Ask The Civ Team - 09/14/01 Edition

[jsw363]

I found some of the following info at the Age of Empires page. http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~aoe/ubb/...ML/000068.html

At the time of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, in 1903 (I think????), 1 out of every 4 people in the world were subjects of the British Empire, world population being at, I believe, slightly less than two billion.

The CIA Worldbook says that "At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one-fourth of the earth's surface."
Someone at another page tried to calculate the total landmass. I added some possessions that he forgot and came up with 31,010,177 km squared. The earth has 148.94 million sq km. So I would believe the CIA, but I don't know where their numbers came from.

Still 1 out of 4 ain't too bad is it?

British Empire at height (1920's)
[Oceania]
Australia 7,617,930
New Zealand 268,670
[America]
Canada 9,220,970
Guyana 214,970
Belize 22,960
[Asia]
Burma 657,740
Bangladesh 144,000
India 3,287,590
Malaysia 329,750
Pakistan 803,940
Papua New Guinea 462,840
[Africa]
Egypt 995,450
Kenya 569,250
Malawi 118,480
Nigeria 923,768
South Africa 1,219,912
Sudan 2,505,810
Tanzania 945,087
Zimbabwe 390,580
[Europe]
Ireland 68,890
UK 241,590

[tishco]

in the civ fanatics inteview jeff 2or3 said the ai is crippled and advantaged on the easy and hard modes, but we knew that they get more or less shields to make suff etc, what we want to know is ai REALY cheating like"spawning", and other stuff i cant remember

[LaRusso]

am i the only one who has the feeling that the they are in early beta? i mean, really early beta....
all hopes of MP are gone, i guess...that answer is the same one we got in october. hopefully, SP AI would be at least half-competent.....

[Nikolai]

Are we sure the release date still are in oktober?
I mean, the release date has been changed before, you know!

[Rasputin]

all that info in Top5 / Demographics is fun for SP but in MP (when finally released) all this should be disabled for civs you havent set up Embassys with...

Or maybe add "Steal Demographic Info" to Spy orders options

[Rhysie]

Originally posted by Rasputin
all that info in Top5 / Demographics is fun for SP but in MP (when finally released) all this should be disabled for civs you havent set up Embassys with...

Or maybe add "Steal Demographic Info" to Spy orders options

Why? Everyone has access to it, so its not unfair. Just consider it a spy function which is automatically performed by your foreign advisor.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Are we sure the release date still are in oktober?
I mean, the release date has been changed before, you know!

Only 4 weeks left? A little too optimistic perhaps. I belive that 8-12 weeks are more likely. Release-dates are not to be trusted.

Originally posted by the Civ-team
The governors in Civ III can be instructed on what to produce as well as what NEVER to produce, and these can be set on a city-by-city basis, or on a continental or global level.

I sure hope one can bypass both governors and long build-queues, and instead handle everything manually step-by-step Civ-2 style, with automatic map-recenterings, automatic unit-without-order flashing and automatic city-production pop-ups, then the build-queues are empty. I dont mind governors and build-queues at all, as long as Im not forced to use them. Let it be a free choice, please.

I also hope that the player can pre-edit guidelines what each AI-civ should produce/ avoid producing as well. What type of produktion each AI-civ should emphasize, or not emphasize; Civil improvements or military improvements (or 50-50), Lots of cost-effective combat-units, or fewer high quality combat-units, Well-developed city-areas, and what to emphasize (food, shield, trade). The more the Rules-editing player can customize the emphasize and behaviour of AI-civs in order to save them from their own stupid selves, the better it is. To me, information about these Civ Rules-editors, is much more interesting to hear about, then info about those governors.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by Rhysie


Why? Everyone has access to it, so its not unfair. Just consider it a spy function which is automatically performed by your foreign advisor.

why should you know the size of my citys of my demographics if you havnet met me yet... the lower ranked palyers may decide to join up in an allaince solely to attack the leader of these demographics etc.. a very unrealistic thing to do...

I dont want it in the game just because of its Fairness or not, but more for its realism....

[Ilkuul]

Originally posted by Ilkuul:
By the way, that setup screen seemed to lack a Custom civ option, which is quite a blow! Does this mean you can only have custom civs in scenarios etc.?

Originally posted by Gramphos:
By Custom, do you mean added (unknown), or just temporary modified names (possible (I think (look at the leader- and civname)))?

I meant the sort of Custom options in Civ2, where you have a 'Custom' button at the bottom of the 'Select Your Tribe' screen, which then prompts you for Leader, Tribe and Adjective, and further allows you to select titles for each govt. type (Anarchy - "Mr.", Despotism - "Dictator", etc.).

I can't see where this degree of customization would be allowed for in the Setup screen we saw.

[Slax]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Are we sure the release date still are in oktober?...

I think the release date is more solid than the game itself...

