RADICAL IDEAS (ver 2.0)

yin26 · June 28, 1999, 08:43

Sorry for letting the last thread go to 97 posts. That's not cool.

Well I just got an e-mail from an insane guy who is doing the Radical Ideas thread on the Firaxis site. I'll leave his introduction for him to give since he'll be here soon with a summary--NOT an easy task for this thread, I'd say.

Anyway, you might have noticed that this thread is currently not hosted by anybody. However, I think it's only fair and logical that the person who writes the summary should have first shot at hosting the thread...I'll send him an e-mail and see what he says.

Until then, please continue the great discussions. As I was preparing to write the summary, I saw some amazing ideas...very inspiring, actually.

[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited June 28, 1999).]

Eggman · June 28, 1999, 10:04

Jakester: I looked at your ideas.

I like the concept of cities starting up on their own sometimes. If they implement immigration in Civ3 (which would be nice), spontaneous settler/refugee units could pop up and make their way to their new home. This spontaneous settler could happen for financial (unclaimed natural resources of value) or happiness reasons. Maybe if the cause was happiness, there would be a chance that the new city would break off and become its own civ as well.

The fort creating cities idea might work, but it seemed too complicated to implement and doesn't provide much in gameplay or fun IMHO.

I think it is a very bad idea to make spontaneous settlers a replacement for the traditional settlers unit. You lose too much control of the expansion of your empire. You will never know when you will be able to expand. Plus, ruthless players will make their cities hellholes just to encourage people to leave and expand the empire. Anyway, civs HAVE encouraged their people to expand into new regions regularly so the settler system is realistic.

Mikel · June 28, 1999, 10:11

I agree Eggman. Jakester brought up some good points although this concept could probably be implemented by settlers spontaneously appearing from unhappy cities with a chance that they will be barbarian settlers. Of course there would have to be a penalty for attacking such a splinter city or else you could just go and coquer it.

Jakester · June 28, 1999, 13:20

Mikel, I wasnt trying to say that cities should be built by forts just that small towns could pop up around them because of the protection they offered. This happened during the middle ages with castles, during the colonial periods and wild west with forts.
U and Eggman are probably right about the settlers bein created automaticly I really didnt like that one either but i wanted to write two different ideas. The other one i talked about I liked a lot cuz I think it will make the game funner and possibly easier. If u didnt have a strong military presence in the towns far from your capital they could revolt (american revolution).You would have to make some changes in the game interface. I think governors and mayors might want to be implemented but a lot of options as to who u should hire would make that aspect funner while still leaving u in control. More realistic combat would be made a lot easier by allowing u to call up say 10,000 troops from each district or something to that measure. Leaders for your armies would probably be needed and could affect morale, organization etc. You could choose to fight your battles or watch them happen. U can go anywhere with this so more ideas would be awesome.

Jakester · June 28, 1999, 13:21

I mean eggman about that fort thing(sorry mikel).

Theben · June 28, 1999, 15:18

Eggman,
Happiness definitely should be a cause of refugee "units" and possible revolt, but the "grass is greener" spontaneous settler might be harder to implement.

Jakester,
The idea of spontaneous settlers is a good idea, but I have to agree with Eggman about not controlling settlement. I for one have starved and resettled many a city just because it was one square out of place to grab excellent resources. The idea of castles for settling & mayors, governors are good ones (I had my own ideas but you beat me to it! Arrgh!). Perhaps just give some kind of bonus to settling on forts/fortresses/castles, and allow cities to build them as an improvement. Naturally castles should have a maintenance cost (in or out of cities), but in feudal govts they should be able to collect revenue. What to do? I don't know! Suggestions?

Your suggestions have got me thinking about a few things. One is claiming land outside a city. I think a simple yet realistic way to get supplies from outside the 21 square "city" is make it a settler function. The settler sits on the tile, and as long as it works there it will send all the goodies from the tile to the city. This differs from SMAC in that it sends all the tile production to the city, the settler "counts" as a citizen (the pop reduction when built), and draws resources from the city. No more swarms of supply crawlers; there's a built-in limit. A connection to the city would be necessary: a river, roads, seacoast and city is port, etc. Technology would be a factor.

