TRULY Civilized Civs

[Captain]

Just a thought that has been in the back of my mind for some time now and was just reminded of it by a post by Adm.Naismith in the slavery thread. I want to "feel" the suffering of my civ when I make bad decisions or have to take draconian measures, and the joy of my civ when I empower them, raise their quality of life, secure their person, belongings, and community, and when relations with other civs are improved.

I think that a Civ's "civilization" rating should not only be based on how many libraries you build, but also on how you conducted yourself during the game. (e.g. if you broke lots of treaties, totally wiped out other civs, destroyed wonders, AND if the game allowed these things, bonuses for being first to emancipate slaves, enfranchise women, donating relief funds to other countries, etc.)

(Maybe I'm just soft-hearted but I was always sorry to get that last AI city and wipe out the civ. Even if they backstabbed me twenty times in the game, after I had "liberated" the rest of their cities I pitied their lonely last city and was very reluctant to obliterate them entirely. I liked SMAC's "swear a pact to serve me" better, then I didn't just barbaricly (sp?) kill off a civ, just eliminated the threat.)


Admittedly, this "civilization" rating is somewhat subjective, but I have a partial solution. Set up your own victory conditions at the beginning of the game. (e.g. My goal is to protect human rights, or maybe to eradicate slavery, poverty, and large scale pollution from the world. Then I would get points for achieving those things and lose points everytime I acted in contrast to my stated goals). This would be a true test of your "civilization", can they survive while being civilized and not succumbing to the temptations of barbarism? Otherwise, the game should be called "Conquest & Science Race", not "Civilization". (I like options: You could of course, set your "civilization" goals to the opposite as "enslave the entire world".)


As a side note, it would be interesting to see your civilized subjects clamour for war another another nation with a brutal and barbaric reputation. Then, it would be your sworn duty to uphold the principles of your civilization and liberate those people from their tyrannical leaders and teach them the "enlightened" way. On the other hand, you could play as the "dark civ" who tries to destroy the civilized world and return it to an anarchic free-for-all warlord system.

What do you think of this idea? Feasible? Desirable?

[korn469]

i like your idea...i think that your civ's civilization rating should depend on your reputation...if your nation is known for it's leading stand on human rights and it's long history of honoring it's treaties then it should gain civilization rating points, compared to the civ that is known for it's treachery and it's long string of atrocities (using nerve gas, nuclear weapons, and butchering civilians) which should lose civilization rating points

basically i think every time you commit an atrocity or break a treaty you should lose civilization rating points, and major atrocities (you decide that a nuclear first strike against your long time ally is the best course of action) should either reset your civilization rating to zero or maybe even make it negative

korn469

[bagdar]

Yes, great idea. I don't think it's too difficult to implement this into the game, after all there's been huge changes: like the happiness of your people dependent upon certain luxury goods etc. If you play like a barbarian, there could be the consequences, just like democracy in Civ I and II tried to have. Then, your civ. rate might mean something. Civ II already had the notion of 'reputation', so why not assume that they developed it further? -wishful thinking- Maybe we already have it???

[Gammaray fan]

Originally posted by Captain
Set up your own victory conditions at the beginning of the game. (e.g. My goal is to protect human rights, or maybe to eradicate slavery, poverty, and large scale pollution from the world. Then I would get points for achieving those things and lose points everytime I acted in contrast to my stated goals).

As a side note, it would be interesting to see your civilized subjects clamour for war another another nation with a brutal and barbaric reputation. Then, it would be your sworn duty to uphold the principles of your civilization and liberate those people from their tyrannical leaders and teach them the "enlightened" way. On the other hand, you could play as the "dark civ" who tries to destroy the civilized world and return it to an anarchic free-for-all warlord system.

I really like both these ideas. Perhaps the goals should be set but different for each civ - this allows players to change their playing styles for each civ without resorting to civ-specific bonuses!
As for the 'clamouring' idea, people should have opinions on war, other civs, forms of government, and religion. If you acted the way your people wanted, you would gain a happiness boost!

[AustralianJeremy]

Hmm, I don't know about this one... if you do break treaties and have a crap reputation at the end of the game, but you've WON and the other civilizations are wiped out - who precisely is remembering your transgressions? If you've conquered the world, what you did to get there will be forgotten over time.

The other thing I don't like about it is that it locks one strategy in as the "right" one. One of the great things about civ is its open-endedness. I think it's important that players be free to adapt their strategy to the game world, without having to worry about their civ score being lowered. Speed of conquest, contentedness of civilization, and how advanced it is should all be criteria on which civ rating is judged; treatment of other civs, I don't think should be.

