Civilizations version 3.0 hosted by Me

[loinburger]

OK people, here’s the deal. Most of this thread was a list of “I like this civilization, let’s put it in,” with some information such as civilization specific units and leaders included for some (but not all) civilizations. According to the survey that Apolyton took, the bulk of us want oodles of civilizations in Civ III, and so included here is a whole slew of what Civers want. The numbering system is simple- Section 1 is all of the civilizations that were proposed, ‘a’ being the proposed leaders for that civ, ‘b’ being the proposed “civilization specific” weaponry for that civ. Section 2 is everything else.

1. Big List of Civilizations.

1. Ghana/Mali/Songhai (sub-Saharan civilizations), probably Mali.
a. Sundjata (male, warlike, expansionist); Musa (male peaceful, perfectionist-technologist, religious); Soumauro Kante (male, very warlike); Sogolon (female, peaceful); Sassouma Berete (female, warlike).

2. Japanese:
a. Tokugawa; Hirohito; Hideyoshi (warlike expansionist); Oda Nobunaga (warlike expansionist); Ko Sanjo (female, perfectionist); Tomoe Gozen (female, warlike, perfectionist)
b. Samurai.

3. English:
a. William the Conquerer; Elizabeth I; Winston Churchill; Bernard Montgomery; Tony Blair;
b. Longbowmen.

4. Greeks:
a. Plato; Alexander the Great; Basileios II; Pericles; Constantus

5. Americans:
a. George Washington; Abraham Lincoln; FDR; Adams; Jefferson; Nathaniel Greene; Madison; Grant; Johnson; Name That President

6. Babylonians:
a. Sargon; Hammurabi; Nebukadnezzar

7. Chinese:
a. Ying Cheng(Shi Huang Di); Li Shimin (Tang Tai Zung); Mao Tsetung; Shi Huangdi; Tang Tai Zung; Deng Xioping; Jiang Zemin

8. Egyptians:
a. Ramses II; Saladin; Nasser; Sadat

9. French (Franks):
a. Charlemagne; Louis XIV; Napoleon; Mitterand; Chirac; Charles de Gaulle

10. Germans (Teutons):
a. Frederik Barbarossa; Frederik the Great; Adolf Hitler; Attila; Helmut Kohl;

11. Persians:
a. Darius I; Ayatollah Khomeini; Shapur; Cyrus

12. Romans:
a. Romulus; Octavian; Constantine; Mussolini; Scipio

13. Russians:
a. Ivan the Grozny; Peter the Great; Vladimir Lenin; Stalin

14. Turks:
a. Mehmed II; Kemal Ataturk

15. Shona:
a. Robert Mugabe

16. Ndebele:
a. Mzilikazi; Lobengula

17. Masai

18. Swahili:
a. Tippoo Tib


2. Civilizations And Stuff

1. Leaders:
Each civilization is given a choice of five or so leaders which are selected at the beginning of the game, and may or may not change. These leader choices might affect such things as…
Unit offense, defense, hit points, firepower, and movement rating;
Effectiveness of administration (some leaders are more prone to corruption, some leaders are predisposed towards a certain government style);
Effectiveness of leadership (if the leader is a famous general);
Predisposition towards certain types of research, taxation;

2. Minor Civs:
These are, well, minor civs. Like small civs. Why aren’t they large civs, you ask? Because they’re small, ya moron. These would come about from things like a revolution (like, the French Empire splits into the French Empire and the Flench Empire, with the Flench Empire acting as a splinter civilization), from barbarians conquering a city (or founding their own), or from exploring and discovering fifty unique civilizations per square mile. Clearly the latter can become tedious if overdone.

3. Neutral Civs:
These are peaceloving civilizations (the Swiss, or the Greenlanders), who pretty much only engage in trade. There would be diplomatic penalties involved with invading these fellas.

