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.