Are farms coming back?

[Palaiologos]

Originally posted by WarpStorm


Actually, most of the people responsible for Civ2 no longer work for Firaxis.

Oh i didn't know that.


It does explain a lot, doesn't it?.

[XOR]

I think connection networks (like roads, harbors and rails) should do a similar effect to that of traderoutes in Civ2, just not as powerfull. Maybe something like 10% extra trade multiplied by the fraction of the wolrds friendly cities it is connected to, so that if the number of friendly cities a city is connected to is equal to 50%-1 of the wolrd's total cities then it gets a 5% extra trade. It's not as exagerate as in Civ2 where a city could have 60% of its trade from trade routes . I dont know if it's already like that or not, I just think that that is/would be the thing/effect that trade network should have on a city's resource production.

I'd really like to see farms coming back and railroads being just for transportation. It would also be a nice idea to use advanced mines instead of putting railroads on mined tiles. Railroads are being a bit exagerated and some other things (like farms and advanced mines) end up "missing" in favor of just doing things by spreading Iron and Coal all over the map. Tile improvements could use some improving.

[dunk]

Originally posted by Palaiologos
In the civ2 manual a programer(don't remember his name) says that in civ1 there were only railroads and irrigation and that the final result looked ugly.So they decided to add farmlands as an upgrade of irrigation, as RR was an upgrade of roads plus it would look cooler.

Unless i am mistaken were not the same men who made civ2, responsible for civ3?

Kind of funny seeing as how the AI in Civ II still built RRs on every tile in their territory.

[WarpStorm]

Not just the AI, I did it too. The high speed movement was too valuable to risk by not building a little (okay, a lot) of redundancy into the system. Even if the took away the food bonus and allowed double irrigation, I'd eventually RR every tile in my lands. Infinite movement (don't restart this argument here) is a very valuable defensive tool.

[Oerdin]

If they won't make these improvements part of the default game then I wish they would atleast unhard code it so we could mod them into existence.

[Hagbart]

Of course railroads increase food production. When it can get transported quickly it can be spread to more people.

But I would like the 'fields' from civ2 back, they were cool.

[alexman]

I think tile improvements are fine the way they are. If I could change something about railroads, I would make their movement cost something greater than zero.

The best way to think of railroads within the current system is as suburbs and factories. There is a mod that adds little buildings next to the railroad graphics, in effect simulating urban sprawl. It's very nicely done. In effect, you get a city that covers the entire city radius after railroading is complete. That might not be any more pretty to look at, but at least it's more realistic!

[Blue Moose]

Maybe Railroads should work somewhat like rivers, and give bonuses to adjacent squares (though they are still in a square themselves, of course). That makes more sense, and it would eliminate the ugliness effect (because a little bit of rail does look nice). It makes sense too, I think.

Though really, if you are going to complain about realism, then the entire city model is pretty unrealistic. I like the ideas about being connected to other cities giving you bonuses for food and production. What really would be nice to have though, is the following:

Early on, one citizen means one square can be produced from. But with the later arrival of technology, in some cases citizens can gather resources from more than one square. This is done by means of what the square produces. Squares that only produce food would get some very dramatic effects, ending the game with 1 citizen being able to gather from 4 or 5 food only squares. Industrialization and the like would allow citizens to gather more from production oriented squares....

and what would tie it all together is that trade centric squares would always need one citizen each, and the amount of trade that a city produces would be one large factor in determining how much food it gets from you food network. Food production would be shared.

I think this would model the real world better. You'd still have tile and city improvements that increase resource gathering, but now you'd have your agrarian cities with very low population (just like it is in modern times), as well as high production without needed to many people doing it (with the advatange of assembly lines and automation). But you still need people to manage trade networks and research....and trade is where the people go.

-Moose

[XOR]

Originally posted by Hagbart
Of course railroads increase food production. When it can get transported quickly it can be spread to more people.

That's when you are speaking about transporting food from other states far away, if we are speaking of local production of a city... well... no, of course not.

[WarpStorm]

...and how big is a tile?

[Optimizer]

Have we heard anything from Firaxis about Farmlands in PTW?

Farmlands were one of the really good things in Civ 2. I cannot understand why they were dropped in Civ 3.

[WarpStorm]

They are redundant with rails. If you are going to put rails everywhere (and you did, even in Civ2), why add complexity where it isn't needed. Maybe someone just needs to make an attractive railroad graphic.

[XOR]

No tile improvements other than the already mentioned airbases, radars and watch towers will be added in PtW. Also no changes will be done to the existing tile improvements.

The reason is because for each new tile improvement they would have to teach the AI how to use it efficiently and make advantage out of it.

Irrigation does look very ugly, the same goes for railroads in every tile. I think I will at least change the irrigation graphic to farms. And really, pretending that railroads would increase food and production without new mining and farming technology is quite a bit silly. In any case, new mining and farming technologies increase production without the need of railroads.

In SMAC, for example, roads and rails were only transportation (and uncap production when a tile was too productive). So you would build rails only to connect cities and strategical locations. Not building rails everywhere had a purpose.