4. Big List O Minor Civs:
Guti, Kassites, Amories, Cimmerians, Ligurians, Hurrians, Thracians, Illyrians, Phrygians, Sakae, Scythians, Nubians, Sarmatians, Numidians, Bactrians, Parthians, Yue-Chi, Hsung-Nu, Alans, Roxoloni, Surens, Kushans, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Gepids, Marcomanni, Franks, Burgundians, Bayoroi, Alemanni, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Avars, Bulgars, Khazaks, Patzinals, Magyars, Ghuzz, Seljuks, Cumans, Sarbadars, Uzbeks, Circassians.

5. Schisms:
So let’s say that a Civ had a civil war. Would the French split into the French and the Flench necessarily? Preferably they would split into the French and the Spanish, something more historically accurate and feasible. Here’s a big list of civilizations that are related to each other-if one has a civil war and the other didn’t exist at the start of the game, then the other gets created.
Aztecs-Teotihuacans-Olmec
Inca-Tiahuacanos-Moche
English-Americans-Canadians
Russians-Polish-Mongols
Greeks-Romans-Minoans
Egyptians-Assyrians-Babylonians
French-German-Spanish
Sioux-Iroqoius-Navaho
Chinese-Japanese-Korean
Indians-Siamese-Khmer

6. Migrations + Nomads:
These would be caused by major cities falling, changes in climate, major religious movements sweeping a continent, etc. Nomadic units and refugee units will move about the map looking for a new place to live. (Nomadic units are self-sustaining military units that can turn into a population point in a city. Some barbarian units are nomadic units. They’re like mobile cities, but their improvements have different names and are often less effective-City Walls (Wagon-Burgh), Library (Shaman’s Hut), Temple (Sacred Grove), Palace (Chieftain’s Hut), Market Place (Bazaar), and additionally Nomads are quite inefficient at using materials from

[loinburger]

Short summary, you say? If I've glossed over something, tell me and I'll pay it special heed when I go through this stuff a second time, which I will be doing. But hey, I knocked this off in only two hours! If I never get around to improving it, at least this much gets sent in.

[ottok]

as mee post
1. where, what and why

2. leaders

3. own units.


1.
Europe:
In "North Countries"
Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and Vikings. Rich and Historilly.
Center Europe
German, Poland and Swiss maybe Stech and Slovenia. Why?

East Europe
Russia, Turks, Greeks;. Romania & Bulgary ?

Ex Jugoslavia
Serbia, Monterecno, Macerep, Bosnia?

Brittain´s
English, Scotts, Wales, Irelands?

West Europe
Italy, Spanish, Portugal Holland& Belgia", Katalonia?

Ancinent Times
Greete,Macen, Mycenen, Athena, Sparta, Rome, Etrusk, Huns, Kimbris.

Afrikka

Today

Egypt, Tunis, Algeria, Soutafrikka.

Ancinent.

Zulus, Cartachos, Great Zimbawe.

Aasian

Today

Chinese, Japan, Indian, Koreas, Mongols.

Americans

Today

USA, Canada,Mexico,Braxily.

Ancinent

Aztecks, Incas, Sioux, Maya, Cherorkees, Carawak.

58.

2. i not know what isnt know there?

3. Player make own look mixunits, every build every. So arghes with Guns!
;/ hawe i hope undrestand!

[yin26]

O.K. It's in the list! GREAT work, Theben. If you update this soon, please shoot me a quick e-mail.

Yin

[Theben]

Uh, thanks, Yin, but you should give credit where credit is due. It was technophile's summary.

[Maniac]

Most of us want minor civs, but none of us has come up with exact rules what they would and wouldn’t be able to do. If we make those, I think we’ll have a better chance Firaxis will consider them seriously.

When we take a look at the Civ2 rules, there were 3 factors that determined a civ: attack, expand and civilize. There were 3 values for each, ranging from +1 to –1. Well, I would create a –2 value for attack and expand. Every minor civ would have those.

-2 for attack would mean they are very pacifist and will never start a war on their own with a major civ. They will always try to sign peace treaties. Also, if possible, they will exchange techs etc.
They will also ally with one major civ and have a tendency to take over his SE settings.

