New Units

[mjmacy]

I am starting this thread as a request for new Units.
I personally would like to see a unit that could transport food. I have cites that have a lot of food and others that are starving. This would never happen In real life. Transportation and the sale of food is the most important trade in the world. Without U.S. grain, much of the world would be starving right now. I'm Looking at you China. Anyways I'm off topic. Lets just see if anyone can make some of the units we request.

[ToeTruck]

How much U.S. grain does China receive each year?

[Dr Shot]

This could be done with a worker action,something on a one time basis. look at watch towers and colonies. this would make a good ballance between necessity and growth for any other(fun) reason(s).
I do like the concept, keep them commin' , eh!

[knighterrant]

I kind of like the way this was handled in Alpha Centauri. You made a transport and could stick it on a piece of land outside a cities influence area. Then you tell it to transport food/minerals or energy from that square to the city it was built in. It wasn't something you had to manually do every turn, it was like a mobile farm/mine/solar unit. Of course, these setups were the first to get hit with an air strike when another civilaztion decided you were too good.

[jontar]

Good idea. I've also found myself in need of something like that.
Maybe it can be done like the cow in 'Call to Power II'.
It's a unit that modifies directly how much food a square produces. It can be captured (usefull like the workers)
Im not shure it can be done.... someone?

[WarpStorm]

Can't be done by anyone outside of Firaxis.

[steven8r]

I too, used to think that having an over-abundance of food in some of your cities whilst others were starving was absurd. (Actually I still think the concept is absurd). However, I've become used to the idea that this will happen at certain city sizes and in certain locations.

Sure, a 'Food Caravan' unit or something could be used to prevent cities from starving, but even more useful is being mindful of what makes a city starve.

Each pop point in a city requires 2 food units. Look at the terrain around the city and see how to get the best food to shield ratio. (More pop isn't always a good thing).

My main strats are to grow slowly. I usually stay away from Graineries (unless I can get Pyramids) and Longivity. I only want the cities growing fast enough to get the most amount of sheilds out of the surrounding land. Use cities near food resources or Flood Plains, as Worker/Settler farms. These cities can take the pop hit and recover more quickly than Plains cities.

Another strat, let the surplus population starve. Yeah, I know it's pretty cruel. At least in the game, you won't take a rep hit for your population starving--just give them enough Luxury Resources to let them 'forget they are dying'.

This also works with unhappy population. Starve 'em down until only the happy folks are left.

Still, you'd think that if you can trade those 'Spare Tires' to another country, that you could share some bread with your own folks.

To summarize:
The concept of some cities starving while others have abundance is absurd.

This is a game factor. Forwarned is forarmed. Now you know this will happen, adapt your strategy accordingly.

[Willem]

Originally posted by mjmacy
I am starting this thread as a request for new Units.
I personally would like to see a unit that could transport food. I have cites that have a lot of food and others that are starving. This would never happen In real life. Transportation and the sale of food is the most important trade in the world. Without U.S. grain, much of the world would be starving right now. I'm Looking at you China. Anyways I'm off topic. Lets just see if anyone can make some of the units we request.

You don't want a new unit, you want a new game. Your idea simply can't be done. No doubt this feature was removed since the AI wouldn't have a clue how to use it effectively, giving the human a huge advantage.

[Lucarse]

Guys did you ever play the Original CIV or CIV II ??.

The trader (camel unit) could carry resources or luxuries AND food, I used to use it all the time to fill up the grain silo's (food box in the city screen) of other cities.

I think they removed this feature as it was too powerful you could create and sustain a massive city with out having access to the tiles around you.

[minke19104]

CTP had food caravan too...

I just think of food tiles as housing tiles. This way, even if you are able to ship food around, if the city do not have enough tiles that can house its citizens, then it cannot grow any larger.

Food caravans would just make the game unbalanced, Imagine having a city in a hill surrounded only by mountain tiles. If you are allowed to transfer food around, then this city would have 20 citizens working every tile to make some crazy shield/turn. In real life you need at least some flat terrains to have massive sprawling city.

[TriMiro]

In a modern Country no city is self suficient. They all depend on some comunication between each other. Even if one is far away from the sea or the ocean one can still eat sea food. In every modern society food can be transported from one place to another.

There might be a special inprovement or a bunch of units that will be automated to deliver food across the map. All that one would need is road between 2 cities.

Having a all montain city and supplying it with food from the other cities is a good idea. There are cities like that in Russia for instance. Maybe it will disbalance the AI to Human ratio, but Human to Human it will be a very powerful tool.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Lucarse
Guys did you ever play the Original CIV or CIV II ??.

The trader (camel unit) could carry resources or luxuries AND food, I used to use it all the time to fill up the grain silo's (food box in the city screen) of other cities.

