Someone please convince me that City Sites are a good thing

[Richon]

So, I have started playing the demo, in the hopes of forming an opinion in time to take advantage of the sale (should I choose to buy). So far, there are a lot of mechanics I find interesting. But I feel like the concept of City Sites is very limiting, and leaves much of the world looking and feeling empty. But, then again, I haven't gotten very far yet (only played the first two tutorials thus far).

So, what I want is for someone who is very familiar with the game to explain to me why they believe City Sites are actually an improvement over the freedom in games like Civ to build cities almost anywhere. Please help me to see why the devs believed this was a good choice.

[Twelvefield]

The freedom in Civ that you are allows to settle anywhere you want hobbles that game's AI. The player can choose locations to create overpowered human-controlled realms. As a result, the AI has to resort to artificial boosts and its game rules to keep it competitive. You must have seen that by now.

The AI in Ōld World plays with exactly the same ruleset as the human player. It does not cheat because it needs no Civ-style handicap.

That being said, the first two Tutorials, let alone all of the Tutorials only represent a small fraction of what the full game can do (to you). The sooner you unlearn Civ, the happier you will be with Ōld World. If you feel that you have to make Ōld World play like Civ, then stick with Civ.

[Dale Kent]

There are a couple of reasons that city sites (and thus the city centres) are spread out.

1. The premise of the game itself is that you are a new nation growing in an existing, settled world. Thus why the city sites have tribes, barb camps, and existing nations. You start off as nothing, and need to create the elbow room you need by taking over barb and tribe camps, before taking on the other AI nations (who are large, and established at the start [dependent on game setup]). I feel "settler" is a bad name for that unit, think of it more like your bureaucracy spreading to other tribes to take them under your wing.

2. In Old World, buildings aren't "inside" the city centre, they are built on the map. As you build more urban buildings your city spreads out across the map. This gives you access to a wide range of tiles for rural improvements and resource gathering. As you go deep into the game, you will find your cities naturally spread out across the map, your lands between city sites will fill up.

3. Having large spaces between your cities, actually raises the value of each tile on the map. In other 4x games if you want "that" tile, you just settle there. In Old World, you need to develop your cities to encompass the tiles you want. This actually makes things like specialists and urban improvements very important (they both spread your borders out).

4. One of the issues of 1 unit per tile as seen in other 4x games, is that armies get stuck around cities and map features. Having the map spread out like in Old World gives units the chance to move around, be more mobile, and generally makes for much better warfare. It also helps the AI avoid that situation in other 4x games where its units get blocked and you get the AI back-forth moves it does in other 4x games.

5. One of the two main victory paths is VP's (victory points). Each city gives you VP's based on its culture level. The better culture your cities have, the more VP's you have. Being able to settle everywhere, wherever you want, will disrupt this concept.

Anyways, that's my feels on city sites. :)

[Dale Kent]

Oh, but don't worry as there is a mod that will allow you to settle anywhere. Just search for "Settle anywhere" in the mod browser. :)

[HB]

Originally posted by Richon:

So, I have started playing the demo, in the hopes of forming an opinion in time to take advantage of the sale (should I choose to buy). So far, there are a lot of mechanics I find interesting. But I feel like the concept of City Sites is very limiting, and leaves much of the world looking and feeling empty. But, then again, I haven't gotten very far yet (only played the first two tutorials thus far).

So, what I want is for someone who is very familiar with the game to explain to me why they believe City Sites are actually an improvement over the freedom in games like Civ to build cities almost anywhere. Please help me to see why the devs believed this was a good choice.

What is a city?, its an urban area of high population numbers, do you know roughly how much sq miles of urban land there was in the OW historical time period?, its not a lot, between cities there was vast swathes of low population land, if you can build as many cities as you want you get 20th century urbanity in no time, so its not a abstraction of anything historical to have as many cities as you want to cram into the map.

From a game mechanics pov, having fewer cities means the player has fewer to sort out each turn, and can instead focus on other matters, but even so on a big map you time is considerable for you can still have a large city count. Cities can effect combat to a good range, so city of a hill with missile units can interdict to hexes away, how much fun is a game where you interlock/build cities that dictate combat outcomes.


Your strategy of which city locations and when/how quick, you want to settle or not, becomes more impactfull because you cant chose to settle anywhere you want.

[mk11]

Another thing it allows is to grab territory which you can't yet afford to develop. By occupying the city site you prevent anyone else building at that site until you can get your settler there.

[Richon]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

If you feel that you have to make Ōld World play like Civ, then stick with Civ.