Trading with a minor civ would be more profitable than trading with a major civ. And, I don’t know if this is included in the Economy or Diplomacy summary, but I would like that you have a commerce bonus when the civ you’re trading with has similar SE settings. So it would be very profitable to have some minor allies in your ‘sphere of influence’.

This could also create cold war conditions where one major civ tries to persuade a minor civ to become his ally and desolve the alliance with another civ.
A minor civ would be able to declare war to another minor civ. This could create again cold war situations where one major civ backs up his minor civ ally whilst the other minor civ is also protected/backed up.

-2 for expand would mean that they can at any time only found/possess maximum three cities.

Minor civs shouldn’t be able to build wonders, except perhaps those with a one-city-only or one-time-only effect like the Colossus or Darwin’s Voyage.

Has anyone got other ideas?

[Idiot]

I have a vague idea on how to implement the whole small civ thing.

First, get rid of barbarians. After all, aren't barbarians actually small civs. If you increase the number of civs in the game based upon the amount of land, you can have a whole bunch of civs out there, small and large. Eventually, the smaller, weaker ones will be dominated by stronger ones. Just as in the real world, civs that are more secluded than others will tend to be less advanced.

Also, in later stages of the game, you can add to the small civ number by splintering off civs that have large amounts of unhappiness for reasons such as civil war and such. This would force players to focus a bit more on population happiness.

[Maniac]

I don't think you should rid the entire concept of barbarians. You should replace them by nomads. That's not the same as minor civs.

[Mo]

Minor civs should be able to become a major civ through time. If they merge with one another they will found a major civ and also if they conquer cities from a major civ to reach past the three city limit.
At the begining of the game there should be a limit that if a civ doesn't expand to this size by x number of turns it will play the game as a minor civ and if it achieves these goals it will play as a major. This will keep the games varied so that there can be different major civs in each game.

[Mo]

I don't think they should be less advanced because of their trade, but they should become satalite states of superpowers in the later half of the game. Also after a surrender a civ can be split up into minor civs or one major and minor(s) depending upon the size. Colonies should often split off into a minor civs.

[The Joker]

I really like the concept of minor civs. But I don't think they should be fundamentally different from major ones. They should simply be small civs. Minor civs could simply be civs that never became very large, or civs that started later in the game. I would like that if a significant land mass was not colonized for some time small civs would simply emerge there. They could either be breakoffs from other civs (you could get the message that 1 citizen from city X had moved and started it's own civ due to dissatifaction with your SE settings or because it is another nationality than yours). This could happend pretty often, not often enough to mean a lot for the civ they broke loose from, but enough to make a lot of small independant civs. This happend numerous times in the real world: the ancient Greek colonization of the eastern Mediterranean a few centuries BC, the Viking colonization of Iceland, Greenland and America around 1000 AD and the European colonization of America in the centuries after 1492.

Minor civs could easily be made into puppet states (check out the definition in the SE thread) of your empire. And if the world in modern times became like the real one, where no developed civ could conquor another one due to the UN, allies etc. you could expand your civ with these puppet states. Like the Cold War.

[Mo]

I think that in the begining of the game the world should be sprinkled with civs most of them minor and then as time progresses some will unite to form larger civs.

[Theben]

Now that I looked closer, do you (techy-poo) realize that the bottom of your summary is chopped off? You never put in the rest!

[CormacMacArt]

May I suggest:

Irish
a. Brian Boru, Niall of the Nine Hostages, Cormac Mac Art, Conn of 100 Battles
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by CormacMacArt (edited November 19, 1999).]</font>

[ottok]

keep "originals" there.
But hey?!
is there the nation what we forget?

[Stefu]

Here's my humble suggestion:

While no special abilities should be fixed to civilizations, how about giving them one preferred Soc. Eng setting they will strive for, just like in SMAC, and make them angry to people who have different Soc. Eng setting in that category. For instance, if Greeks strive for Knowledge, they would shun Americans who only want Wealth. I doubt this even would be rasistic, as all examples can be clearly based on history: For instance, Zulus were nation that lived off war (It was their mean of getting cattle) and had huge, well trained standing army. Therefore, logically Zulus would have Power in their values settings.

