Refugees and Commuting

from Elemental Forums

I have seen a few posts recently regarding the world wide usage of population. Many people would prefer to have it localized. This lead me thinking as to how this could be managed.

My Idea

Allow the creation of a 'Refugee' unit. This unit would be buildable within 1 turn. It would cost 10 population and a certain amount of material (i suggest 1 or 2). This unit would not be able to be upgraded of changed in any way, and no sovereign/faction bonus would apply to it. This unit would have no attack and no defence (pretty much like a pioneer). I would also suggest making it slow moving, 1 or 2 spaces only. If this unit joined another city (owned or otherwise) it would add 10 to the population of that city.

The main purpose of this unit would be to transfer population around the map, although it could also be used to evacuate a doomed city. I can amagine a long line of refugees streaming out of a city that is about to fall, with troops despertely trying to slow the enemy down.

Obviously this would only really work if the population ever did go local (well to any meaningful extent anyway).

What do other people think. Is it an idea worth running with, or is it somehow not right for the game?

4,925 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

It could work however to prevent it from being abused when you create the unit it would have to remove both 10 from the population and the population cap. To be honest it seems over complicated, if you are going to make population local you would just have different population for each city and not as a global resource to be used by all citys. Why would you need to transfer population at all?

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Of course it would need taking off the cap, silly me forgetting to include that.

Mayube it is over complicated, i was thinking more about population transfer to newly built cities to speed up their growth. If the population was made local then new cities would be hit by the same problems as the Capital starts with (i.e very slow and limited build). To be honest it is more about being able to leave besieged cities and the epic feel of that.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I see your point but don't forget that new citys even if you had local population would still benifit from global materials/gold and things like houseing tech. I think they would be alot easier to grow than your first city.... food would still be in my opinion the thing that would really slow down a new cities growth. Personally I am happy the rate citys grow atm based on the citys prestige. One idea could be a high prestige building that could be build in a low level city but has a very very high maintanance cost. that way it wouldn't be viable in your first city as you wouldn't be able to cope with the upkeep. Again however I don't see why new citys just get to grow faster than your first... If anything they should be harder to support.

I do like the idea of this population unit I just can't see it working in the current game mechanics. For example if all your pop in a city were made into these population units to escape a besiged city what then happens to all the citys buildings? would they collapse or something? 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

well buildings require population to function - properly hard for them to code that into current mechanics that if a city has no population the building ceases to function.

i like the idea of this - but i have a simpler solution .

Instead of the hassle of having a additional unit on the map (or even several!) allow cities to - divert - their prestige points to other locations.
making people migrate to other locations requirements to this could be that the cities must have roads - and that the (diverted) pristige gets penalty/bonus depending on the level of the road network.

even setting your divert prestiege to a negative number and transfer it to another city would work - the city with negative looses population and the recipient gets a population income!