18-08-2002 11:43									#1
	"Captured territory" Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Ok so I know I am soft when it comes to Civ 3...

But one thing that really annoys the heck out of me in Civ3 is that I sweep through the enemy land, mostly annihlating everything in my path... and when you have that momentum going I dont want to be expending my attacking force by garrisoning them in new cities. ...and then of course some other [jerk] comes in and starts building on my freshly "purified" land. Then I have to kick them off my piece of land too. So to stop this from happening I either except their cities, which dont fit in well and then have the prospect of "moving" all the citizens, or I have lots of tiny cities which are just stupid.

I would like it if there was some form of system which classified the land I have taken, but not yet built on, at least in a minor way - as belonging to me. I would also like to be able to "claim" land without building on it - ie. when exploring.

One suggested way of doing this is for the land to be "zoned" as mine, in a loose way --- but that land is not considered mine in any other algorithm (ie. landmass control) except for the fact the AI is aware that it will piss me off if they build there. (Maybe not an act of war, but seen as an act of hostility). When an area is conquered, and the cities destroyed it should remain under "my sovereignty" for x number of turns, after which if I have not built there it will be returned to "free".

No nation would be so foolish as to try to build a settlement on land I cleared of anoither nation only a few turns ago.

	18-08-2002 16:48									#2
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Krippled, as far as I understand you can't do that in CB, because apart from belonging to the players, citizens can also be neutral. When you start, you control a certain part of territory, as do the other factions, and all the unclaimed land is neutral. You will have to conquer them to get them in line. Scouting doesn't work, and because these neutrals also resist being captured, you can't simply run around and claiming all empty land as yours. Maybe this is not to your advantage, but it won't be an advantage to the AI either.

Meanwhile, if you don't garrison your original cities, there is a chance that they will rebel, and become neutral again. So you won't have the culture flipping like Civ III has, but if you don't have a firm grasp of your own land, you will lose it anyway. All this to slow the rushing expansion of Civ III and other strategy games (both RTS and TBS)

DeepO

	19-08-2002 07:44									#3
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Not to mention the fact that CB is province based, and not tile based. You don't send out settlers and stuff like that to populate the land, you subjugate.

Wether its by war or diplomacy, you subjugate already existing populaces.

	19-08-2002 18:13									#4
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Good thoughts here! The others beat me to the punch as far as answering goes, but I will say that eventually, we plan to use microtiles to make up provinces. This will enable us to make use of HOMM-style map movement (as opposed to EU style map movement, where you are either "in" or "not in" a given province. In turn, this will allow for such goodies as invading one of your opponent's provinces and gaining control of particular tiles IN the province....that juicy mine over yonder, and so forth. Should set up some interesting dynamics....

-=Vel=-

	20-08-2002 09:14									#5
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I like it, I like it!

I think it has some very big potential in that by essentially removing workers, would cut down on the turn time and the nitty gritty sh... ooh

	20-08-2002 15:19									#6
	Support Apolyton

Krippled, I'm not sure about the workers. I mean, sure, there won't be any workers terraforming around on the outside, but on the inside (province view, let's say) these tasks are more or less present. Herding cattle, cutting down forest, (planting forest? didn't hear it mentioned, but I guess that is in as well), tending to the fields, building stuff... the tasks are integrated and not split to citizen - worker like in Civ, but they are present.

But that is not the problem, in SMAC I liked the terraforming part, the only problem was that you had to do all of it on your own. And this got tedious in the end. In Civ, it is again tedious because there is more or less one set way to follow, one set of rules that will make the best terraforming, and humans don't have a huge advantage over the AI by doing it themselves. This is not so rewarding as in SMAC, but OTOH it makes automating your workers a viable alternative.

So, I hope this CB system will strike a good balance, in that provinces are more or less self sufficient and do the stuff themselves, but humans still have ample opportunity to do it better if they invest time in it. One of the possible things to achieve this is to make some spells that are resource depending, or could even be called terraforming, like a spell that gives you an extra herd in a province, or one that transforms hills into fields, etc. Or the other side, one that will transform any tile to a mountain (to use on enemy territory to hamper production)

DeepO

	21-08-2002 10:21									#7
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO Krippled, I'm not sure about the workers. I mean, sure, there won't be any workers terraforming around on the outside, but on the inside (province view, let's say) these tasks are more or less present. Herding cattle, cutting down forest, (planting forest? didn't hear it mentioned, but I guess that is in as well), tending to the fields, building stuff... the tasks are integrated and not split to citizen - worker like in Civ, but they are present.

I am new here, so granted I could be wrong. But the impression that I have got is that you dont move "workers around tell them to do stuff" its all automated - ie. you dont actually see it happening, but the citizens randomly choose to do different jobs.

Thats what I was meaning, and it sure is an improvement on moving 30+ workers around the map every turn. That becomes a very tedious job, and takes the most time.

	21-08-2002 14:55									#8
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Well. in far as I understand (I'm quite new on the project), you are partially right. Hopes are that idle workers will start doing things when they don't get specific orders from you. But, and this is impossible to predict without being farther in the development, for optimum efficiency you will be required to tell them to do certain things. Maybe an idle worker will start to build a barracks, but if you need it fast, you better do it yourself. Maybe workers will cut down trees on their own, but you'd better make sure you also know how to do it to get a steady lumber supply.

I agree, the moving workers around the map will be non-existing, but a resource driven game will allways have some need for human interaction, even if this doesn't call for 30 actions each turn. In CB, these will be centralized on the province level, and as the total number of provinces is 60, there can't be so much tedium as in a normal Civ game (where you can have 300 cities on one map).

