(Gameplay) Reduce the 'can't build city' radius

from Elemental Forums

While I understand and agree with why it's there, I find that it is both redundant and inhibits game play. I think the distance should be reduced to 6 or 7 tiles, max.

 

1- We already have to pay for new cities, and it's not like we're cranking out the gold in the first place. I know that some of the goody huts provide a decent amount of gold, but those are in no way guaranteed. Why limit something that is already limited? If you think that lowering the 'can't build here' radius would mess it up, you could just charge more for the cities, or reduce the amount of gold gained from huts. In addition the game is focusing on resources that turn into research, food, and gold, so even if we DID city spam, it would get us nowhere unless there was a resource node every two feet (which there isn't.) Who other than a bad AI would city spam?

 

2- You can now build on resource nodes that are now inside your border, but I have no idea when my border is going to grow outward to encompass resources. If i build next to them, i can use them once i build the needed building, but what about the ones 4 or 6 tiles away. Am I ever going to get to use those? Can you effect the rate in which it moves out? Is it based on city size or something else? There are no indicators showing when my border will expand, it just seems to do it on it's own. Maybe this is more of a lack of information thing, but being able to build cities closer would alleviate this. Being able to control into which city resources go would help too. Right now if i see a nice little spot that has 2 or 3 good resources, I'll go ahead and build a city there. But I quickly find that i can't specialize a city that has 3 different resources going into it. While i would LOVE to have a city focused on materials, metal, gold, and what not, it is not possible right now. Directing resource flow would be much appreciated.

6,255 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Providing more freedom to build would be nice.

Personally, I'd like to be able to have my city just keep growing to swallow up an entire island...or multiple cities growing together to form a continuous city. Sure it's fantasy, not sci-fi, but I dislike the very artificial limit of space.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I won't take part in this :p

 

I will say though, that with the current mechanics, it doesn't make 100% of sense, but it still makes a lot of sense for Noobtrap avoidance and AI coding.

That being said ... it can be VERY annoying when a 2nd city is blocked due to hard caps.

(for instance, if your near 2 golds and want ur 2nd closer to that Lost Library just out of reach ... or vice versa)

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

The influence of a level 4 city is very big. A 10 or 11 tile radius ;)

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I've had other Kingdom's influence take over resources inside my kingdom, so you need to maintain influence for your own cities or else. I like it, more ways to win/lose, using influence to take over other kingdom's resources.

 

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I think it should be reduced a few tiles too. A few times there was a resource i couldn't get to, sandwiched between my big city and a tiny opponent city fairly far away. I couldn't grow to the resource without several city levels and having to go to war to get something not even in my opponent's territory seemed more than a little silly. Btw this was for access to an old forest for materials right at the start. It then took me considerable time to get Any reasonable materials access due to this, especially since I couldn't even build up an army. Not fun, annoying.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Rincewind57, reply 5
I think it should be reduced a few tiles too. A few times there was a resource i couldn't get to, sandwiched between my big city and a tiny opponent city fairly far away. I couldn't grow to the resource without several city levels and having to go to war to get something not even in my opponent's territory seemed more than a little silly. Btw this was for access to an old forest for materials right at the start. It then took me considerable time to get Any reasonable materials access due to this, especially since I couldn't even build up an army. Not fun, annoying.
End of Rincewind57's quote

I don't see how reducing space between cities would help. There's always a potential to have something just one tile out of reach where building a new city to grab it isn't feasible. 10 tiles between cities is fine, what they should do (if it doesn't work like this already, I've not tried), is let the resource harvesters built by the pioneer outside of your influence function but only produce at half the income. Shards would need to be in your influence still, as they're not a normal resource.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Of course ... having Forts that expand Influence could help this.

Even if its under a Fort's influence, it would still use the Bonuses from the Nearest City.