unofficial GAME OPTIONS, PREFERENCES, & UNIT OPTIONS

Theben · July 7, 1999, 20:31

Hosted by no one, although I'll volunteer. I think we need this thread.

So! Everyone has plenty of ideas for options to be set before the game starts & /or during the game, but they are scattered across all the subjects. IMHO, they need to be gathered and posted at one site! If you've made some suggestions, or have ideas but don't know where to put them, please post here, with definitions & reasons to include kept short, please. Hopefully Yin will make this an official list.

I'll start with a few-

GAME OPTIONS (options chosen before game start):
-The wonders on/off option
-Random Events
-Random Combat Events
-AI gets all wonder effects when corresponding tech researched

PREFERENCES (can be changed during game):
-Color of city names change when "we luv days", disorder, revolution is predicted for next turn
-Trade route overlay map
-Auto-settlers with precise instructions per terrain type, which type to terraform 1st, and ability to plot road-laying paths

UNIT OPTIONS (for SMAC-style workshop):
-Allow units to have many options, not just 2; at least 8 each
-Brigade option; 1/3 hps & certain effects reduced (1/3 cargo capacity), severely reduced costs, makes great explorers
-Heavy; Extra size, extra hp's, some units get special abilities (heavy bombers)
-Wooden hulled & Iron hulled for ships; cannot upgrade from one to the next, wooden hulled has max attack/defense STR, iron has minimum STRs
-Alpine, marines
-Cavalry detachment; for infantry, reduces bonuses of enemy cavalry on certain terrain; also counts as heliocopters w/mech units
-seige equipment; counts as weak catapult/cannon/artillery etc.
-settler option
-engineer option
-non-combat option; the STR's given to unit cannot be used offensively, reduced support cost, no unhappiness from unit, -2 combat morale, reduced construction cost

Others when I think of them, unless this thread gets closed. Add your own!

yin26 · July 7, 1999, 21:55

Theben,

Once the list is released (early next week?), we'll take a look at what new threads should be here. Until then, maybe you can rally enough posts here to warrant this thread when we organize later?

Theben · July 8, 1999, 00:12

You heard the man. Post away!

Another unit option: Anti-personnel. +50% STR to Range only. Any era can use; FE, archers have low land combat STR, but their range is better, with "anti-personnel" weapons!

Flavor Dave · July 8, 1999, 11:45

option--standard diplomacy, realistic diplomacy--the former is what we have now, in the latter, AI civs don’t declare war when they have two cities defended by archers, while you have tanks.

Scooter · July 8, 1999, 18:04

I think this belongs here, as it would be a set-up screen decision. When generating a random map, the option to have each Civ start on it's own continant would be nice. In other words, if you pick seven Civs (including yourself) the generator would be sure to make a map with at least seven continents (or islands depending on your point of view) with each Civ on it's own plot of land. You could even make this a yes/no toggle for a "friendlier" start.

How about a Tech accelerater option. If Civ A has twice the accumulated science as Civ B, then Civ B get's double science points for X turns. This would be nice for newbies who get far behind, but more importantly it would extend the games of experts by "cheating" the AI to get back in the race. I stop playing a lot of my games once it's academic that I've won, just systematic, boring mopping up remains. With this option, the game would still be interesting till the end.

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"BEEFCAKE, BEEFCAKE!!!

-E. Cartman
[This message has been edited by Scooter (edited July 08, 1999).]

Theben · July 9, 1999, 00:47

Doh! I forgot to say that the AP option was vs. infantry & mounted units only.

Flav Dave, Scooter, those sound like great ideas.

Scooter · July 9, 1999, 11:07

How about a Phalanx v Tank combat option. The choices would be Realistic/Handicapped. Realistic would mean that a phalanx could never kill a tank (I use Phalanx/Tank just as an example, the theory extends to all units). Handicapped would be the regular combat system, where the chances are slim, but possible.

------------------
"BEEFCAKE, BEEFCAKE!!!

