Hi! I'm Viridian, also known as Anthony Salter, and I just finished a major revamp of the citybuilding system. I'd like to talk today about our design goals for citybuilding and how the system currently works.First, let's look at how our major inspirations, Civilization and Master of Magic, handled cities. In both games, cities were fairly abstract. They consisted of a single icon on the map and a screen full of sprites and numbers.
And you would end up with dozens of the things as the game progressed; to the point where you'd probably end up ignoring some because they were too small or unproductive to help you win the game. (Didn't prevent them from falling into civil disorder and bringing your whole empire to a grinding halt...grr...)
As strategy games developed, a genre of incredibly detailed citybuilding games emerged, including the Caesar series, the Settlers series, and the Anno series.
In these games, everything is simulated practically down to the atomic level. These are the kinds of games where you need to mine ore to make tools to cut down trees to gather lumber to take to the sawmill to make planks to build new buildings.Now, there's no doubt this can be fun. I've enjoyed both the Settlers and the Anno series of games myself. The only problem is that citybuilding, while important, isn't the only thing you do in Elemental, and thus we can't allow it to dominate the game the way it does in Anno-style games. (I can hear certain people weeping on the forums already but it's true.) So what we've tried to do is create a happy medium.I've spent all this time telling you how citybuilding won't work; it might be a good idea to tell you how it will.What exactly did we want when we set out to create our citybuilding system?Well, first, we didn't want city spam. Thus, we created a system where building a smaller number of larger, older cities is rewarded.As you probably know, Sovereigns can create cities, thus creating a town hub. There are five levels a hub can go through - they start as outposts, then upgrade to hamlets, villages, towns, and cities. At each upgrade point you'll get eight new tiles to build improvements on - and your city will be able to support more efficient improvements that it couldn't before.Another feature of cities is that they are (mostly) auto-upgrading. If you expand your city to a village and you have the Housing technology researched, then all your huts will upgrade to houses - instantly, and for free. Your city needs to be at the proper level and you must have the technology researched in order for this to happen. Again, I can hear the cries of some forum-goers who think that this will negatively impact the game, but we're facing facts here. Ninety percent of the time when we get a new housing tech we simply demolish our old houses and build new ones right where the old ones were. Because of the hard forty-tile limit you can't just throw more out there - non-optimal improvements will literally be a detriment to your city.Indeed, crafting a good city is going to be a continual series of trade-offs rather than a forever-growing list of improvements. And as the city grows and the game progresses, you will find yourself continually repurposing your cities rather than building new ones.
Our goal is to strike a balance, so that we aren't overwhelming the player with city management, but we still provide a robust enough experience that you don't just think of your city as numbers and sprites. When someone attacks your city and your little people start running around screaming, we want you thinking, "Hey! Stop picking on them! How 'bout a little FIRE, Scarecrow?!"
EDIT: I originally stated that Sovereigns needed to expend essence to create cities. This is incorrect; they expend essence to bring the land back to life so the city can be built. I have fixed the error in the article.
I don't immediately love your alternative, but I'm definitely starting to think the housing stuff might be mostly annoying click overhead. And that's actually part because of this idea of automatic, universal upgrades and how silly it seems to have everyone in a large city having the same type of housing. Even with equal wealth distribution (complete nonsense for a setting like Elemental), you'd still have differences in taste--some folks preferring Roman-style apartment buildings, some liking roomy townhouses, and some wanting a decent garden even in the middle of town.
Two Words: Human Trafficking!
Population explosion leads to population migration. If there is a housing shortage then people migrate to a better climate. Prestige could influence where to among other variables. Let's say the sov used super aphrodesiac like bunnies spell on city A because the city had an excess of food without a dependable method of transporting it to other cities. Unfortunately, now the city is at max capacity in size and housing and the population is still exploding, damned magic. Civil unrest aside, people are leaving to the most attractive space (my other cities) like how a gass fills a void. Uh oh! Enemy sov has a close distance connected city with too much housing and very very high prestige, far greater than mine. My people are defecting to him! My excess population is now feeding the enemy! "My great plans, my brilliant strategy, my, my, my."
"Bah, it's all Stardock's fault for putting that spell in there, just tempting me to use it recklessly."
I agree. It's what I said before about there being mansions in every city Equal wealth distribution is complete nonsense, especially for a game like Elemental. I just never thought about that fact of difference in taste which is completely true as well.
I don't think Demiansky's idea would be too bad, it definitely would seem more fluid than "oh wow, look! You get 8 more tiles to place buildings on!" Those 8 tiles would rather just open up as housing slowly condensed towards the city center (going from taking up 4 to 2 tiles for instance). I could see eventual slums, tenements, etc. (which would maybe take up 1 tile) forming because of too much expansion too fast, or not enough wealth in the city (from trade! going back to earlier statments...) This would naturally cause that "too many people" problem in games like Civ, naturally hindering more city growth and production, etc. but you would actually see it happening. Overall, i think other factors (wealth, happiness, necessity) should determine city growth, not the fact that every person in town thinks they need a new house because you built an armory for them....
As stated in previous threads, a mansion might take up 4 tiles, and never condense. Thus it gets you the benefit of a mansion (more wealth and prestige) but you hinder the productivity of a city in the long run. Also, it would never generate as much population as a slum would. This would be a strategic choice. Do you go for the population numbers and thus more production and resource acquisition from surrounding lands, or would you rather have a smaller population, but more wealth and prestige?
risinglegend and the rest: Seriously, I think you should just wait until 1G to see this all in practice. I assure the following things...-you will NOT have mansions in every city just by reaching top level-huts don't just become houses without some sinificant effort on the player's part-there will be tons of vaiety in the types of improvemets you buld throughout your kingdom
And if we fail on any of the accounts, we'll be the first to demand a fix in the next update
When you say 8 tiles do you mean 8 full tiles per city level or 8 quarter tiles?
