CIVILIZATIONS (ver2.0): hosted by LordStone1

[Flavor Dave]

Eggman--of course you're right--the best solution would be for Firaxis to program a better AI, so that the Zulus (in your example) don't demand tribute when they're 7th on the power chart as the only way to even up the odds between the AIs and the human. Dammit, if you're pitiful, act like it!!! But I still think my conception of minor civs would add to the game.

Didorius, I have no idea what you're getting at when you say it's unrealistic for some civs to be minor. That's ridiculous; it's far more realistic than the current system!! Take Europe in 1618, on the verge of the 30 years war. England, France, and Spain, Austro-Hungary were the big dogs (IIRC). Prussia and Switzerland and Denmark, etc., were minor powers. Today, Japan and China are major powers, and Korea and Vietnam are minor powers.

Further, I don't see how it stifles play at all to have your normal 3-7 civs (or more), and up to a half dozen minor civs. If anything, it ENHANCES play; you have another decision to make, how to treat minor civs, and whether to get involved in the struggle between the Belgians and the Dutch, for example.

The other option, of course, is to allow a huge number of civs, AND have minor powers act like minor powers. But in practice, I expect very few, if any, minor civs to survive to modern times. AI civs will cannibalize one another. You'll still have 6-10 civs, but the Roman empire will have some weird city names--Brussels, Nijmegen, Hanoi, Stockholm, Lisbon, etc.

Coming from a "minor civ" myself, I like the idea.

We need a few little Polands etc. which rarely rise to great heights but are between a rock and a hard place and can be used (forced to be allies) or abused (forced to give tribute/conquered).

We kind of already have this in Civ I and II because the AI really only concentrates on one or two civs and leaves the rest as "minor" - so I also have some sympathy with the view "why make the distinction?".

[Depp]

Just wanna say that including all these civs are fun, but in CTP i hate when you have to play aginst the jamacians and stuff!

You should be able to chose opponents and the once chosen automatically should be the great civs, not the irish or nigeraians (no offence :-)

And let Hitler be the leader of Germany, he was the worst but still the most famous. And had the most impact on the world, with Bismark coming in second . . .

[SnowFire]

BigCivFan: That's already in the idea. Civs dynamically change from one to the other.

Transcend: Basically what you say is in the idea as well. But for those initial turns, before some civs are declared minor- well, you might well get Belgium, Mali, the Sioux, the Khemer, and the Polish as your main civs. I have absolutely no problem with them occasionally becoming major civs if they have a good start location and another major civ is weakened to the point of minor-nation ness. But making it fully dependant on location creates basically an equal chance that any civ will rise to prominence, when we want to create a ton of classical minor civs who normally wouldn't get included, and let them fill up the world.

And again, I repeat my qualms about AI- The AI of the Sioux will be exactly the same as that for the Greeks or Chinese, basically. No offense to the Sioux, but they never settled down and researched high technology. If every civ is major, then that never happens.

[Rathenn]

I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, sorry...

It would be good to have a pool of civilisations, where we could deselect the ones we don't want to see in the game. For instance, if you don't think Australians and Americans etc. are 'civilisations' (like me), then you'd deselect them and they wouldn't have a chance of appearing. Also, after creating your own civilisations, you could import them into this list to be selected instead of fiddling around with txt files and swapping one civilisation for another.

Also, the 'three civilisations of every colour' idea from Civ2 might have to go (although it doesn't have to), replaced as other people have suggested with more appropriate flags like the union jack etc. You'd still need a set colour for each civilisation during the game, perhaps each civ can have three colours they could possibly be at any one time? That would allow greater colour variation, then if say all the civs with various shades of blue got selected. I think it would also be more 'familiar' than random colours.

Anyway, this would make it possible say for the Indians to be in the same map as the Mongols and the Sioux, and the same with the French, Germans and Vikings (as examples from Civ2).

