(people) there is work available and people migrate to other already existing cities with more resources or they will move to a spot you chose as a new city.
So cities built in large grasslands tracks will not be big cities since there would be large emigration out of the agricultural area without work.
Small cities will always have more resources than labor since they always have N+1 worked squares, where N is the size of the city. But to both solve the ICS problem AND the possible problem that large cities would not be possible since ALL the people would go to new cities, I came up with this.
The city square normally produces the amount of food if the square is irrigated, the amount of minerals with a limit of at least one and one trade if a road would normally produce trade.
I would add the following. If a city reaches two population, it gets for free 20 labor and 20 trade (don’t forget I use the x10 system). If a city reaches size 3, it produces an extra 30 labor and 30 trade in the city square. And so on… The extra bonuses are because in Civ2 a city with size 1 had 10000 people, a city with size 2 30000 and 3 60000… So of course the second population ‘unit’ produces double as much as the first, the thirth triple… or otherwise told the second pop unit produces 20 labor, the thirth 30. And of course a large city means more trade for the same reason; there are more people.
This would solve the ICS problem, since large cities are MUCH bigger production and trade centers as many small ones. I hope I have persuaded guys who would want to reduce the city square production to 0 food, shields and trade. I think my solution solves the ICS problem better since 0-0-0 city square production makes small cities produce too less trade and resources in the beginning and therefore seriously reduces migration to the newly built city.
And because the extra labor is balanced with the extra trade, automatic migration out of a city because there is a large population (much labor in my system) and too less resources compared with the population is impossible. So migration would be totally dependent of the resources of the surrounding terrain, as in reality.
This will represent more accurately the flow of people and the growth of cities in history. In CivX that was represented totally wrong with excess food since most big cities now and in the old days were mostly the big trade cities and some/most of them are were in half desert like terrain.
That would mean a lot more trade, so the game economical system could need some rebalancing. But don’t forget that people have suggested much more uses for gold eg troop support, religion, and if you read on, I suggest gold I also needed for colonization/migration.
So, let me define resources. Although in the Economy/Trade thread it is usually referred to as the replacement of shields, for this case I also count trade as resources.
So the biggest cities will be as in reality the economical cities.
But if you would some trade cities on a Civ2 map, they would have a lack of food eg Palmyra, Petra, Bokhara… So there is need for a general ‘food box’ for the entire empire. I don’t know sure, but I thought it existed in CTP. After all the food is ‘collected’, it becomes distributed over the empire as needed. Perhaps the efficiency of food transport (your SE Corruption/Bureaucracy rate)would also have to do something with how well food is distributed.
For example in a Federal structure with a Bureaucracy bonus food transport would be better than in the Confederate structure. Or if the above isn’t accepted, I insist that food trade routes are automatic and unlimited, so you don’t have to build a 50 shield caravan.

But of course the state has to say something too in migration. However before people are willing to move, they have to be paid a lot. So if you would want to speed up the growth of new cities or if you would want to move people to a food producing area with no other resources (eg a large Grassland track) you would have to pay them. I suggest per population unit 400 (x10!) gold (the price of a settlers in shields).

Population also x10?

I have a suggestion. It isn’t necessary for my migration model to work, but it would make it more precise since migration per 10000 is kinda rude and sudden. If population is also multiplied by 10, the migration model could be more precise. Migration could be more slowly, which is better.
Then you would have to pay only 40 gold for one pop unit.
Popx10 would make it impossible to have a population box as in all civlike games.
I suggest a simple box with the following information.
Happy : 20
Content : 70 + -
Unhappy : 10
Taxmen : 0 + -
Scientists : 0 +-
Entertainers : 0 + -
Rest : 0
So you would have a simple box showing the amount of people that have which happiness level or job.
The +’s and –’s are to switch eg a normal content citizen to an entertainer. For example if you would want to switch a content citizen (you can only make content citizens a special citizen (= taxmen, scientists, entertainers) and only happy citizens special if there aren’t any content ones. Unhappy people you could never makes special) to an entertainer, you click the minus of content. Then there appears automatically 1 (or perhaps 10?) in the Rest. Then click the +.of entertainer.

Recuitment

Doing pop x10 would also make a recruitment system possible, since if you keep the normal pop system, the mobilization of even one pop unit would mean a lot of Riflemen units = unbalancing and unrealistic. If it’s used, then you should not build Musketeers or Riflemen, but Muskets, Spears, Bows or Rifles. They could be stored and don’t require support. Then, in times of war, people could be mobilized, = one population unit disappears from the cities. You could mobilize people as far as you have guns, spears or any weapon in stock. Of course, if the units are killed, they can’t return to the normal city population after the war. This would simulate the loss of population in wars. However conscripted units would have the worst possible morale/experience. If you have Draft or Civil Duty as your SE Army choice, the experience could be a bit higher.

