Bump for the devs to see

VieuxChat wrote:
The following could be interesting to push players to create "compact" cities (the leveling mechanic is there to simulate that : "snake" cities would be a bad shape for cities) :

Each time you add a borough you add the number of new connections to the overall level of the city. Once the city reach some threshold (like 3/6/9/13/17/21/25/30/+5...) you get one free "upgrade" too apply to any borough you want.

Only in a game where you have to be optimal like a MP game or a very high difficulty game. I'd like snake or star to shrunken cities to be viable but not terribly efficient, otherwise, we are again going to be forced down the one single path to success like ES.

Nasarog wrote:
Only in a game where you have to be optimal like a MP game or a very high difficulty game. I'd like snake or star to shrunken cities to be viable but not terribly efficient, otherwise, we are again going to be forced down the one single path to success like ES.

With what I proposed, any shape would be interesting, but some less than others while letting you som eflexibility when you sometimes need to reach that special tile.

VieuxChat wrote:
With what I proposed, any shape would be interesting, but some less than others while letting you som eflexibility when you sometimes need to reach that special tile.

That's great news. The one city per region, brilliant. Being able to grow your city anyway you want is brilliant. Outposts being more functional? That would be brilliant too.



I hate city sprawl in 4x games. In Warlock 1, you had to build them 6 hexes apart to create an impromptu road network. In Civ5, you have to do it to grab resources and fight forward settling civs.



The one city per region is really game changing. If you like to change things up a bit, well, then you play Roving Clans.



So much good in this game. I can't wait to play.

I was not aware of this game mechanic until I read the post: “Building Big Efficient Cities: Borough Streets & Leveling Districts”.



I must say I’m very disappointed. I don’t think it was the dev’s intention to create only one optimal build and thus making the actual native terrain of very little use. I hope they do something to make other designs also viable. I love the idea of snaking your city to include some natural resources in your city and utilizing the area you have to it’s max.



I’m thinking of a fix, where you could “buy” an upgrade. So it would cost a little more than the optimal layout, but after paying the fee for not following the optimal layout, you’d still get the benefits of the optimal layout. That way it could be worth paying this “fee” to deviate your city, so it includes a good local resource.

TheSAguy wrote:
I was not aware of this game mechanic until I read the post: “Building Big Efficient Cities: Borough Streets & Leveling Districts”.



I must say I’m very disappointed. I don’t think it was the dev’s intention to create only one optimal build and thus making the actual native terrain of very little use. I hope they do something to make other designs also viable. I love the idea of snaking your city to include some natural resources in your city and utilizing the area you have to it’s max.



I’m thinking of a fix, where you could “buy” an upgrade. So it would cost a little more than the optimal layout, but after paying the fee for not following the optimal layout, you’d still get the benefits of the optimal layout. That way it could be worth paying this “fee” to deviate your city, so it includes a good local resource.

You're right, right now city management can be monotonous and boring. But I'm sure the devs will provide more choice, adding new options and changing the mechanics. I hope the borough system gets optimized ! There are two nice threads about it, bringing suggestions:



/#/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3063-alternate-borough-mechanic

/#/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3061-actual-long-suggestion-to-fix-the-false-choice-lack-of-choice-borough-system

Hey. I missed this on the initial go-round but I'm glad it got revived so I can say +1 to the ideas in the Original Post. I was actually about to write something similar, but not as well-thought-out (level 1 when surrounded by four 0s, level 2 when surrounded by five 0s or three 0s and one 1, and level 3 when surrounded by six 0s or five 0s plus one 2, or four 0s plus two 1s, and so on).



Anyhow, I like the original post quite a lot and would love to see that system implemented, rather than what happened in the last build with the max city le el cap just being reduced.

oh so thats how you lvl your city i tryed that and it never worked, nor will it ever with how i build my city's.

If you say that it never worked, then perhaps you tried leveling up your city center. For some reason, leveling up the city center does not increase approval, which is one of the most readily noticeable effects of leveling up districts.

Concerning the Minor factions and ruins, I agree with the third idea: allowing players to build boroughs directly on them and changing their graphics slightly (make them look cooler etc..). The ruins can still be searched even after building boroughs on it. This way, we don't lose the quests and bonuses from ruins (the total number of available ruins must not be reduced, cuz they can be searched again with certain techs etc..). Also, boroughs can't be built on minor factions cities unless they are pacified first (to be realistic and challenging).



As for the other proposals... I'm rather comfortable with the current district leveling mechanic and approval system. my apologies



However, I do agree with Cat-O-Nine-Tales that a manual upgrade system is more preferable, perhaps making it cheaper to upgrade a district that has other districts around it (depending on their number)? Also, like Cat said, faction variation would be great as well.

This... is really interesting. Even though you said it is basically exchanging one optimal formation for another, this just really feels more right, I guess. It doesn't seem that natural to build cities in strips in my mind I guess. Except on coastlines.

The following could be interesting to push players to create "compact" cities (the leveling mechanic is there to simulate that : "snake" cities would be a bad shape for cities) :

Each time you add a borough you add the number of new connections to the overall level of the city. Once the city reach some threshold (like 3/6/9/13/17/21/25/30/+5...) you get one free "upgrade" too apply to any borough you want.

j.a.paisley wrote:




Another proposed change



Currently, minor race towns and ruins are obstacles to avoid when determining city placement. You can't build a district over them, and just one missing district will often prevent several districts from leveling in a cascade. But this seems backwards - both native towns and ruins seem like they would be culturally-enriching when incorporated into cities. I believe you could do this in one of three ways:



[LIST=1]

Towns and ruins would basically be "wild cards"... that is, if you built adjacent to them, they would automatically be incorporated into your city as a 'free' district, and level as normal. Since you didn't have to build the Borough Street, they wouldn't count against the population limitation on the number of new districts you can build.

as in (1), but they would not level up like normal districts, and only receive their base production. However, they would allow adjacent districts to level up as if they were of N level.