-E. Cartman

Diodorus Sicilus · July 9, 1999, 11:57

Barbarians Cannot Start Civilizations Option: set it and no barbarian-conquered city will start a new Civ: keeps the game shorter. Otherwise, a standard game would be 'open-ended' in that Barbarians could advance into a new Civ in the game.
Historical Georgraphical Start Option: Civilizations will start in terrain similar to their historical counterparts: Vikings in a northern wooded region with a long seacoast, Mongolians on plains, Egyptians in a river valley surrounded by deserts, etc.
Setting this option might result in the computer telling you certain specified opponents cannot be used, if you have also specified, say, a cold wet island planet and want a whole bunch of hotland dry inland civs (Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, etc).
Variable TimeScale Option. For those who want to play more of the game in the Ancient World, the initial Years per Turn could be toggled to 5, 10 or 25 instead of 50. Tech Advances would slow up accordingly, but movement rates would not (they're hopelessly out of synch with realtime movement anyway). This would coincide with another Option:
Variable Game Length. Not in turns, but to a certain Date: set the game to end at 1AD, 1000AD, 1492AD, 1999: with variable Length Turn set, it allows you to play an Ancient Game to conclusion, or add Accelerated Start at Date and play a 'mid-game' option: start in 1AD, play to 1500AD using 5 years per turn starting length.
Set Starting Capabilities Option: you can specify what your civ, or possibly what all civs, start with in the game: this is another possibility for an 'accelerated start' option: set the advances, number of cities, and a possibly randomized number of city improvements or overall population level and number of units for the civ. This could also be a randomized starting option for a regular game, where (as in CtP) civs start with a variable number and type of starting Advances.
Set Information
This would allow you to have more or less information about the other civs in the game. Normal Game Level, for instance, would allow you to learn of other civs and their accomplishments through 'wandering merchants', Barbarian Traders, etc, even up to learning how they feel about you from a distance. Alternately, you could set a higher level which gives you more information (possibly related to Difficulty Level) or a lower level in which you play in the current CivII blind ignorance until you blunder into the other civ.
Bottom Line: I like the idea of this Thread: it coincides with my own major concern, which is Maximum Flexibility and Variation in the Game. Allowing a wide range of starting options makes the game much, much more customizable for players. It also provides another arena for including some of the suggestions made elsewhere in the threads, some of which might be too peculiar for regular play, but would be a neat option to include as an alternate Starting Game Set.

SnowFire · July 9, 1999, 13:11

Sigh... Scooter, you might want to post that in the TECHNOLOGY thread. Where I might add that there is a sub-section on prefences at the beginning of the game. I don't see why this thread can't be a sub-section of the UNITS thread, but hey, that's just my opinion.

Harel · July 9, 1999, 17:48

Well, a new section called: winning conditions.
It should have:

* Vendetta ( you must kill all other civ, allways in war. No allies. )
* Dominion ( when you control 75% of all cities and popultion, with allies. )
Bigger is better ( whoever is biggest in term of poputltion after X turns wins. Cumultive with allies. )
* Space race ( win by going to alpha centuary. Can build it with allies. )
* Allied victory ( if you ally up with a civ, you can both win the game togher. up to 20% of all civ may ally this way )
* Team game ( all civs are divided by five groups. Team players are automaticly allied from the start ).
* World president ( winning by election leader. Needs UN, you need to be elected by 60% of all votes. All you allies win too. )

I think I covered all the options...

Max · July 10, 1999, 00:07

Waouhh,

your idea about the tech accelerator option sounds great, Scooter. I have often felt like you about boring game ending: slowly agonizing opponents that you have to keep alive by providing them with technologies !

Anyway, there seems to be a lot of good ideas in this forum. Everybody wants his/her (respect, m'dam) new option in order that CivIII includes his/her personnal feature. Well I just wonder how Firaxis is going to deal with that... And also, don't you think that new Civ players could get lost with this all those new options ?
But all in all, I guess that too many ideas is better than not enough.*

Don't forget my own petition for A new penguin unit for Linux users !!!

[This message has been edited by Max (edited July 09, 1999).]

Theben · July 19, 1999, 13:05

-BUMP- Does anyone have more ideas to put here?
[This message has been edited by Theben (edited July 19, 1999).]

mindlace · July 19, 1999, 14:00

Theben:
Game options: random events options are in SMAC, the other 2 should probably go to WONDERS.

Preferences: to User Interface or somesuch?

Unit preferences: in the Units section or Combat section.

Some of Diodorus' ideas might be good for the Customization section.

The scope of Customization is primarily the kind of things you need to change for a scenario, not the options for a 'normal' game.

Does this answer your question?

Theben · July 19, 1999, 14:23

Yes, it does. My reason for creating this in the 1st place was that all the optional ideas are scattered across the threads. I thought centralizing them here would help organize people's option suggestions.

mindlace · July 19, 1999, 16:58

I see your point. I had the AI thread in the old version of the list. The whole time it was up, I got about 100 posts whilst Units, for example, must have received 500 or more.

BR has suggested that we make the things a living document, updating sections as they evolve. In this spirit, Yin has tried to reduce the number of areas. One of the areas whacked was AI.