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Ilkuul
I meant the sort of Custom options in Civ2, where you have a 'Custom' button at the bottom of the 'Select Your Tribe' screen, which then prompts you for Leader, Tribe and Adjective, and further allows you to select titles for each govt. type (Anarchy - "Mr.", Despotism - "Dictator", etc.).

I can't see where this degree of customization would be allowed for in the Setup screen we saw.

I think that you maybe may click on the leader and customize it, or as in Civ1 (as it is based on that): Press escape while selecting Civ. Don’t worry, they have made civ games long enough to add this (I hope).

[TechWins]

I'm not sure if it was only me, but I didn't see any info given out about other Civs in the demographics. The only info given out about other Civs was in the Top 5.

Ralf, have no worries about building orders. Everything will be fine there.

I also think that the demographics are nice in MP. I rarely look at them in SP because I have too much playing to do. When I'm waiting around for my turn in MP I like to have something to look at.

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Rasputin

why should you know the size of my citys of my demographics if you havnet met me yet... the lower ranked palyers may decide to join up in an allaince solely to attack the leader of these demographics etc.. a very unrealistic thing to do...

I dont want it in the game just because of its Fairness or not, but more for its realism....

I always considered the top 5 as a matter of fame or reputation; a great city would be known by rumor or reputation to many. Perhaps the top 5 is based on information from itinerants and traders. So it is sort of realistic in a way -- not entirely, of course. And of course sometimes a city can be famous and yet not actually exist, such as El Dorado....

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by TechWins
I'm not sure if it was only me, but I didn't see any info given out about other Civs in the demographics. The only info given out about other Civs was in the Top 5.

Why would there be info on other Civs? It should be secret info (Until the invention of MassMedia .)

[TechWins]

Why would there be info on other Civs?

In Civ2 when you weren't number it would tell who was number one. Now in Civ3 it doesn't do this. Unless this Civ player hasn't found any other Civs yet.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by TechWins
In Civ2 when you weren't number it would tell who was number one. Now in Civ3 it doesn't do this. Unless this Civ player hasn't found any other Civs yet.

Civ3 is based on Civ1, and as CivNet (I don't remember if the original DOS-version had Demographics) didn't show what civ was in the top; Why should it show in civ3?

[Edward]

In the early game, even all the civs combined don't "control" a majority of the world's land because the civs haven't expanded that much. (To "control" land it must be "within your borders" which is limited by the number of cities and their cultural reach.) In these early days, you could conceivably conquer all the cities in the world (thus gaining a military victory) and still not control a majority of the world's land (no domination victory).

I distantly remember someone saying that they added the domination victory so you wouldn't have to keep moving units around once it was obvious that you were going to win. It also avoids the "what tiny island is that last AI city hiding on" phenomenon. ('Though some people enjoy a sort of Sim-City-esque perfecting of the world. I guess they'd have to turn off domination victory or agree to continue the game after achieving it.)

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posted by TechWins
I'm not sure if it was only me, but I didn't see any info given out about other Civs in the demographics. The only info given out about other Civs was in the Top 5.

The Civ3 demographics screen says stuff like "you're 8th in disease". Now I know that all eight civs exist (if playing with a random number of civ opponents). Looking at the demographics chart I can get a very clear picture of where I currently stand. Population and land area are always particularly telling. Productivity can give an indication of whether you're sleazing or building up big cities. I'm sure EyesOfNight would know what direction to move based on the Civ3 demographics screen.

Single players can just opt not to use the demographics screen. Not having played multi-player, I'm not sure how much it twists gameplay. Perhaps they'll give the option to disable the demographics screen. I'm guessing they won't take the path of making it more realistic by only including civs you've discovered. Perhaps they figure that if you open up the demographics screen, you're the kind of player who likes to see this sort of info - realistic or not.

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It's interesting to note that the ordering is slightly different than it would be in Civ2. The size 10 city with no wonders beat the size 7 city with one wonder. (Size is more important in Civ3's top Five than in Civ2's wonder-centric Top Five.) Also the size 7 capitol with one wonder beat the size 8 capitol with one wonder. More than size and wonders affect the Top 5 rankings.

[isaac brock]

Of course governors aren't mandatory, but they can be useful by the end of the game when you have 45 cities or whatever always needing micro management. The continental or global basis is also a nice option. SMAC had great governors. problem was when you were changing so many cities at a time to governor you could spend upwards of fifteen minutes on it. i, being such a busy man as i am, don't have that kind of time.

[tniem]

Originally posted by Gramphos
Civ3 is based on Civ1, and as CivNet (I don't remember if the original DOS-version had Demographics) didn't show what civ was in the top; Why should it show in civ3?

The original did have demographics. Just the mention of them is a trip down memory lane.

[isaac brock]

I just got civ 1 off of that Computer Gaming or whatever magazine that had it on its CD. It listed Civ 1 under the genre "Worlds best game"