One big bundle o' ideas

[Stefu]

Since it seems that list 2.1 is never gonna be made, I thought I'd hunt down all my ideas I posted after 2.0 was made and post them here. Here they are, var så god, hope Firaxis reads them and they don't screw up the screen:


I've been wondering bout damage. In real combat, all units do not die, some of them just get wounded.
Therefore, I propose that damage is modified. It could include both wounded and killed. Wounded can be healed
in normal Civ2 style, ie resting for a while. Dead, on the other hand, can't be revived, so you'd have to go to city
where you can recruit more men to unit. Wounded men cannot fight, but still et supplies; If enemy attacks unit,
and the defending unit has to retreat, wounded men die (they are left behind.) The ratio of how many of men die
and how many are wounded is modified by technology, particulary medical one: It could be 1-to-5 in start of
game, 2-to-5 with discovery of Medicine, 3-to-5 with Surgery, and so on. This would make combat bit more
realistic, I believe, while it would not worsen the game by making it too complex.

My other idea is particulary good if cities have exact figures of population (ie. 16378, for instance) as well as
units. When unit retreats, maybe wounded men could get captured instead; That makes them prisoners of war.
These prisoners are then sent to nearest city. After war is concluded, they can be article of negotiation. There
are several modes you can take with them:

1) Kill. No prisoners are taken. This is considered an atrocity.
2) Forced Labor. They are put to hard labor. In this case, they are considered as "temporary citizens." They act
almost exactly like slaves, except it is not so bad for reputation.
3) Recruit. You try to actively recruit these to your own army. How well you fare depends on nationalis of army,
maybe also morale of the soldiers.
4) Brainwash. You attempt to change their patterns of thinking to favor you. This is more efficient than option 3,
but is considered an minor atrocity.
5) Keep (for lack of better term.). They are kept as prisoners, in hard conditions. They don't eat much, and don't
work, but hey, there's no reputaiton penalty (at least until Geneva Convention.)
6 Treat Well. Like 5, but they gain more food and therefore more support. This might even improve your
reputation, as well (slightly) lower morale of enemy's units.
7) Release. Soldiers are returned to their cities and become ordinary citizens. This is usually done at end of war.

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Hey, we can start discussin' now , can't we?

Anyway, how about incorporating some pieces of Koei's Genghis Khan series into Civ3? Mainly I was thinking about
dynastial system and the idea of "Action Points".

Dynastial system is easy. You have a wife. You get kids. Princes can be generals and ultimately one of them will be
your successor. Princesses can be wed to foreign kings. Marrying princess of another king would improve your
relations with them, but it also means that king has an "agent" in your court, and if your relations get worse, your
wife may cause some mischief to you. If there is no princess in sight, you can marry a noble from your lands, this
doesn't cause anything special save that now you'd have a wife.

Also, the Action Points. You'd have, say, 100 action points in beginning of turn (when you get older, this number
slowly diminishes.) Whenever you issue an command to city or unit, it takes away small amount of action points
that turn. Farther away the city is from you (either symbolized by your capital or you as unit, making it possible for
you to command large armies yourself) more points it does cost, so large empires would be hard to manage without
governors - in the beginning, at least. You could of course give very complicated orders to units such as "Conquer
cities of Paris and Orleans, after that negotiate for peace, withdraw if strenght of stack drops to half" - this way
you can concentrate on more important issues.

Well. What do you think?

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I'm not sure if this one has been mentioned already, but there should be option to demand fixed tribute. For
instance, 10 golds per turn. This could be, for instance, part of peace treaty, ie the losing nation has to pay
money to winning nation. Fir instance, Berber Nations lived, towards the end, almost entirely off huge tribute
other nations paid to them to be spared from their piracy.

Downside, of course, is that this kind of pirate nation could yank science to be 100% and pay all building keepup
costs from tributes, and this isn't correct. Maybe this would only work in Monarchy, Despotism and such primitive
goverment types?