Settlers/Unit Workshop

Settlers should still exist, but they shouldn’t have the same use. First of all, you shouldn’t able to build them for reasons I have already explained. You could only get them if you click the “Migrate” button. Then your city would disband and in that process all buildings in the city would of course also be disbanded. Per 10 population units in the popx10 system, you should get one settlers. You should also be able to give the settlers any weapons you have in stock, eg spears, guns… basically creating something like armed nomads, as Diodorus wants to represents with his Tribe/Nomad ideas he presented several times in the Civilizations thread I think. That Settlers units would follow the same rules as Diodorus presented in his Nomad posts.
So the German population migration can be represented. If horses can also be built on the same way as spears and guns, you could even simulate people like the Huns or Mongols.
What I am suggesting is that in a city every item can be built: shields, chain mail, swords, guns, horses, or in later areas tanks. Then in the unit workshop you could create your army with the available weapons. So in a city you only built equipment, but to form a real army, you have to mobilize a population unit.
That means in peace time you can maintain a small army and in war recruit more units in a short time.
As I said before, mobilized units would have a bad experience/morale level.
To give them better experience, they should stay 3 turns in a city with a Barracks and then they would get 2 experience upgrades. Later in the game there could be a similar building, called Military Academy.

Oversea Colonization

Colonization oversea should require a unit I think. Some Sea Unit looking like a boat of Colombus. It should have a large movement range. And it should be able to move on land. If it moves on land it founds a coastal city. That way you expand oversea. More realistic.

Upgrading units

Upgrading units would be simplier. Just move them in a city, go to the unit workshop and change the item, you would want to change. Upgrading reduces the experience level with one.

Population Growth

As you might have guessed, I totally disagree food production has anything to do with pop growth. Food only is needed to feed the people.
Came up with the following. Not worked out in details, since I am no social historian.
But everybody can guess that population growth is dependent of two factors : the # children a family has and how long people live.
The # of children would be dependent on how many food there are produced since in earlier times children were assumed as working forces(child labor). So the more children a farmer has, the easier for him, the more free working forces he has and the less people he has to employ and pay.
So pop growth still has to do something with food, but indirectly. It should also be affected by your SE Growth or Urbanization factor. The eg Socialism Value would increase the number of children.

With the techology advance of Industrialization also the # of shields/resources would affect your pop growth. Means that suddenly two factors affect pop growth. That could simulate the fast pop growth around the same time of the Industrial Revolution.

The second thing affecting pop growth is how long people live. That should be affected by some techs like Medicine. In general the life expectancy would increase over time if medicine betters. It should also be determined by your SE Environment factor. Living in a polluted country should decrease your life expectancy.

Wow, are you still reading this? As you have read, what I am suggesting solves some problems like ICS plus it also includes some ideas of others like recruitment, nomads, migration…
It could be a real improvement for Civ3.

posted August 24, 1999 18:05            

A few points.
Hitorically all major cities are on major rivers or the ocean. Or both.

The village system allows you to have early cities only on these squares and have all the food and resources brought in from the inland and fishing villages.

Happyness can be seen as how much people want to live in a city... In this case it is the biggest factor in immegration/emmigration. Up unitl recently unemployment has not been an issue. Everyone could have some work, even if that was as a labourer or in the fields.

A river/costal city square would give a bonsu to trade and a bonsu to growth, making these very attractive spots for cities.
No food or resources are gathered from theses squares so the resouce formula is N + M, where N is the labour/trade from N city pop, and M is the food/resources from M village pop.

One unit of labour does not neccisarily 'work one unit of resources' It depends on what you are building.
Ancient units are an even mix, modern units require more labour than ancient.
NAval units require more resources than land.
Improvments require lot's of resources.
Spy's, etc. require only labour.

I have proposed 'fractional pop points'.
These would allow a city to grow and recruit as you describe, but keep the simplicity of having less than 200 specialists to keep track of...

I believe that a straight recruitment system is needlesly complicated, but if you build units as normal and if the unit is killed have a certain amount of pop removed from it's home city. The nation as a whole should provide for the support, but the home city would take the pop hit. Max units suppoted = 2-5 x pop. Play balance decides this.

