The Covert Action Rule: Or What We Can Guess About Civ3

[yin26]

Want to know what Civ3 will be like? Your best hope is to read this link:
http://www.gamespot.com/features/sidlegacy/

In particular, I have two quotes to consider:

quote: What NATO taught Sid was that complexity is never a substitute for depth. Later, Sid wargames would either be much simpler - and more fun - or (as with Civilization) would make their complexity more digestible with easily understood subsystems.

Sid hates any kind of complexity that doesn't also have depth. And anything that can't be made "more digestible with easily understood subsystems" will NOT make it into the game. Of course, it's hard to tell exactly what those might be, but we can make some educated guesses.

Another quote in which Sid discusses the essentially failed effort called Covert Action (anybody play it?):

quote: So I call it the Covert Action Rule. Don't try to do too many games in one package. And that's actually done me a lot of good. You can look at the games I've done since Civilization, and there's always opportunities to throw in more stuff. When two units get together in Civilization and have a battle, why don't we drop out to a wargame and spend ten minutes or so in duking out this battle? Well, the Covert Action Rule. Focus on what the game is.

So I submit to my fellow Apolytoners that Civ3 will NOT depart from Civ in any way that adds complexity without depth or anything else that detracts from "what the game is": A fun, abstract, and rather light approximation of human history.

[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited February 03, 2001).]

[yin26]

By the way, I think we can already see in the elimination of SMAC's Unit Workshop what kinds of things Sid sees as complex but lacking depth.

Any guesses what more will be taken out or put in?

[loinburger]

What probably won't make it in: advanced spying actions. It will probably be the same old "send spy to city and break something," and not a spy screen as some have suggested (ala MOO2) where your spying is done independent of units. Why have a spy screen when the spy unit works just fine?

Another thing that probably won't make it in: public works AND engineers. This was one of the suggestions on the List for terrain improvement; the city will automatically improve the terrain in its zone, and engineers would be able to improve land outside of a city's radius (for fortesses and roads, etc.) Probably won't make it in, because why have two systems when you can have one?

[Ralf]

I really hope, and I really keep my fingers crossed that a Civ-2 style "fully featured" AI-settler won't make it in Civ-III. Firaxis really must reconsider the absolut hopeless idea of moving around stupid AI-settlers in order to...

- Manage and develop AI-city areas.
- Expand & found new AI-cities on the map.

The former can be achieved by some kind of automatic AI-city area maturing-process instead. This maturing-process can be tweaked by the player for each AI-civ, if hes not happy with the tile-type emphasize and/or the speed of the maturing-process itself.

The latter can be achieved by (directly after the map has been freshly generated) letting the AI calculate, and then "perforate" the whole map, from top-left to bottom-right, with unlit red diodes (like unlit diodes in electrified public tourist-maps that one can see in big city central railway-stations).
These unlit red diodes (= potential, yet uninhabited AI-city placements, currently invisible for the human player) can be used by the AI-civs in order to expand & make use of the land much more efficiently, then Firaxis ever can hope to achieve by physically moving around AI-controlled settlers. When a new AI-city is founded; thats the equivalent of a previous unlit red diode, now being enlightened.

Scenario-creators could manually place those "unlit red diodes" (= potential, and for the time being; invisible AI-city placements), and by that get access to a whole new realm of scenario-tweaking possibilities, currently unavailable for him because of the built-in "Achilles heel" of the notoriously bad AI-settler pathfinding abilities.
The whole idea is much more elaborately explained in the Should the map-generator be scrapped thread.
(Never mind the title. I changed my mind about that pretty quickly. Read further down about the possibilities of pre-designated AI-city areas instead).

I regard above as one of the most important AI-strengthening suggestions I have ever made. And the scenario-creating possiblities really cannot be underestimated.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited February 04, 2001).]

[bagdar]

Sid Meier Quotes From the Same Site:

quote: The original game was twice as big. Another rule I call the "Civilization Rule": Don't make the map too big. The concept of Civilization was the history of the world, so you have to have a big map. The original map was twice the size, and the game just bogged down. Part of the pacing of a game is this relentless progress. We finally turned it around to where the map was smaller, time progressed more quickly, and the game felt epic, even though it moved pretty quickly. So that was another rule: More is not necessarily better.

another one

quote: The original game actually went further into the future. It had paratroopers and aegis cruisers, but the problem was there was never a good stopping point. You could always invent some new technology, and I finally said all right, we're going to cut it off at World War II.

yet another one

quote: Civ II was a chance to go back to Civ and polish and finish up a lot of things.

