Governments: CivIII is broken

[Encomium]

Crazy corruption levels is one of the two or three worst things about Civ III. Unlike the hated Culture Flipping, we CAN do something about corruption:

Go to Editor.

Lower the cost for the Palace so you can move it to the best location.

Lower the cost for the Forbidden Palace.

Make temples, cathedrals, and banks corruption reducers.

That will help a lot.


Additionally, there is an excellent mod on the other site's new mods forum called LWC - Long Winded Changes. It has some fine additions that also help. You can also tweak them in Editor.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by KoenigMkII
But here is a clue: compare the number of divisions in Army group south in July 1942, and compare it with Nov.19th 1942. Look closely at what happened to the deployment of armoured and motorised divisions, the fate of Von Mansteins11th Army, and lastly the deployment of Germanies reserve of super-heavy Artillery.

Then you can see it: The Germans have a winning position in Early July 1942, if "Bleu" is followed through. Of course this can only be IMHO, but it still gives you a shock to see it.

Sorry, you haven't mentioned any references that support your view. I accept that the Nazi's could have done significantly better militarily in the short term but this would not alter Stalin's attitude. He would have continued to throw men into the meatgrinder forever if they managed to kill one German for every ten lives lost. At that ratio Russia still wins in the end and he knew it. Not being able to build and fuel tanks at the same impressive rate would have hurt but not been a knockout blow.

Even if you believe that Russian resistance would have collapsed the ultimate question is whether they would have developed Atomic weapons fast enough to force a stalemate with America. Grabbing Russian oil is not going to change that.

[Grumbold]

double post

[The Andy-Man]

Militarily Germany could have won the war, with ease. A naval landing to the UK was a serious threat in 1940, but it was never capitalised on, plus a paradrop invasion could have been preformed whilst planes where diverted fighting the blitz.

let us not forget that if the invasion of Russia had gone to plan, they would ave beaten the russians by the start of winter (if he attacked in spring and not summer). if the Germans took everything up to moscow they wuld have took about 66% of Russian production, so militarily the Russians wouldn' stand a chance. as for resitence. Very hard to resist when y'all been sent to the ready made concentration camps Russia had in Siberia.......


with these taken into acount, plus the fact the US was not willing to support the UK untill it was sure they wouldn't get beaten (US didnt commit themselves till 1941, after battle of britain). then Germany would have rulled Europe, plus possible inheriting british and french colinies.



But the Germans where doomed to fail, not for military reasons, but because o a very unstable govt ion which nobody had complete control over everything (hitler was paranoid about threats to his power) and also, the military demands of the 3 army sects (amry navy and airforce) would have dried up the new industrial capascity quickly enough that a new war would be need on China or Japan.....

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
But the Germans where doomed to fail, not for military reasons, but because o a very unstable govt ion which nobody had complete control over everything (hitler was paranoid about threats to his power)

Isn't poor decision making a natural component of dictatorships? I mean would you be willing to tell Hitler he was wrong and that it might be better if someone else was in charge?

Dictatorships are inherently inefficient for this reason.

[The Andy-Man]

well, thats similar to wehat i said, unstable govt. maybe would have been better to say badly organised.

[facistdictator]

Well the fact of the matter is Hitler was a political genius to say the least, but he was not good at making war decisions nor was he a military leader as he saw himself. If he would have left the war in the hands of his well renowned generals, we would probably be speaking german right now.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by facistdictator
Well the fact of the matter is Hitler was a political genius to say the least, but he was not good at making war decisions nor was he a military leader as he saw himself. If he would have left the war in the hands of his well renowned generals, we would probably be speaking german right now.

You tell the Der Fuhrer. Maybe he'll listen to you.

[KoenigMkII]

Originally posted by Grumbold


Sorry, you haven't mentioned any references that support your view. I accept that the Nazi's could have done significantly better militarily in the short term but this would not alter Stalin's attitude. He would have continued to throw men into the meatgrinder forever if they managed to kill one German for every ten lives lost. At that ratio Russia still wins in the end and he knew it. Not being able to build and fuel tanks at the same impressive rate would have hurt but not been a knockout blow.

Even if you believe that Russian resistance would have collapsed the ultimate question is whether they would have developed Atomic weapons fast enough to force a stalemate with America. Grabbing Russian oil is not going to change that.

I was more interested in your beliefs about what they might have done post-war. Have you statistics showing that they managed 5% growth either before or during the war, for example?