Simply allow players to build Borough Streets over towns and ruins. Change their graphics to make them look incorporated into the city, but don't overwrite them with the "bigger buildings" models as the district levels up.

[/LIST]





One last related proposal



With the current magnitude of approval gains from district levels, all other approval mechanics in the game are drowned out in the great deluge of excess happy-fun-time in larger well laid out cities. I believe if you toned this down considerably, then other mechanics will become a lot more relevant, and EL will be the better for it. So, instead of -10 per Borough Streets and +15 per district level...

• -5 for each Borough Streets expansion
• +5 for each District Level.
  
  

Finally...



I think some of the ideas in this thread are also worth consideration, and aren't entirely in conflict with the concepts I'm floating here.

i figured you could simplify it for the player and have it be:

n -1 = district level (where n is the number of adjacent district/city tiles)

the lower of: district level capped at level of city or lowest adjacent district/city tile

x /6 = city level (where x is the number of districts)



this caps district level at 5, makes hexagon type cities more efficient at 36 districts (a 37 hex city), while triangle cities are better before that. last but not least if paired with the lower happiness impact suggestion means that a single hex snaking city would have a neutral impact aside from the 1 or 2 end districts (depending on if an end is the city square or not) gaining its bonuses from greater workable tiles instead of city density.



since everyone likes pictures:



colors: red>orange>yellow>green

what the numbers mean:

# of districts/district+city levels/non city workable tiles



for the snake, the first set of numbers is for what is shown. the second is if you put the city on the end and don't loopback so close (no wasted near city tiles).



the first numbers for the triangle and hex are for what is shown. the second is to compare the hex if increased by 1 more ring, which shows the turning point between the two.





i think this is easier on the player due to not having to know much in the way of formulas or charts, plop a district down and whatever it is next to will boost its level, which is figured by simple counting (though you do start at 0). as long as their is some indicator of the city square's district level (hopefully their will be an indicator for districts as well) no math will be required to plan your cities, not to mention that you could get away with just picking a good spot and snaking to the tiles you want without throwing your city into rebellion.



butting up to a ruin/village should be like butting up to a district to make those places not something to be avoided, though they shouldn't level up like districts i think.



Edit:

as districts are now given numbers in game as to their level, and that number starts at 1 (not 0), the changes to keep those changes are:

n = district level (where n is the number of adjacent district/city tiles)

instead of [n-1=districtlevel(wherenisthenumberofadjacentdistrict/citytiles)]



new numbers in graphic should be:

20/41/37 (20/42/46) for the snake

instead of [20/21/37(20/22/46)]

20/75/21 (35/167/27) for the triangle

instead of [20/55/21(35/132/27)]

18/70/18 (36/183/34) for the hexagon

instead of [18/52/18(36/147/34)]



keep in mind that all that has changed is what the level is called of the districts, nothing else.

Very solid ideas.

That's nifty. I like this too.

As someone who just bought this game.... Good Lord! I had no clue you could even fashion cities in shapes and leveling.... Lol, I now feel lost.

j.a.paisley wrote:


Proposed district leveling mechanic

• A district that is adjacent to 3 or more districts of level 0, will advance to level 1.
• A district that is adjacent to 4 or more districts of level 1, will advance to level 2.
• A district that is adjacent to 5 or more districts of level N, will advance to level N+1.
  
  

I think that, as of version 1.02, since there is a truncation on the maximum level a city can have, this became a moot point.

I, personally, like the way it is, today... If you force that the optimal layout for a city to be an hexagonal one, you are only replacing the stick with the hexagon... With the current layout, you have an hibrid layout, where expansion is possible, but kept in check, and you don't have a logarithmic happiness progression with a compact layout.

j.a.paisley wrote:




Another proposed change

Currently, minor race towns and ruins are obstacles to avoid when determining city placement. You can't build a district over them, and just one missing district will often prevent several districts from leveling in a cascade. But this seems backwards - both native towns and ruins seem like they would be culturally-enriching when incorporated into cities. I believe you could do this in one of three ways:



[LIST=1]

Towns and ruins would basically be "wild cards"... that is, if you built adjacent to them, they would automatically be incorporated into your city as a 'free' district, and level as normal. Since you didn't have to build the Borough Street, they wouldn't count against the population limitation on the number of new districts you can build.

as in (1), but they would not level up like normal districts, and only receive their base production. However, they would allow adjacent districts to level up as if they were of N level.

Simply allow players to build Borough Streets over towns and ruins. Change their graphics to make them look incorporated into the city, but don't overwrite them with the "bigger buildings" models as the district levels up.

[/LIST]

I agree wholeheartedly with that! Villages and ruins are a bother... After they get explored they simply "get in the way". However, I think we could roleplay this a little:



For villages: players may place a borough over a pacified village belonging to an assimilated minor faction. This borough will become a special "minor village" borough. If the player changes the assimilated faction, the empire will still receive the bonuses for "minor village" burroughs, and that region only may build the minor village unit. When the minor village burrough level up, it counts as an extra village for purposes of assimilation bonues. Minor faction bonuses acquired this way may only be achieved once the occupation timer is over.



For ruins: when the player place a borough within a ruin, when the borough is completed it is like if the ruin were explored once more (to roleplay the situations where construction workers stumble upon an archeological discovery), and the ruin disappears.

Great thread (also the one you wrote before)!

IMHO city leveling takes too much time, allowing increase when a tile is adjacent to 3 as proposed by the OP will help

I don't think that city leveling takes too much time, so much as the game's pacing will have it so that you will usually win the game against AIs before you get to the leveling point.