I don't know whether we can derive universal civ-design rules from the first two quotes, -they remind many of our thread topics down here- but combined with the third quote, along with the promises on the Firaxis Web site, I think what we are getting at is not quite the detailed, more and more accurate game most of us are longing for, but an equally exciting, fun game that'll improve on the original design in a way that'll cover the areas both the fans and the designers thought were lacking in the games themselves, but present in the Civ-Idea. (The Ultimate manifestaton of the Civ-Idea is the original Civ of course, and I believe the reason for the failure of CTP is that they messed up the whole thing that made Civ an addiction.) That is, we won't be getting advanced spying strategies, 3D world maps, PW (which I don't like anyway) and perhaps even stacked combat -remember, Sid doesn't like the game-in-a-game approach. As for trade, I don't think it'll go as deep as we might imagine. Anyway, I recommend that everone follows the link above to "The Sid Meier Legacy". Thanks for posting it. (It also made me remember my Commodore 64 times.)
[This message has been edited by bagdar (edited February 04, 2001).]

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by yin26 on 02-03-2001 07:32 PM By the way, I think we can already see in the elimination of SMAC's Unit Workshop what kinds of things Sid sees as complex but lacking depth. Any guesses what more will be taken out or put in?

My previous post was perhaps slightly off topic, so heres a second try:

I think the SE-system (at least in its advanced SMAC-version) would take up too much space & time in Civ-3, considering that they probably want to add totally NEW concepts as well. Concepts that never before have appeared in either Civ-1/2 or SMAC (nor in CTP/CTP-2 either, for that matter).

In order to fit in the NEW parameters as well, its important that some of the old ones shrinks or disappear. Now, ask yourself: What of the following is most important? What do you want to keep (and perhaps expand) the most?

- Economy
- Diplomacy
- SE
- Unit Workshop

Well, I think most of us wants a more elaborate economy-system, and more diplomatic options also. Unit Workshop has already disappeared. It seems logical to me that the SE-system will either shrink or disappear completely also. Besides; SE feels too SMAC:ish. I have already tried it out - its not "new" anymore.
I rather want Firaxis to add some NEW concepts, instead of just expanding the old ones. Because of this, the SE-system is likely to shrink/disappear also.

[korn469]

quote: \It seems logical to me that the SE-system will either shrink or disappear completely also. Besides; SE feels too SMAC:ish. I have already tried it out - its not "new" anymore. I rather want Firaxis to add some NEW concepts, instead of just expanding the old ones. Because of this, the SE-system is likely to shrink/disappear also.

Ralf

It seems logical to me that the Government based system is already dead. The people at firaxis already thought that such a system was unrealistic, not fun, and just a drag in general. They already cut out the old dead wood of an obsolete system once, and I have no idea why in the world you would want firaxis to bring back a system that has already failed. Lets not bring this rotted corpse of a system back from the dead.

I have already seen it in Civ and Civ2 and it was bad in both of those games. It's old, out with the old in with the new.

While i think that civ3 will be evolutionary like Yin predicts maybe they will add in some revolutionary ideas. However, i really don't think that they are going to be dredging up ideas from the discarded idea heap.

I agree i hope firaxis does come up with something new. Something like SE on steroids. Bringing back the government system though is just wishful thinking, that system is dead because there is something better out there already.

korn469

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by korn469 on 02-04-2001 01:27 PM I agree i hope firaxis does come up with something new. Something like SE on steroids. Bringing back the government system though is just wishful thinking, that system is dead because there is something better out there already.

Yes, "SE on stereoids" - that seems to be a serious wish.

You miss the point with my previous post, by the way. Firaxis can (obviously) only add so-an-so many parameters to the game. The Civ game-space is limited - not endless. They have to carefully pick-and-choose what to put in, and what to leave out. If they put in too much new stuff, they must leave out/shrink some old Civ-2/SMAC stuff as well. That makes sense to you also, doesnt it?

Heres a quote that i copied from a guy named Daniel Ban /Deja.com:

"What I remember is that Sid wrote that the hardest part of designing Civ was not in adding features but in keeping them out. Sid made the point that each and every feature added to a game has a cost, not just in developer time/effort but a GAMEPLAY cost.
Each feature will require the player to think about that feature. It may require clicking or micromanagement. It may require screen space or game time. Every time a designer adds a feature, the game gets larger, more crowded and more complicated. So Sid refused to add features that, although they sounded neato, would be overburden the game with details. I have always thought of the idea that adding features must be balanced against overloading game detail as "Sid Meier's Rule"."

Now, I obviously dont know if Firaxis planning to bypass/shrink/extend the SE-system in Civ-3. I can only believe, draw conclusions and hope.

You seems to know though. Anyway: What we can say with a large degree of certainty, is that they are planning to extend/redesign & enrich both the combat-, diplomacy- and the economy-model. They also planning to ADD some new feautures and parameters to the game ("new" meaning: not just extended old Civ/SMAC-ideas).

Again: the game-space is limited - not endless. Somewhat bigger then SMAC perhaps - but only "somewhat". What old Civ-2/SMAC stuff shall they shrink or leave out then? Any suggestions, Korn469?