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Well, summary was really great (gee guys, you sure rise my ego up, my summary stinks compared to yours )
and now for my ideas, prudently saved until now. These have got mentions already, I know, but still here.

1. New commodity system.

Maybe if terrain is like in Alpha Centauri, each tile could have, shall we say, certain number of many commodities
in it? Note that to reduce the complexity I assume they get processed in cities and then trader, for instance
Coats from Furs, Wine from Fruits and Jewelry from gold. These commodities are part decided by terrain type it is
in (Coats in forests). For instance, one square could have 3 Coats, 1 Wine and 1 Jewelry. These commodities can
be in squares next to each others (large forest yields much Coats). And here the city placement comes in play.

Each city is considered to have access on goods which it has worker on. (ie if the city is 2 people city, it has two
workers. It was in Civ2. You get the idea.) So, if you have 1 worker in square producing two Coats, 1 in square
producing three Coats and one Jewelry and one in square producing one Jewelry and one Wine, the city produces
5 Coats, 2 Jewelry and 1 Wine. And here the trade comes in.

Trade is handled as crossbreed of C:CTP and Civ2 trade systems. Caravans are built and dealt with like in C:CTP.
However, instead of trying to gain monopoiles you simply buy cheap and sell dear. Laws of supply and demand are
in force - city with Coats productment has got no idea in selling their stuff to another city with Coat
productment, while big city with no Coat productment would be -eager- to buy them. This will effetually remove
the stupid instances that happened in Civ2, for instance selling Gold at high prize to city with 4 gold resources
next to it.

There are two sides combatting in me about do the goods have any effect on gameplay prime. Other side says
goods have only effect of being labels used in trade system, while other claims that having many kinds of
different goods coming to same city should have positive effects on happiness, trade or production, depending
from goods (if you don't handle the necessities of life to big cities the denizens are gonna get *quite* unhappy
about it.

Now, the "effects" part is good in that in the long run it would make civilizations dependant of each others,
making economical combat maybe as important as normal combat!

Well. What do you think?

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Hey, here's whole new thing for chew - party politics.

From the moment I saw Senate, I started to wonder - could the parties be included in some way? I thought, and
finally, when reading V 2.0, it dawned. How about, in democracy, every time you make SE change, it first has to
pass the parliament? And that won't be easy, as there are many parties competing in power.

Now, parties would symbolize political views - there would be Democratic Party, Socialist PArty, Conservative
Party, Liberal Party and so on. Each of parties has an Agenda. Agenda mainly specifies what they want to do to
SE factors. Their opinion to these factos is specified at range +3 to -3. For instance, Socialist Party's view to
Economics would be -2 or even -3 - they are against Soc- Eng choices that increase the Economics factor. On
the other hand, as they are all for rights of worker, Industry level could be +2 to +3 - they are very pro towards
choices that raise Industry level.

But, in event of vote, how is it calculated which party will vote which? Simple. The chances the new Soc. Eng
setting are each tken separate and each multiplied individually with the party's Agenda factor. For instance, if
aforementioned Socialist party has -3 in Economics and new choice would cause increase of 1 in Economics, it
gives Socialists -3 in that matter. Then all factors are added up and wheteher the sum is positive or negative,
that decides whether our party votes Yes or No.

But what decides what party has how many seats? Well, still using Socialists as an example, if your industry is
screwed up (You produce little to nothing) Socialist models get seen as relief from present crisis and Socialist
party gets lot of votes. Note that if Industry level is -3, for instance, it doesn't automatically mean that
Socialists get voten. Rather, if leader screws up in Industry, then Socialists get voten for. I suggest that as a
balancing factor there is Presidential Party that votes Yes to every suggestion that president makes - after other
parties have been tallied, reminder of seats goes to this party.

Also, random events could be in, in form of one party getting particulary charismatic leader, or one that makes
major chance to their views. Also, if there is friendly state next to you and Socialists are going fine there, then
Socialists in your country are bound to get votes too. If there's enemy country with Socialists on charge, on the
other hand, your socialists are gonna get less votes (potential traitors, you see.)

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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.