When a new player says, "Hey, I'm trying something different, and I want to understand why people think it's better than the system I'm used to," it's rather silly to tell them, "Just stick with what you're used to." Thankfully, others have been more helpful. I was asking for the case to be made in support of the mechanic. I wasn't trying to put it down. I simply did not see its value, and asked to be shown it.

Originally posted by HB:

What is a city?, its an urban area of high population numbers, do you know roughly how much sq miles of urban land there was in the OW historical time period?, its not a lot, between cities there was vast swathes of low population land

Yes, I am a Classicist, and am exceptionally familiar with this concept. But we're dealing with a video game, which is an abstraction. And in most video games of this genre, the way you make use of the land is by building cities. So, when I see wide swathes of land in between City Sites, seemingly unusable, I am forced to wonder what's going on.

Originally posted by HB:

From a game mechanics pov, having fewer cities means the player has fewer to sort out each turn, and can instead focus on other matters, but even so on a big map you time is considerable for you can still have a large city count. Cities can effect combat to a good range, so city of a hill with missile units can interdict to hexes away, how much fun is a game where you interlock/build cities that dictate combat outcomes.

This was a better part of your response. But, "having fewer cities to work with" sounds like something that should be left up to the player. It's still not a good defense of the game mechanic itself.

Originally posted by HB:

Your strategy of which city locations and when/how quick, you want to settle or not, becomes more impactfull because you cant chose to settle anywhere you want.

If the limitation were because I could only build X number of cities, I might agree. But when loads of resources are left in completely unreachable areas, it really doesn't seem that way. It just feels like I'm being railroaded. Hence why I was hoping for something deeper that I was simply missing.

[Richon]

Originally posted by Dale Kent:

There are a couple of reasons that city sites (and thus the city centres) are spread out.

1. The premise of the game itself is that you are a new nation growing in an existing, settled world. Thus why the city sites have tribes, barb camps, and existing nations. You start off as nothing, and need to create the elbow room you need by taking over barb and tribe camps, before taking on the other AI nations (who are large, and established at the start [dependent on game setup]). I feel "settler" is a bad name for that unit, think of it more like your bureaucracy spreading to other tribes to take them under your wing.

2. In Old World, buildings aren't "inside" the city centre, they are built on the map. As you build more urban buildings your city spreads out across the map. This gives you access to a wide range of tiles for rural improvements and resource gathering. As you go deep into the game, you will find your cities naturally spread out across the map, your lands between city sites will fill up.

3. Having large spaces between your cities, actually raises the value of each tile on the map. In other 4x games if you want "that" tile, you just settle there. In Old World, you need to develop your cities to encompass the tiles you want. This actually makes things like specialists and urban improvements very important (they both spread your borders out).

4. One of the issues of 1 unit per tile as seen in other 4x games, is that armies get stuck around cities and map features. Having the map spread out like in Old World gives units the chance to move around, be more mobile, and generally makes for much better warfare. It also helps the AI avoid that situation in other 4x games where its units get blocked and you get the AI back-forth moves it does in other 4x games.

5. One of the two main victory paths is VP's (victory points). Each city gives you VP's based on its culture level. The better culture your cities have, the more VP's you have. Being able to settle everywhere, wherever you want, will disrupt this concept.

Anyways, that's my feels on city sites. :)

Thank you for actually answering the question. I'm still not sure I'm convinced of the mechanic itself, yet. But you've convinced me to play some more of the demo now that I know what to look for with this mechanic.

[HB]

Originally posted by Richon:

Yes, I am a Classicist, and am exceptionally familiar with this concept. But we're dealing with a video game, which is an abstraction. And in most video games of this genre, the way you make use of the land is by building cities. So, when I see wide swathes of land in between City Sites, seemingly unusable, I am forced to wonder what's going on.

As i already explained its an abstraction that is better, by limiting the number of urban tiles from city site numbers being fixed, by not allowing more city sites to be formed and create more urban tiles in game by doing so, otherwise you have a less immersive game from a map dominated by higher % of urban tiles and cities in game.

Cities you can build anywhere can be used to create choke points in game by interdiction fire ranged combat. You ought to be arguing for less urban tiles not more if your mostly into history as there were wide swathes of land between cities. In game you get to make use of it, by giving jobs to citizens in there, perhaps you not doing so yet.

Originally posted by Richon:

If the limitation were because I could only build X number of cities, I might agree. But when loads of resources are left in completely unreachable areas, it really doesn't seem that way. It just feels like I'm being railroaded. Hence why I was hoping for something deeper that I was simply missing.

