Now, this wouldn't destroy the system of cities entirely. You would still build cities, and the city radius would still count, but everything else is shared. There should also be the option of staking out your own provincial boundaries.

I think provinces and the city/town/village should be integrated ideas . the city is the capital of the county with villages and towns . a few counties create a state/province . a state/province is the unit that should have the ability to rebel.

Dalgetti

Instead of pooling ressources in each province, I think all ressources produced by all your cities should be pooled together on an empire level. I think this would be simpler than provinces.
The player would have a "budget" screen showing the amount of each type of ressource being produced from cities, received from trade, received from tribute, etc and the grand total.
Then there would be the amount of each type of ressource being spent due to support, buildinc cost, maintenance cost etc and the grand total.
Last, the screen should show the net amount (ie surplus or deficit) and the reserves. A surplus would add resources to the reserves, a deficit would deduct from the reserves. Only when the reserves reached zero would units get disbanded.

The idea would eliminate the need to micromanage ressource for each city, since it would be done on an empire level.

Cities would still be very important as they are the center of population and they produce everything.
Each city would still have its own build queue but the ressources to produce the city improvements would come from the national pool instead of each city.

The new Space empires 4 uses this system. Download the demo to see exactly what I am talking about.

If we just do it with an improvement or something blockades wouldn't work or intercepting trade routes.

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King Par4!!

quote: Each city would still have its own build queue but the ressources to produce the city improvements would come from the national pool instead of each city.

Centralizing this way all shields production on empire level would be awesome for micromanage, but what would be the (production) difference between two cities, one with coal and iron mines, factory, hydro-plant and whatsoever and the other based almost exclusively on agriculture, with very little industrial production. How fast would produce the two city a tank division, for example?

quote: Originally posted by Par4 on 07-24-2000 01:49 AM what would we use for the space ports??

What about the marketplace?

quote: Originally posted by Tiberius on 07-24-2000 02:08 AM Centralizing this way all shields production on empire level would be awesome for micromanage, but what would be the (production) difference between two cities, one with coal and iron mines, factory, hydro-plant and whatsoever and the other based almost exclusively on agriculture, with very little industrial production. How fast would produce the two city a tank division, for example?

Are you asking whether a city producing a lot of shields would produce more tanks than an agricultural city?
Ressources only determine whether a city can build something in the first place, not how fast the item is built. The agricultural city would be able to build tanks if the empire has enough ressources for tanks. However the agricultural city would not produce tanks as fast as the industrial city because it lacks the industrial facilities!
In other words, shields are not pooled nationally because shields are not ressources, they represent the industrial capacity of a city. By ressources I mean wood, stone, iron, etc, that are the materials needed to make city improvements and such. Those ressources are pooled nationally!

A system that has twenty different resources is much more realistic. However, unit costs would be much more complex, and development would be much harder for both human and (of course) computer players. However, more resources could add much more realism to the game.

3 to 5 cities = Provence x 4 = Region times X Regions = Empire

A city would be essentially the same.

A Provence would be what has been said above.

A Region would be a tool for administering extreamly large empire. It should be used to administer oversees provences or to keep provences with almost equal production ratings to work in harmony to benifit your empire. I do not know programing so I do not know how to tell the AI this so someone with experience in that field please tell me if it is possible.

An Empire is the same.

Tell me what you think

Ok so I'll do it over

2-5 cities merge into a province> all provinces in 1 terrain region merge into a region> all regions that are either next to each other or can have a trade route ship or land air can't move enough materials for the Civ empire level share their resources.

regions/provinces share resources and improvements but improvement maintence cost will rise to if all cities or provinces don't have that improvement.

4 types of materials or whatever

food- consumed by people- processed becomes processed food X2 amount of people eat 1/2 as much depends on how you look at it

consumable goods- consumed by people, big for trade- becomes consumer goods trade for more and +50% amount

energy- used by units- only late game gas- needed late game adv energy used by nukes and anti nuke stuff

raw materials(shields same as civ2)- builds improvements(if you build them) and units- becomes compound materials late game for advanced unit construction and say +50% amount I guess maybe

4 groups ,2 for people 1 for building 1 for units I've explained how globally stuff happens now for a little more into provinces

Provinces/cities/regions can automatically get improvements if the economic lvl or industry lvl are high enough. And sometimes the people just build them. Like a market place if you are building a court system and it is taking 15 years a marketplace is just going to be built. It happens the people can do stuff on their own.

economic lvl
-10<>+10
-=unemployed, emmigration, tax income lowers
+=lowers unemployed, immigration, tax income raises, possibility of getting commercial type improvements automatically

determined by trade and some other stuff any ideas?

industry lvl
-10<>+10
-= unit/improvement construction time raises
+= unit/improvement construction time lowers and possibility of getting factory improvements automatically

determined by amount of construction and advances any other ideas for affectors?(is this a word??)

so to recap we have
city-province-region-empire
city-province-region share improvements and production and materials and industry/eco lvls.
regions share materials if they are next to each other or a trade route is available(ie not blockaded or having enemy empire in the way)

4 resources
industry and economic lvl
unemployment

that's about it not very complicated, just 2 lvl indicators the old civ stuff and now energy and consumables. modern units now need energy to be built and refilled or something.

What do you think???

I'm bored waiting for a download luckily I have go!zilla so it wasn't lost with my damn browser crash

edit: regions keep there own economic/industry lvl and improvements money is global always

trade arrows no more research not apply in this model

trade makes a lot of money from tariffs and can affect the economic lvl for like port cities so having a city on the tip of the straight of Gibraltar will be very prosperous and big.

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King Par4!!

Basically, my idea is to cut down on micromanagement by creating "provinces" composed of several cities. It would effectively act like one city, and when a unit or improvement is built, you get to choose where to put it. All of the regions resources are shared in a common pool, and when enough food is obtained, one of the cities will grow. The wonders will always be built in a province's capitial. You can redefine these provinces as you want.