Civ 4: Call To Power Style Or Different?

icet · February 23, 2004, 10:38

Should Civilization 4 include some good ideas of both Call to Powers 1 & 2 or should it be different with extended changes of its own kind? If it takes good ideas of Call to Powers inform which ones? Or if it should be different with extended changes of its own kind, inform what type. Kindly post your comments and take the poll.

joncha · February 23, 2004, 20:50

icet, you really should listen to some of the criticism of your previous polls. The options you list should refect the various ideas that people have, not just "yes or no" with no chance of people voting "yes, but..." Depending on the issue, this could mean 4 options, or 14. This makes for more nuanced and "real" responses. Also, make sure you add a "banana" option, so that people who disagree with the logic of your poll can say so.

For example, what are the "good" ideas in CtP? If I vote yes, does it mean signing on to stacked combat? Some would say its good, others would argue against it to their dying breath.

Anyway, I don't mean to jump all over you, because you obviously care about the game and are interested in its future... so I hope you take this as the constructive criticism it is intended to be.

jon.

mr Rura · February 25, 2004, 04:06

IMO the only good thing what was in CTP 1&2 was public works. I think that it is much better than moving workers on the map [it costs less time]. But the better idea woud be if every city would have its own p.w. points, not one amount for whole civilization...

the rest of ideas of CTP are rather stupid.

lajzar · February 25, 2004, 04:18

I don't know. I haven't seen anyone criticising the animated units from CTP. And lots of people have chimed in in favour of the sliders from ctp.

The gold based research economy had some fundamental flaws when they released it. Im not entirely sure if that got fixed properly in any patches.

Personally, I liked the way you had stacked combat, although having a limit on stacked movement wasn't so hot imho. Its the only game Ive seen so far where a combined arms offence and defence makes sense. civ 3 with the zero range bombard gives a reason for combined arms defence, but not for offence.

Well, Master of magic also effectively gave a reason for combined arms in offence and defence, but no one seems to remember that game much anymore.

The_Aussie_Lurker · February 25, 2004, 19:03

I agree that CtP 1&2 did have some ideas which, in principle, were great! Most of them were simply poorly executed. I especially liked the Science and Environment pacts, and visible trade routes which were not only free of 'caravan micromanagement', but were also attackable! Where they went wrong on this idea was that it was TOO EASY to break trade routes, and all the trade routes were visible to ALL civs! A better way to have gone would have been to make trade routes invisible to all but the trading partners, and that they only become visible to others if a unit comes within x tiles of it! In addition, trade routes SHOULD have been given some kind of 'strength rating', based on Tech level, which determined the chance of an attack yielding money and/or breaking the trade route!!
Another great idea in the CtP games was the introduction of religion as a REAL concept, although it did need some refininement-like perhaps not having a unit based approach to religion! This was a similar situation with the 'legal' and 'corporate' elements of the game! Again, great concepts, but execution could have been MUCH better (The image of that corporate desk travelling around just made me laugh out loud

!) Again, it could have all been done through a screen, with the 'units' being immobile-in the same way as CtP caravans were!
Anyway, I definitely think that there are MANY ideas from the CtP series which, with some refininement, could be adapted to Civ4!!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

AroSch · February 26, 2004, 08:35

I'm not sure. There where good ideas in CtP, but they wasn't done good in the game. I didn't like the model of traderoutes for example, becouse it was MUCH to easy attacking them. And the pathfinding was terrible, somtimes my new tradroute was running straight through enemys cities.

I like the Civ3 model more, but this need a little more direct feedback.

aahz_capone · February 27, 2004, 10:56

I agree that the religious and legal elements should come to civ4 but SO not like in ctp! especially not units! This should only have a bearing on civ management.

Trades routes as said could be visible only to trading partners or sought through espianoge and can only be stoppped by a total blocade. This would make it much harder to attack.

vmxa1 · February 27, 2004, 13:28

I can't remember anything good about CTP or CTP2 and I soon gave both games away.

Well, ok CTP2 had better graphics than CivII, so what?

hexagonian · February 27, 2004, 15:27

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
I can't remember anything good about CTP or CTP2 and I soon gave both games away.

...that's a matter of opinion...
(stacked combat, PW, SLIC scripting, a deeper techtree, more government and tile improvement choices, NO INFINITE RR, are all good ideas from CTP/CTP2...)

And as it has already been pointed out in this thread, some of the ideas implimented in CTP may have been good, but they may need to be executed better.

vmxa1 · February 27, 2004, 15:56

Actually it is not a matter of opinion. I did not say it had nothing of value, I said it had nothing that I could remember.

I found it to not be worth playing more than once or twice. That is a matter of opinion.

hexagonian · February 27, 2004, 16:10

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
Actually it is not a matter of opinion. I did not say it had nothing of value, I said it had nothing that I could remember.
I found it to not be worth playing more than once or twice. That is a matter of opinion.

Well, here was the question posted at the top of this thread

Should Civilization 4 include some good ideas of both Call to Powers 1 & 2 or should it be different with extended changes of its own kind?

And here is your answer

I can't remember anything good about CTP or CTP2 and I soon gave both games away.

By implication, and based on your statement, there is nothing redeeming about how CTP implemented features. If there was anything redeeming, you would have recalled it and posted it, even if you felt the feature could have been improved from how it was executed in CTP. (For instance - CTP sucked, but at least stacked combat was good - it could have been improved by removing the cap on the number of units in a stack...)