Ko's reply:-
On population growth before the war: It's tough to give any statistics, becausethe German population base itself is changing, increasing due to the assimilation of German speaking peoples in the Saarland, Austria, Sudetenland, memel and finally some border areas of the former Poland.

On Nazi Germany's population policy here is a small quote from the Britannica.com:-

"A Marriage Subsidy Law of July 1933 was calculated to stimulate the birth rate by granting loans to newly married couples; these loans would be forgiven incrementally with the birth of each additional child. The Nazi idealization of mothers and the celebration of motherhood as a special service to the Reich had the same objective. Hitler spoke of an eventual doubling of the German population through these measures."

From that I think its logical that post war these subsidies would have continued, and that given unlimited free land, Lebensraum, in the East, this would have generated sustained high population growth.

A similar free-land policy in the US in the 19th century (for a limited period)
pulled in emigration from (ironically) Germany. Can a US based person remember the Policy's name? "Homestead act" or something like that?

The Nazi's planned to settle the New Lebensraum with Nordic peoples as well as Germans. With the Germans in the vast majority, of course.

As for Paragraph one, I would suggest you consult some of the US History on General Patton. In particular the 1944 argument between Patton and Montgomery over which victorious allied Army should "get the gas"

No, an immobilised Army (even Infantry need trucks to move distances over 20 Km while carrying their equipment) cannot CONCENTRATE force.

If the defender cannot concentrate quickly, he will face 10-1, 15-1, 20-1
odds at the point of attack. Once the panzers break through the initial line, its over. Rail heads help a defender, but if the luftwaffe is unchallenged, goobye Soviet rail system.

As from Para 3 and nuclear weapons: Remember this, a 1945 era nuclear weapon is heavy and bulky, it requires a large bomber (B-29 super fortress) ( maybe a Kamikazi sub - but only Ports for targets) to carry it. If the allies have lost Air superiority over Europe, its impossible to deliver the weapon.

The Germans were first to use an SRBM, the V-2. With unlimited resources guess who would be first with an ICBM - Not uncle sam for sure.
Even your Apollo program was run by by the leader of the V-2 project, its that bad.

There was an embryo German nuclear program - but in the future we live in Germany's industrial base was smashed before this program could grow.

I remind you that Otto Hahn, the discoverer of Nuclear fission, was a card carrying member of the Nazi party. See Albert Speers book - the Nazi leadership were aware of the theorectical possibility of building an atomic device.

The Nazi's were actually ahead in some areas of technology, Jets, submarines, rockets, but being high tech does not make you bomb proof :-)

Its all a question of time and resources, if Germany knocks out the Soviet Union in summer 1943 the equation changes.The Nazi's get time to mass produce the Me-262 and Type 23 U-Boat.

I think the US would still be first with a bomb - but Germany would be first with an ICBM to carry it, and then follow up with a bomb test in 1946.

Grabbing russian oil (and denying it to the Red Army) actually is a knock out blow. You play civ III, no oil, no tanks or aircraft.. that much is accurate :-)

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by KoenigMkII
No, an immobilised Army (even Infantry need trucks to move distances over 20 Km while carrying their equipment) cannot CONCENTRATE force.

If the defender cannot concentrate quickly, he will face 10-1, 15-1, 20-1
odds at the point of attack. Once the panzers break through the initial line, its over. Rail heads help a defender, but if the luftwaffe is unchallenged, goobye Soviet rail system.

The Germans still used horse drawn wagons for supplies. There is no way they could sustain supply lines thousands of miles long. The Russians could just keep retreating, for all intents and purposes forever.

Further, defenders concentrate their forces not by defending the line, but by drawing their forces together, presumably in a metropolis. Then it becomes a war of attrition and the Germans will eventually lose (and did lose) due to the problem of supply. Infantry is slow, but resolute.

Don't get me wrong. It is possible, but it's really just a standard, well-known position: the leader who doesn't know his limits, throwing everything away for pride; the despot who can never get honest advice, because those who tell the truth are dead.

The French defeat in 1940 was absolute because it happened so quickly. Plus the French had a special cultural attachment to their capital. Once the Germans attacked Russia the problem became too large. Attacking Russia was simply suicide.

Playing as Germany, I would have sued for peace and tried to keep what I had. Of course, build the Final Solution Wonder, which wipes out all your scientists, reduces commerce, and doubles your city defense value, because everybody is going be coming at you.

Germany declared war on the U.S. after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (as a sign of fascist solidarity) but that too was a mistake. Why draw the Americans into the war sooner than necessary? Maybe make nice and hope they don't want to fight a two front war.

