Expansion Limits

[Deornwulf]

Even though it might slow down the game in the opinion of some people, I would like to see the number of cities and distance units can travel from the capital and/or other cities be linked to technology and/or governments.

A common complaint is that by the time explorers become available, they are useless. Limiting the distance a unit can travel from existing cities/capital/outposts/colonies would allow for there to be a true age of exploration. it would make sense that a civilization that has just mastered the alphabet would have a little trouble coordinating units too far from its capital or other cities.

Certain units could be allowed the ability to travel farther and expansionist civs could be given a bonus to all of their units.

Controlling the number of cities a civ is allowed to settle/build via technology would solve many problems. The AI would no longer be accused of using settler diarrhea to win the game. Corruption would no longer need to be linked to just the number of cities controlled by one civ but perhaps applied globally as the size of the empire increases. Science would slow down since there would be less science generated by each civ.

It would be important for both the distance cities can be built away from the capital and/or other cities and the overall number of cities be controlled. One would not work well with out the other.

Critics might complain about the "artifical constraints" being applied to their empire. (" What do you mean I can't control all of Asia by 1000 BC?") This is meant to make the game more challenging and would allow for a modern empire to be much larger than an ancient one.

Civ3 has several really cool new concepts but gives the players little reason to use them. This type of change would make some of those aspects more important and more widely used.

Feedback of any sort would be appreciated.

[Willem]

I like the idea, it makes sense to me. However that would make it very difficult to meet other civs. You'd only have contact with your next door neighbour, placing some real limitations in the game. I think the range could be extended if you establish a Colony though, which would act like a city in terms of exploration, or maybe just allow half the distance. So if you wanted to extend your exploration, you'd build a string of colonies.

You could also extend the idea to military units as well, which would simulate a supply line. That would force players to not raze every city they conquered, they'd need to hang on to a few in order to allow for a theatre of operations close to enemy territory. That would certainly make for a bit more strategic planning in a war. Though players who don't like the whole cullture flipping thing might not like the idea.

[Stuie]

A good way to limit distances travelled by units would be to implement some sort of supply-line rules. Such as units can only be x number of squares from a road connected to a friendly city, or they suffer some penalty which increases the longer they are out of supply; or simply eliminate units that are out of supply (with an appropriate "your moving out of supply" warning prior to elimination). This would provide a sound rationale for the limitation, and thus negate the "artificial constraint" complaint.

[Willem]

I don't like that idea at all. I'd be extremely annoyed if my unit just disappeared simply because of a supply shortage. And it doesn't work like that in reality. If a tank runs out of fuel, it doesn't self-destruct, it just stops dead in it's tracks. All it needs to function again is a supply truck bringing it more fuel. But I think that approach would lead to micromanagement hell. I think his original idea would be much more playable, if appplied to military units as well.

PS Or maybe make it possible for a Worker to build a Supply Depot, in addition to Cities/Colonies, which the military units would have to stay within range of. No movement would be allowed beyond that range.

[Miznia]

I think that to make it seem less artificial, you should have possible hit point loss (and possible death) whenever a land or sea unit pushes away some "black." Kind of EU-ish.

On the other hand, that may not be fun. But something should be done, I agree...

[MiloMilo]

Interesting idea. I like the idea of a "supply depot," though I think you could simply use a fortress. You would have to have a chain of fortresses leading to your front. This would slow down early warmongering as armies would have to wait for workers to follow them and build bases of operations. Arrian would hate this!
On the other hand, how do you implement it? Just not let units move in whatever direction? This seems not very friendly to work with, it would probably be hard to eyeball the distances. I think, for military units anyway, this is already represented by their not being able to heal in enemy territory. Maybe it should just be extended to not be able to heal in ANY territoty but your own (or an RoP partner's).
It might be simpler to just not allow cities beyond a certain border. But, then you have the problems of 1) what do you do with captured enemy cites? and 2) what if you want an island colonies?
On second thought, it might make the island situation better - it would leave some land unclaimed into the middle ages, which would be cool.

[Willem]

Yeah, I suppose using a Fortress as a supply depot would be a better way to deal with it. But then the problem arises with the fact that the AI doesn't build Fortresses. Of course, they could always go back to the Civ II/SMAC model, where the AI built them everywhere. Frankly, I don't know why they changed that. I think it would be a bit more challenging to have to slog through a bunch of outposts to reach your target. Provided of course the AI actually manned them, which they never did very well before. Unless of course the Fortress itself had attack/defence values like an actual unit, only immobile. Though I guess they would need to be able to bombard, rather than attack.

As for eyeballing distances, that wouldn't be difficult. If you issue a Go To command that's out of range, the cursor would change in order to let you know. I've been playing Pool of Radiance lately, and you can clearly see when a spot is out the character's movement range. It's not a difficult thing to implement.

