On the other hand cities with old buildings (built in the right time!) could perhaps benefit from their monuments by the tech tourism (when constructing a tourisme office e.g.).

collesiums become stadiums

and soo on

if they have the same effect why have diffreent names

But as far as religious ipmrovements, I feel that you should have to choose a religion (much the same as you choose a govt.) and it has advantages and disadvantages. (Example: Islam - free support for a fundamentalist unit.)

Than depending on what you choose, churches or temples become obsolete. But both should have the same effect on your city. Make sense? Any suggestions?

only,
the "choosing" a government or religion kind of disturbs me...
I mean changing a government or religion is not a thing that a nation suddenly decides to do between their soup and potatoes. This is something that grows and evolves slowly.
Don't know yet how to implement this in a game...

quote: The Aqueduct should become obsolete with the arrival of sewer system

you drink water from the sewer system?

2. Mid Ages (Dark Ages, Feudal Ages, etc.) 400-1450 (Constantinople's Fall)

3. Pre-Industrial (Renaissance, 16th - 18th century) 1450 - 1815 (Napoleon Defeated)

4. Industrial/Imperialism Age (1815-1914)

5. Great Wars (1914-1945)

6. Modern Times (1945 until now)

7. Perhaps Future?

Surely, the years shouldn't be an important influence in the game; if a civ is faster than the others, it should be able to reach the certain ages before the others, but I just want to give an exemple...

I also think that the building types should depend on the civilization/culture/religion

Now, we can talk about the buildings for the certain ages.
Example:
1. Ancient: Temple, Marketplace

2. Mid-Ages: Church, Marketplace

3. Pre-Industrial: Church, Marketplace, but different from 2.)

4. Industrial: Church, Marke...
OK, I think from a certain point on, there won't be many changes anymore, except the Marketplace would become a Supermarket in the Modern times or something similar.

What I wanted to say is: a general discussion doesn't make very much sense, it would be more interesting and also efficient, if we started to get a little system into our considerations.

I hope this post will be replied, after my bad experiences in this forum ...

quote: Originally posted by Atahualpa on 04-17-2000 04:41 AM you drink water from the sewer system?

Lol! No I meant as far as city size improvements. But very funny! I needed a laugh...

It has been suggested to let cities been founded (according to civ era/tech development) with some improvement already built from start (or same effect in place).

This way, we can try to keep up interest in founding new cities later, helping also building player that develop they cities slowly.

In fact, I would like a more enhanced model, as people immigration, villages developing into cities, and the like already appeared on The List 2.0.
Still, if I must been limited to a more conventional CIV approach, I would like some tweaking into city enhancement model, without force me into an endless "build queue" of improvement for newest town.

If a system was in place where you could move food from a high-producing city (perhaps at some small cost) then you could focus it towards a new city which you want to build up quickly. With an influx of food, you'd find that new cities could grow quite quickly if you wanted them to. Combine that with better tile improvements as the game goes on, and it shouldn't be too difficult to build up cities that you want to focus on.

This is pretty important. Imagine that you find a uranium deposit in an area that you don't have a city. You don't want have to wait ages before being able to utilise it properly, so you'd make sure that that city gets a more than adequate supply of food from your primary farming cities so that it grows quickly and efficiently. With all those extra citizens, you'd find that you could build plenty of city improvements quick-smart, and enable yourself to start mining that uranium in no time.

quote: Originally posted by BeeBee on 04-14-2000 10:39 PM In civ2, when founding/capturing a city in the last centuries, you still had to construct all the old buildings like temples and colosseums. How unrealistic! Something should be changed. (perhaps colosseums replaced by stadiums).

As Gord McLeod said, temples are by no means outdated. You're probably thinking in the "Western" way. Temples are still constructed throughout the world. Just think of a modern-day temple as a Western church. Churches are by no means outdated. Neither are temples.

quote: I'd say that we have to think about the eras and ages the game has to cover before we are talking about the cultural and civilian improvements. The eras/ages should be: 1. Ancient (Bronze Age, Iron Age, "Roman Empire-Age" etc.) 2500BC-400AD (Rome's Fall) 2. Mid Ages (Dark Ages, Feudal Ages, etc.) 400-1450 (Constantinople's Fall) 3. Pre-Industrial (Renaissance, 16th - 18th century) 1450 - 1815 (Napoleon Defeated) 4. Industrial/Imperialism Age (1815-1914) 5. Great Wars (1914-1945) 6. Modern Times (1945 until now) 7. Perhaps Future?

