rise and fall of empires

[lord of the mark]

For some time civvers have been asking for features that would model the rise and fall of empires, to counter the perptual expansion typical of civ2.

So far, IIUC, the only such feature that will be included in Civ3 is the golden age feature. However those of us playing with civ specific units turned off (for reasons made clear elsewhere ) will not get the impact of golden ages. Are there any other features announced at this point that will lead to the rise and fall of empires? Aspects of the culture system perhaps?


LOTM

[static]

I think the new resource model accomplishes this. The importance of these resources to units, buildings, wonders, will almost make sure the diplomatic, military, and cultural power of the different civs will be constantly changing.

[Guildenstern]

I think that the perpetual growth that happened in the previous civs was sort of unrealistic - not even rome ruled the whole world at the height of its golden age. The new resource model is what, I believe, firaxis has come up with to remedy this. If a civ wants to build a kick -a$$ new unit, then said civ might need a resource from, say, its main rival - no chance that the other civ is going to give its rival that power. This could keep civs in check, sort of. Just a thought.

[Olangotang]

I think you need parts of your empire to break away to form other nations when the poeple in the citys are anger with the gov. sort of what happen with the usa and england.

as for ever expanding this is what humans have done.

What i would like is a sort of rise and full of kings and prime misters.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Olangotang
I think you need parts of your empire to break away to form other nations when the poeple in the citys are anger with the gov. sort of what happen with the usa and england.

as for ever expanding this is what humans have done.

That should defently be in, the more culture your civ have, the larger your empire can be, so your cities on the other continent will have a greater chance of getting independence if your culture points is low

[General Ludd]

The problem with rebellions is what the new empire will be, what if you are playing with 16 civs (if possible) what'd the new empire be? and even with free civs, would you really want the zulus to form out of a russian revoultion?

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Osweld
The problem with rebellions is what the new empire will be, what if you are playing with 16 civs (if possible) what'd the new empire be? and even with free civs, would you really want the zulus to form out of a russian revoultion?

Or the Germans revolt into Native Americans (or are they called Siux in the game, don't remember)

[N35t0r]

BARBARIANS!

only they need to be made normal in this game...

They should function as city-states; and be Fundy...

[Marcus Agrippa]

Of course we wouldn't want the Zulus coming out of the Russian Revolution. lol

I, for one, have never been able to understand why Civ insists on keeping "Civs" and "Nation-States" one and the same. They most certainly weren't! Let's look at some examples...

1) Greece, through most of its history, consisted of dozens of nation-states.
2) Russia was only united later in history
3) In Civil War scenarios, be they Roman civil wars or the English CW or the American CW, why should one of the sides have to be represented by an entirely different civ? e.g. The CSA being represented by Spain in the Civ II Civil War scenario!

I know it's too late to change this, but I think the game should enable more than one nation with the same civ. Thus, there could be two Greek nations... the Athenian League and the Spartan Leauge, or two English Nations: York vs Lanchester. Or, USA and CSA, both which were American.

[General Ludd]

Barbarians could work on a small scale, but on a large scale it wouldn't be right, take the US revolution for example... you'd end up with half a continent full of barbarians instead of a new empire. (I know some people are going to have a hard time stoping them selves from saying that that'd be the same as americans coming out of it, but please try )

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Osweld
(I know some people are going to have a hard time stoping them selves from saying that that'd be the same as americans coming out of it, but please try )

ROTFL!

[red_jon]

Originally posted by Osweld
(I know some people are going to have a hard time stoping them selves from saying that that'd be the same as americans coming out of it, but please try )

LOL!!


Yeah, in Civ2 it was annoying when the Sioux would emerge from the Chinese after the capital was taken. Hopefully this can be sorted in Civ3 somehow.

[Lemmy]

Firaxis could solve the Zulu-from-Russia problem by creating a few mainstream civilization, like the ones they have now, but a with a lot of nations that are part of a civilization, and you would play as one of those nations.
That way you could have a Mongol civilization, and you're playing as the Chinese, obviously part of the Mongol civ, then if a new player emerges through rebelion in your nation, it could be called Korea, also part of the Mongol civ, but a totally different nation in the game. These nation have the same special unit, and could therefore make the game a lot more interesting.

[Urban Ranger]

Again, unless this "Rise and Fall" business can be made optional, my take is most players are turned off by it.

Don't forget, this is a game, not a historical simulation. The object is to rewrite history, not to follow history. If I want to follow history, I'd read a book or play Europa Universalis.

