Beneficial City Tiles

from Elemental Forums

One thing that I appreciated greatly about Galactic Civ 2 was the interesting variety of planets that emmerged from the randomized special tiles that you would find on them.  I would personally like to see the return of such a concept in elemental with these tiles speckling the whole of the landscape (rather simply from planet to planet).  Sure, there can be large resources like iron, shards, gold etc., but there could also be a host of other special tiles that enhance other elements of city growth.  Some tiles may also not be revealed unless you have certain tech pre-requisites.  Some examples might be:

Fertile Highground: If you place a windmill on this tile, it also acts as a small farm as well.

Solid Ground: This tile gives any housing built on this tile a 50 percent bonus.

Fertile Pasture: Any ranch built on this tile yields 50 percent more livestock. 

Ley Line Nexus: If one of your wizard towers is built on this tile, it gives the tower a 200 percent research bonus in addition to a 50 percent increase in range of your global spells. 

Mushroom Field: Any mine built upon this tile also yields X food.

Ancient, Underground Library: This tile grants a 300 percent research.

Ancient, Underground Forge: Any weaponsmith built on this tile will yield +1 to calibur weapons and armor as well as an increase in production speed of weapons and armor. 

In this spirit, certain roving monsters, barbarians, or dungeons creatures might gravitate toward these locations if they have something to gain from it (trogs to Mushroom Fields, hunting trolls to pasture lands, liches to Underground Libraries.) 

13,200 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Holy unconscious expectations, Batman!

The farm tile just 'naturally' seemed like the first instance in a series like you describe. The Mushroom Field is an especially neat idea.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Wow indeed.  I'm very much in favor of this kind of thing.  I'd also like to see tiles that only help one side or the other, or have different bonuses dependant upon what side your playing.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 1
Holy unconscious expectations, Batman!

The farm tile just 'naturally' seemed like the first instance in a series like you describe. The Mushroom Field is an especially neat idea.

Not really I think. In galciv2 a soecial tile could recieve a building that didn't fit best (a production center on a tile that gave bonuses on tech for example)

In elemental you can't build anything else than a farm on a farm spot.

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I also second (well.. fifth) this idea. It sounds like it would be a great incentive for city-building, as it is now in the beta I have very little to factor in when building new cities.

You could also work it into the faction stories a bit, e.g. as a faction pick the Kingdom research faction would get to start next to a fertile plot and a ley line bonus (or other semi-magical site).

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Uplift and Strand, both very good follow up ideas.  It would definately be interesting if certain tiles could help or hurt a player depending on if they were Human or Fallen.  Also, it would make perfectly good sense for an agrarian civ to start next to farmland and a mana-hording civ to start next to a shard.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd also like to see greater decision in what I'm going to do with a beneficial tile.  Let's take our current 'Fertile Ground' tile for example.  I should have to choose whether or not I want to build a farm there.  Every building should receive some sort of benefit from being built on those types of tiles.  Houses for example could receive massive prestige bonuses if you build them there instead of farms.

Not only that, but there should be multiple types of buildings that can only be built on 'Fertile Ground'.  Farms can only be built on 'Fertile Ground', but I can build houses anywhere.  What if I could only build Stables (if that were a building) on 'Fertile Ground' as well?

I really don't want it to be as straightforward as GalCiv was.  I don't want simple 300% Research Bonus tiles.  I want the tile to be an Ancient Library.  Where I can get increased research, increased magical power, increased prestige, or even something else.  It should be entirely dependant on how I choose to use it.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Could be a good idea. Perhaps refine it a little. Instead of these places being in the city, have these tiles be scattered throughout the world and if you find one you can build a town there and then get the more tile specific bonuses you speak of. These "magic building sites" could even be guarded by monsters.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Raven, reply 7
Could be a good idea. Perhaps refine it a little. Instead of these places being in the city, have these tiles be scattered throughout the world and if you find one you can build a town there and then get the more tile specific bonuses you speak of. These "magic building sites" could even be guarded by monsters.
Clearly you're not playing the Beta.  World tiles double as city tiles.

The game already has 'Fertile Ground' tiles placed around the world, and they're the prime place to place cities because they're also the only place you build farms.  We're hoping there will be many more type of beneficial city tiles like this.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Raven, reply 7
Could be a good idea. Perhaps refine it a little. Instead of these places being in the city, have these tiles be scattered throughout the world and if you find one you can build a town there and then get the more tile specific bonuses you speak of. These "magic building sites" could even be guarded by monsters.

