disasters anyone?

[GePap]

Why does the Civ line generally ignore disasters? MOO, MOO2, SMAC all had random occurences, so why not our game? Yes, we havee 'disease' which appears here or there, but is not much of a challenge. I say, that for a more interesting and , dare I say it, realistic game, we should have random events in civ3 (of course, like in MOO or SMAC, as optional. For those with guts! )

Some suggested ramdom events are:
Earthquake/volcano: happens near mountains. Kills pop. and destroys city improvements
Floods: happens on floodplains/next to rivers. Pillages squares near city, destroying infrastructure.
Tsunami: same as flood for coatal squares.
Drought: anywhere but more likely on 'dry' terrain. For x turns all squares produce -1 food.
Epidemic: (improved disease) anywhere: for x turns, a 50%chance of loosing 1 pop. point per turn.

For real players: Plague: anywhere. Starts as epidemic in one city. Every turn, a 80% chance that it will spread to another city connected to city 1 with roads. It will spread exponentially after that and to any cities connected (including enemy cities). This neat little effect could always be modifed by gamers to create bio-weapons.
Also, the harder the level, the more random events- if you want to be a diety, well, you better deal with acts of God.

[Kolyana]

Yes, I'd like to see this as an addition to the game. It could easily be an optional feature.

[Blaupanzer]

Sid had some of this in Civ 1, with some improvements preventing the occurance (walls stopped floods, aqueducts disease, temples volcanoes, not sure anything worked on earthquakes). Not sure why it was dropped in Civ 2.

[Terser]

Nuclear plants can still suffer meltdowns, can't they? It ain't natural, per se, but it is a disaster.



So there!

[civ-n00b]

i've seen two disasters so far:
1) my spelling
2) a nuclear plant meltdown... grrrr. 10 population units lost, tons of pollution (in mountains too!) and ... well... 100 captured workes to spare

[Monoriu]

I am pretty sure that I have lost a city improvement or two in civ 1 due to disasters.

I didn't like the concept. Its really completely random and there is nothing I can do about it. Also, its always something bad. Why can't I get a free improvement, or some gold?

But like I said about combat, if you want an editor option for it, fine

(I am beginning to feel that I should abuse this phrase more)

[GePap]

Hey Monoriu:
We could include some good events also:

Gold Rush: near hills: Get 50 gold, new source of gold appears.
Brilliant architect: Anywhere: Finishes the item in building queue (except for those things that can't be rushed)
New Brewery: Anywhere. For x turns, city in WLTKD, regardless of any other factors

[Venger]

I thought the combat system was a disaster...

Anyways, I posted a thread on this a while ago - I also miss the Civ disasters. They didn't do much damage, they were just one of those small things that when added with other small things made the game so incredible...

Venger

[cassembler]

IIRC, the disasters in Civ 1 destroyed a random improvement, or at least killed a pop. point. I like the idea of the "good" disasters (the gold rush, etc). HOWEVER, I'd hate to be on the virge of taking a key city on Diety level and some ****in random earthquake foils my plans...

$.02

[Venger]

They usually either stole gold (Thieves have broken in to the treasury in X and stole X gold, citizens demand a BARRACKS) or took a city population down a notch (Flood ravages X, citizens demand CITY WALLS).

It was just the right flavor, and it of course encouraged building infrastructure...

Venger

[GePap]

As you can see from my suggestions, i think much bigger events are warranted. Many a civ was brough down not by man but by nature. And lets not ignore the wrenching socio-political consequences of mass epidemics, both for the new world and during the black plague. Again, if people envision themselves as great leaders, they should be able to handle some real crisis, not a diplomatic one, but a natural one. I say make it a feature so people who don't like sruprises don't get them. I wonder were al those persons who defend the combat system with 'a little randomness is fine' are? This would really make them happy

[Evil_Eric_4]

If there were disasters I would want an option to disable them.

I always disabled them in MOO2 cause programers think its fun to make them hit succesful civs most often.Gee my reward for doing well is an earthquake?no thanx.
I also turned off the anterans attack option.thats just me though.

[Monoriu]

Originally posted by GePap
As you can see from my suggestions, i think much bigger events are warranted. Many a civ was brough down not by man but by nature. And lets not ignore the wrenching socio-political consequences of mass epidemics, both for the new world and during the black plague. Again, if people envision themselves as great leaders, they should be able to handle some real crisis, not a diplomatic one, but a natural one. I say make it a feature so people who don't like sruprises don't get them. I wonder were al those persons who defend the combat system with 'a little randomness is fine' are? This would really make them happy

BTW I hate your brewery suggestion......those of us who don't drink certainly won't celebrate something like THAT

[GePap]

Monoriu:
then lets change it to bakery (who doesn't eat cake?)

[Monoriu]

That's much better

[Grim Legacy]

Blah there are random events already. More randomness is just more aggravating.

I don't see why people want to be spanked by such a thing as 'bad luck'. What fun is it? You play well, you are poised to win, and then thunder strikes and you can't do anything about it and you lose. You like that?

