More action

[Stuff2]

In our history the people that have dominated the world has constantly changed over time.
First we have Egyptans, the babylonians, the persians, the greeks, the romans, the arabs, the mongols, the europeans (mostly the french and the english), followed by the americans who got on top after the world wars.

In a civ2 game, there is at most two different 'world dominators'. It's to boring. The same old empires lays almost unchanged in 6000 years. I want more action in civ3. Small
civs that suddenly gets enormous militaristic and successful laying half the world under their power than getting huge internal problems and the defeated contries easily taking back their own countries. The history is full of events like this.

[Evil Capitalist]

I agree. The only way I can think of doing this is giving bonuses and penalties to individual civs as time goes by to repressent their strengths- eg with industrialization the British could get a trade and production bonus. Basically people have a rise and fall factor, and perhaps earlier bonuses result in a weakness soon after, causing their fall. Also you could have race specific wonders, that only work for the race in question.

[Shadowstrike]

I concur with what everyone said on this subject. More realistic military actions by the AI (i.e. attacking when at equal or greater strength, and not when they are at insufficent strength, better logistics, etc.) will make for a game which challenging and more realistic. After all, when was the last time a skilled player got conquered by a computer?

I would like to see a system where militaristic, untrustworthy, expansionist Civs triumph for the first half of the game, and civilized, perfectionalist, honorable civs have the advantage late in the game. With a gradual shift in the game taking place, it would start to crumble the military dictatorships and give power to the peacemakers. This is true to life. Ways of doing this are having militaristic civs (that have expansion wars) be prone to much more discontent and revolution late in the game, rather than early. This would promote being a peaceful nation rather than an agressive one when tanks, nukes, and cruise missiles come into play.