My version:

1. Early Ancient (Bronze Age, Iron Age (to some extent), 3500 BC-1000 BC)
2. Late Ancient (Iron Age, Greco-Roman period, 1000 BC-AD 400)
3. Middle Ages (400-1500)
4. Renaissance (1500-1800)
5. Industrial Age (1800-1900)
6. Modern (1900-Present)
7. Future

As you can see they are a bit generic and they're close to what Andz83 had, but the ancient age has been separated and a few other things changed. Also, we have to remember that Civ is not a "replay Earth" game; rather, it is "make your own Earth". That's why the times should not be that exact.

I didn't try to claim the best way to model this because I haven't thought about it enough; I was just pointing out that a better internal trade system (particularly with food) would assist in devloping late-founded cities faster, thereby helping to diminsh the problem of them always being vastly inferior to early-founded cities.

My apologies if I sounded a little strong there.

Just because there aren't temples in Christianity doesn't mean that other religions (e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism) wouldn't continue to build them.

cathedrals just represent a large religious presense/building that takes care of many followers and so keeps many people content, it is just a representation of it

I don't think civ needs (like warcraft 2 had) a different picture and name for every civilization that does the same thing, I would rather firaxis spent their time on other things

With this in mind, can you think of a better way to get those old improvements built using city production, but without requiring heaps of your time? That would probably be a better solution than automatically getting those 'old' improvements.

I keep coming up with ideas for this, but really they're just like advisors and build queues. I'm unconvinced that there's much of a problem here if we've got good advisors and/or build queues.

Solutions for “outdated improvements” and other ideas for wonders

Discover Banking (prereq – Currency) - all new cities come equipped with marketplace

Discover Monotheism (prereq – Polytheism) - all new cities come equipped with temple

Discover University (prereq. Writing) - all new cities come equipped with library

Build "Adam Smith..." wonder (prereq – banking) - all new cities come equipped with Bank.

Build "SETI..." wonder – counts as research lab in all cities (current)

Build “Mich’s Chapel” wonder – counts as cathedral in all cities (current)

Build “Da Vinci” wonder – counts as barracks* in all cities.
*Any city with barracks automatically upgrades units.

Build “Magellan’s Expedition” wonder – knowledge of all ocean tiles? (Not sure about this one, a little much?)

Build “Issac Newton…” (prereq. University) wonder – counts as university in all new cities.

Build “Statue of Liberty” wonder (prereq Democracy) – counts as police station* in all cities.
*Police station reduces corruption and waste by 100% (cummulative with Courthouse)
Why does a police station deal with military units? I think it should work like an improved courthouse. And why does Communism allow police stations? Police were around before Karl Marx (or at least some form). Democracy (IMHO) is a better prereq for building police stations.

Build “Women’s Sufferage” wonder – decreases unhappy citizen on continent by two per city (makes more sense than the giving each city a police station, IMHO)

I feel the United Nations will serve a much greater purpose if the number of civs is expanded, but that is another thread…

All ideas are IMHO so please I’m open to (and expecting) suggestions and comments…

BUT, and is a very big problem, they are so unrealistic, also as symbol of greather efforts and infrastructure!

They are also unbalancing, because usually a good human player grab much of it before of any AI faction. First step to the early end of game.

I really like more to link some enhancement to condition generally available to any faction: call it "age" reached, or level of development.

My draft proposal: why don't try to define some benchmark, some indicator of how well our Civ is. When it reaches some predefined level we enter that civ into this age.

An example: we build enough cathedral into our city to reach some level as 1 cathedral out of 2 city or 1 cathedral every 10 "head of people": our civilization enter the "faith era" where every new city founded develop automatically a temple effect (by natural effort of populace, by private initiative, chose one ).

Of course you can also fall back, if you abuse of your bonus and you fall under a level about 1 out of 3 city or 1 every 20.

If that happen you will lose your "virtual temple" and must cope with the unhappyness, the revolt etc. until you step up again.

Effects:

1) when enough of a more advanced improvement is built you don't need to build more old one

2) a builder can use better developed city to help new, recent city, and counter ICS players

3) you must decide if keep old (real) temple paying maintenance just to stop a major fall back if any occours (now we decide the same when we build some Wonders, but it's more easy to defend that only city to avoid trouble)

4) any civ can reach an age, because is not "only for one owner" as wonder, and we can also model some partial effect to any country in strict alliance (influence and share of social vision)

5) if we have a simple panel to check the level and a warning system we can take care of this "age" concept with less micromanagement of any "build queue + caravan help + settler help + wonders" I can imagine.

