[Gameplay] The Scale of Elemental map and cities

from Elemental Forums

I have hard times justifying map scales in Elemental. On one hand, there are the continents in the order of a few thousand squares extent. This and the slow movement suggests large distanced. One the other hand there's the the current city sprawling. With move 1 it could take ~10 turns only to go around a bigger unfiendly one. If it is a 'city', then it should not take more than one square.  If the cities represent "provinces" and countryside, then one should not be able to build a Limes/Great-Wall-of-China around wast tracts of farmland (well, all 4-8 small squares of it), but only around the 'city' itself.

Of course, city building is rewarding on its own. But if the game is going to focus on it, much larger maps are needed (to get the scale a bit in the right direction), and to find a balance between the extent of cultivated land vs. the cities themselves. In pre-industrial times, there were like 3-10 farmers for every "specialists" (Nobles/priests/merchants/artisans) depending on land fertility/climate conditions/agricultural developments. In Elemental Beta 2, the Farmlands are Within the City Limits, which is somewhat absurd. Gardens might be inside the city limits, but their food production is negligible compared to the surrounding lands.

Accepting this cities should not occupy more than one tile, so any citybuilding micromanagement should be done on the "city screen" not the main map. If one does not want to slavishly copy Civilization, then the surrounding land could be managed from the "city screen" - like cutting down forests to increase arable land, building farms/lumber mills/mines. But these 'out-of-city' buildings should not occupy tiles in the city itself.

A few structures could still be built outside of city limits but within the borders - like forts and harbors.

 

9,162 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

This concerns me as well. I would like to know what size they consider the current map to be...

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

The current map is very small compared to the maximum size. Check this thread.

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Agreed. The movement rates, map and city sizes and turn lengths do not add up.

Base human Movement rates should be set higher so that the dynamic of slower and faster moving units would be better. And it wouldn't take multiple turns to go around a city. Unless a turn is one day. Which I would rather like it to be but then the dynasty system would not really work. But I also think the scope of dynasties and children is too epic for a single game. I think they should save that stuff for the official campaign to make it special.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Myles, reply 2
The current map is very small compared to the maximum size. Check this thread.
End of Myles's quote

I find that comparison to civ4's map sizes invalid considering how much space is used by city sprawl. Saying "Our maps are 250% bigger!" while the cities occupy 640% of the space kind of makes that a moot point for me. 

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

But while Civ4 cities evolved into megapolises with population of few dozen million, Elemental has city populations up to a few thousand. And towns were deliberately built compact so they could be defended with less resources. A good medievalish/fantasy city town builder should take defensibility into account. If the city expands beyond the walls, eventually a newer set of walls must be built...

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Right now we're locked to the smallest map size. The cities won't look so big in comparison when the map quadruples in size. :)

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tridus, reply 6
Right now we're locked to the smallest map size. The cities won't look so big in comparison when the map quadruples in size.
End of Tridus's quote

 

I think most people understand this, it is the relative size of cities in comparison to movement that could be a concern. I've sort of made my peace with this, but I still feel that it is indeed odd that your children can grow up in the time you walk across your kingdom...

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

A huge elemental map, from the thread linked above, would be 224x160. That means each square side is somewhere between  10 and 100km (or miles) long. Ancient Rome (within Hardian's wall)  would fit in a 5x5km square. A Beta2 city can easily spread to 5 square one side, with 3 mangitude smaller population.

 

I know, it is a fantasy world, and a city block's of hydroponics farmlands (about the size of a largish marketplace ;) ) should feed several thousands, but going around it should take several weeks/months.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Yestin, reply 7
...  I think most people understand this, it is the relative size of cities in comparison to movement that could be a concern. I've sort of made my peace with this, but I still feel that it is indeed odd that your children can grow up in the time you walk across your kingdom...
End of Yestin's quote

At least suspending disbelief is easier now that a turn is a turn and not some horrible abuse of a time-word like day or week.

The more I think about it, the more that sort of basic spacetime stuff seems like an insanely big burden for a TBS game with a strong RPG tendency. A genius needs to invent the timescale version of zooming smoothly between the cloth map and the eye candy map.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sushikawa, reply 4

Quoting Myles, reply 2The current map is very small compared to the maximum size. Check this thread.
I find that comparison to civ4's map sizes invalid considering how much space is used by city sprawl. Saying "Our maps are 250% bigger!" while the cities occupy 640% of the space kind of makes that a moot point for me. 

 
End of Sushikawa's quote

Except that cities in Civ4 could take up 21 spaces including areas around them worked. A city in elemental can, so far, take a max of 48? tiles(I think it goes 8,8,8,12,12) so while they're still a good 200%+ larger in general, it's made up for in map size.

There's also going to many fewer cities on average in Elemental of than in Civ. Or, that's the plan according to Frogboy. He wants much less city spam in Elemental than is in Civ.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Myles, reply 10

Except that cities in Civ4 could take up 21 spaces including areas around them worked. A city in elemental can, so far, take a max of 48? tiles(I think it goes 8,8,8,12,12) so while they're still a good 200%+ larger in general, it's made up for in map size.

There's also going to many fewer cities on average in Elemental of than in Civ. Or, that's the plan according to Frogboy. He wants much less city spam in Elemental than is in Civ.
End of Myles's quote

Civ 4 isn't a good comparison, the actual city proper in Civ 4 is limited to 1 tile. An oil well in the middle of nowhere is also 1 tile.

There's no particularly realistic scale in that game at all, in distance or in time (does it really take 300 years to build a monument?). I'm not sure trying to impose a sensible scale on Elemental is fair.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top
Quoting Tridus, reply 11

Civ 4 isn't a good comparison, the actual city proper in Civ 4 is limited to 1 tile. An oil well in the middle of nowhere is also 1 tile.

There's no particularly realistic scale in that game at all, in distance or in time (does it really take 300 years to build a monument?). I'm not sure trying to impose a sensible scale on Elemental is fair.


End of Tridus's quote

The city proper is 1 tile, but it still has to work tiles outside the city for production/growth. Elemental is similar in that there is a city center, and buildings are constructed around it for production/growth. So no, it's not a perfect comparison, but it's decent and the best we have to go by.