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited February 04, 2001).]

[Straybow]

quote: The original game actually went further into the future. It had paratroopers and aegis cruisers, but the problem was there was never a good stopping point. You could always invent some new technology, and I finally said all right, we're going to cut it off at World War II.

Who says a game has to have a "good stopping point" designed into it? Think of arcade games that go on until you run out of lives. A civilization doesn't have a "stopping point" unless one is provided by another civilization. True?

Civ 2 ends at an arbitrary date. It doesn't matter if you are fighting the Mother of All Battles or building peaceful trade with the remaining civilizations, it ends. That isn't exactly good game design. At least SMAC had a way to conquer factions without destroying them, winning by diplomacy.

quote: The original map was twice the size, and the game just bogged down… We finally turned it around to where the map was smaller, time progressed more quickly, and the game felt epic, even though it moved pretty quickly. So that was another rule: More is not necessarily better.

The game still bogs down, and the pacing doesn't feel epic because nothing lasts. The end game devolves to Fundy Wars and/or piecemeal nuclear exchanges. You can't fight a WWII unless somebody designs a scenario for it. You can't conquer like Ghengis Khan, or Julius Caesar, or Emperor Chin. You only get a taste of each age, more like a deli sampler than an epic.

I guarantee I would've lost interest in Civ 2 except for rules.txt—the chance to fix things without investing in making whole scenarios. The real "Civilization Rule" is rules are made to be broken.

[korn469]

Ralf

while i agree with you that time, budget, and system limitations will keep civ3 from being the game most of us imagine. however i think it could take the genre to its furthest reaches ever. i do not think that civ3 is as zero sum as you whole-heartedly believe. civ3 is a well funded operation, lead by a highly praised designer working with a vetern team on a very lucritive sequal. it is one of those games that needs to simmer to perfection before it gets released. civ is a franchise that needs another critically acclaimed winner. civ3 has alot of expectations dragging it down, but alot of talent and oppertunity to really succeed. if civ3 fails then it will be a major set back for all turn based gaming. it would put the whole genre on the blacklist for probably a decade.

civ3 has major competition: black and white, warcraft 3, and the sims online. all of those games are going to come out this year and i feel that they will be successful. if civ3 doesn't innovate, or doesn't polish to perfection, then every single gaming news agency will herald "the death of the turned based 4x game" publishers will avoid them like the plauge while they promote xbox and ps2 console games. since turn based games won't get published because of perceived market conditions developers won't try to create a product that doesn't have any demand. whither the genre.

firaxis must know this, and the civ formula is a winning and profitable formula. a formula that civ3 is definantly going to tweak. however since they are improving an already well developed game much of civ3 has already been developed. i'm sure it was hard for thomas jefferson to write the declaration of independence, it must have taken alot of creative capital to write it. however with a simple macro i can cut and paste the declaration of indepence a thousand times in one day.

this leads me to believe that civ3 will be a game all players will recognize as civ. i think it will abound with improvements, and those improvements for the most part do not come at the detriment of other improvements. just because they are improving military game mechanics does not mean that either graphics and/or trade has to suffer. far from it. not only does firaxis have many highly talented developers it also has tens of thousands of suggestions from the fans, plus millions of research dollars from activision via ctp and ctp2.

if something must suffer i think it will probably be the following.

how a ruler interacts with his people (about the same as civ2) and the absence of a complex espionage system. also i think that religion (if it is even included as a play element) will be very simple and not the far reaching variable many of us here wish for. also i think that ideas to end the eternal china syndrome aka rise and fall of civs will also get the short end of the stick.

here are a few things i think are highly likely
[*]they won't touch cities.[*]units will work in a very similar way to how they do now[*]most likely they won't replace shields will a resource model[*]they will however allow more civs to play at once, most likely it will be between 12-16 plus barbarians

those are my predictions Ralf, i just hope they improve SE

korn469

ps hope springs eternal
[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited February 05, 2001).]

[Sarxis]

I really hope that a better, more interesting system of espionage is created for CIV III. I'd really like to be able to have spy networks (or something) and a counter-espionage system/units.

[Jeje2]

quote: Originally posted by yin26 on 02-03-2001 07:11 PM Another quote in which Sid discusses the essentially failed effort called Covert Action (anybody play it?):

Well acording to the survey, phoenixcager have played it.

[The Viceroy]

A real drag to hear Sid's site say big maps are a problem ... I think a map size should be entirely up to the player ... yes, many people like a smaller map .. fine, but I actually like huge maps .. Id prefer to slow the science rate down, and develope a stone age civilization, dragging it slowly into iron age .. fighting stone age battles, with other stone age civs .. I tell you, discovering the America's is so boring, when its only 4-5 moves away ... (often do it in the bronze age anyway), Discovering it when its 40-50 moves away, and taking advantage of its size compared to Europe .. now thats more fun to me.

not everybodies cup of tea I know, but so easy to just make map sizes optional, and science rates ..