And the maximum range could only be applied to certain units, like Tanks, that require fuel. An Infantry unit can live off the land if necessary, so it wouldn't be as restricted by a supply line. Tanks etc are much more dependant on supplies. A good example is the Battle of the Bulge. For awhile it looked like the Germans where going to win, until they ran out of gas and their tanks were stopped dead in their tracks.

Of course there's no way any of this will ever make it into Civ III.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Willem
Of course there's no way any of this will ever make it into Civ III.

The sad realization washes over me every time I suggest something and then hit the submit button..... "that will never happen....."

[Willem]

Yeah well, there's always Civ IV. It never hurts to discuss ideas, one of them might actually turn out to be a good one and get added then. We'll just have to wait a few years and see what happens. I suspect that now that the XP is hitting the market, Firaxis is already starting to set their sights on the next version. Design decisions are usually a long time in the making.

Or maybe some wanna be game designer prowling the board might do something with them. There's a couple of people I know of that are floating around from time to time.

[cassembler]

How about applying a little damage per turn if the units stray to far from friendly civilization?

Supply chains are handled by paying maintenance.

I think any unit in the modern age should be able to go wherever; each age before it an increasingly harsher amout of "straying attricion."

Expantionist civs, of course, would have a little more playing room...

[kring]

The more distant you are from a base, the more expensive it is to keep a unit in the field. That is still true today. More so, probably since early groups could live off the land a lot easier back then.

If maintenance was indeed part of supply chain, then units would have different maintenance costs based on closeness to your borders.

[Fitz]

I think that the idea of a fixed movement distance from pace (as measured by movement points) is actually a great idea. How can you be giving a unit over 20+ movement points away from your nearest city any real commands? Either that or the unit should switch over to automated control (reflecting it's need to make decisions on its own without your input). Of course, the former would limit city expantion way more than the latter (the AI could still send out settlers to any distance in the latter).

This distance could increase with Tech Age (although IMO shouldn't with Map size). 10 MP in the Ancient, 20 in the Middle, 30 in the industrial, and unlimited in Modern. Or it could be tied to certain techs. Sea units could be given a multiplier (2-3 times probably).

This would make roads critical for expanding your knowledge of the world and for settling new territory. RoPs would become more powerful. And expansion of your nation would be important for extending your sphere of influence, while corruption would be the counter balancing force to stop expantion from becoming too much. Not all of these things are necessarily good things though.

OTOH, maybe it should be distance from your capitol, and larger numbers. Otherwise you could fling out a settler from the capitol to the maximum distance, then do the same again, etc, to give yourself access to the whole world. Corruption in that case would hurt, and it might be cool to have high corruption "military outposts" that extend your influence, but it might also be a simple workaround to the concept that invalidates it completely.

[Willem]

Originally posted by cassembler

I think any unit in the modern age should be able to go wherever; each age before it an increasingly harsher amout of "straying attricion."

No way. Modern units are more dependant than ever on supply lines. Without fuel, tanks are just hunks of metal; without bullets, rifles are no better than primitive clubs. In the past, infantry could hunt for their food, or plunder some village, and horses could graze wherever there was grass. And the only unit that needed ammo was the Archer. If anything ancient units should have a wider range.

[Fitz]

The real question is are we talking about supply lines, or are we talking about administrative control? In other words, how can you be commanding that archer half way across the world when you don't even have horses yet? I suppose one answer is that the time for one turn to pass is huge in the ancient age, and that reflects (somewhat) the inititally slow, and thereafter increasing, speed of communications.

[Inverse Icarus]

i always thought a cool system would be if you took damage when you were far away from your empire. i never understood how a phalanx could fortify on a mountain on the other side of the world and survive for the whole game.

but again, it's too un-civ for me.

[cassembler]

How about when you "fling" a unit "out of control of" the capital, you can give it some generic orders like:

- explore and return in X turns
- explore and sentry in X turns
- attack all enemies and return in X turns...
- attack the city of X
- goto and defend X location (prompts for a selected square)

Perhaps when you give orders, you can select an area or a square for unit guidance.

This way, while you can give it some idea of what to do, but you can't magically send instant orders to units 10,000 miles away, limiting rapid expansion, but *giving expantionist civs something to live for*.

The AI code would take over for the unit (a generic goto) and do it's best to follow orders, making decissions as it goes along (which would be fair- not perfect I'm sure- but decent thinking).

We can assume that most ancient units, such as the warrior, can hunt and otherwise live off of the land, and other units such as musketeers, need a "supply chain" of some sort. Editable maintenance costs per unit, baby!

I think the "zone of unit control" could best be expanded in descreet, gradual changes, such as at the start of each age for example. Once radio comes into play, it's eliminated.

Of course, another way to do it would be to have it start at like 5 squares from your cultural borders, and gain one extra square for each tech, or have a tech effect that adds X squares to you "zone of unit control."