Adjacent city improvement tile pack #1

from Elemental Forums

ok, the devs have asked for adjacent tile ideas here are some.

 

Irrigation channel - this tile is placed next to a farm, which increases its output by X.

Work Camp - this is a universal tile that can be placed next to mines, lumber yards, and farms or other harvestable resource.  it increases the output by X, gives Y housing,  but lowers prestige by Z.  if adjacent to more than 1 resource gives bonus to each.

Educational Center(probably a better name for this) - this is a tile that can be placed next to a school or other research building.  it increases learning by X, but costs y amount of gold for upkeep.  the reason being that its like education assistance.  the sovereign foots the bill so that people can get a free education. improves research, but costs the empire money.

Ranch - i think that if four farms are built adjacent to each other they should merge to become a ranch.  this would improve food output to X due to more organization.

Mine Depot - this is placed adjacent to a mine.  its a place for storage, processing, and shipping and management.  it would increase the output of the mine due to more efficient work.


hmm, that's all i can think of now, but i am sure i will be back with tile pack 2 idea.

your thoughts?

4,840 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I have always enjoyed building upgrades but I think each should have an opportunity cost and present a real choice to players.  An add-on to a farm is; first, taking up a city slot that could be used for other buildings (opportunity cost) and; secondly, should force a player to make a choice.  As an example, a farm add-on could either boost output or improve food quality to give troops more health, better morale, or the town longer seige times.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

One of the ideas that's being bandied about is the idea of adjacency groupings leading to greater things, and this may be the way to do that.  I don't think the engine can handle more than a 2x2 tile (Boogie, Frog, is this true?), so you could imagine if you put a garden, a farm, a irrigation ditch, and a silo as the 4 tiles, they'd combine into a single 2x2 tile that had a certain food output bonus (over and above the bonuses that each individual pairing gives).

What this isn't doing, though, is leading to unique cities; it's going in the opposite direction.  Uniqueness was originally the purview of having special tiles (like wheat, etc) near your city.  We need something that either limits the number of tiles so that you CAN'T build everything, and must specialize, or reasserts the utility of the special map tile as a truly desirable thing.  For most of my games, I could put gardens out and handle my food requirements, and then had to specialize on the resources I'd harvest (mines or materials).

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I think this adjacency is a very good idea.  To expand upon the adjacency concept, why not include the  "Master Planning" concept in the idea?  For example, think of the layout of Washington DC which clearly makes it a "unique locale."  Why not gain some benefits, not specifically spelled out but to be discovered during gaming, whereby if you create a particular design (say 4 farms in a box or 4 farms in a row) you gain certain benefits?  You could have a City Hall in the center surrounded by four "important structures" at each corner that would enhance the output given your "civic design."  I think this would add value to the building component, add a certain "puzzle solving" element, and would result in more unique town styles that a player might try as opposed to "plop down a building." 

Further, shouldn't there be some kind of benefit to maintaining a community at Level 2 as opposed to Level 5?  If this element could be incorporated, not every location would end of sprawling to a City size; rather, some locales would purposefully stay smaller as there was some value in remaining a village or township.