Because even if you stop at France, you will be needing the double defense from your wonder. The combined forces of the democratic civilizations, the communist civilizations, and well everybody else is going to be coming at you. My God, Stalin was an ally in WWII. Only Hitler could do that.

Get everybody mad at you. Now that's ironman!

[KoenigMkII]

Originally posted by Zachriel


"The Germans still used horse drawn wagons for supplies. There is no way they could sustain supply lines thousands of miles long. The Russians could just keep retreating, for all intents and purposes forever. "

No. The Soviets used a broad Guage railway system, and the Germans the narrower continental standard. Strategic supply was moved by railway, with horses and trucks used in combination from the rail-heads to the F.E.B.A. The German Infantry, up to July 1942 (the beginning of our alternate history) was indeed much, much less motorised than the US Army was.

With greatly reduced casualties [Germany lost six months war production at Stalingrad - according to Albert Speer], the Germans can be expected to make much greater use of motorised infantry from 1943 onwards - especially if they can drill new oil wells in the Caucasus to replace the sabotaged ones by 1944.

If massed Allied bombing is stopped by a unified Luftwaffe, then the production of Germany's synthetic oil from coal plants can be expected to rise mightily.

"Further, defenders concentrate their forces not by defending the line, but by drawing their forces together, presumably in a metropolis."

This only helps the defender if he can supply the metropolis with ammunition, food, fresh water, electricity, reinforcements, petrol/diesel. If the attacker can complete a 360 degree land encirclement, the defender is still doomed to defeat in detail. I refer you to the fate of Minsk, Bialostock, Brest-Litovisk, Odessa, Kiev, Smolensk, Bryansk and V'azama in 1941.

"Then it becomes a war of attrition and the Germans will eventually lose (and did lose) due to the problem of supply. Infantry is slow, but resolute. "

No. Then it becomes 1941-syndrome again, this time in summer 1943 with a huge German spring/summer offensive. The Stategic objective must be to advance up the West bank of the Volga and get behind Moscow. Thats the coup de grace. Infantry without an effective railway system has to fight out of position in static defenses. Inability to redeploy meens certain defeat in detail.

"Don't get me wrong. It is possible, but it's really just a standard, well-known position: the leader who doesn't know his limits, throwing everything away for pride; the despot who can never get honest advice, because those who tell the truth are dead."

That is a well known tendency, but if Hitler and O.K.W follow the plan in opperation "Bleu" then Russia is doomed to "gasoline death." After that, Hitlers ambition will be matched by the resources to carry it out, terrifying though it is to contemplate.

"The French defeat in 1940 was absolute because it happened so quickly. Plus the French had a special cultural attachment to their capital. Once the Germans attacked Russia the problem became too large. Attacking Russia was simply suicide."

No. The Germans encircled Paris, which is the centre of the french road and rail system. No defense against Germany is possible once this occurs.
The equivalent in Russia is Moscow and the Central Industrial area, if an encirclement of this area is effected its over - Russia is finished.

The Idea of permanent retreat as an option is a Hollywood fantasy.

"Playing as Germany, I would have sued for peace and tried to keep what I had. Of course, build the Final Solution Wonder, which wipes out all your scientists, reduces commerce, and doubles your city defense value, because everybody is going be coming at you.

Germany declared war on the U.S. after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (as a sign of fascist solidarity) but that too was a mistake. Why draw the Americans into the war sooner than necessary? Maybe make nice and hope they don't want to fight a two front war.

Because even if you stop at France, you will be needing the double defense from your wonder. The combined forces of the democratic civilizations, the communist civilizations, and well everybody else is going to be coming at you. My God, Stalin was an ally in WWII. Only Hitler could do that. "

Hitler declared war the USA on Dec 11th, thinking that the Japanese would move against Vladivostock and Eastern Siberia. Hoping to give Stalin a 2 front war. Its actually a logical decision, if you overlook the stupidity of the Japanese and are unaware of the agreement between Stalin and the Japanese empire - a secret non aggression pact.

"Get everybody mad at you. Now that's ironman!"

It's Ok if you K.O. one of the big boys in the crowd early and pick up his resources. Especially the Oil, man.

Then concentrate on the next one.

I think the Final solution was evil, cruel and stupid. But Oil's more important to the outcome of the war.

I appologise for mucking up the quote system in the above post, my quotes of Zach's post, in parts, are all in quotation marks " "

[Zachriel]

Anything is possible, but not everything is equally probable.