My other proposal deals with Civ breakups. In rules.txt, there should be specified several nations that could be the independence-wanting parts of breaking-up empire. Here are some:

Americans: Confederates - Texans - Californians
Germans: Prussians - Austrians - Swiss
English: Canadians - Australians - South Africans
Celts: Irish - Scots - Welsh
Russians: Ukrainians - Poles - Finns
Vikings: Swedes - Norwegians - Danes
Romans: Palmyrans - Byzantine - Bosporans?

Well, you get the idea.

[loinburger]

Did I chop that summary up? Whoops. Guess I really should have slept more that day.

[Mo]

Instead of having a civ automaticaly dislike a civ because it has a different SE setting, I would like there to be a setting for the leader or for the civ how accepting they are of other SE settings. Also if two nations have been allies for a long time or have jointly saved each other from destruction they shouldn't become enemies because of SE settings. There are also several examples throughout history to support this: The US a democracy support the Iranian Monarchy before the revolution. The Fascists in World War two were allied with Japan which was a monarchy. The countries in the European Union(democracies) are on friendly terms with Cuba a communist country.
Two countrys who share several of the same SE settings should become closer allies/friends but it shouldn't affect how they treat other nations.

[Harel]

Hey.
Just wanted my 223 post.

Can't we all give up now and go home? No one bothers posting anymore, and frankly I am tired to check this site every day
But I feel drawned here...

Maybe I can brain-wash Sid to make him accept all my silly diplomatic ideas...

Oh don't mind me... too much apolyton made me a bit willy...

Oh, Yin, I see the light! The tunnel is so bright...
And look! It's Brain... waiting for me! I am coming Brain! We will have civ XXII. I always wanted to fix that bug that didn't give +1 prod to the english in XXI...

[Ruinexplorer]

Of course, from an Archeological or Historical perspective almost NONE of these are actual "civilisations". A real civilization would be something like "China", "The Romans", "Egypt" and so on. Things like the US or Russia would never make the cut. They are merely political entities, and the US merely an offshoot of various European civilizations. It has not developed a unique civilization of it's own. If the real world was a game, the same player would own most of Europe and the USA, Canada and Australia, as well as South Africa, and maybe Israel. They all have pretty mcuh the same systems and usually operate like parts of the same machine. Another Player would own Russia and Eastern Europe, another China and parts of the far east, another Japan and other parts of the far east (like Singapore), another most of the Middle east and Turkey, and yet another South America. Civilizations are not Countries! They are technically, places where Civilization occured, seperately from others, but for this debate, they should be basically groups of places that think and act/together alike.

How, exactly, were the Visigoths or the Vandals and so on "Civilizations"? - Answer: They weren't, they were merely invidual tribes in the greater "Teutonic tribal" whole, which could have counted as civilization of its own. The accurate historical definition of civilization is not too useful , I feel(otherwise we have too debate things like the relationship between the Romans and the Etruscans and so on). Real, honest-to-God, built from the bottom up civilizations are ones like:

China, Rome, Hellas (Greece), the various Celtic Civilizations (from Spain to Britain), Egypt, Other African civilizations (there are quite a few), Native American, Australian Aboriginal, The Teutonic civilisation(s) (from the Saxons and Vandals to the Vikings),
arguably the Japanese (they arrived as invaders a very long time ago, but so did most civs, so we can basically ignore that), several near-eastern civs, basically starting with the Sumerians and Babylonians and so on, the nomadic eurasian civs like the Huns and the Mongolians, and various island people of the pacific. Most of these groups of Civs should really count as single ones for playing purposes.

Colonies like the USA, or Turkey and so on really should not count as Civs in their own right (actually Turkey could, as it did have several civilizations, many of them quite interesting, but was colonised by the Greeks and then various other people, but it should NOT be called Turkey in the game, as there was no single "Turkish" civ. Turkey is a later political construct. The USA even more so. It is an example of the European civilization taking over another low-population civilization, not a Civ in its own right at all.