I think they removed this feature as it was too powerful you could create and sustain a massive city with out having access to the tiles around you.

true, the caravan unit was in civ 1 and 2. Firaxis made a good decision in axing it in civ 3. I would like to be able to set up supply lines where a city could transport food or shields to another city, however doing it with another unit is not necessary nor wanted. Any city in a trade network should be able to set up a supply line without the need of a f***ing unit.

P.S. the most use I found for the caravan in civ 2 was to rush wonders, not setting up trade routes.

[ToeTruck]

Yea, I remember the food caravans in Civ2. Neat concept, but not much use except for the "fill the food box" cheat where you could grow cities to obscene pop levels. Or, of course, rushing wonders.

I'm thinking along Mad Bomber's thoughts, extra food should/could be distributed without the need for a unit. Luxuries and strategic resources work that way so why not food?

Might open up some abuse options...I could easily imagine a scenario where food is piped to a city so that it can pop-rush big improvements and then shrink back to size one while the unhappiness wears out. Maybe bad, maybe not.

All in all, I like the way the game is right now. Seems reasonably balanced.

- TT

[mjmacy]

Originally posted by ToeTruck
How much U.S. grain does China receive each year?

four billion pounds of US soybeans imported into China last year amounted to nearly three pounds for each of the country's 1.3 billion people.
"In fact, just this week China purchased 50,000 tons of US wheat."Testimony of Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman
Before the Senate Committee
on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Washington, DC March 1, 2000
China would starve without U.S. grain.

[mjmacy]

I agree that a food caravan could unbalance the game., which I would not like to see done. But I think it just doesn't make sense not to have one. I think that you should be able to send one or two foods from one city to another. the city exporting the food would lose one food per turn and the importing city would gain one food per turn.

[mjmacy]

You could also make it so that the longer distance between the cities the more you would have to send in order for any to get their. some is lost or stolen along the way. this way a city surrounded be moutains would get less because the city that had an abundence of food would most likely not be in the mountains, and be far away. I just think is is unrealistic and really annoying whe tow cites that are very close and one has to use the good food producing tile while the other cant and starves. One city grows to the size of 15 while the other remains a two.

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber

P.S. the most use I found for the caravan in civ 2 was to rush wonders, not setting up trade routes.

... That's only because you never nuked enough to turn enough fertile cropland into swamp so that caravaning food was a matter of a city's survival ...

-Oz

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Ozymandias


... That's only because you never nuked enough to turn enough fertile cropland into swamp so that caravaning food was a matter of a city's survival ...

-Oz

No. I just had enough engineers to clean up the pollution and transform the terrain back to grassland in a single turn.

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber


No. I just had enough engineers to clean up the pollution and transform the terrain back to grassland in a single turn.

as I was saying ...



Oz

[TriMiro]

I just think is is unrealistic and really annoying whe tow cites that are very close and one has to use the good food producing tile while the other cant and starves. One city grows to the size of 15 while the other remains a two.

I agree.

I also think that there should be some improvement on the forest squares that will inclease the food production there. A forest can produce more than one food when an improvement like "animal care" is made. Also such square can be made to produce less shields since the trees cannot be cut at random anymore.

[Aramis]

You might find the answer in micromanaging your cities. This can be a pain in the butt, but particular cities (like those in tundra regions) may need your loving hand rather than the corrupt governor.
Experiment with terrain improvements. Irrigate some desert tiles--see what that does. Then mine the same tiles and see which worked best. Do the same in tundra. Mine or forest the tiles that have game. See what worked better. Do both and decide which works better for your problem.

Micromananging can be a pain in the a*s but problem cities need it. The few turns it takes to experiment shouldn't cause a drastic turn of events (i.e. culture flip).

Experiment--It's a game--ENJOY!

(Edited spelling mistake.)

[TriMiro]

Rob_S - good point.

I have right now about 5 cities that simply cannot grow above size of 2. I conquered them from Zulu and chose not to destroy them beacuse I did not want to get the wrath of the other civs. Right now they are barely producing anything good. They have forests ovet tundra and I cannot do anything about it.

Think about some of the Russian cities in Siberia. Thats what they have there forest over tundra. Yet all these cities are of size couple of millions at least.

[Sava]

Trading food supplies was one of the many great parts of Civ2 that the geniuses at Firaxis didn't bother to put into Civ3. Sorry mjmacy, but don't hold your breath for this kind of unit to make an appearance.

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by TriMiro
Rob_S - good point.

I have right now about 5 cities that simply cannot grow above size of 2. I conquered them from Zulu and chose not to destroy them beacuse I did not want to get the wrath of the other civs. Right now they are barely producing anything good. They have forests ovet tundra and I cannot do anything about it.