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"Wherever wood floats, you will find the British" . Napoleon

[Grumbold]

I'm sure they will be applying the less-is-more principle wherever it is needed, but the beauty of computing is that every year they work out how to pack more power into the same sized package. Sid won't want Civ 3 to become a repetitive clickfest but we can now expect group build queues, mayors and innovations like that which have appeared since Civ-2 to remove a lot of the chores we used to have to perform. That leaves room for greater functionality in other areas without taking anything away from the simulation.

Turning spying into a unitless task is not adding complexity (if done right, like MOO2) but in some ways removing it. Ditto diplomacy. No problems of special units holding up armoured columns if special units don't sit on the map, for instance. Having an "agency" handling couner espionage and counterterrorism for your country makes more sense to me than having to build spies to guard every city. I hate the farce of the secrets of nuclear fission being stolen from the latest village you just built that hasn't even got a marketplace yet. In MOO2 the system was so well developed I rarely visited the screen, despite its importance, except when I went ot war or made peace. Most of the time it could run itself.

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by korn469 on 02-05-2001 02:11 AM also i think that ideas to end the eternal china syndrome aka rise and fall of civs will also get the short end of the stick.

That would be a sad & dumb decision! I really hope not. Anyway, Chris Pine (lead-programmer, Firaxis) mentioned in a response e-mail: "Just so you know, I think we've finally fixed both the ICS problem and the Bigger-is-always-better problem."

The latter idea (anti-BAB measures) is an idea that is similar to RAF aka ECS.

quote: here are a few things i think are highly likely [*]they won't touch cities.

If you mean that they wont replace the CIV/SMAC-style "input city-area view", with that pesky CTP-style "Public works"? And no expanding city-areas? Good! Lets hope so.

quote: [*]units will work in a very similar way to how they do now.

They will update and greatly improve the Civ-2 combat-model (integrating stack-battles, of course). I HOPE they have sense enough to relieve the AI-settler from the task of developing AI-city areas and founding new AI-cities.

quote: [*]most likely they won't replace shields will a resource model

If you mean replacing generic resource-shields with specific coal/iron/wood/stone/gold (and more) shields - all of them more or less unevenly/sporadically distributed all over the map. And then (even worse) having to mine/trade/combine specific shield-types in order to build this or that improvement?

I really HOPE that your right on this one.

quote: [*]they will however allow more civs to play at once, most likely it will be between 12-16 plus barbarians

If it only was a question of "allowing" or "not allowing", I would agree with you. The problem evolves around an non-negotiable and non-compromisable exponentially rising AI-calculation reality.
Even if one dont understand above, one could at least understand the problem of twice (triple) as many simultaneously playing AI-civs - all competing within the same short 5-10+ seconds of AI game-turn waiting time. At the same time everybody demands a much stronger AI.

Personally, I prefer quality before quantity.
So my estimation is between max 6-7 (perhaps 8) simultaneously playing AI-civs.

quote: those are my predictions Ralf, i just hope they improve SE

Civ-2 style governments, with more wealth-distribution slider-bars + SC-3000 style ordinances, sounds like fun!

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited February 05, 2001).]

[Roman]

"A real drag to hear Sid's site say big maps are a problem ... I think a map size should be entirely up to the player ... yes, many people like a smaller map .. fine, but I actually like huge maps .. "

My point exactly, Viceroy. In CTP 2 you can make any size maps you want, so why should it be impossible in Civ 3?

[The Viceroy]

On the matter of AI numbers and AI ability .. Ralf does have a point .. there are ways of short cutting the system, so that AI's cheat a little, instead of consider all available options, but that always reduces the quality of the system .. as us humans quickly spot the behaviour.. If you want a rich and varied response, that involves more calculations.

Even so, we all have more powerful machines, and I think its not beyond the programmers ability to let the user pick how many civs they wish to play with ..

Eg. I have a P2 350, 64Mb ... I decided to play with 7 civs, a quick calculation to determind how the processor will handle all civs, well developed in 2000AD ... calculates that the average AI time will be 35sec per turn... Thats fine by me,

lets say I start another game, I pick 16 civs, it calculates an average of 5mins ... well, now its up to me, I can either reduce the civ numbers, or stick with a 5 min average AI turn time.

but for those of you lucky lot , who have nice P3, 1000Mhz 256Mb .. 16Civs may only result in 1min AI time, and may be perfectly acceptable.

So, although I agree with Ralf, we can't have it both ways, I do think we can if we're prepared to wait for the AI on slower machines.


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"Wherever wood floats, you will find the British" . Napoleon