I would stay AWAY from using real leaders and limiting players to existing civs as well as classifying certain civs AUTOMATICALLY as minor. They may have been minor in our world, but might have been far more important in Civ III's randomly generated world. So the Romans dominated Europe for centuries... maybe they will be minor players this time, and, say, the Hellenes (Greeks) will fill their place, or whatever. One should remember that Alexander was not a Greek but a Macedonian and thus basically a memeber of a "minor" civilization and so on. Also avoid giving bonuses for specific leaders and or civs, as that smack of racial stereotyping, and that is just sooooooo 19th Century, not to mention bordering on the actually racist and insulting.

Do this instead: Give the player a huge selection of civs to choose from, as well as the opportunity to create his or her own (which in my case would be modelled on various real but obscure civs), and then give them a selection of bonuses and a couple of starting tech to choose from... They could have a total amount of points to spend or something, and say, get an extra settler or unit if they gave up a tech or whatever. That way, everyone would be happy, no-one could complain that they got "gipped" or worry about racism, and all would be good on the Earth =)

Seriously though, that IS the best way to do it.

------------------
"You're standing on my neck."

<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ruinexplorer (edited November 27, 1999).]</font>

[Mo]

One idea which was proposed a long time ago, but didn't go anywhere was that you get bonuses depending upon how you play. ex. If you build a lot naval ships and use them you will get a naval bonus. If you concentrate on improving your cities rather than conquring or expanding you might get an indeustrial bonus. ect...

With Minor civs I proposed earlier that any civ to be major would have to achomplish certain goals in a certain time limit at the begining of the game which would then seperate the minor and major.

[Mo]

bump

The "Swahili" Civilization listed above is highly dubious in it's current form. Sure, the Afro-Shirazi (Swahili) were an interesting civilization, but they were never really an integral state- the City-State of Kilwa had large landwinnings along the coast, but other cities existed in parallel as well.

Once Kilwa lost it's position as the controller of all Western Indian Ocean trade, Arabs took over, mostly from Zanzibar.

Tippoo Tib was an arabic slave trader almost 400 years after the glorious days of Kilwa, and wasn't a leader either... More appropriate names would be Ali bin Al-Hassan (Persian Prince and founder of Kilwa) Abu al-Mahawib al-Hassan bin Suleiman (Sultan of Kilwa in it's big day). They were both of Shirazi descent, therefore Persians, but since the culture was sufficiently different I'd say the Swahili warrant their own Civ. Maybe a minor one though- they were hardly more important than the Magyars in their heyday.

[Spartan187]

I would like to see the Jews/Israelis/Hebrews included as a minor civ at least, or preferably a major civ.

[Ekmek]

This is not really based on graphics but a suggetion on organizing graphic files.

a) For scenarios and games have separate folders for civ1, civ2 (meaning players) and in each folder you could have a culture specific files (i.e. units.gif, cities.gif, flag.gif, leader.gif, people.gif, throne room.gif, people.gif, even a rules.txt with unit characteristiscs and advances tree). So each civilization instead of drawing from one file like civ2 does now it would read from the the specific folder for that civ (not to big of a technology leap) this would also work well with civilization specifc units, wonders, city improvements so they would all have unique graphics, names, abilities. The trick would be having the rules text jump and read properly from the other rules text.

b) I think since the wonders videoes and graphics take up so much memory if Firaxis would sell the games as a multi-disc set. by this i mean like some of the games like byzatine have more than one disc for all the info. Firaxis would have one disc with the game gine on it. The second disc would have several folders as a graphics and even a civilizations library. several folders labeled romans, byzatines, etc. so when you start a game if you pick your opponents you select a folder that is a name of a tribe for major civ 1 - 10 and then pick the ones for minor civs (or however minor, major works). Or have a random function that randomly looks for the folders (maybe have an identifyier folder like D:\civs that the game looks for to find tribes). This would make it so if there are major minor civs or start up civs it would randomly pick from the disc each time (so it'll be different and you can probably store over 100 civs). This disc could also be the copyright disc that the game will probably have or this disc will be inserted after the game begins i.e. insert disc2).

c) This two disc system would also make add on future disc for more and more civs to add to your game possible. This could be linked to future scenarios discs that have scenarios and specific civs (and wonders etc.) that you can play with or if you build your own can access that civ folder on the disc 3.