8 tiles is 8 'quarter tiles'. Resources use 4 tiles, and most of the improvements with an upgrade path take just 1 tile.
Huh... Those cities aren't really that big then... With the absolute largest taking up only 9 tiles on the map and having at most 40 buildings including housing. It seems like we should get the opportunity for some end game metroplii larger than that...
I think it'd be awesome if my empire consisted of just one or maybe two huge cities and then dozens of smaller settlements...
If we're finding end game Cities to be too lacking, there's no reason we can't play with those numbers . But I'd much rather decide that and tweak several difinitive, tangable values than have to adjust data and algorithims to get the result we're looking for (hense all the debate up to this point).
I really liked the "1 per planet", "1 per civilization", and "1 per galaxy" improvements in GalCiv II. They added flavor and a nice strategic element to things.
Just make it configurable/moddable somewhere and I'll be happy. :: shrugs ::
I did too, but I like the larger maps and have no use for things like the Hyperion Shipyards. If Elemental includes faction- or world-unique improvements that improve locally-produced combat units, anything approaching city spam will be that much more annoying.
Semi-digression: does anyone else think that the Elemental screen shot in the OP shows an improvement connected to a dragon fountain? I smell some unreleased/in-progress lore, and I like it...
We'll see in 1G .. but .. don't you like my idea of a possibly ever-growing city ? I would love to play a game where I just built only one big big big city.
I wonder how customizable this will be. I want my theocracy to function as church and school. God tells me how the world works and nothing more be known!
I wasn't speaking of connecting existing cities. That would be .. well .. cheesy like you say
I was speaking of something more organic :
Your town needs to be fully built to get to th enext "level" : you earn one more tile to build on, but you have to wait as much turns as many tiles you have. And that would be with no cap.
A town with 45 tiles fully built ? wait 45 turns and you'll have a 46th tile to build on. etc.
You could plan since the first turn a very very very big city ... and even if 40 tiles is a big number, it's still a cap.
And what about "parks" or "traits" like in RPG but for cities ? You choose the "ugly" perk for your city and buildings costs less but your prestige is less.
I have recently been studying the city of Novgorod in my Russian History course. It seems applicable to the subject here. Novgorod, or new city, was by far the most progressive and profound populous in euroupe during its time. Imagine a wholly democratic city-state, moreso than the sham of american democarcy, so that every peasant got a vote in every matter and facet of society. It defended Mongol-sieged Russia against the bastard teutonic knights, the illogical lithuanians and was even passed over by Khan himself as a doomed siege. The key to its survival was general equality.
There has been a lot of talk here about realism, what we fail to realize is that western thought is a subjective knowledge of its own history. Equality among serf and sov is not impossible just not done in our countries by our ancestors. Open your minds to new thought, this is afterall fanasy.
The Kingdoms in this game may spontaniously upgrade the quality of life for their peasants, as in Novgorod on several occasions, because the sovergn and the nobles realize, the key to growth, stability and even immense power. Magic cannot hold the will a peasant fighting for his nation, how much moreso if he is treated as an equal part of a fair society!
Sweet Kievan Russia we know thee not*
Does this expenditure continue or is it a one time thing?
One way to contain city spam would make the essence expenditure continue -- if you want a lot of cities you do so at the continuing expense of other pursuits. This could allow few huge cities vs. many smaller ones. If you run low on essence the 'chaos' eats away at your settled lands, etc.
It could also allow a small but powerful empire to compete with the 'big' empires (as the small/powerful empire has relatively more essence to put into magical puissance, heroes, etc.).
Interesting reading how the discussion is going. For some reason, I find the idea of a single metropolis empire to be...disturbingly attractive. It is not attractive enough to want to make me play one, but still...
I am rather against hardcaps on the number of cities - I was one of those who found the MOM/Civ style city creating/building to suit my taste. I am a bit concerned about where the city system might go, but I am interested in seeing how it goes (If for no other reason than no other fantasy 4X games since MOM has really been to my taste.)
In Civ, every time I consider building a new city I need to decide weather it's worth the investment. In my case, there are two situations where I do it; when I have a spot where my city will prosper, or when I need a city in a specific place for strategic reasons.
For the second group, strategic reasons are almost always gaining territory, usually to get a specific resource. I don't like that system, since I then have a large amount of small cities that eat my resources for rather meager returns.
The system, earlier suggested in this thread, of mining/farming/harvesting colonies is much better in my humble opinion. These colonies, as I imagine them, would be small outposts that require next to nill micromanagement and support. Like the space stations in GalCiv, they become a strategic location and not a domestic one, meaning I deal with it only on a need-to basis and not constantly.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I am ok with the process of upgrading happening automatically but it should still take time and preferably have a cost (though reduced). I like to believe that this world is a real place and having things pop out of thin air doesn't sit well with me. In addition I could see this causing some game balance issues. I don't know enough of the game mechanics yet to know for sure but it seems like it would end up being benificial building lots of cheap hovels early and purposely holding off on getting the housing techs so they all get upgraded instantly and for free. I assume the higher level houses would cost more and take longer to build.
One nice thing about cities in Elemental is that they don't really require any micro management if the user doesn't want to mess with them.
There is no morale or approval or what have you.
You want a mining outpost? No problem, plop down your keep, build the mine and you're done. Your entire civilization gets a benefit. Want to increase that benefit? Build a road to it.
Ok... But what's the advantage of not turning that mining outpost into a huge city?
Good, my micro skillz are terrible. I can't attack and build and develop multiple cities at the same time
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