26-02-2005 19:04									#301
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Harry, that's a very simple and truly brilliant solution.

Your approach appears to be simpler than those suggested by Boco and Techumseh because, if Omaha is captured, New York would lose its Omaha food route within one turn, even if Omaha's food bin was partially full. It would not affect US cities other than New York and there would be no effect on the happiness of the country as a whole.

I believe that the other approaches would require that Omaha's food bin is first emptied and starvation either reduces city size (or is about to reduce it) before the food trade link is broken.

Of course, you could adjust the size and food supply of donor cities so that they have zero surplus food and empty food bins. In that case, you would also have to ensure that capture by the Germans (and accompanying decrease in size) does not create a food surplus. Also, this could be circumvented by players who make quick improvements to one or more food supply squares of the donor cities.

	26-02-2005 23:29									#302
	Suffering from ads?

The only problem with the 'helper cities' is that they tie up one city... How close are you to the city limit, harry?

	26-02-2005 23:59									#303
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I think I have room.

In total I have 99 food units that need to be supplied. If each city can supply 3 units of food to wherever then I have to have 33 cities. Though, when I first made my 99 number I included some auxiliary cities that only need 1 or 2 units to net to zero. So, if I can trim the food units to 33 units needed to be supplied I will only have to build 10 cities.

This is no big deal really. I'd like to top out the city limit in the scenario anyways if I'm going to incude any settler-type units.

	27-02-2005 00:08									#304
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Boco Your solution looks good, but if I understand the problem, there may be a more straightforward answer. The manual states (and it's always right, right?) that famines in the donor city eliminate food routes. What would happen in a direct A to B food link if the donor city goes into famine (e.g ChangeTerrain in the city radius to decrease A's net food to <0, but not destroy it)? Seems too simple – did I overlook something?

Negatory. I thought so too, but then I tried it. Famine won't make the city drop the route, at least all the time.

	27-02-2005 00:29									#305
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Would changing the amount of food citizens eat each turn have an impact?

.......

	27-02-2005 01:12									#306
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

I'm a bit late to to this debate, but wouldn't it be easier to put the large cities in permanent starvation? I mean that the large cities have plenty of high production (shield&trade) squares but not many with a very high food production. So without a constant stream of food caravans flowing in every few turns from other cities with a food surplus (small cities that run a large food surplus) the large cities would quickly see a drop in population size. You wouldn't even need to call it starvation ingame but more the effect of citizens fleeing from cities into the countryside due to food shortages.


It's a different concept but it seems to have the same sort of results.

	27-02-2005 07:16									#307
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Harry Tuttle Negatory. I thought so too, but then I tried it. Famine won't make the city drop the route, at least all the time.

Shoulda known it wasn't so simple.

When you tried it, did you test for food route elimination when donor cities had a food storage of 0 at the time that they went into a net food deficit? Did you ever try to set up a famine using CreateUnit Settler events?

Btw, I'm not trying to shoot down an excellent idea, just exploring alternatives. There's sometimes more than one way to skin a cat, each with its peculiar advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I'd much prefer to learn from someone else's experiences rather than reinvent the wheel myself. Kinda lazy that way.

Btw2, how long do food caravan routes last in a game under 'normal' circumstances? For a set number of turns or until they are replaced by other trade routes?

	27-02-2005 08:56									#308
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: Originally posted by Harry Tuttle In total I have 99 food units that need to be supplied. If each city can supply 3 units of food to wherever then I have to have 33 cities. Though, when I first made my 99 number I included some auxiliary cities that only need 1 or 2 units to net to zero. So, if I can trim the food units to 33 units needed to be supplied I will only have to build 10 cities.

I'm afraid that your idea may require some modification. AFAIK, it is normally impossible for a city to have more than 1 outgoing food trade route. However, I don't know if it is possible to hex-edit a city so that it has more than 1 such route.

quote: Originally posted by Boco Btw2, how long do food caravan routes last in a game under 'normal' circumstances? For a set number of turns or until they are replaced by other trade routes?

They last as long as the donor city exists but can be replaced by a regular trade route if a freight arrives from another city.

	28-02-2005 05:10									#309
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Harry Tuttle This is no big deal really. I'd like to top out the city limit in the scenario anyways if I'm going to incude any settler-type units.

I would urge you to include engineers in your scen.

The outline and details that I have read so far indicate that the US will have to stage a desperate withdrawal in the face of an overwhelming attack by German forces in Mexico. The few ways that outgunned and outnumbered defenders have of slowing down the enemy are to pillage roads and create obstacles such as minefields or swamps.

Engineers are not needed to pillage roads but are needed to restore pillaged sections if and when US forces begin offensive actions.

The rivers flowing into the Mississippi from the west provide limited natural defenses that slow enemy units by forcing them to crowd together at river crossings. IIRC, most if not all of these rivers had control dams and resevoirs that could be used to flood land downstream. This could be duplicated by having engineers who can quickly transform plains or grassland to swamps. Laying minefields is another possible engineering task.