[XarXo]

Well, this is my first message and I'm non-english speaker, so... Be patient with me please

My idea is that th actual "civilization" system (we can see it in Ctp1 and Civ1/Civ2) is totally obsolete. Better than a "civilization" or "tribe" selection we must select a cultural-ethnic zone. For example, in the Spanish civilization we can build cities like Barcelona or Madrid, but these two cities have an historial background totally diferent. It's like germans can build Paris because a time this city was under their power during the 2nd WW.

I preffer that when a player has to select the starting name it appears a map of the cultural division based in the actually survivors (the ones that support the Test of Time ). In each map that we do can perform this like a normal thing. So, in a Middle-Earth map we can divide in Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Valar, etc... In the Earth will be:

Amerindian
Occidental
Desertians (Arabians, Israel, Egypt, Persia...)
Oriental (Altaïr, Siberia, China, Mongolia, Japan...)
Hindosiamese (India and Pacific Southeast)
African (under the Sahara zone)
Australian-Polynesian

Inside these groups (if we don't select the random cultural) we can found a second level of divison according with the cultural base, in Occidental we can found:

Celts
Nordics
Gauls
Slavics
Mediterranean
Uralians

And inside it (if we don't try a random option) we found the ethnic group with (if is possible) a list of names of nations that formed. Some of these etnics appears in other
cultural-base zones (like english) because they have conserved the base but they are too mixed.

Celts:
-Welsh (Wales)
-Scottish (Scotland)
-Irish (Eire,Man)
-Galic (Gallic,Portuguese,Brasilian)
-English
(England, United Kingdom, United States of America, Australia, South Africa, Canada)

Nordics:
-Teutons (Germany, Austria, Holland,Flemish,Belgium)
-Vikings (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England)
-Alpinians (Tirol, Retic, Friuli, Austria)

Gauls:
-Oïl (France, Belgium, Valonians, Luxemburguesians, Quebec)
-Oc (Occitane, Catars, Provence)

Slavics:
-Baltics (Bielorussians, Russians, Lituans, Estonians, Letonians, Poland)
-Carpatians (Ukranians, Bulgarians, Paennonians, Rumans, Slovaquians)
-Meridionals (Albanians, Bosnians, Slovenians, Croatians, Serbians)

Mediterranean:
-Hellenic (Greeks, Macedonians, Cyprus, Minoics)
-Italics (Italians, Romans, Etruscs)
-Iberians (Castillians, Catalans, Spanish, Argentinians, Chilenians, Colombians, Cubans, Caribbeans)
-Isolated (Corsic, Sardinians)

Uralians:
-Caucasians (Georgians,Armenians)
-Scandinavians (Finnish, Carelians)
-Westerns (Magyar-Hungary, Chequian, Basquian-Euskaldun)

Wow, and these are "only" the occidentals!

Also, depending from the time when you start, the starting city will one or another.
For example, in Castillians (Occidental-> Meditarreans -> Iberians) the first city surely wull be Logroño, Burgos or Valladolid. Not Madrid (these turned in to the capital during the XV). The same for Teotihuacan->Tenochtitlán, Cusco->Quito, Trondheim-> Oslo, etc...

Also there is another important thing. Some countries (Mexico, India, Peru...) have an important inavison from another countries, but they MUST don't be included in the invaders group.

I think that this is a great source of ideas for make an outsanding Civ III .
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by XarXo (edited August 12, 2000).]</font>

[noitazilivic]

I agree with ruin explorer- instead of chosing a leader the game should ask your name and then you can decide bonuses etc, with some kind of points system to make it fair.
This would make civ infinitley more variable and more personal, which is good!