You are assuming that Germany makes all the right decisions which is nearly impossible in a despotic regime; and that the allies make all the wrong decisions.

You have obviously thought hard about the subject. Now turn the chessboard around and see what the other side can do to counter the fascist threat. There are many playable strategies. The only real question is the cost in human misery necessary to stop them.

[KoenigMkII]

Originally posted by Zachriel
Anything is possible, but not everything is equally probable.

You are assuming that Germany makes all the right decisions which is nearly impossible in a despotic regime; and that the allies make all the wrong decisions.

You have obviously thought hard about the subject. Now turn the chessboard around and see what the other side can do to counter the fascist threat. There are many playable strategies. The only real question is the cost in human misery necessary to stop them.

Para one:
Yes thats a scientific axiom. From the starting point we have discussed however it is most highly probable, based on logical steps, that the Germans will win WWII - with only the USA surviving intact on the allied side..

Two Militarist superpowers, in loose alliance, will now face the last hope for the democratic ideal - America. All alone in a world seething with evil.
A 40 year cold war against a contantly growing Nazi Germany and Militarist Japan.

Para two.
If the Soviet Union has fallen, everything looks black as night from the Allied point of view, Because Germany will now concentrate on the United Kingdom as her next target. The Battle of the Atlantic was close enough with Germany's resources being bled by constant attrition in the East - without that drain - well, the atlantic convoys will wither and die.

Britain, an Island nation of 40 million at the time, cannot feed herself, nor could her war industries survive a near-Total U-Boat Blockade.

The US cannot totally concentrate in the Atlantic to compensate, since then the Japanese will continue to expand into India & link with German troops in the middle east even sooner than expected (see below.)

The fall of Moscow will tilt Spain and Turkey more towards the Axis, nowone knows what they would have done. But certainly German requests for intelligence and minerals would have been met in profusion.

A full scale German Invasion of the middle east in 1944 seems inevitable, with the Arabs backing Nazi Germany. Once the oil in the middle east is Hitler's too, together with the Suez cannal and North Africa, Victory in the Battle of the Atlantic is certain. Game over.

Some individual actions and decisions may change, but the effect of Russia's exit is massive.

Every other sphere of the war is affected - even the "Ultra" intelligence is likely to dry up, since in our history, Admiral Doenitz can't get the resources to change the German enigma machine system from three rotors to four. All he could do was the Kriegsmarine (U-Boat) units - but the allies simply used intercepts from other groups using the old machines, i.e. the Luftwaffe, to decode U-Boat transmissions.

Now, with the Russians out, its EASY to get manpower & resources to go with the new Enigma machines. There is a huge feedback loop. Not even great men like Churchill/Roosevelt could have stopped it.

I think I am going to be sick. Thank God for the Red Army, thats all I can say...

[Zachriel]

Yes, it's true. The Soviets bore the brunt of battle in the war to stop fascism. Attrition on both German and Russian sides was immense.

[Tarquelne]

The Germans had two really big problems: Russia and the US. To highlight the size of Russian industry compared to Germany's: In the initial push into Russia Germany doubled the number of 75mm+ guns through captured Russian equipment. So in the first months of the of the war the Russians _lost_ more big guns than Germany actually possessed.
I read this years ago, so if you want to know specifics, or get a reference -

US industrial capactiy was, arguably, even bigger. It was certainly able to create more sophisticated items.

If you assume Hitler suddenly becomes sane, or is assasinated and a more moderate leader comes into power Germany - one who won't try to invade Russia, Germany _still_ has two big problems: Russia and the US. England has already been thoughly scared - it's not going to wander away, and working together I'm confident FDR and Churchill would have brought the US into the war at a reasonably timely moment. And Stalin, of course, is going to invade Germany.

A couple of posts ago someone mentioned that just as Germany could have made better moves, so could the Allies. I think there's a basic dynamic that helps keep the quality of the "moves" on each side roughly equal: The better the Axis does, the more motivated the US is to do something about Germnay. (It's hard to imagine England or Russia being more motivated.) The US could have done quite a bit more to help the war effort if it _really_ felt threatend. I'm not saying that the US was a "slacker" during the war - but look to England, Russia, Japan or Germany to see what a "wartime economy" can really mean.

Even apart from essentially logistical matters, America could have done better. Through the entire war the US kept trying to use its (excellent) subs primarily against warships. Merchant shipping was a secondary target. Even so Japanese merchant shipping was devestated. At least for me, and I think this is true for most people, it's when the opposition gets tough that I make my best moves. In the same way, I'm sure that if the US had really felt pressured by Japan (and Germany) the Axis would have had to deal with a much more effective US submarine fleet.