To upraged units I agree, move them in a city, say upgrade, x gold and y turns later They are the next class of unit better.

posted August 24, 1999 20:26            

So cities weren't just built near oceans cause that meant a nice view. No, they were built cause oceans is good for transport ergo good for trade.
However there aren't everywhere on the world rivers and oceans. For example to go to China you have to pass through dry terrain.
So there came important trade cities not built near oceans, eg Petra, Palmyra and Bokhara.

So it's not the neighbourhood of water that makes cities good trade cities. It's the neighbourhood of trade routes.

Telling that all coastal squares give a trade and growth bonus is wrong and inaccurate.
First of all, then you're assuming that EVERY coastal city is good in trade. Dead wrong!
Second, then you're assuming that all inland cities are worse in trade. Dead wrong!

It's just too simplified to give every coastal city a bonus.

I suggested something wàààày back that now can be re-used.
All trade routes are visible on the map. Of course to limit the amount of information on the map it could be toggled off, Shift [T]rade eg.

The trade route runs from the origin city to the destination city along the fastest possible way. Means if ocean is faster than over land, there's a trade route along the coast (traders don't dare to sail in open sea). That way coastal cities could have profit and trade.
Same if the shortest way is over land.
Of course rivers fasten the speed of travel, so cities built near rivers are more likely to receive trade routes.
Roads also fastens travel time, so if you build a good road system in your empire, your economy will profit.
For every trade route that passes a city square of you, you get one (or ten if x10 used) extra trade.
So if a trade route would enter your city radius SouthWest and leaves the radius North East while entering your city square, you get 5 extra trade icons.
If it would enter South West, go to the city square and than goes straight Nord to leave the city radius, it would mean 4 extra trade.
Of course several trade routes can follow the same way and can go to the same squares.
So if there are cities where very much trade routes pass, it would get a huge amount of trade.
That way eg Palmyra, Petra and Bokhara would be great trade cities since all the trade routes to the east pass there.

So, as in reality, not only the origin and destination cities would get a trade bonus, also all the cities between them lying in the neighbourhood of the trade route.

This is a very easy system.
There is nothing really new to program.
The game can already seek the fastest way for a unit to go to a place, so it can certainly find the fastest way for trade routes.
The only new thing Firaxis would have to program is : +1 trade to every square where a trade route passes.
Voilà, I have just said how to make trade in Civ3 as realistic as possible.

posted August 24, 1999 21:43            

The vast majority of large cities are still costal or on a major river. A spot where you have both is the best, bonuses get combined.

Your point on not all costal cities getting the bonus:
Trade routes are created be people. By the very fact that you settled a city there, there will be trade. The existence of the city creates the bonus. Not all ocean cities will be huge, lots of other factors can keep them small.

For a pair of otherwise identical cities the costal/river city will always have more trade. External factors can change this, like trade routes, but costal cities do have an advantage.

Having a trade bonus represents the ease of access and implicit trade to smaller population centers around the nearby coast. Inland cities do not have this until RR, but you can still establsih trade routes.

posted August 25, 1999 09:43            

Did I say that you said that you can't build inland cities?

"just that costal/river ones have benifits so that they tend to be larger and build more often. "

Yes, they have benefits, namely that trade routes are more likely to pass there, certainly before the discovery of the Railroad.
So coastal cities get bonuses cause there pass more trade routes, but an intrinsic bonus to every coastal city is wrong.

"In your examples how large are theose trade cities compared to Rome/Shanghai/Alexandria during the same era?"

I don't know how large they were. But you gave bad examples because the cities you gave were the capitals of civilizations (the Roman and Ptolemaes). And capitals always tend to be larger, even if they are sited on infertile places.

"The vast majority of large cities are still costal or on a major river. A spot where you have both is the best, bonuses get combined."

The same with my 'system'. Cities near an ocean AND a river are likely to receive lots of trade routes.

posted August 25, 1999 00:07            

Rivers are so scarce on civ maps they must be considered only the truly huge ones like the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, Indus, Ganges, Danube, Rhine, etc.

I rationalize the civ irrigation system by thinking that there are nearly always rivers flowing into seas, so starting irrigation at the shore isn't completely wacky.

posted August 25, 1999 18:22            

How about Pompeii? Hamburg? Sparta?

posted August 25, 1999 19:21            

To everyone :

posted August 26, 1999 09:15            

Beginning a list of things...
If you haven't got X item in stock, you get Y penalty...