Anyway, why is breaking treaties objectively a bad thing? It's a bad thing in terms of how other civs view your trustworthiness and therefore how keen they'll be to make treaties with you, but it's like multiplayer: if you break treaties and get away with it, more power to you. The cost of treaty breaking is antagonising the other civs. There should be no other cost.

[korn469]

in mp the people can recognize that you are a slimy bastard who will stop at nothing (including stabbing your partners in the back) and decide to destroy you...the AI on the other hand doesn't like to realized that if you have betrayed them ten times in the past more than likely you will betray them again soon...plus the people of your civ will remember your uncivilized behavior so i think it's valid

but who knows what firaxis will do

[Gammaray fan]

Originally posted by AustralianJeremy
The other thing I don't like about it is that it locks one strategy in as the "right" one. One of the great things about civ is its open-endedness.

Jeremy, you fail to understand that civ already locks in two strategies. Either, fast tech-lots of war style (to conquer the world) or fast tech-minimal war (AC victory).
Anything attempt at other playing styles reduces your score at the end of the game.
Therefore when playing an AC, or last 6000 years game, you should receive extra points for certain actions depending on what your goals are. (If you conquer the world, nothing else matters!)
Here is a suggested list of goals. Combination of goals would get bonus points!
GOALS:
HUMAN RIGHTS: points awarded for not wiping out any civs,
implementing democracy, sending financial aid to
weaker countries, establishing the UN, pushing
for human rights implementation in UN conferences
ENVIRONMENTALISM: points awarded for less pollution, not
farming or fishing every available city radii,
building pollution reducing buildings etc.
CULTURAL HEGEMONY: points awarded for each culture increasing
building built including wonders,
cultural conversion of other civ's cities etc.
ECONOMIC HEGEMONY: points awarded for each good possessed,
civ gold, monopolies etc.
MILITARY DOMINANCE: points awarded for each city captured by
force,
genocide, tribute treaties in your favour
(eg. give me 500 gold per turn and all your
resources or die) largest army, navy, airforce
MILITARY HEGEMONY: points awarded for each war won (each
time another civ issues 'surrender' consisting
of a handover of reparations) largest nuclear
arsenal, most military techs.
SCIENCE: points awarded for every discovery that is first in the
world, every science improvement built, every scientist in
pop, certain science wonders, etc.

NOW I WILL LIST SOME CIVS AND THEIR GOALS: (the more goals a civ has, the more chances to score points BUT the more chances to get negative points eg. points for military dominance might be counteracted by negative points for human rights. In that sense it is a lot simpler to pick a civ with just 1 goal!)

AMERICANS: military hegemony, cultural hegemony, human rights
JAPANESE: military dominance, economic hegemony
MONGOLS: military dominance
AZTECS: cultural hegemony, environmentalism
CHINA: military hegemony, cultural hegemony
ROMANS: military dominance, science

These are just suggestions. What do you think?

[AustralianJeremy]

Originally posted by Gammaray fan

Jeremy, you fail to understand that civ already locks in two strategies. Either, fast tech-lots of war style (to conquer the world) or fast tech-minimal war (AC victory).

I don't think this is a strength of Civ2. It's one of the areas SMAC is better: more open-ended.

Rather than having the game reward you from the "right" action, eg environmental protection, if we want to model the environment there should be consequences from screwing it over. Not a score penalty; if you overfish, for example, your fish stocks would decrease. The environment is an issue because there are two sides; production and exploitation vs protection. The balance would be - if you misuse your natural resources, you benefit from them in the short term; but there are environmental costs like global warming or other costs in the long term. The point about Civ is to present you with multiple choices, none of which are obviously "right", just different.

AMERICANS: military hegemony, cultural hegemony, human rights

Oh, yeah, that's right, Americans have some kind of special relationship with "human rights"! LOL. America still KILLS its own citizens. Amnesty has a campaign against that at the moment. Sorry, the US is hardly a bastion for human rights. It's just a bastion of capitalism.

[Kc7mxo]

i like the varied point rewards, but we must remember that our vision of good isn't nessecarily the only one.

Why should poitns be awarded to nice guys cause they're nice? "Evil" can succeed, and isn't that the point historically?

What if the people respect the fact that you're a slimy bastard? There have been a lot varied cultures throughout history, and some DID respect cruelty, and some relied on barbarism.

If you want to award points in that manner, then we might as well kick all the other nations out and just play simciv with americans (or whoever you are).