I think the customization ideas that don't clearly fall into another category (like the Barbarians found new Civ) options could be mentioned in the CUSTOMIZATION area.

I'm not trying to shoot you down, I just think it'll be easier for BR to handle the options suggestions if they go with the area they are affecting.

Maybe there could be a Do Not Use flag on any of the rules in the rules.txt so that you could turn on or off _any_ of the rules? That would be a cool customization.

~mindlace

russellw · July 19, 1999, 17:17

Remember the good old Ironman option? How about the...

WIMPYMAN OPTION
Combined with the "alarm clock" feature, this option would cause the game to save itself and quit when the alarm went off.

Obviously, this is for the folks who fall prey to the "just one more turn" syndrome, but really do need to stop at a certain time. I don't have the discipline, so it would be nice if the game would just close up shop so I wouldn't be tempted to continue.

The alarm clock option was (I think) from meowser on the OTHER thread. Maybe you could also have it trigger on other things, like 100 turns or "The Discovery of Gunpowder". Also, it could pop up a notepad that would allow you to jot down a few notes before it turned itself off.

Theben · July 20, 1999, 01:50

I believe in letting this thread live or die based on # of posts (which, at the moment, looks to be an early death). If I'm going to do COMBAT then less work for me is always a plus

. I feel it necessary to remind anyone who posts ideas here that they should post on the thread deemed appropriate for the subject, so their idea isn't lost if this thread closes.

Flavor Dave · July 20, 1999, 16:23

2 thoughts. One, I like Harel's victory conditions options. I'd add two--1st, achieve any of them. That would make the game interesting--if you're a warmonger, you race to conquer a bunch of allies, before they can elect one of their own as UN leader.
2nd, RICHES. Something like, 3/4 of the world's gold reserves up to economics, 2/3 up to capitalization, and 1/2 after that. This would reflect the increasing importance and fluidity of money. With this option, you'd also want to find ways to increase defense, or the diplomatic penalties of war. Otherwise, you could pull a Reagan and bankrupt your enemies by forcing them to worry too much about their military, but that ain't really the point of this victory condition.

2nd, about the confusing options, and beginners--Firaxis could solve this pretty simply by dividing the options into basic and advanced. And include in the manual a very strongly worded "suggestion" that the beginner forgo the advanced options.

mindlace · July 23, 1999, 11:20

I hope I'm not stepping on your toes, Theben, but I just put a bunch of this stuff that I think is applicable to CUSTOMIZATION there.

The other things I think are really suited towards other categories.

Thanks,

~mindlace

Theben · August 3, 1999, 14:42

A *BUMP* and a message to all that they should post these ideas elsewhere if they want them to live on. Feel free to put them on CUSTOMIZATION, or maybe this could be moved to the "suggestions" page. I won't bump it again.

It's all yours, mindlace.

mzilikazi · August 4, 1999, 05:37

Good thread - to which I'd add a couple of points:
First, another victory condition I feel is necessary beyond what Harel and Theben have suggested: a transcendence/happiness/utopia type victory, i.e. a way for a small-but-perfectly-formed civ to win (ie along the lines of Sweden or Australia in the real world). This would require some or all of the following conditions: very high happiness, zero/low pollution, max 5 cities, very low military service & no nukes, high "reputation" abroad and discovery of certain techs (lots of Recycling, Future Tech, Ecology, and maybe even the discovery of the wonderful game of cricket - for those who followed the 'Cricket as a wonder' thread). My list is far too long, but I feel there is a need for a victory condition like this, and would add it to the list of options.

Secondly, we need the 'style' option, as in city style - should cities be oriental/mediaeval/classical/stone age (and maybe some new options too: e.g. Slavonic (lots of onion domes) or Middle Eastern (lots of whitewashed low square buildings) in appearance. There has been discussion whether this style should extend to unit appearance as well as city appearance. whatever, the option should be on the menu.

Francis · August 4, 1999, 13:35

Here's a real game option: click a box to get a notepad. Click another, and one pops up automatically at the end of each of your turns. This would be helpful to those of us who play challenges like One-City Space Race, in which we like to keep a log of what we do when. It would probably also help new players, and more experience ones who want to jot down a newly discovered strategy or bug. Sure, you can do this already by swithcing into another program, but I don't know a single player who hasn't forgot to log events because the game got too engrossing. Similarly, there's often discussion of odd events or strategy notes where the player can't quite remember exactly what happened. A little notapd function would help immensely. Even though it is kind of boring.

mindlace · August 13, 1999, 06:27

Francis and mzilikazi, I've rephrased your comments and placed them in Customization.
What do you think?