I would not worry overly about players founding new cities. My experience with both versions of Red Front is that it is much more efficient to build up existing cities than to found new ones. Founding new cities and quickly turning them into production centres was an expensive 2-3 year project. This was true even for locations that had 3 resource squares, each one producing 18 shields.

Admittedly, founding new cities to act as fortresses can work very well if they are sited on good defensive terrain.

	28-02-2005 05:42									#310
	Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by Boco When you tried it, did you test for food route elimination when donor cities had a food storage of 0 at the time that they went into a net food deficit?

Yes. What I did was start a new game and then immediately built two cities for testing. I created a caravan, editied it, and moved it into the donee city. The terrain was then changed for the donor city.

quote: Did you ever try to set up a famine using CreateUnit Settler events?

Hmmmm, no, but that seems like it could have some merit. It would indeed create a loss in production, but once the city went into starvation wouldn't the settlers be disbanded?

quote: Btw, I'm not trying to shoot down an excellent idea, just exploring alternatives. There's sometimes more than one way to skin a cat, each with its peculiar advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I'd much prefer to learn from someone else's experiences rather than reinvent the wheel myself. Kinda lazy that way.

No, no, ask away. I need you guys to find out any flaws in my idea as well as present some new opportunities.


@Agricola: Well I'm able to create multiple food routes to the same city using Civcity. So Omaha could have three routes to New York if I wanted to. Though it seems that a city can only donate up to three food routes to another city. Every food supply caravan after the third will only add to the "food box".

And yes, I will include engineers and caravans in the scenario as roads will have to be rebuilt and food routes re-established. I like the idea of transforming terrain to swamp. This could be a fun idea.

	28-02-2005 06:24									#311
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Need some Flakpanzers?

Attachment: flakpanzers.gif
This has been downloaded 247 time(s).

	28-02-2005 07:09									#312
	Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by Harry Tuttle Hmmmm, no, but that seems like it could have some merit. It would indeed create a loss in production, but once the city went into starvation wouldn't the settlers be disbanded?

Very likely, but would they knock out the food link reliably? Based on your tests, my guess is no.

	01-03-2005 20:01									#313
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Say Harry, could you provide me with an e-mail address I could use to send you a first draft of the title.gif? It doesn't have to be your "official" address, but rather any old address I could use to get you the draft.

This way the title image can remain a surprise until the beta release.

	02-03-2005 00:11									#314
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: Originally posted by AGRICOLA No, they are not. In developing Red Front 1.5, Colwyn wanted to set up Leningrad so that it had an adequate food only if it had food trade routes with 3 cities that the Germans were sure to capture. The idea was to starve Leningrad unless the player took drastic action. I set it up but the idea did not work because the food routes stayed in place when the Germans captured the 3 cities and we had the crazy situation of German-held cities supplying Leningrad with food.

Agricola,

That post and Harry's use of the change terrain event made me think. Is it possible to change terrain of the city square??? It's the only square that will always be used by the city.

Because if you could, you could simply use changeterrain event to change the food production of a square a city is on. With an event it drops from 6 food down to 2 food, et voila...almost instant foodcrisis in a city.

You could also have a high food production square nearby but then it depends on an enemy unit occupying that square.

	02-03-2005 00:35									#315
	Support Apolyton

quote: You could also have a high food production square nearby but then it depends on an enemy unit occupying that square.

It would have to be this way. CHANGETERRAIN on a city square destroys the city. It also isn't necessary for an enemy unit to occupy a high food production square within the radius to have a starvation effect outside. My solution would be to have a special resource/terrain e.g. grain silos outside major cities. In the event of the Axis capturing one of the breadbasket cities, a CHANGETERRAIN event could be used to remove the grain silo terrain and change it to a non-productive square. Voila, you have your famine.

	02-03-2005 05:03									#316
	Remove this text

What happens if the player recaptures the city?

Perhaps a delayed terrain shuffle back to the original state?

.......

	02-03-2005 06:59									#317
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I have problems with the realism of a city 1000 km behind the front undergoing a terrain change if a frontline city is lost to the Germans.

Losing food trade routes seems much more realistic.

	02-03-2005 08:21									#318
	Got spare money?

@ Erika: Thank you. I'll see if I have a place for them.

@ Boco: Well, I think you should look into how many settlers are disbanded upon a famine. Are they all disbanded at once or every turn into a famine. If it's every turn into a famine then it might be possible to sustain the famine until the city goes kaput.

@ Sarsstock: Yes sir! Send it to harrytuttle@civilization2.net (no capitals). Let's see if the email forwarder works with large images.

	04-03-2005 17:30									#319
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Harry Tuttle @Agricola: Well I'm able to create multiple food routes to the same city using Civcity. So Omaha could have three routes to New York if I wanted to. Though it seems that a city can only donate up to three food routes to another city. Every food supply caravan after the third will only add to the "food box".