The main point, and here I agree completely with you, is that the most basic stuff like getting food doesn't require you to build anything first, before it can produce food. Fields are already in the game at the start, forest are there too, and both can produce reasonable amounts of food. Plus, you're likely to have some provinces that have a surpluss, and you can share this with other provinces nearby. No need for terraforming as in Civ, but I'm sure there will be some kind of needed interaction, the game would be to simple without it

DeepO

	22-08-2002 05:50									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

WARNING: This thread is becoming a thread of misinformation, with blatant disregard that our opinions are not law

See from what I have read I would say that the player ALWAYS has to chose what is built (ie. barracks) but the "workers" do their own thing.

(I see no real need to have any interaction with the workers whatsoever - I think that the AI could handle that, based on the most important requirements for the province first). Or the "land" in the area could be quickly and simply zoned by the player, and then construction occurs at the whim of the citizens.

Would this make the game to simple, and not enjoyable? I don't know --- good point though, I will have to think about it some more.

Of course you would still want some kind of "worker" but I would call it some form of "engineer" who is capable of building fortifications and other strategically player-placed buildings.

Oooh here's a thought. You could have provincial upgrades... of course the easiest could be building an (expensive) wall around the entire province (this could take an attacking army a turn or so to get through, providing a little more time for re-inforcements to be called in.

You could build a province moat (yes, its big, but they did build the large canals in the world!) which would limit access to the province to say four main areas... providing easier defense... unless of course the attacking enemy saw fit to bring some boats/water-attack seige devices.

Another one could be some form of military training for the general citizens. This would hamper there productivity by say 10% (because they are having weapons training one half day a week).

I dont know if there are "ranks' (ie. which are increased as battle progresses) but if there are you could hold "medieval competitions" which cost ($) but increase the skill of your troops barracksed in the province.

Ok so they were just some random thoughts.

What we really need is Vel to come in here and explain this thing to us. I would also like to see a screenshot of a province, to get it straight exactly what it is in my head.

	22-08-2002 13:49									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Krippled WARNING: This thread is becoming a thread of misinformation, with blatant disregard that our opinions are not law

Very true! Plus, I doubt it everything is fixed in the game yet, there is a difference between teh core rules, and implementing those.

quote: See from what I have read I would say that the player ALWAYS has to chose what is built (ie. barracks) but the "workers" do their own thing.

You'll need to chose your buildings, but it was an idea in one time or another to have idle workers start one of their own, if they felt like it. It wouldn't cost you gold, and maybe some specials would be available.
Workers (by these I mean your citizens in a province) certainly don't always do their work automatically, at least you have to set out goals (10 workers hunting in that forest) which they will fill. It wouldn't be possible to let them choose, as sometimes you want to create a surpluss of something, sometimes you don't

quote: (I see no real need to have any interaction with the workers whatsoever - I think that the AI could handle that, based on the most important requirements for the province first). Or the "land" in the area could be quickly and simply zoned by the player, and then construction occurs at the whim of the citizens.

zoning: something similar could happen, yes but workers doing the most important requirements first: How is the AI going to tell what you have in mind? If you want to stockpile food, and therefore want to have every available guy on the fields and in the woods for a few turns, so that the next few turns you can have all of them available to construct something, you will need to allocate workers yourself. I'm not saying that it won't be possible to have a worker governor or something that you could use, but there surely is a point in doing it yourself.

quote: Of course you would still want some kind of "worker" but I would call it some form of "engineer" who is capable of building fortifications and other strategically player-placed buildings.

Not necessarily. These fortifications are build in a province, so let the province citizens do it. No need for engineers (heh, don't say I said that, I'm an engineer myself )

quote: Oooh here's a thought. You could have provincial upgrades... of course the easiest could be building an (expensive) wall around the entire province (this could take an attacking army a turn or so to get through, providing a little more time for re-inforcements to be called in.

What is the difference between upgrade and building? I can't recall the walls specifics, but they're already available. Or at least some kind of province forticifications are

quote: You could build a province moat (yes, its big, but they did build the large canals in the world!) which would limit access to the province to say four main areas... providing easier defense... unless of course the attacking enemy saw fit to bring some boats/water-attack seige devices.

Nice idea, but I think boats are out. And if access is needed: it is not a pure tilebased game, and even if I don't know yet how combat is going to work, I thought that you don't have to enter the same tile to start a conflict, but the same province. That changes the game a lot...

quote: Another one could be some form of military training for the general citizens. This would hamper there productivity by say 10% (because they are having weapons training one half day a week).

militia? I don't know... maybe Vel will comment

quote: I dont know if there are "ranks' (ie. which are increased as battle progresses) but if there are you could hold "medieval competitions" which cost ($) but increase the skill of your troops barracksed in the province.

You're not the first, this is already in

DeepO

	25-08-2002 03:39									#11
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I think specific fortifications should be handled at the tile, not province, level. You would then ask yourself, for example, should I build the castle on this hill, or behind the river? Having defensive bonuses etc. apply to every tile in a province is ridiculous.

	26-08-2002 20:28									#12
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Eventually (when we get to the point where we're ready to implement microtiling inside provinces), the defense-works will be driven at the tile level, but for now, we needed an abstract way to handle fortifications.

Given the current movement system (either "in" or "not in" a target province), the only way to do it was to put fortification bonuses in at the province level.

	27-08-2002 00:11									#13
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I meant in the final version. If you don't have tiles yet, you can't have anything at the tile level, of course. I guess you don't have the combat system fully built yet, too.

	27-08-2002 01:02									#14
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Speaking of captured territory, are we going to have peace negotions like EU where occupied territory isn't necessarily annexed, or Civ 3 where occupied territory is automatically annexed and then maybe given back to reduce honor/stability penalties?