[SUGGESTION] Limiting # of buildings a city can build

from Elemental Forums

Using an arbitrary limit on the number of tiles a city can build makes it feel very gamey, and it obviously feels like it's an artificial game mechanic.

It'd be nice to build in a limitation that makes sense to the players from a logical perspective, rather than an artificial game limit.

I propose a system where buildings reduce the max population of a city. Population becomes irrelevant once a city hits level 5. This will help give more relevance to the population statistic. Consider, when you build a new improvement in a city, how are you getting the bonus from that improvement? It doesn't just take a building, but you also have to employ people to work there. So by reducing the max population, we're able to limit the number of improvements your kingdom can build as it would be limited by the population which is in turn limited by the amount of available food. This limit is increased as you get more food resources as well as through researching better housing and food production techs. This will build in more tradeoffs that the player has to consider as well since as the max population decreases, so does the amount of people available to build troops. Do you build that building that takes up the last 10 population that you have, or do you save it so that you can pump out troops?

Deciding which city to build housing in will also matter as you have to balance the benefits of what you can build at each city. Figuring out which buildings are actually worthwhile to build. This would also prevent city spamming, though it does make food an even more important resource so may need to do some balancing there.

Not sure how to integrate in the city levels into the system. What happens when your max population drops below the threshold for a city level? Does the city go down? Do we introduce a max population (# houses x people per house) to calculate the city level and an available population (# houses x people per house - pop req for improvements) for figuring out how much population is left for building new improvements and troops?

3,725 views 1 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

How about we remove limits altogether and make housing automated.

Every square on the map can produce food except for deserts and rock.This would control you pop and lvl of city. Not enough food you can't grow unless you have caravans bringing food to you. We would also have fertile land bonuses that would give us a certain amount or percentage of extra food. Have the choice of shipping food to other cities, taking 2 food from one city and giving it to another could help create truly great cities at the cost of other cities not growing.  

A city always produces houses but you can choose to produce more housing. As cities hit new lvls they take up more tiles. Lvl1 they take up to four tiles and at lvl 2 they take up to 9 tiles and son and so forth.Also have them not just grow wider in a sprawl but the buildings become taller as the city lvls. (only major buildings, no need for houses being 4x taller)

 

Also just have a city produce a building and it is built. No need for you placing every building and pre-planning where to put them. I have had this beef with the game from the start of Beta 2. If I want a sim-city like game I will by a Sim-city. If I wanted to build bases I would get a RTS game.

Or you could place major buildings and you have a limit of how many your city can handle depending on income and pop.

 

This would open up many more strategies other than the city spam one we have now. Would also make it possible to grow your cities without having to have fertile land.

 

I agree alot with the OP.