Another is colonies. Colonies would also be very simple. Any city you build that does not have a traceable connection to your capital is considered a colony. The "traceable connection" would be touching or overlapping borders, or using "supply" as defined by donDon in the SUPPLY thread. Benefits of a colony are it does not count in your total # of cities when figuring unhappiness due # of cities in your empire, and it counts as a one city-empire when figuring out it's unhappiness. It can have it's lux/taxes/science figured independently from your empire (might be too cumbersome though). Downside is it's more likely to revolt when unhappiness brews, and successful revolts cause greater chance of revolutions in nearby colonies. Successful colonies that revolt may join together and start a new civ...hostile to YOU.

Governors etc.,
Pax Imperia had governors & administrators who had basic % bonuses. Governors had 4 stats which were applied to the 4 basic "city structures", administrators were governors who were promoted, and they controlled one of the above for the entire empire. Bonuses typically ranged between 2-14%. They were also vulnerable to assassination & subversion. Could add a new twist to the espionage game, but I'm still figuring out how it would fit into the civ universe. Possible areas of expertise:

administration (less corruption, beware when bribed!)
taxes
religion
happiness/luxuries
research
production (reduction in cost like INDUSTRY in SMAC)
security (also a problem when subverted)
Possibly all the suggested social engineering choices

Now do people want this? Maybe just the administrators, as having a governor to look out for in each city is a bit much?

BTW, Jake, you can edit previous messages. Click on the last icon at the top of your post. It helps you change things when you've said something stupid. At least, that's what I've heard, I'd never do that...

[This message has been edited by Theben (edited June 28, 1999).]

Jakester · June 28, 1999, 18:22

Theben, look at my second idea about cities on the radical ideas 1.1 and tell me what u think of that. I never played pax imperia but i did moo2. That had governors and military leaders. Maybe governors could be administrators. U could divide your country into regions which would in a way be controlled by u and governors. U would control building and military production while a governor would have special attributes which would affect that city or colony just like moo2. I'm thinkin more realistic attributes than what theben was sayin so here are my ideas.

loyalty- will he (she) do all he can to protect and follow you and your ideals or encourage revolts and such.

organization- if good more tax and research if not u tend to lose money that seems to disappear.

intellect- Do he or she have new ideas on certain things. maybe more research. Need help on this one.

Speech- Can he or she inspire your people with his words which would increase happiness and maybe growth.

I know these are kindve iffy but they are realistic. They could be measured by very bad, bad, average, good, real good or with numbers 1-100. These could change the longer they are in office such as becoming a better speaker or their loyalty goin down do to your lack of success. I need help on this so more ideas would be great.

[This message has been edited by Jakester (edited June 28, 1999).]

Theben · June 28, 1999, 23:39

Jakester,
I read your old post. I think you summarized it well enough here. I agree that as unhappiness becomes endemic in a city/region should lose population, but how much is due to disease, starvation, and how much to refugees (I'm not asking you specifically, just throwing out questions to be answered)? As to having cities spring up around forts, I gave you my idea regarding that. IMHO a better 'goto' function would serve better, just send the settler to the site once built.
As for strong military far from your capital that's what caused the colony idea. Distance from a capital wasn't always a factor, but successful revolutions can inspire other revolutions elsewhere (Paris Commune). One reason that today's leaders try to avoid successful revolutions in other countries. Lastly, regarding governors/leaders ala MOO2 I do NOT want to see those in civ3. Possibly administrators with minor effects, and military leader units on the map with generic abilities. That's about it.

yin26 · June 29, 1999, 01:00

Sorry to lock this so soon. It looks like korn469 (who is running the same topic at the Firaxis site) will be hosting it here as well. Please look at his thread--a summary should be up soon.

[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited June 29, 1999).]