Since I was told that people don't like to read long posts, I've decided to divide my messages into several different posts. I personally dont see the difference though
Having made the point that economy should be the basis of any empire building game so that everything else that we players AND THE AI PLAYERS do is for the purpose of a better economy for their countries, there will be many many many implications that this new philosophy should spell.
The point of this thread is to list what the implication might be should there be a change in the foundamental game philosophy of an empire building game. It also gives some ideas as to how differently an empire game will turn out to be.
Since wealth is the foundation of all empire building, one big thing that must be done is the AI. Every experienced Civ players probably realized by now that AI is designed so that all the AI players are us human players' enemies. Our alliance with any AI civilization are nothing close to alliance except that there's a treaty signed. The best an alliance with an AI can do is to ensure that they don't war with us human players. It very seldom promise us aids in war should we have to engage in battle with anyone else.
And why is all of that so? Because the foudnation of the game is war, which is suppose to be fun and challenging, and the foundamental philosophy programmed into AI is that human players MUST DIE!!!! So the AI will do anything to declare war on us because war is fun and challenging, and because we human players must die.
Senseless strategies and actions made on AI player's part is further encouraged by the fact that as the game level gets harder and harder, the probabitily of AI player's winning is much much higher even if the strategy the AI player's use is brainless. For example, an AI player in stone age is encouraged to go to war with us human players because we are playing on the hardest level of the game, where it is possible for the AI to break a hole through our tank armor with AI's pikemen.
Do you see the flaw now? For the sake of war, and for the sake of challenge, the designers create a game where the entire game is all about war and destruction of us human players. All those unrealistic disadvantages we us human players have (such as our tank loosing a battle against an AI archer) and all the unrealistic advantages that the AI have (such as not having to worry about human's AI alliance aiding the human players because the all AI are designed so that all AI are against the human players) are all means through which to make war, and challenge possible in the Civ game.
The implication of wealth and gain as the foundemental concept of an empire building game will change all that. No longer will the AI be constantly fighting us human players to see to our destructions. Yes, the AI will still fight us, ONLY IF DESTROYING US WILL IN SOME WAY INCREASE AI'S WEALTH. AI, therefore will also help us if that means increasing her own wealth.
If I am fighting a war against AI Japan, and the AI British is my allie, I would naturaly expect no help from the British, or I might even have to expect acts of treachery on the British's part, in the old Civ game. But if an empire building game is designed so that gain is the most important thing, then my British allie might decide that it is worthwhile to aid me in destroying the Japanese empire, in which case, I may actually expect a good amount of aid from the British.
For us human players, as well as for AI players, the need to acquire wealth as the ultimate gain to empire building will require us to make hard decisions. In the old Civ game, economic and diplomatic aspects of the game are too simple for us to make these decisions because war is the only thing that matters in the old Civ games.
If a game is programmed so that wealth is truely the most important thing, and war is just one of the many means through which to acquire wealth, then economic and diplomatic aspects of the game must be made more complicated. We now have to think about ruling our empire on a world level, not on the level of individual cities. We must make decisions such as what to do so that this trade route is soley used by my merchants so that I am the only one to prosper from it. Should I claim the entire area along this trade routes? if so, how will the Persians, who also wants the trade route for themselves, react to this? Will they declare war on me? Is my military powerful enough to take on the Persians? Or should I just abandon this trade route completely and look for other source of wealth.
In this example above, war might not have occured because I was thinking about my wealth. No way I am going to risk my empire destroyed by going up against the Persians only so that I may be dethroned. Dethroned means no wealth at all. So its better to give up the wealth from the trade routes than to risk losing all the wealth that I may have as an emperor.
In the old Civ game of course, there's none of that thinking that has to be done. It is all about war, and it wouldn't matter if wealth is disturbed by war, because, as all experienced players know, war will never have anything to do with economy.