Of course we can extend the same concept to banks and other city enhancement.

Ok, anyone like it?

Heh, "wonder maniac"! I'm the king of that. I know I'm going against my nature when playing the game, but I think it's stupid to have the message telling when your opponent is building, or almost finished a wonder. I just buy the wonder to be assured I get it. I feel like I'm cheating :-( I think if someone starts building a wonder no one else should be able to build it. There should be a different system for wonder construction too. It's just not very accurate (Civ2).

Most suggestions here about this topic will result in even more easy wins. For those players the best advise I can give is to start at Chieftain level again! I never, ever cheat in any way and often handicap myself - for instance by not building any wonders or never changing government- still I think it is almost impossible to lose the game against the AI's on any level, usually with seven Civs and Raging Hordes. My game score will suffer but the final result will be the same.

If you have some money in reserve you can build all essential improvements in every new-build city. And it just isn't realistic that a new city would get everything for free. Instead I hope Firaxis wil try to make the game a REAL challenge! As the game is now I only enjoy the game until about 1500AD, after which it becomes boring. Some really difficult scenario's (e.g.Midgard or Newworld) still remain interesting though.

Thinking twice I will like more a system to let you add money to multiply turn production (e.g. double it or some more clever rule) BUT not let you force things to an immediate completion.

You are building a temple in 6 turns, if you pay x money you can hurry to finish it in 3 turns, not faster (but because you hurry up things so much you can end with a 50% probability to have a production problem that will add one turn more).

Same about wonders, so you can know that someone is building them (word of mouth will let this kind of epical project know to any Civ) but you can't do a miracle to catch it by the tail, if you aren't advanced enough into same building (plenty of money or not).

Of course real solution should be others: no "unique" wonders, no switch of wonder mid-building, but that's another thread (and List 2.0 contain enough ideas about it).

I don't think that difficult is equal to boring. If I look at modern city I can't see any reasonable similitude to Civ model. I really see room (and needs) for a different growth model (i.e. immigration from near village or city or far countries).
I don't understand why you feel the need to wait years and years to build so basic infrastructure.

May be I'm not a player good enough (but beware of take only the master players as benchmark about game difficult, IMO).

I really would prefer to have some different task to cope with to make the game balanced from start to end.

On the same line, why we don't have to build any unit as phalanx still in 1980 before to upgrade it to mechanized infantry?

quote: Originally posted by S. Kroeze on 05-05-2000 05:23 AM Just a general remark: Most suggestions here about this topic will result in even more easy wins. For those players the best advise I can give is to start at Chieftain level again! I never, ever cheat in any way and often handicap myself - for instance by not building any wonders or never changing government- still I think it is almost impossible to lose the game against the AI's on any level, usually with seven Civs and Raging Hordes. My game score will suffer but the final result will be the same. If you have some money in reserve you can build all essential improvements in every new-build city. And it just isn't realistic that a new city would get everything for free. Instead I hope Firaxis wil try to make the game a REAL challenge! As the game is now I only enjoy the game until about 1500AD, after which it becomes boring. Some really difficult scenario's (e.g.Midgard or Newworld) still remain interesting though. I agree with OrangeSfwr that you shouldn't get messages telling a wonder of your opponent is almost completed. I consider buying/rush building wonders cheating too!

You're thinking in the "Civ 2, CTP" frame of mind. If you consider all the changes that should occur in Civ 3 than I don't think any thing to up city production to be more realistic is a big problem. I hope to see a much slower and more thought out Tech tree (not ridiculously slow, but more time between sciences and more sciences in General) in order to show the importance of advances through trade. With this in mind (and the implemention of the new Wonder system idea that you seem to like) the idea of auto production (IMHO) will not be "easy". Especially if the AI (and other players in Multiplayer) get the same option. You have to admit that a city built in 1950 without a marketplace is a little unaccurate isn't it? Especially when you have to buy a million improvements after that. And on Chieftan I can conquer the planet before A.D. as most people can. But beating the game on Diety without changing Government types and without wonders?? C'mon. (And if that's the truth, than there is a problem with Civ. No Civ should be able to conquer the planet or get to AC without a wonder and under a tyrant!)