Yeah, I'd like to see the tiles scattered uninterrupted throughout the world randomly, but perhaps with certain propensities toward types given the geological circumstances or history of the region (fertile tiles most often go in plains, and the ancient library goes in ancient dried of river valleys where extinct, ancient cities lie.)

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Strand, reply 8



Clearly you're not playing the Beta.  World tiles double as city tiles. The game already has 'Fertile Ground' tiles placed around the world, and they're the prime place to place cities because they're also the only place you build farms.  We're hoping there will be many more type of beneficial city tiles like this.

Yes I know that...I am playing the Beta :P. With the idea I mention there you'd have to find the special bonus tiles on the map first, then build on them in city view.

You've been picking the mushrooms in the "mushroom field" haven't you? :P hehe j/k

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd always assumed that we'd be getting more tile types as the beta progressed so it's good to see others are thinking the same thing. I really like Strand concept of the building type governing the effect that you'll get from that tile rather than just the square peg, square hole we have now.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Raven, reply 10



Quoting Strand,
reply 8



Clearly you're not playing the Beta.  World tiles double as city tiles. The game already has 'Fertile Ground' tiles placed around the world, and they're the prime place to place cities because they're also the only place you build farms.  We're hoping there will be many more type of beneficial city tiles like this.



Yes I know that...I am playing the Beta . With the idea I mention there you'd have to find the special bonus tiles on the map first, then build on them in city view.

You've been picking the mushrooms in the "mushroom field" haven't you?  hehe j/k

Yeah, I definately think the tiles should be viewable on the landscape before you build the city in most cases, although some might require excavation or special technology to see the full extent of their effectiveness.  Perhaps you can see some ahead of time, but need special tech to unlock its full potential?

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Demiansky, reply 12

Yeah, I definitely think the tiles should be viewable on the landscape before you build the city in most cases, although some might require excavation or special technology to see the full extent of their effectiveness.  Perhaps you can see some ahead of time, but need special tech to unlock its full potential?

I like that idea. Maybe you can use a "detect magic" spell to find special areas on the map that will give bonuses when you build on them. Also perhaps you can come across some ruins and excavate them. You discover a ancient city was built there because of small crystal shards in the soil and surrounding rock. They are too small to harvest, but, if you build there that city gains a substantial research bonus.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

So in a world where many whine about walls o' text, I step on my toes in the name of brevity. The fine Aha Moment that Demiansky gave me not only entailed the unconscious assumption that there would be a variety of special tiles like the farmlands, but that they would all be visible on the main map and that some of them would be distinguished from GC2 by limiting the choices for what you can build on them.

Or at least that's how I hope it will go. I'm as big a control freak as any other longtime TBS player, but now that we're solidly into the 21st century, I want to see a TBS game that does a better job of reflecting just how difficult it is for a single figure to rule any large and complex society. The farm-tiles-for-farms-only thing seems like a splendid example mechanic for this. In a pre-industrial world where people have been fighting hard merely to eat and avoid death by monster, a sovereign who ordered something stupid like building a barracks on rich farmland should face immediate local insurrection at the least. It even seems reasonable in the post-cataclysm context to assume that no one in their right mind would waste good farmland, so the 'unthinkable' is not even a game possibility.

Things like a pre-cataclysm library remnant in underground caverns, on the other hand, seem more amenable to 'stupid' use by a sovereign--with possible exceptions for factions that are focused on knowledge-building.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm also in favor of the OP general concept.  Lots like GC2 except you can see them (at least most of them) on the map before you build.  Also like MOM  --  darn, almost everything good is like MOM :)

I think / hope its a shoe-in.  The beta is off to a promising start with mines & shards (if they worked).  Why would they start like that if they weren't going to do at least as much of it as GC2 ?

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

With the newest iteration of the Beta quickly approaching, I think it would be a good idea to revisit this thread.

Right now, the mindset seems to be "Benefecial Tiles need to convey a bonus".  Why can't we have tiles that also convey something negative?  For example, the new bees tile could attract bears.  Or even better, giant killer-bee death swarms.  These negative apsects need not necessarily be limited to roving units being attracted to the tile.  Tiles that reduce healing rates, speed, or attack/defense values could also exist.

Some tiles should have a negative aspect to utilizing them, or even being near them.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

I like these ideas too.  It would also be need if some of these things could be overlayed and show up independly of each other- (0.1 chance of underground library x 0.1 chance of getting fertile fields = 0.001 chance of getting both on the same tile).  Of course there are some ideas that would be exclusive of others but there is not reason that some of these things cannot overlap creating really rare and special tiles.