Just throwing an idea in, but as you say, a city can only accept 3 food routes, and sending in another food caravan after that just "refills the food box". But what if you designed New York to not be able to produce enough food, even with 3 incoming routes: a constant food deficit. That way, it would only able to keep from starving by constantly sending in food caravans, perhaps, but not necessarily, from specially assigned cities? These would constantly "top-up" the Food Box, and if they should ever stop coming, New York would descend into starvation...
It would be a way of forcing the player to maintain an "active" supply line of food caravans, and although I suppose in play terms, the consequences wouldn't be as dire as real life, it would still be undesireable to have your best city in decline. It would need careful balancing of how far away the caravans should spawn, and how big NY's food deficit should be, to ensure the player had a fair chance to ship food over...


Aw, Arse. I'm on a library computer, so don't have Civ2 in front of me, but I think I remember that the limitations of Events/Cheat Mode don't allow you to create a spawning caravan AND specify its cargo without actively "cheating". But the principle remains, that of a big city with a big food deficit, already maxed out on food routes, and the only way to keep it from starving is to constantly send in caravans to keep the box from emptying... Just a thought.


This scenario is looking absolutely fascinating by the way. I'm looking forward to it...

	05-03-2005 07:07									#320
	Suffering from ads?

Well, you're right, the events engine will only allow you to create a caravan with hides, so spawning a caravan for food purposes would not be possible.

The idea behind supplying New York with a constant flow of food by manually moving caravans into the city is a good one, but in a primarily warfare oriented scenario I don't think it's worthwhile.

Though, and this comes from the discussion that Exile started about production chains, it could be an option in a scenario that demands that a player supply a city with food. For example, a scenario where food is instead defined as raw materials.

Good idea. And thank you for the compliment.

	05-03-2005 08:53									#321
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

In other news, I have plenty of space to build the intermediary cities. I have placed two sets, one for Texas and one for the Grain Belt. I figure those New Yorkers will want some Texas beef too.

Needless to say this is a complicated process. I will post my excel spreadsheet when I am done so everyone can see the wonders of food route planning.

	05-03-2005 09:17									#322
	Suffering from ads?

mabe you could use the canadian cities to supply food
'alberta beef anyone?'

	05-03-2005 13:43									#323
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Harry Tuttle Though, and this comes from the discussion that Exile started about production chains, it could be an option in a scenario that demands that a player supply a city with food.

May I mention that this is one of the (overlooked) features in Discworld: if you play as Ankh-Morpork, you need to capture another city soon to send a regular (though not really strong) flow of food caravans to Ankh-Morpork city, so that it doesn't starve and can use it's awesome production potential!

Talk about being ahead of my time...

	05-03-2005 16:00									#324
	Put an end to popups!

quote: Originally posted by Harry Tuttle Though, and this comes from the discussion that Exile started about production chains, it could be an option in a scenario that demands that a player supply a city with food. For example, a scenario where food is instead defined as raw materials.

In his Second Front scenario, Captain Nemo has replaced food with gasoline needed by mechanized units. Mech units have been given the settler flag so that they use up gas and are disbanded if the gasoline supply in their home city runs out.

This makes a player extremely conscientous in moving gasoline freights to where they are needed.

	05-03-2005 21:06									#325
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Originally posted by AGRICOLA In his Second Front scenario, Captain Nemo has replaced food with gasoline needed by mechanized units. Mech units have been given the settler flag so that they use up gas and are disbanded if the gasoline supply in their home city runs out. This makes a player extremely conscientous in moving gasoline freights to where they are needed.

where is this settler flag you speak of

	05-03-2005 22:01									#326
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

RULES file, unit section

role = AI role (Generally affects the way in
; which computer players use the unit, but
; roles >= 5 will actually affect abilities
; of the unit)
; 0 = Attack
; 1 = Defend
; 2 = Naval Superiority
; 3 = Air Superiority
; 4 = Sea Transport
; 5 = Settle
; 6 = Diplomacy
; 7 = Trade


EDIT: Because the units are human controlled, they can attack and defend normally.

Last edited by AGRICOLA on 05-03-2005 at 22:08

	05-03-2005 23:05									#327
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by AGRICOLA RULES file, unit section role = AI role (Generally affects the way in ; which computer players use the unit, but ; roles >= 5 will actually affect abilities ; of the unit) ; 0 = Attack ; 1 = Defend ; 2 = Naval Superiority ; 3 = Air Superiority ; 4 = Sea Transport ; 5 = Settle ; 6 = Diplomacy ; 7 = Trade EDIT: Because the units are human controlled, they can attack and defend normally.

But if they are AI controlled then i assume that they will do stupid things

	06-03-2005 00:09									#328
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Well, unless you find Panthers settling new cities and building mines normal, then yes

	06-03-2005 01:36									#329
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: Originally posted by N35t0r Well, unless you find Panthers settling new cities and building mines normal, then yes

they just decided to settle down

	06-03-2005 07:53									#330
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Cyrion May I mention that this is one of the (overlooked) features in Discworld: if you play as Ankh-Morpork, you need to capture another city soon to send a regular (though not really strong) flow of food caravans to Ankh-Morpork city, so that it doesn't starve and can use it's awesome production potential! Talk about being ahead of my time...

So have you seen the doctor yet about that arm injury? The one where you pulled a muscle patting yourself on the back?

Just joking. So how does a player go about procuring these caravans when he captures a city? Are the caravans present in the city beforehand?