[monkspider]

If I could choose any one feature that I would want programmed in, it would definitly be the rise and fall of empires idea. It would make gameplay so much more interesting, and realistic! If you were talented enough of a civer to play through the entire game with your empire never going into decline with a system like this in place, there would be a heck of a sense of accomplishment.

[Yog-Sothoth]

An easy solution would be that the emerging civ would become the one with the closest starting point to where the rebel cities is. It isn't perfect, but better than just picking one at random.

[korn469]

well i think that rise and fall of empires in civ3 is more like ebb and flow of empires...

in civ and civ2 (and SMAC) the growth was linear on the power chart, usually progressing on an almost straight line with little variation, until the player decides it's time for an AI to die, then they go from linear growth to virtually nothing in usually a matter of a few turns, and it is rare that once a civ is down that they come back

in civ3 it seems that many firaxis implemented many features to introduce non-linear growth, here are some of the things in the game so far

*CSUs and golden ages
*Nationality
*Culture
*Resources
*Advanced diplomacy

CSUs and golden ages are crucial to introducing non-linear growth in civ3, because for a fairly short amount of time, a player's military forces will be slightly superior to other civ's military units, and during that period of time the civ will get a rather large economic boost...during the early game this should really accelerate the egyptians for example, they have better chariots than other civs, and once they enter into a golden age then they will be able to rush out to a lead, however once the 20 turns are over their growth will slow, and as we move later in the game their military advantage will fade and other civs will experiance golden ages speeding their growth

Nationality will make it harder to win the game by conquest, and will also mean that conquered territory will rise up and return to their old civ, slowing military expansion (and the growth associated with it) and also allowing for the possibility of negative growth if the conquered cities defect, this will make blitzkreig style invasions more risky, especially when your army gets cut off behind enemy lines

Culture will allow for non-linear growth by taking away from players who over expand, and it will also give benefits to peaceful players, such as expanding their borders (and thereby the range of their military) and it will allow them to make better and safer use of resources

Resources will mean that some civs, even the ones furthest behind can either have something useful to trade, or would allow a weak civ to have a monopoly on powerful modern age units which could even the odds. Also a powerful civ may get shafted in a valuable resource and suddenly it loses steam, until new sources of that resource get secured, proper raids on an opponents trade network could hamper a great portion of its cities by cutting them off from the resources that feed the war machine, or the luxeries that keep the people happy

Finally the advanced diplomacy options should mean that any play if they are crafty enough could cobble together a coallition capable of stopping a more powerful, through trade embargos, alliances and such, a devious player could accomplish their goals without directly attacking an enemy, and this means that there is more of a chance for a player who is behind to catch up and even win the game

as for rebellions i hope they are in the game, and if the engine is smart, then if the egyptians broke apart maybe half of them could become persian or zulu or another close by civ

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Lemmy
Firaxis could solve the Zulu-from-Russia problem by creating a few mainstream civilization, like the ones they have now, but a with a lot of nations that are part of a civilization, and you would play as one of those nations.
That way you could have a Mongol civilization, and you're playing as the Chinese, obviously part of the Mongol civ, then if a new player emerges through rebelion in your nation, it could be called Korea, also part of the Mongol civ, but a totally different nation in the game. These nation have the same special unit, and could therefore make the game a lot more interesting.

Yeah, this could be easy to implent into the game, just to get 2 or 3 other smaller nations for each of the 16 nations in the game. This would really make the game interesting, like if the (e.g.) Germans revolt, they could revolt into Austria or something.
This way, if some country revolt you will never see a nation you can choose in the players menu. And in case all the "smaller" nations have been used, the next nation could be called something like New Franche (if Franche has had a few revolts ).

btw, don't use the words "it will make the game more realistic" in the lines why they should implent it, because there seem to be people around here who can't understand that realism also (can) add a better gameplay, and if it's optional people don't have to use it if they don't want to.

It wont take long time to implent this anyway, so what can be lost?

[BlackStone]

La la

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by korn469
well i think that rise and fall of empires in civ3 is more like ebb and flow of empires...

in civ and civ2 (and SMAC) the growth was linear on the power chart, usually progressing on an almost straight line with little variation, until the player decides it's time for an AI to die, then they go from linear growth to virtually nothing in usually a matter of a few turns, and it is rare that once a civ is down that they come back

in civ3 it seems that many firaxis implemented many features to introduce non-linear growth, here are some of the things in the game so far

*CSUs and golden ages
*Nationality
*Culture
*Resources
*Advanced diplomacy

CSUs and golden ages are crucial to introducing non-linear growth in civ3, because for a fairly short amount of time, a player's military forces will be slightly superior to other civ's military units, and during that period of time the civ will get a rather large economic boost...during the early game this should really accelerate the egyptians for example, they have better chariots than other civs, and once they enter into a golden age then they will be able to rush out to a lead, however once the 20 turns are over their growth will slow, and as we move later in the game their military advantage will fade and other civs will experiance golden ages speeding their growth

Yeah, that was precisely my point in the post that started this thread - the key feature that implements rise and fall of empires is the CSU's/Golden ages - so if i play with that feature disabled, will the others be enough to prevent linear growth?