What seems likely is not not yet familiar with how to gain access to what you want on the map by spreading the city radius. The one city challenge might be of use to you to get some ideas of how to do that. https://www.twitch.tv/mohawkgames

Originally posted by Richon:

Romans adopted the Samnite maniple in 315 BC. That's an historical fact. It isn't in dispute.

Depends who you ask, no one is generally so firm its 315 because its not a fact that it was adopted then.

Livy, 8.8. Livy writes that the Roman army developed the maniple formation during the interim period between the first and second Samnite Wars (340- 327 BCE)

The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History Cornell and Southern disagree somewhat with Livy’s account of the Samnites and argue that the maniple formation came out of military reforms imposed in 311 BCE and that these reforms allowed the formation to practically function on the battlefield compared to what was previously in place.

Other authors say around 315, most just use during the samnite wars.

[mk11]

Unreachable resources are very rare. You can always extend across land to them (although it is expensive over tundra or desert) so the only time they occur is on islands.

[The Doctor]

Originally posted by Richon:

So, I have started playing the demo, in the hopes of forming an opinion in time to take advantage of the sale (should I choose to buy). So far, there are a lot of mechanics I find interesting. But I feel like the concept of City Sites is very limiting, and leaves much of the world looking and feeling empty. But, then again, I haven't gotten very far yet (only played the first two tutorials thus far).

So, what I want is for someone who is very familiar with the game to explain to me why they believe City Sites are actually an improvement over the freedom in games like Civ to build cities almost anywhere. Please help me to see why the devs believed this was a good choice.

I wouldn't say that City Sites are an improvement over Civ 5's system so much as they are a different way to do it. I don't know how far through the game the demo will allow you to go but your cities will expand out to cover very large areas in this game and so you don't want to have too many crowded into one area. Your population grows and you need to give them an improvement to work so you'll soon be expanding your borders quite early.

Something which you might not have seen in your game yet is just how much territory you can sieze from just improving one border resource tile. Building a specialist there will catch all the adjacent free hexes into your city's zone but if it expands next to an urban tile or a resource (2 hexes away from your present border), it will expand to take that into your borders too. Sometimes, you can catch quite a lot of territory with just one leap but most of the time, it's just adjacent hexes only.

Of course, if you're not familiar with how cities expand in this game, yes, I guess it would look like an inferior system but it fits very well with the whole game design, at least in my opinion.

You can get border expansion from other methods too - eventually, you will be able to choose a law that allows you to buy tiles for a city. Or have a city governor/leader who has the ability to let you buy tiles.

So, yes, in the early game, the map looks pretty bare but after about 50 turns, well, you might start to feel differently and then go after some of those more remote tribal sites to have even more room.

[Salty Biscuit]

Others have explained the mechanics and the reasoning behind them. For my part I like the mechanic, although I'm sometimes frustrated by it. But judiciously using Hamlets, Shrines, and Improvements + Specialists usually get me to what I want. There are also character archetypes that can purchase tiles for expansion.

I didn't like Civ's infinite City Sleaze and find this to be an improved, if not perfect, mechanic. Being able to found "settlements" - say, a central tile like a Hamlet but that can control the six immediately adjacent tiles, perhaps without specialists until incorporated by a city - would be an interesting option, if balanced in some way (cost in civics, resources, happiness, something like that). Wish I had the skills to mod. :)

[The Renderer]

I'm a bit torn on this. While I like the limited number, I do not like the "limit" on where exactly I can settle. Of course it's difficult to judge how far apart to settle without experience since cities are much bigger, so I don't have a good idea of how to solve this. Maybe with a minimum distance between cities?

[HB]

Originally posted by The Renderer:

I'm a bit torn on this. While I like the limited number, I do not like the "limit" on where exactly I can settle. Of course it's difficult to judge how far apart to settle without experience since cities are much bigger, so I don't have a good idea of how to solve this. Maybe with a minimum distance between cities?

Not tried this myself, but i think it should do what you want, ie have more/less tiles between cities on random map generation.

Make your own mod, or copy paste the changed file into a mod you have active, change the min city distance from 8 hexes to a number you want.

C:\Program Files\Epic Games\OldWorld\Reference\XML\Infos <Entry>

<zType>MIN_CITY_SITE_DISTANCE</zType>
<iValue>8</iValue>
</Entry>

Settle anywhere mod allows you to chose where to settle if your after more freedom to chose. https://mod.io/g/oldworld/m/settle-anywhere1

[Fluffster]

An in game option to select city site density in the game setup is being added in the next patch.

[mk11]

Originally posted by Fluffster:

An in game option to select city site density in the game setup is being added in the next patch.

Will that just apply to random maps?