Hides, Wool, Clothes, Dye, Silk : Growth penalty if people have nothing to wear
Salt, Spice : Irrigation and Farms produce 2 less food (using x10 system)
Silver, Gold : Taxes penalty because you have no metals to make coins.
Copper, Iron : Military penalty because you can't make weapons.
Coal, Oil, Uranium : Labor penalty because you have not enough energy sources.
Timber : you can't make boats before the discovery of Steel
Gems, Wine, Beads : Relations penalty?

posted August 26, 1999 18:35            

I'm only about 1/3 done, and it's now… uh… Thursday? Yup, that's it. (I'm studying for certification exams, so I'm goofy right now.)

posted August 27, 1999 15:57            

A.2. says that every citizen = 1 labor.
In my large post here I suggested that the first citizen should produce 10 labor (certainly don't forget to mention the x10 system!), the second 20, the thirth 30..., so that a size 3 city would produce 60 labor. This to reflect that the second citizen is 20000 people, so should generate a double amount of labor than the first citizen (= only 10000 people). Note this also solves the ICS problem since a few large cities are much more profitable than some small ones.

A.8. Not only should some increase happiness or economy, but lack of resources would seriously hurt some aspects of your production. Examples in my post of 'August 26, 09:15'.

A.13. Units should besides resources also need a (very) small amount of gold and food as support.

B.2. I think mercenaries should only need gold as support, not food or resources. However the gold support should be 5 to 10 times as big as a normal unit.

B.4. I think Harel is the only that wants that, I have learned from my discussions with him on the SE thread (I can't help but notice that the ideas he agrees with are well represented and others not). I simulate the burden of war with two Values : Survival and Power. Survival has -2 Economy and Power -2 Production. I think this is enough to simulate the burden. BTW, how determines the AI that you are in a full war? In Civ2 I was constantly at war. But I was rarely in real combat because my enemies were too far away or I just didn't feel like mobilizing my army. So I strongly oppose to this idea.

B.7. I suggested that again with increasing city size, the trade generated in the city square increased also.
Eg size one produces 5 trade (x10!), size 2 15, size 3 30, size 4 50...
Again a solution for ICS.

B.8. I think it should be mentioned that many people like Public Works. Harel has stressed it too less. (he doesn't like CtP)

B.14. The factors Taxes, Research and Happiness of my SE model determine how high you can set your taxes, science and luxuries rate.

C. My trade system I said in 'August 24, 20:26'. Perhaps you could also mention the reasons why this system is the most realistic.
BTW to make trade over ocean ever faster than over land (as in reality in history) in the game, I think moving over ocean should go faster. Movement tripled or something like that.

C.3. You should be able to trade with barbarian and nomad cities/tribes.

C.17. It's not because the people didn't have currency that they didn't know that iron is more worth than wood.

posted August 29, 1999 13:11            

Before railroads rivers and oceans were the only way for bulk trade. Goods like timber, food and stone was never traded on land.

Land trade was mostly of goods that had a high value compared to their weight. E.g. silk, clothes, gold, metals etc.

E.g. there was not very much good farmland around Athens so they had to import lots of grain. If Athens had not been close to the sea it would never have been such a large city.

So I think you could say that in ancient times large inland cities were a rarity.

posted August 29, 1999 13:55            

And I know trade over water is preferred. That's why I would decrease the movement points needed to cross water. So until Railroad most trade routes will go over sea.

But silk was much wanted. And a sea route to China wasn't known. So in high need people would even trade over land. And then there can exist big inland cities.
Of course, in game terms, the player should have a reason to trade over land when sea is easier. That's why certain trade items should actually be necessary to have a good functioning empire. Examples in my post of August 26, 9:15.

I totally agree that in ancient times large inland cities were a rarity. But they existed. So they should be possible in Civ3. We all want to make Civ3 as realistic as possible, don't we? And my trade system allows that while Ember's automatic bonus for coastal cities doesn't.
(Note for Ember. That's just why Oceans have 2 trade. To represent the extra trade. So if you give another bonus, coastal cities would have a double bonus.)

And Harel. I don't mean you have omitted an idea. You have done a very good job in representing every idea more or less.

posted August 29, 1999 15:56            

Heck, How can I know who "they" are and what of you they inspected?

And I will certainly love the summary if it unites similar ideas etc!

posted August 29, 1999 20:22            

Good luck with the summary. Remeber that different people use the same words in different contexts, Labour and resources are particularly hard to pin down, you may want to explain what different people have in mind for them...

posted August 29, 1999 21:37            

"For every trade route that passes a city square of you, you get one (or ten if x10 used) extra trade."