In Civ2, since anyone could ride on anyone else's railroads, building railroads in every tile of your territory could be the cause of your own demise (if only the AI had been smart...). An example, each time I went to war with someone in Civ2 I unloaded a bunch of spies/diplos and stole 1 tech from each city, if no tech could be stolen, I would trash all marketplaces. The howizer's attack-and-vanish exploit also comes to mind.

[BigFurryMonster]

Originally posted by Optimizer
Farmlands were one of the really good things in Civ 2. I cannot understand why they were dropped in Civ 3.

They were not dropped. They were just not added.

Civ 3 was built from scratch.

(The question remains: "why?")

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by BigFurryMonster

They were not dropped. They were just not added.

Civ 3 was built from scratch.

(The question remains: "why?")

Why what? Why was civ3 built from scratch or why weren't the farms added?

Regardless of the quaestion's form, the answer is what Warpstorm has said:

They are redundant with rails. If you are going to put rails everywhere (and you did, even in Civ2), why add complexity where it isn't needed.

[WarpStorm]

Why? Because they weren't needed. The game system makes railroading all of your land a good idea even without the productivity bonuses (this is different than Civ2 where the enemy could use your rails, so you didn't want to rail everywhere. Yes, I know there are wayts to do this even now.). So if everybody is going to RR everywhere anyway, why complicate things by adding another worker action.

A good rule of design is to not add stuff just for the sake of adding stuff. The kitchen sink approach to game design quite frankly blows.

[Tiberius]

Exactly.

[nationalist]

I hope farms aren't added. They'll be another boring piece of late game micromanagement that I don't want to have to deal with. Land tile improvements already slow the game down enough as is.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by nationalist
I hope farms are added. They'll be another boring piece of late game micromanagement that I don't want to have to deal with. Land tile improvements already slow the game down enough as is.

Huh?? You hope that "another boring piece of late game micromanagement" that you "don't want to have to deal with" will be added? I'm afraid I can't follow your logic.

[nationalist]

Sorry, that was a typo. I meant to say "aren't" My mistake. :embarassed: I'll edit it.

[nationalist]

Oops. Don't know why I quoted myself.

[Tiberius]

I see. Sorry, I should have figured that out.

But now why did you quote yourself ???
Your posting style is a very wierd one

[Zero]

how can firaxis make the railroad carpeting in later game more attractive aesthetically? It would be hard to make anything that has railroadtrack everywhere look pretty.

Also if we are talking realism, shouldnt railroadtrack be obsolete for say highway later on in the game? I wouldnt support wat I am saying right now since I would want to avoid even more complexities but for all you realists out there, something to talk amongst yourselves...

[WarpStorm]

I've always considered Civ's railroads to be the total modern transportation system, railroads and paved roads suitable for cars and trucks. Not just literally railroads. I consider the earlier roads to be of a lower quality like stone/brick paved at best and planks and dirt tracks at worst.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
It makes perfect sense for rails to increase food. At least in the USA, railroads (and later, refrigerator cars) enabled the mass transport of meats and foodstuffs from their sources to the urban areas of the east coast. Without railroads, the East Coast would not have been able to support the dense urban population that it does.

Yeah no kidding! Trucks generally pick up the food from refrigerator cars at plant depots. For instance, you can drive by a McDonald's distribution plant about 30 minutes from where I live and guess what? Train tracks right up to the warehouses. Rails are crucial for the U.S. and are the primary means for shipping HUGE quantities of anything.

[Traelin]

Why doesn't someone just change the irrigation tile to look like farmland? That'll solve the problem. Personally I think roads are SOOO much uglier than rails. Rails just look so much more "orderly" IMHO, the roads wander around in a nasty zig-zag pattern (which is more realistic I know, but still). But it sounds like I'm the only one that likes how rails look over roads, so I'll shut up now.

[cgannon64]

Alot of people (including me) think that rails should improve production, and farms should improve food. This would make cities have a mix of farms and rails, and wouldn't look so ugly.

Just my two cents.

[Cyclotron]

Well, since I never considered railroads ugly, I can't really comment on that... but there is no reason historically speaking that railroads should improve production while not improving food.

Besides, mines already increase production. Irrigation is food, roads are trade, and mines are shields... so railroads should probably benefit all (they do IRL) for balance.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Well, for my part, I still cling to my original "compromise" position! i.e., though I agree that rail (and roads) should increase commerce, food and production (or reduce corruption), I think it should NOT be based on the number of roads/rail you have, but on the number of cities you have connected up to the Capital by your road/rail network. Perhaps +1 per 8 cities for roads, and +1 per 5 cities for rail! This, I believe would have two important effects:

1) It would significantly reduce railway sprawl, as now you would only need to build a single RR connecting your city to the capital (this connection would not have to be direct, but could be via other cities), plus another one as back-up (just in case one gets pillaged )

2) It would add another reason why you should protect your capital!! Not only do you now have to deal with increased corruption, but all your outlying cities lose productivity and food as everyone starts looking out for themselves!

Anyway, that's just my views, feel free to diss them if you like .

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by Traelin
Why doesn't someone just change the irrigation tile to look like farmland? That'll solve the problem.

Sn00py's latest graphics mod does just that. It looks pretty good too.