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - well who am I?~~~
- "When man first discovered that milk comes from a cow, what did he THINK he was doing?"
- "Women's breasts are like toys: They're meant for kids, but usually it's the fathers who wind up playin' with them."
- "Practice makes perfect, but if nobody's perfect...why practice?"
~~~Oh well oh well so here we stand, but we stand for nothing~~~
- Apolyton Picture Contest IV

[CornMaster]

He wants a game with more action not less. Orangesfwr: While your idea is good I'm not going to enjoy a game where I get a penality for being aggressive. The rise and falls idea is good but not the way you are proposing.

I really don't have any ideas except it should be based more on the civilians outlook on life. If the civilians (ex. Middle East) hate a civ next to them they shouldn't get peanlized for a war. If the hate has been passed down for generations then they should get a military advantage with better production or the like.
If a Civ has been peaceful for most of it's life it should get a penatily for going to war, not really a penatily just a lower war production, unless the people of the civ hate the enemy or the enemy has been hostile towards it. The lower production would eventually increase as the war progressed or could decrease depending on the general populations feelings. The exceptions would be if it's a peacekeeping mission. They should get an edge for peacekeeping units because they are so peace loving. (I know that sounds strange. Giving a unit a bonus because the civ is peace loving, but anyway)

Any comments? This should probably be it's own thread.

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"I'm too out of shape for a long fight so I'll have to kill you fast"
"If the great Emperors of Rome, Egypt and Greece were alive today, do you think they would prefer Coke or Pepsi?"
Administrator of the CornEmpire Forum

[Stuff2]

Reasons why big dominant civilizations stagnate and eventually get weak enough to be invaded by small civs:

- Recruitment for the army can only take place in those regions that are already well assimilated in the civ. Having captured alot of cities means more territory to defend.
- More people to police, especially in newly captured cities.
- Bureaucracy, more regions and cities mean more local leaders that have their own agendas. Corruption, power game.
- Convinience, ones a human is satisfied he/she stops strive for improvements.
- Slavery, in history this has been a major reason for breaking down empires. The slaveowners don't need to develop trade and production as long as the slaves supplies them with all they need. Also, slaves are not loyal soldiers, they have to be heavily surpressed for preventing slave revolts.

In civ term we could make this a bit more simple. First recruitment, unless firaxis will incorporate a recruitment system the only way to reflect this is to not be able to produce units in those cities that are newly captured or maybe making them far more expensive to build.
Policing, this is actually already done in SMAC. Bureaucracy is also already done in SMAC.
Slavery needs to be penalized with lower science and trade plus need of policing armys.

[Deathwalker]

Good idea, but hard to put in a game?

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I have walked since the dawn of time and were ever I walk, death is sure to follow

[Evil Capitalist]

Just a point about slavery. It is argued that the money from slavery and slave run industry was what tipped the balance and started the industrial revolution.

[Theben]

OrangeSfwr:
When did peaceful nations become major players? So far history shows that aggressive nations are the world dominators. I think civ3 should represent that fact.

Stuff2:

Europe imported thousands of slaves. And slavery does not hinder industrial production, but it does hinder economic development.

Personally I think the efficiency rating could be tweaked to make sprawling empires hard to keep together. Terrain, technology, distance, other empires would be factors in addition to the usual "distance from capital/ # of cities/ courthouse" variables.

Cities outside the capitol's "supply grid" (capitol+ cities in same border area) would be more vulnerable to independence. Whether or not you have a 'centralized' or 'de-centralized' social value would be another. Include terrain costs in factoring distance from capitol (FE, China was easier to hold together because the populated zones were all in flat lands; Europe was divided by water and mountains).

[Stuff2]

quote: Originally posted by Evil Capitalist on 08-02-2000 06:31 AM Just a point about slavery. It is argued that the money from slavery and slave run industry was what tipped the balance and started the industrial revolution.

Actually not, the inventions that led to the industrial revolution was in many ways caused by the fact that mideval europe was in constant lack of labor force and therefore had to develop better technices for producing goods. If europe in that time instead had imported slaves many of these improvements would not have developed (atleast not as quickly). But it's true that the english got alot of money from selling slaves to america. If you look in american history, where did the industrial revolution develop fastest? well, what i've read it was the northern USA that had industries (that produced clothes from the cotton produced by slaves in south USA)so yes in america the industry got some help from slavery, but it was economic and certainly not scientific. I truly believe that the american industrial technices was mostly developed in the northern parts. But the industrial revolution took place first in England not USA, and even if they sold slaves to USA they never had slavery in their own country. But there is some reasons why slavery did not cause so much trouble in America:
- a capitalistic economy, (which i think always spur innovation and development even if it has it's disadvantages)
- the methods for keeping slaves from rioting was more advanced. (better weapons to kill slaves that won't work)

But the thing is still this, sure north americas clothing factorys wouldn't have developed so fast if the cotton from south
had been more expensive. Slavery was a sheap production method so the southern choose slavery rather than spending alot of money on developing machinery for picking cottons on the fields.

What i'm trying to say is this, slavery are not good for science, and until the development of some decent policing and a good economic system slaves can cause alot of trouble if the rest of the society is decadent or weak. But slavery also gives sheap production without the need of production technology. But the main thing is,
slavery had great economic effects for English and American industry, but so it was for Ancient rome aswell. But slavery still had a function of preventing scentific development in industrial production. I think that southern America got far more industrial development after slavery was forbidden. Ones
slavery was forbidden cotton got more expensive and the market had to find new ways of making money or better cotton production methods and that spurred innovation and on a longer period also gave a better economy than the slavery would have given.

[Evil Capitalist]

I'm not claiming slavery was essential for the industrial revolution- if all the money involved in the slave trade were invested it would make 1/40th the capital used (That's how I remember the figure, I'll get the book back tonight, so if I'm wrong I'll say). However the money is what made the IR happen in Britain when it did. I supose it is more to do with caravans in civ 3.

[Napoleon I]

There were a number of threads here that dealt with rise and fall of the empires and an absolutely excellent ICS analysis and solutions thread by Korn469 also springs to mind. However, some of the ideas here are excellent and I would have a hard time thinking of a reason why we should not have more action in the game.

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Napoleon I

[Stuff2]

Theben, i didn't mean that slaves hindered production, (on the opposite), i mean that the slaves hindered development of better production technices. And this has been the case throughout history. Slaves can be good for both production and economy but they are still bad for science and innovation. With this i mean slaves that where used for mining and industri and not slaves in the household, which has had much less effect on the industrial science.
Suppose the romans had forbidden slavery they maybe would have developed better industrial technices to compensate the loss of labour (but ofcourse they wouldn't afford to get that far beacouse their whole economy was dependent of slaves. No slaves - no money, no money - no development). The reason is easy, slaves are sheap and technological development is very expensive.

[Shadowstrike]

If the Romans had indeed abolished slavery, the steam engine would have quickly taken prominence and hastened mechanization. Why do I say mechanization and not industuialization? Usually the former preceeds the later and it may be possible that the Romans could have used the steam engine and yet not figured out about the other ways to generate electricity and come to a stop there. By the way, if you're wondering, the Romans did have a steam engine (invented by Hero of Alexandria) but they found slaves a far cheaper source of work.

[Evil Capitalist]

It's debatable whether it would have had such a difference- the hero and trevethick(?) models were very different in design, they could have had very different effects.

[beyowulf]

Maybe we could redefine 'world domination' Remember, even with the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians, Greeks, etc, they never actually conquered the whole world, but what they did do was be able to grab a large chunk of land and hold it against all comers for a period of time. So maybe, as a benefit to doing similar, you get a flat 'world empire' bonus, so that when the game ends, this would added to your score. Say, you civ becomes a 'world empire'(200 pts.), with maybe a 5 pt bonus per turn. Maybe to a maximum of 30 turns. But if you 'world empire' lasts into another era, you start collecting points again for duration.

So..for example(arbitrary numbers here)
'World Empire' 200 pts

Flat bonus, once your civ attains this level, you get 200 pts.

For different eras, you get different amount of points for holding onto your civ.

Ancient Era
1 pt per turn

Iron Age
5 pts per turn

Industrial
15 pts per turn

Or something like that..

AT

A major problem in Civ is that you’re actually playing something in between a nation and a culture. In history cultures tended to be much more stable than political powers.
The Arabic nation for example began to fall to pieces some 200 years after Mohammed, but their culture still persists from Morocco to Mesopotamia, their religion even further. China was ruled by foreign powers quite a time (Mongols, Manchu), but Chinese culture survived.

In Civilization however we have to live with a compromise.
I agree that the game should be less steady. If you don’t lose cities through war (what rarely happens to me ), your economy always remains stable, unhappiness rises only as much as your cities do, considering you don’t change your government.
In order to get more action to the game I had a few thought, some surely already expressed by someone else, some maybe not realizable, but I hope there are some useful.