It's the same thing in FPS games by the way, which can make them very annoying: despite having the best of skill, if you respawn in front of the enemy's gun, you're still dead. Not very exciting.

[tonyhaug]

Hey, you guys haven't played Civ III much. I am continually getting disasters in Civ III. I frequently lose population in some of my best cities due to plagues (in cities with jungle squares) and floods (in cities built in a flood plain). See page 41 in the manual under Disease!!! I guess you guys can't read, either! Just kidding.

[moomin]

"Measured" disasters can be challenging and throw some much needed disruption into an overly ordered gameplay. However, let's not go overboard; I turned off random events forever in SMAC once I had the joy to have all my food sats wiped out by a solar flare - rendering my entire empire starving and being totally unable to do anything about it. That's just _moronic_ game design.

MOO2 was just about right - the random punishments for the leader (at least as long as the leader was the human player...) were OK, if annoying. You had to adapt, but mostly you could. The system they propose for MOO3, if you follow those forums, seems to absolutely suck, unfortunately, so let's hope there'll be an "off" button.

As for Civ3, random loss of all shileds one turn before wonder completion should be good for some laughts and some serious wonder-shuffling, dontchathink?

[Wrong_shui]

How about....

A meteor the size of russia hits the world.

and it ends the game coz everyone dies

[Trifna]

Why not... I'm not against disasters, but certainly not puting more than there was in reality. Wouldn't like it to become a worst threat than in reality since there's enough in reality.

[GePap]

I expected lots of people to say 'no, i don't like random events, it sucks' but to see no one defend the notion of large disasters (not 'disease' which kills one pop. at best, does no damage to infrastructure) is kind of disappointing. I agree that big disasters like those in SMAC (though i never turned them off) can really be bummer but still, what happened to the spirit of adventure? Would a disaster be random? Yes. Could it really hurt you? yes. But would it not be a sign of real leadership and skill of you could overcome them? Yes! Here we have abunch of wannabe emperors and conquerors, and yet mention possible sniffles and everyone goes running.
As i said in the start, this would be something that could be turned off (like in most games, this is a feature that could be turned off) but for those seeking realism (I know you exist) or a challenge (yeah, beating the A.I. at deity is easy. Now do it after a plague epidemic wipped out half your total pop. if you are that good.) could keep them on. Also, whenever the ability to create scenerios comes (and perhaps if we will be able to make them at all [infogrames]) having disaters around would be a good bonus for people making historical scenerios (assuming then we could create events. I hope).
As for the whole, 'armageddon' plot thing wrong_Shui mentioned: well, I have not heard of any giant meteors hitting earth and wipping out civilization. Did I miss something?

[Venger]

It depends on how it was done - large disasters really aren't that large, save plagues. A hurricane or flood would only affect a city or two.

A plague, however, would decimate entire populations.

The KEY is that it also happens to the AI, and the AI can handle it.

There should also be a toggle off for players who don't want them. But having disasters to deal with should give you a score bonus...

Venger

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by GePap
I expected lots of people to say 'no, i don't like random events, it sucks'

No, I don't like random events, they suck.

There are things that can be said for randomness, but sheer "rolling of the dice" on a large scale would not be fun (in fact, aggravating). Civ is a strategy game, and I expect to do well if I play well and do poorly if I play poorly. That is the underlying expectation. Some randomness is essential (i.e., all combat) but even combat follows a trend and is more or less expected.

The only random events which I would ever support would be those that can be corrected (or at least minimized) by the player's action, and that cause no sudden or major consequences. Losing 2 or 3 pop to a disease would be alright, as long as building hospitals or sewer systems, etc., could eliminate or minimize the threat.

In general though, randomness tends to be frustrating and goes against the underlying themes and assumptions of strategy games.

[Dis]

those are some excellent ideas. I'm all for them.

Just don't make them too bad. In reality the worst disasters have been things like the plague in Europe and Pompei being destroyed.

I think the ideas implemted above would make the game interesting, but not a thing that will cause you to lose the game. It really doesn't have that much effect on the course of a 6000 year game, but it creates the atmosphere that you are running a real civ, not just messing around with random (not so combat random) numbers with 0's and 1's.

[Dis]

and yes there have been mass-extinctions caused by meteors hitting the earth. Just no extinctions of humans...yet

but obviously that wouldn't be fun. unless you are a masochist who like to get raped by computers.

[GePap]

Sirs:
Disasters are random, yes, but what one does, is be prepared.
Obviously newer sciences and infrastructure will severly limit the possibility of major epidemics and plagues (as do do in real life) though not make them impossible (look at 1919-20). The other disaters would continue to be random. The solution, keep a balnced checkbook and some money in the bank (for defecit spending to recover from disasters). Also, have a well dveloped infrastructure to be able to move workerss there to repair. And for those that ;like peace, another reason not to be in war (who knows if a big earhtquake will create problems and undermine my rule?)