Rathenn

[Eggman]

The pigeonholing of civs into a specific color (and thus guaranteeing that certain civs can NEVER be in the same game - like the Russians and Romans) has to go. To be honest, as a programmer, I can confidentally say that there was no good reason for this system. What I think they were trying to do is make sure that when using the world map and historical starting positions, there would be a balanced layout. However, there are other much better ways of doing this without limiting the random game (the best option IMHO). What, no French vs. German? Games should allow any and all possible combinations of civilizations. If CTP could do it, so can Civ3.

Also, I would again like to ask that Firaxis have LOTS of open slots for custom made civs and setup the game so that they all can be used. 64 slots (including the default civs) should be more than enough (maybe more if minor civs are included). I should be able to pick ANY of the 64 civilizations to play with (unlike CTP where once you had a certain number of civs, the others would fall off the bottom of the queue) and they should all be part of the pool from which the computer opponents are picked. Also, if there are graphics files linked to civs (like custom shields or leader pictures), they should set aside space or come up with some system that will allow me to customize them all.

And minor civs add one very important aspect - DIPLOMACY. I don't particularly care how they do it (whether minor civs are minor from the beginning or if they become that way), just that they have them in some capacity. I want to be Machiavellian!

[Ekmek]

SNOWFIRE - good comment on how the Aztecs get so advanced when isolated. That has to be one of the big things that would irk me about civ. Firaxis may have to make/complicate the advances/science system. To include not improvements and taxes but make trade and contact with civilizations a bigger impact, because that is a major reason for the advance of civilization. No competition actually leads to stagnation (China, although way advanced many times proves that a unchallenged state eventually tries to stiffle progress). Of course if there was a way to implement a dark ages that would be nice and challenging.

RATHENN: I like your pool of civilization ideas it would be way better than what civ2 does now.

EGGMAN and RATHENN: The civ colors argument is big too. If they have the engine read from other .GIFs/.BMPs like in CIV2 that should make a huge Flags pages (instead at the bottom of the Cities.gif) and have each civilization take a flag and shield off of there by a number read in the rules.txt(1 to 128 maybe, giving us slots for making our own). A leader page with GIFs/BMPs based on the same idea too (you could even scan yourself in Multiplayer games or make way better scenarios).

Flavor Dave: You hit on a big issue with your brief mention on how civs get wiped out and your back to a regular civ. I love the major/minor civ idea (whether specified or not, just for diplomacy sake) but how are we going to prevent the little guys from getting swallowed up. It could be a personality trait to minor powers (i.e. tolerant or not) because some civs in history prefer small trading partners or buffer states (diplomacy and the need for buffer or territory disputes actually created a lot of the minor states in Europe like Belgium and Poland). But some warlike states didn't respect them (Hitler). There might have to be a border guarrantee function and maybe an ability to build puppet states too.

- I still kina push the various resource huts ideas as a determining factor of major and minor and also a away to complicate research so you don't get space age Aztecs. Science was a mixture of not just investments of money and building but of trade, contact, and resources. This could add to the minor/major debate and would help in the Aztecs with Nukes problem.

[Andy B]

Why not spaceage aztecs?
And please give us Swedes, Norwegians and Danes insted of Vikings.

[Eggman]

Space Age Aztecs are fine with me. With a twist or two, maybe they would have beaten the Spanish.

But I wouldn't hold your breath on getting the Swedes AND the Danes AND the Norweigans. Among those, only Sweden was really a major power and only a local European power at that. I would choose the Turks, Poland, Portugal and The Netherlands over Norway or Denmark. Plus, the the Vikings had a lot more impact on Europe than any of the more organized civilized kingdoms that followed. You even have the fact that Europe is chock full of world powers going against you - you can only have so many countries from Europe.
Fortunately, if they have lots of open slots, I am sure that you can add any countries that you want without much more than a text editor and a little imagination.

[Andy B]

OK. But as Ecce said before Vikings where never a civ.

[LordStone1]

All right. I'm back now. It was a wonderful vacation - no computer nearby for 8 days..wow.

Anyhow, THIS THREAD IS CLOSED

Post in ver2.1. Thank you.