I guess you were just trollin' then...

Maquiladora · February 27, 2004, 16:27

ctp2 is teh bestest

aahz_capone · February 27, 2004, 19:21

A N Y W A Y S ! ! !

ahem.. getting, back to the topic....

though implementation of these ctp ideas need lots of work for them to be viable (I also stopped after 3 games) they have some merrit and the focus should be drawn to "what were the actual differences anyways?"

I for one loved the different govs until it just got silly (virtual democracy etc) which civ3 din't even bother to deal with until c3c, and even then "tribal council", "blood cult" and other such things were scenario based.

lajzar · February 27, 2004, 20:17

You call virtual democracy silly, but this government type has a history within SF literature, except it got called Demarchy there. And technologically, if not socially and computer-security-wise, we are almost able to produce that type already in real life. However, any such government should suffer horrendnous amounts of war weariness, if we make an assumption that the people are politically informed.

Governments I'd like to se in Civ4:

[early]
Anarchy (gotta have that)
Tyranny
Monarchy
Feudalism
Tribunal Empire (Rome/China etc)
Mercantile Empire (most of renaissance Europe)
Plutocracy (Carthage, Phoenice)
Republic (marginally representative, Roman Republic, early US/UK system)
City State (serious corruption/expansion problems, but near-perfect choice for a single city civ)

[religious]
Theocracy (monotheistic)
Caliphate (enlightened theocracy)
Fundamentalism (modern theocracy)
Blood Cult (mesoamerica)

[modern]
Democracy
Communism
Fascism
Military Dictatorship (tyranny with all mod cons)

[futuristic]
Virtual Democracy (informed online voting on all issues)
Technocracy (anyone remember the RPG Paranoia?)
Corporate Republic (vanilla cyberpunk)
Ecotopia (hardline environmentalism with ecoterrorists)

I don't list a pantheistic theocracy because they did not practice exclusivity of worship or proselytisation, so the special functions that might be available to a monotheiostic theocracy wouldnt be options for a pantheistic theocracy. Also, it puts religious wars firmly in the medieval era, which is where people associate them.

I include the caliphate to provide something to model the middle east during the medieval era. It was a religious government, but also the most scientifically advanced in the world at the time. It should be a case of different, not better, wrt the vanilla theocracy.

Of teh futuristic governemnts, trolloing aside, the USA is in danger of becoming a corporate republic, we have the technology to make a virtual democracy, if not teh political and social will, and ecotopia is pretty much what youd get if ever a hardline environemntal action group took over a nation. Only the technocarcy (as I envision it anyway) is really far off.

The point behind having a multitude of governments is that there shouldnt be a single best path governemnt choice. It should depend on the circumstances and playing style which to choose. Civ 2 was despot-monarchy-democracy, max the tech, fundie. Civ3 has something similar.

Plotinus · February 28, 2004, 09:37

Quote:

Originally posted by lajzar
However, any such government should suffer horrendnous amounts of war weariness, if we make an assumption that the people are politically informed.

Now there's an unwarranted assumption! That's why I think democracy is, in the main, a daft idea. Government by the ignorant great unwashed? I'm with Plato on that one...

lajzar · February 28, 2004, 11:08

Hey, as I said, virtual democracy is a futuristic government. Any civ that has that government has made a truly radical shift in its social structure, on a par with changing from a slave economy to an industrial one.

I think there is room in the futuristic end of the scale for a government type where the vast majority of adults are politically aware.

Plotinus · February 28, 2004, 11:21

A world where the vast majority of adults are politically aware? Well, in that case you might as well have a government where the people are happy all the time without needing luxuries or entertainers, where they never question the government's decisions, with no corruption, and where you don't need to do any research because everyone spends all their spare time down at the lab or the library anyway. In other words, it's beyond science fiction and into fantasy!

lajzar · February 28, 2004, 17:55

Quote:

A world where the vast majority of adults are politically aware? Well, in that case you might as well have a government where the people are happy all the time...

ok, how about virtual democracy as effectively being an online Ancient Athenian city state type of government? Except of course the franchise isn't limited to land owning males over 25, but is pretty much universal.

You know, within the limits of the political franchise, the political awareness and engagement in politics situation was pretty much maximised. I wouldn't take voter turnouts in the USA (20-40% iirc) or the UK (60-80%) as proof that such widespread interest is impossible. In some countries, voter turnout is regularly over 95%, there is active political interest at all times (not just election time), and the government does NOT rig the elections or impose mandatory voting, let alone mandatory happiness.

aahz_capone · February 29, 2004, 17:23

huh? which country has a voter turnout of 95% regularly and has constant political interest? Utopia?

lajzar · February 29, 2004, 18:02

Malta has such a turnout. I'd point you to a news article as proof, but it seems teh online Maltese newspapers don't keep archives.

Dauphin · February 29, 2004, 18:37

In Australia it is illegal not to vote, but that doesn't make people informed or politically interested.

Dauphin · February 29, 2004, 18:38

I'd certainly like to see more government specialisition. What I dislike about the original Civ and Civ2 (and still to a degree Civ3) is that Democracy is the best government in almost all circumstances. At least in CtPI/II quite a few governments had a unique selling point that in effect tailored themselves to differing needs or styles.