[Suggestion] City Building change from 2x2 to 3x3

from Elemental Forums

I along with a lot of other people like the ability to build up cities on the map. However this seems to be raising some issues in believability, balance, and mechanics. The Spaghetti layout as it's called means units can exit and enter cities covering large spans with little to no movement. A single level 5 city could block off a 11 tile wide pass. Siege defenders can defend whole cities stretched over an 11 tile wide area.

Given these issues I was trying to think of how to keep the currently ability to build cities while reducing the "spaghetti" problem. And it seems to simplest answer is to make cities take up less space when building. But instead of reducing the number of buildings a player can make you instead reduce the amount of space current buildings take up.

 

If the game switches to having each tile use a 3x3 grid instead of a 2x2 grid that would mean the 8 tiles around the initial city center would supply 8x3x3 = 72 Spaces. A level 5 city only currently uses 60 spaces meaning a level 5 city could fit in 3x3 map tiles with room to spare.

This does potentially raise issues with resources as they are based on 1 tile currently. But the amount of resources they give based on the number of spaces they use is a balance issue. Though it could easily go a few different ways depending on how the devs decide to handle it. They could keep it so the resource buildings are only 2x2 buildings thus the rest of the square is left to be developed however you want. Or they could have the building now take up a 3x3 space and give even more resources. The second option would end up make choosing what resources to add to a city vs pioneer outpost even more important because they use up a lot more spaces.

As for city expansion because the player has tons of room around the city center to build up with 3x3 setup there is no need for them to be able to expand out all spaghetti like. Thus reduce the number of squares away from the city center they can build by about half. So level 1-2 city can only build 1 square away, while level 3-4 can only build 2 squares away and so on. This would make city placement more important along with using pioneer outpost to grab resources. As currently the 11x11 coverage of a level 5 city is a bit excessive.

I know we don't yet have the 3D engine but for the most part any change on existing stuffs models should just be a scaling issue. The buildings that could be the biggest issue though would be the city center and resource buildings. I have no idea how much of the art assets are finished but when it comes to resource buildings they could simply scale current 2x2 models and center them on a 3x3 grid rather then needing to completely redo them if the devs go the route of them taking up 3x3.

Anyway I'd like to hear your guy's thoughts on this.

7,255 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd like to add a few more things. ;)

I think this setup could help to promote specialization of cities. Currently the only 2x2 building that produces more then it's 1x1 counter part is the University. The university produces 10 RP while the smaller 1x1 building only produces 2 RP. The other buildings not producing as much is of course a balance issue but it does show us a nice setup that can help to focus specialization by having 3x3 buildings.

For example imagine a 1x1 building produces 1 production, a 2x2 building produces 5 production, and a 3x3 building produces 12 production. This means if you go on a per space basis the 1x1 produces 1 per space, 2x2 produces 1.25 per space, and 3x3 produces 1.333 (4/3). Thus a city that wishes to specializes uses larger blocks of land and thus more tiles on bigger buildings. After all 9 spaces is about 1/3 of a level 3 city so it's a huge investment in terms of space. But since your specializing you get more for your space used with the exact values nailed down in balancing of course.


Also it would be nice to know the final release system can support 3x3 buildings or even odd shaped buildings such as 2x3 for futuring modding purposes. Even if the current 2x2 system were to remain in place.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Yikes....we've had enough trouble trying to overlay a 2x2 subtile system over an engine ment for single tiles...3x3 would be HELLISH to implement. Perhaps for Elemental 2 we ditch the traditional large tile system in favor of a higher resolution in tiles, but for it's first outting, 1x1 and 2x2 are as varied as Elemental's gonna get ;)

edit: Sorry, Pyro, if that came off as angry. Its a great idea, and I'd LOVE to have a tetris-style city system where things interconnect in interesting ways, but [Boogie shoots the city code a dirty, hateful glare] the system just wouldn't be up for the challenge without reworking some key systems, and we just don't have time.  :(   Thanks for the suggetion though!

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting BoogieBac, reply 2
[Boogie shoots the city code a dirty, hateful glare] the system just wouldn't be up for the challenge without reworking some key systems, and we just don't have time.     Thanks for the suggetion though!
End of BoogieBac's quote

I was afriad this might be an issue. I knew changing from 2x2 to 3x3 could pose some problems depending on how the engine handled things currently. Figured I'd suggest it in case it was do able.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

We had originally planned on just 1x1, 1x2, and 2x2 (to keep things simple) but even 1x2's proved too flakey and we had to ditch 'em  :(   Very frustrating to THINK you're doing something straightforward and simple and have it turn into a complex timesink.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Ah well the buildings that aren't perfect squares was kind of a last min toss in which is why it was in my 2nd post. The original idea was just to stick with 1x1, 2x2, and 3x3. And mainly to move up to 3x3 to reduce all the spaghetti cities. While trying to avoid going the route it seems that it was inevitably going to take. Which was less spaces to build with, and has already happen now in newest patch. :P