US long-range bombers could have been released for sub-hunting and interdiction/anti-industry missions far soon if the Allies hadn't have had the _luxury_ of trying to knock Germany out of the war via bombing population centers.

The US could have sent even more material to Russia and England (and Fracnce, maybe.)

The Allies could have given some support to the German Resistance.

I'd like to say that the US would have started mass-producing a tank more like the T-34... but I'm not confident about that at all.

I sure there are other things...


Occupying Russia: Has the difficulty of holding onto Russia been discussed? I think it would have been far more difficult than occupying France. To be profane for a moment: Those Russians are crazy mother****ers! A blitzkrieg campaign that succeeded in "knocking out" Russia would have left lots of men and supplies out of German hands... the supplies wouldn't be all that difficult to secure, I think. But killing all those Russian solders would have been a tremendous drain on the occupying forces, I believe. I think we'd have seen the worlds first large-scale guerilla campain.

I'd love to see a game (board or computer) deal with a hypothetical German occuption of "European" Russia in WWII. I really don't know much about it... I suspect it'd be a nightmare, but maybe there's a convincing counter arugment....

[Ironwood]

1. I have never had that huge a problem with Corruption. Back when I was expecting to be able to take over a city and gear it into full wartime production immediately, as in Civ2, it was a bit of a problem, but not any more. And, like many others, I thought this ability was silly, from a simulation point of view.

2. The question of "just rushbuying" it. Obviously, in a Civ3 democracy, the player has a great deal more control over the Civ than an actual national President has. I consider the player to represent the "soul of the nation" rather than the physical ruler, meaning that the player just makes the decisions, regardless of who would actually make such decisions in the real world. Obviously the lack of "elections" isn't very democratic.

So what does "rushbuying" represent? At base, it represents the application of large amounts of money to a project to finish it more quickly than the locals could. In an ancient monarchy, this seems to be much closer to the "player is the ruler" model, meaning rather than just having the locals take their sweet time, you apply the resources only a King can draw upon to finish the project.

So what does it represent in a modern Democracy? I say it represents capital investment.

Think about it. In a modern democracy, how many major projects actually get done by local initiative and production? Little to none. Nearly everything is completed, quickly, through the application of either private or public capital. As far as the model goes, just as the player is not an elected president, and yet still presides over a "Democratic" political entity, so he is not the richest man in the country (or the entire investing community, for that matter), and yet still presides over a "Capitalistic" economic entity.

Let's take the example of California for a moment. Could California produce it's own military units? Perhaps, if it were a soverign entity and thus had reason to do so. But the National Guard is trained on federal training grounds, which involves federal funds.

Obviously, California is very well developed. Most, if not all, the really major development occurs because of a direct application of national (not necessarily governmental, but whether it be a national corporation, or whatever, it's still national) capital. Locals obviously do much of the work, but it's who pays the bills that counts for the purpose of this simulation.



Still, corruption should reduce with time. Obviously, the following suggestions are for future games, unless the existing code can allow for this, but I am thinking the best way to do this is to base corruption not on raw distance from the capitol, but on the shortest possible travel time, by the fastest possible unit, to the capitol.

Initially, this would be rather high. With the development of The Wheel, it would lower (as the wheel enabled larger empires in the real world). It would, however, be limited by mountains and jungles.

The development of Horse Riding would reduce it slightly further, enabling the "travel times" to cut through unroaded mountains and jungles.

Roads would lower corruption considerably, since they cut travel times in three, particularly through rough terrain.

Rails would be the ultimate panacea for continental government, but the Sea would remain a considerable obstacle.

And, of corse, jets would reduce that problem to it's lowest possible level, since it is possible to cross the sea very quickly via jet.

Or, one could remove the distance tie with the development of Radio, but I think the possibility of the man himself just showing up one day has considerably more effect than the ability to scream at people over the radio. Perhaps the Radio could actually allow for a new kind of corruption reducing improvement, which would increase in effectiveness with the development of space travel (sattelite relay). This improvement would also *definately* be cultural, to represent real historical phenomena such as "radio free europe" or whatever it was called. I think people know what I'm talking about. And this, at the very least, could be added to the existing game.

Oh, and, by the way, who said the Capital lacks corruption? Washington DC, the city, is the most corrupt place in the United States of America!

Perhaps I should've made a new topic for this, since this one seems to be more about who's dad could've kicked who's dad's ass in WWII.