Think about some of the Russian cities in Siberia. Thats what they have there forest over tundra. Yet all these cities are of size couple of millions at least.

This is one reason why I advocate NOT allowing cities to be built on forest. Others are: (1) the AI knows how to clear them and (2) using Western Europe as an example, heavy deforestation occured before large cities could exist (through the Middle Ages, Europe was much more heavily forested; Tolkien's "Myrkwood" is an example, originally via still-extant accounts, of how inhospitable places forests were). (3) Likewise prohibit cities on tundra and problem solved.

-Oz

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Ozymandias


This is one reason why I advocate NOT allowing cities to be built on forest. Others are: (1) the AI knows how to clear them and (2) using Western Europe as an example, heavy deforestation occured before large cities could exist (through the Middle Ages, Europe was much more heavily forested; Tolkien's "Myrkwood" is an example, originally via still-extant accounts, of how inhospitable places forests were). (3) Likewise prohibit cities on tundra and problem solved.

-Oz

I think that the CIv 3 model is a good one in relation to forestation and deforestation. Try building a city in terrain that is completely surounded by forests; it won't grow past size 2. Cut it down and the population starts to grow (if the undelying terrain will support it)

Trimiro:

Siberia is one of the most sparsley populated places on the planet (excepting the poles and Greenland) there are few Siberian cities and none have a population exceeding one million persons. The few cities that do exist are primarily by lakes or on the coast, which fits nicely into the CIV 3 model. The most populated cities in russia are not located in tundra, although Russian winters are vey cold, the summers are reasonably warm and would actually be plains in the terrain set of CIV 3.

Rob S:

Dosen't make a difference if you mine or forest a tundra tile the best you can get is 1 food and 2 shields unless you have bonus tiles present. Of course it is always good to experiment with other terrain sets but it is a simple calculation with tundra.

[Daniel Frappier]

I don't know if that idea was ever proposed but I would like food to be handle at the Civ level.

Every Civ would have a bonus of 2 food (instead of a free extra worker by city) and there would be a food box by Civ instead of by City. Where would the new population go ? You would use sliders to set how much manpower is allocated to food / shields / trade just like you are already using sliders to allocate how much money goes to science / happiness / tax.

The pop would be automatically assigned to tiles according to the priorities you have set thus reducing micro-management.

An other advantage is more realism and better gameplay as cities surrounded by grasland everywhere could be used to feed the empire and tiles surrounded by gold mines, gems, oil, and other luxuries would be prime locations for cities even if there are no grassland in sight, just like real life. Every megapolis in history relied on food coming from various sources to thrive. It gives you a great use for that miserable little city you just conquered that is now bringing back some much needed food to the empire.

An other advantage is that it kills ICS as with this system you no longer needs to give bonusses to each new cities (no more free extra worker).

I think for it to work you would need to separate shields into Labor and Raw Materials. A mined hill would give 3 Raw Materials unit instead of 3 shield and you would be able to use it everywhere and to cumulate it just like gold. Labor would be: 1 pop = 1 labor and well .... I just caught myself day dreaming again... sory.

[Sava]

[retarded civ-fanboy rants] BLAH BLAH You can't make the game realistic BLAH BLAH
[/rcfbr]

Daniel... good idea just beware of the flaming fan-boys.

[Mad Bomber]

Daniel:

Your idea has merit, but in order to do this in civ 3 the game would have to be completely redesigned; which isn't going to happen. Also you would need a slider for each city which would make a very cumbersome interface.

[TriMiro]

Your idea has merit, but in order to do this in civ 3 the game would have to be completely redesigned; which isn't going to happen. Also you would need a slider for each city which would make a very cumbersome interface.

Have you played Master of Orion 2, that was exactly the way things were there. It has been done and it is very good idea. I just believe thet civ would be a much better game if it takes a few ideas from MOO. The food, the ship design, and the rece design.

[Daniel Frappier]

Mad Bomber, no there would not be a set of sliders for each city but only one set for the empire (or a set for each group of connected cities). This implies that some cities would grow fast and some very slowly if they have bad terrain. That would simulate the movement of populations inside of countries, peoples are moving off to better their live. No more grassland availlable on the east coast well we will move off west!!

New pop would automatically be assigned depending upon the priorities set by the sliders. The exact rules would have to be worked out but for example if the sliders dictate that the next pop be assigned to grassland and we have 2 cities that have an availlable grassland tile then the one that gets the new pop could be for example the one that has not get a pop since the longest time.

Of course it would require a complete redesign of Civ and we won't see it.

MOO2 as something like this!!! I have a copy I bought last year at something like $4.99 in a bargain bin. I never even got to install it on my system as I got to busy with other things but now I have to give it a try.