1) Happiness: In civilization, happiness is based mainly on the City Size. Sure, size is a factor, but what’s with unemployment in bad economic situations? Is there no opposition if you use nukes, or if you keep polluting the environment? Is there no religious unrest, no nationalist movements in conquered cities? I could keep going on without end. Of course a game can’t cover all factors, but a little bit more depth I think would be good. Here some suggestions:

a) Conquered cities could get an ”assimilation degree” and more unhappiness, when the degree is low. If those cities are rioting, enemy units should pop up near the city. Buildings like i.e. a theatre could alleviate, the advance Nationalism aggravate and Television maybe alleviate again that effect.
b) Allowing different religions: Buildings should have the same effects (whether a church, a synagogue, a mosque) in the game. Conquering cities with another religion should cause unhappiness there, if your government is not Republic or Democracy. After the discovery of Communism the effect could be lowered.
c) Unhappiness could be bigger in cities with low trade and high production or cities far away

2) Economy: Although we cannot make the economic model of Civ much more complex as we don’t want an economic simulation game, but economy in Civ is too stable. A sea square will always produce 2 trade, 3 with a harbor. There’s no fluctuation, no “good times” or “bad times”. I could imagine something like trade cycles, trade routes could be blocked by intermediary powers, but different from CtP I would give up caravans, automatically allowing trade routes between cities of civs who know each other. The profit from trade routes would then depend on the attitude of eventual intermediaries, the good, city size and the trade cycle.

I’ve some more points but it’s late and I’ll send them tomorrow…

Here's more:

3) Civil Wars: Civil Wars could be introduced easily to Civ. A few ideas?
The discovery of Monotheism could make the city with the oracle and its “daughter cities” declare independence with a 50% chance.
Changing government could cause some cities to split from your civ (I don’t know how this could be done easily though)
In Democracies people could force you to abandon rioting conquered cities.

4) Plagues and other disasters
I know there are people who don’t like random events but disasters had so much influence on history, we just can’t totally neglect them. Crop failures surely played its part in the decline of the Maya. Pestilence stopped the population boom in Europe in the 14th century.
I’m sure that has been discussed but for me, it’s inevitable in Civ3.

5) New Civs: If the world was covered with more barbarian “cities”, there could be a mode that triggers a tribe to become a civilization after an existing civ seized to exist. New civs later in the game should not begin with nothing, their technical level should be adjusted to those civs nearby and they should get something like an expansive force and some settlers to expand.

For now, that’s all I can think of.


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Wernazuma

Comrade of the aztec peoples republic

quote: Originally posted by CornMaster on 08-01-2000 02:28 PM He wants a game with more action not less. Orangesfwr: While your idea is good I'm not going to enjoy a game where I get a penality for being aggressive. The rise and falls idea is good but not the way you are proposing.

I'm not proposing a direct penalty for what kind of Civ you run, but rather a system that encourages democracy and peace towards the later half of the game and expansion and war in the first half of the game. In real life there is a trend...

Time---------------------------->
Tyranny---------------Democracy
War-------------------Peace
Expansionist----------Perfectionist

Does that make sense? That's all I was trying to say.

Theben - Yes militaristic expansionist civs were great in the times of the Roman and English empires...but what are they now? They're nations that get declared war against...examples: WW2 - Italy, Germany, Japan; Ottoman Empire

If the US declared war on some nation in Europe or Asia tomorrow, everyone would be against us. No one likes expansionists this day in age.

Notice we haven't been fighting many major wars recently

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - well who am I?~~~
- "When man first discovered that milk comes from a cow, what did he THINK he was doing?"
- "Women's breasts are like toys: They're meant for kids, but usually it's the fathers who wind up playin' with them."
- "Practice makes perfect, but if nobody's perfect...why practice?"
~~~Oh well oh well so here we stand, but we stand for nothing~~~
- Apolyton Picture Contest IV

[Adm.Naismith]

OrangeSwfr

quote: Notice we haven't been fighting many major wars recently

Liar! Liar!


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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[beyowulf]

quote: Originally posted by OrangeSfwr on 08-10-2000 01:17 AM Notice we haven't been fighting many major wars recently

Actually, this isn't strictly true. There are hundreds of armed conflicts going on every year. We tend not hear of these as they usually going on in 3rd World Nations.

In actuality, the 20th Century has been the bloodiest century yet.

[Shadowstrike]

Ironically, this is because of improved global communication. (in the past, information would not disperse as quickly as it does now. For example, I could make a post here at Apolyton and posters from halfway around the globe can read it)

[Evil Capitalist]

quote: Originally posted by beyowulf on 08-10-2000 11:25 AM In actuality, the 20th Century has been the bloodiest century yet.

In body count perhaps, but the 18th century wins on time spent at war. There was even a war called 'the war of Jenkin's ear'.