Infrastructure

Infrastructure levels

Each infrastructure type should be divided into periods, e.g:

Stone age fort

Bronze age fort

Iron age fort

Medieval era fort

Rennaissance era fort

For a list of periods, see link.

or other descriptor levels

Paths

Tracks

Paved roads

Motorways

If the infrastructure is not maintained then its quality drops, so an infrastructure item might be described as:

Stone age fort 65%

Infrastructure list

Transport infrastructure

Road network

Railway network

Bridges

Tunnels

Ports

Canal network

Airports

Lighthouse

Under-sea tunnel (connects two land tiles)

Mega-bridge (connects two land tiles with one sea tile)

Unit construction infrastructure

Shipyards

Energy infrastructure

Power stations (coal, nuclear, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal, wind)

Power grid (overground or underground)

Pipeline (oil, gas)

Oil rig (offshore)

Oil rig (onshore)

Oil refinery

Dam

Wind turbine

Trading infrastructure

Market/trading post

Religious infrastructure

Chapel/Church/Temple/Cathedral/etc

Research infrastructure

University

Research facility / Science lab

Observatory

Particle accelerator

Seed bank

Utilities

Aqueduct

Sewer system

Water network

Electricity network

Gas network

Entertainment/cultural infrastructure

Amphitheatre/Stadium

Amphitheatre

Bull ring

Botanical gardens

Wildlife park

Art galley

Museum

Communication infrastructure

Postal network

Horse relay (also camel, dog-sled, pigeon)

Telegraph network

Semaphore network

Telephone network

IP network

Manufacturing infrastructure

Factory

Windmill

Watermill

Space

Space elevator

Spaceport

Farming infrastructure

Irrigation (note this is not applicable for all terrain types)

Drainage (note this is not applicable for all terrain types)

Other

Hospital

Police station

Warehouse

Trading post factories can be modelled as the combination of port, market and fort. Map granularity is necessary to adequately model the presence of a coastal possession on another state's territory (e.g. Portugal's presence in NW Africa).

Military infrastructure

Fort/Castle

Missile silo

SAM site

Radar station

Bunker

Coastal defence (e.g. Atlantic Wall)

Barracks

Ammunition store

Airbase

Airstrip

Naval base

Submarine net (can destroy submarines if they attempt to raid the harbour)

Building

Infrastructure should be built from a central budget rather than relying on local production. This is more convenient for the player an more realistic (for example the fortification of Manila Bay by the US relied heavily on resources from the continental US).

For each infrastructure improvement there are two variables: cost; timescale. Reducing the standard timescale increases the cost. But, production cannot be instantaneous. There should also be a higher cost of building in locations where existing infrastructure is limited (e.g. roads) and where the local population is low.

Transportation infrastructure capacity

An important variable for transportation infrastructure is capacity, i.e the amount of material (number of units of trade) that can be moved thought that tile per turn. It may be too unwieldy (and not particularly fun) to model this for military purposes, but having this variable contribute to how trade routes are established would add significantly to the realism of the trading mode.

Each coastal tile has an unchangeable natural port capacity number, plus a manmade port capacity number. Thus sea-based trade can be established before ports are built. Likewise, land tiles have a natural capacity number, such that trade can occur without roads, railroads, canals, etc.