LOTM

[OneFootInTheGrave]

1. Early on in the game (until the discovery of Nationalism) you can only get armies if you have a great leader.
2. Armies are much stronger than single units (since they share hitpoints http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...&threadid=25180 )
3. Great leader does not last forever (how long is teh question, but I guess Firaxis has play-balanced it well)

Therefore if you get a great leader early, you could be well off to start conquering you neighbours with your army, which would make your empie rise.) However after your great leader dies, you lose this ability, and you cannot conquer easily, if at all, after.

Someone else gets a great leader in the meantime, and than their empire could be growing, and at the expense of yours.

So here you have it this, CSU + golden ages equals rise and fall of empires for sure.

The only question is if you can get great leaders out of armies?
Armies will presumably fight all the time, and win, and therefore be a great great-leader farm, which would give unfair advantage to the player who gets to the great leader first. If you cannot have great leaders out of armies, than everyone is on pretty much the same foot, and can hope that one of their elite single unit wins will produce a great leader.

I like this idea, anyway.

[Rhysie]

It has been stated somewhere that you cannot get elite units by killing loads of settlers, so it appears the battle must be a close one for your units to gain promotion. This means that armies fighting single units (easy victories) would not often grant promotion/great leaders - Armies would have to fight other similarly powered armies to get promotions.

[Edward]

OneFootInTheGrave,

I don't think (and this is purely speculation on my part) that great leaders will ever die. I haven't heard anything to that effect and, while it would be realistic, it would be very un-Civ-ish. (Civ lets you be the immortal head of government, lets you post a single unit in the wilderness for centuries, etc.). My guess is that great leaders can only be killed by defeating the army they're "carrying".

I see your point on great leaders tipping the balance of the game in your favor. Pre-nationalism, the first civ to get a great leader will have the only army on the board. It would be almost unstoppable. I guess it was very wise of Firaxis to cap the number of units in that army!

I see also your point on great leaders spawning great leaders. Armies will win very often. If an army which contains one or more elite units can spawn new great leaders there could be a snowballing of the rich get richer military-wise.

---

Rhysie,

I suspect (again purely speculation) that, while non-combat units won't vet you, that killing any (non-barbarian) military unit will give the possibility of a vet becoming elite, no matter how good it's odds were.

If the AI is in the game, then I bet sending defensive units to that mountain between you and the Zulus will result in many elite defenders. ("So, Alexander, how did you become a great leader?"
"As a youth, I was stationed in a fortress mountaintop and saw endless Zulu horsemen dashing themselves against our defenses. It's there that I learned my greatest lesson ... Never attack mountaintop fortresses.")

---

"Great leaders never die, they just (insert your pithy phrase here)."

[ajbera]

One way Firaxis may help make rebellious breakaway civs more realistic is to have the new civ be from the same cultural group as the parent civ. While this means (unfortunately) that England's rebels can't become Americans, it ensures that they can't become Babylonians or Japanese, either. An imperfect solution (if implemented), but slightly more realistic than that of Civ2.

Just my two cents.

[Melios]

I think each civilization should have a preset name for a "rebel faction" in the event of a Civil War, rathar than breaking off into a whole different civilization.

e.g. Babylonians might have a rebel group called "Sumerians" or "Assyrians" (all things considered they were in the right area). Or Greeks could have a break-off group called "Spartans" or "Macedonians." Culturally they would be similar, but act as a different civilizations until the situation is resolved.

[Christantine The Great]

There are two options:

1) Make the new civ be a carbon copy of the first one except in name. That means same tech, gov't, attributes, and UU.

2) Don't be so anal retentive about what comes out of the "parent" civ and just go along with it.

[Nenad]

There is a table at the http://www.civ3.com/civ3.cfm named Civilization Abilities in which civs are grouped by color in 5 groups. It seems that this groups are teritory related (asians together and so on), so there is a way to solve that parent - rebel problem by forcing rebels to belong to the same group of civs as they parent do.
Of course, what if I allready picked all civs from some group (I like to play as European, and I like to play against Europeans, too)?