Every tile with a trade route through it getting +1 trade might be possible under the x10 system. Otherwise, in many cases being a city on somebody else's trade route would be better than making your own trade routes! Trading partner cities generally have to be size 8+ in order to give +5 trade bonus. But with this, even a size 4 city could generate +5 for just one trade route passing through (assuming your workers are stationed on the route)!

Extending that for the length of a transcontinental route, with the typical sinuous Civ2 continent, there could well be 8 or ten cites along the way, each benefitting individually as much or more than the trading partners, the whole totalling to many times the actual trading partners' total!

First, domestic trade routes on the same continent (you control source & destination) shorter than some threshhold distance (tech dependent?) would not generate trade for intervening cities. It's already included in the trade generated by roads and rivers.

Second, trade routes on RR and after Auto should get less than trade on roads. The trains/trucks move through the city radius in less than a day in most cases. Sea routes only have to stop is they need provisions, so they would not generate much trade en route.

Maybe a city could get, say ½ trade total for a land route that passes through the city tile or any tile(s) touching the city tile (not the outermost tiles). A sea route, if you have a harbor, passing through any tile(s) touching your city tile would yield ¼ trade. A really good location would still get lots from other civ's trade routes.

The x10 could be more flexible, 2 trade + 1 trade per tile passed through (except outermost tiles) for land routes, 1 trade + ½ trade per tile passed through for sea routes.

posted August 30, 1999 01:13            

Make technology dependant upon trade and infrastructure to a large degree. This makes the explore aspect greatly more important than before, and adds to the builders game. I'm not 100% sure how to work this - perhaps give a sizable tech bonus to economy units earned by trade as opposed to home made economy units.

If possible, eliminate the sliding bar system altogether, replacing it with the social engineering and actual infrastructure. Having to adjust the bar is a pain, but SE changes and building aren't, at least early on. It's also more realistic, as an economy does not shift from economic output to tech output overnight, as the game currently suggests.

This would mean that you have two forms of trade, possibly titled trade units and economy units, earning different values for each. For instance, a single trade unit might be worth twice as much as an economy unit, providing 2 science, 2 cash, and 2 luxuries. Or the science and luxury values might be increased, so a economy unit earns 1 2 1, while a trade unit earns 3 2 1, for instance.

posted August 30, 1999 14:10            

Index:

1. Pirates and black markets
2. Budgets
3. Diplomacy
4. War and peace
5. Free-mind companies
6. Trade model options
7. All about caravans
8. Trade routes
9. Inertial trade
10. Tile improvements
11. Trade buildings & wonders
12. Effects of trade
13. ICS solutions
14. City management
15. Regions

1. Pirates and black markets

The element of crime should be more developed then civ II generic "corruption" rating. All money lost from corruption is not just "gone", it is transfered to a pirate AI player. When it reach a certain trasehold, the AI gains a few pirate units. Even if the corruption would be taken care of by then, the pirate would not disappear: only military action is required. Once the pirate units are in place, they will start raiding trade routes, attacking caravans and villages ( see idea 11 ). If a city is un-guarded enough, they could even raid a city. All this time, they still gain the money from corruption. They will use the money they get to buy more units, train them, and build fortresses. Once they are firmly in place, they will starting using spys that will bribe cities. A bribed city by the pirates has more corruption ( generating even more money to the pirates ), all money gotten directly from the banks and market places go to the pirates ( the extra credit gotten from the bonus ), and pirate units are invisible in the city vision radius. All this time, the pirates will save enough money for thier big task: bribing a city into thier hands. Once pirates own a city, they form a new civ. They can not build a new city, however.
Pirates also have a good use to the smart emperor: a high presence of pirates creates black markets. You can buy your military units from the black market with a reduced cost, but it will enrichen the pirates even more. More, you can even bribe and manipulte your local pirates ( or the ones the other civ have ), and make them raid/steal/spy for you. Pirates are also a good source for exprienced mercenries for hire.
2. Budgets

2. Budgets

Budgets, like in real life. The bonus gotten from libaries, for example would be decided by how much you put in Eductation. That money is divided between all libaries and universties. The higher the gold per institue, the bigger bonus they give. Hospitels bonus by health, wealthfare gives happiness ( divided by all the populs, like Luxary ), military would be divided between the support cost of all units and dedice what morale bonus/minus you get, etc. ( In democracy/republic, the senate should demand a minimum portion to some section. The different budget sections: