Civ III is too simple

[zippy]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II


Now, I do agree that the focus should be shifted a bit in some ways. In terms of history, 99% of the time, the driving force has been money. Wars are fought to gain rich cities/provinces OR to acquire resources that are not available in the invader's country. In Civilization, money is only there to hurry production, pay off the AI, and conduct espionage. For this reason, I think there should be a greater emphasis on resources in later editions... I think that they should be necessary for maintaining certain units and improvements like factories, and one source should not be enough for an entire civilization. Each source should have a different value, and some can be rich in a particular commodity and others poor in it, and so a civilization can satisfy the needs for a certain portion of the empire but require more sources to fully satisfy it. Energy should become a major focal point in Civ4.

The other point I would make to improving the game would be some sort of definitions for the game. What is the player in the scheme of things? Is he the LEADER of the country? If so, then he shouldn't be able to build temples, cathedrals, banks, marketplaces, factories, and universities which are usually or entirely privately own except under Communism... if the player represents the civilization as a whole (i.e. the lower class, upper class, senate, king, etc.) then its fine the way it is. What IS one unit? 1 man? 100 men? 10,000 men? So on and so forth...

Well, thats my $0.02.

These are the best suggestions I've seen to improve civ games. I would add variable land values (more productive farms in some areas) to the mix. Why does every square of land have to be assigned integer values for food, resources and commerce?

[PerpetualNewbie]

I wouldn't say it is too simple. I think there are many screens that could present information in a much more useful fashion, and part of the problem with the linearity people see is just a matter of tuning the balance. But Deornwulf's complaint about the game being "build a bunch of cities, get a bunch of tech, build a bunch of other stuff" sounds like pretty much the definition of a successful, thriving civilization.

I will definitely cast my vote that the military option is way too good -- the only way to get leaders and armies, and hands down, the best way to widen the power gap between your civ and the AI civs. War weariness seems to hurt the attacked at least as much as the attacker, so it doesn't seem to be the ideal way to weaken war. And corruption just clinches the superiority of smashing your foes rather than building your own civ. But IMO, that is really just a matter of balance. Make leaders easier to get and/or less powerful, and it dramatically reduces the value of battle. Make upkeep cost double or more when in foreign terrain to reflect the supply line logistics problems and it affects the aggressor much more. Make upkeep of units proportional (equal?)to their attack, and you reduce the vast fortune that otherwise piles up at the end of game, and forces you to consider your guns-or-butter options carefully. Splitting the railroad bonus up into separate improvements, possibly available in the middle ages, increases the importance of a large contingent of workers, broadens the strategic decision process, and dilutes the massive powerup that inevitably follows the beginning of the industrial age. Its not like infinite move for free is a trivial matter, after all.

By and large, I think the bulk of the problems with the game could be easily resolved with a little balancing. And a little balancing would obviate some patch requests, like stack movement. If upkeep for a Modern Armor unit were 24/turn, how many could you afford to have sitting around?

[Dom Pedro II]

The ones who are defending it the most are veteran "Warmongers" who played at the Deity level in Civ 2 and won by destroying all other civilizations.

Well, I know that I was never a warmonger. I was always a builder, and I feel I can STILL do a lot of peaceful construction in this game. I had games where I might only fight two wars at the most. But, hey... if you play on a continent, you are going to have more wars. Look at Europe and America. Here we are all on this continent by ourself except for Mexico and Canada, and we've had only a few wars... the Europeans had a few dozen countries on the continent and they were having wars every bloody week!

But it seems like you should go get a copy of some other game because I don't think any Civilization game will ever satisfy you. I think its balanced between peace and war, and thats really what the argument is about. If you want a game that is MORE culture, economy, politics, etc. than war, then don't play Civilization.

Again, this is a conquest victory you speak of, not a cultural or diplomatic victory.

I don't think I ever tried to make it seem like it was a cultural or diplomatic victory. I trying to make a point that ANY Civilization game really has no point except production and technology. So really ANY victory is just a product of these two elements its all a matter of how you go about it.

[Velociryx]

I would put forth the notion that simply having more "stuff to do" does not necessarily add to a game's complexity.

Complexity comes from providing more "stuff to do" and then giving you lots of ways to implement the uses of the new stuff you have to work with.

This is clearly not what has happened in Civ3.

Take the single biggest changes to the game (from civ2 to civ3), namely, Resources and Culture.

One would think that the addition of these two items would add a deep and satisfying element to gameplay that would enhance replayability, and on the surface of it, it certainly appears to.

But after playing half a dozen or so games (this number is not set in stone, your mileage may vary), it becomes painfully apparent just how linear these new options were welded onto the basic framework of the game.

Examples of this include such things as:
1) There are no "pure" cultural-enhancing builds...EVER. Every city improvement that provides a boost to culture ALSO provides a boost to something (generally happiness or research). Since the names of city improvements have been largely unchanged (completely unchanged?) from civ2 to civ3, it's pretty easy to see that, instead of attempting to come up with new city builds that would enhance culture, they just tacked on a culture-enhancing effect to existing improvements. Not necessarily a bad thing by itself, but what it DOES (and I doubt that this was the intended effect) is "cheapen" the new aspect of the game. It looks and feels hastily tacked on, rather than being a force in its own right.

2) Resources - Divide these into two camps...luxuries and "strategic." Luxury resources NEVER run out, and are generally found in vast fields and patches. Not only is this exceedingly simplistic, but it's also unbalancing, especially when taken together with the possibility of getting a tundra/peninsular/jungle start vs. the AI.

Strategic resources really aren't all that strategic. There's no system in place that calls for careful management of your resources...you have no idea when they might simply vanish out from under you (ask the coal miners in Kentucky if they have a pretty fair idea of how much more coal they can get outta the mine...I do not believe you'll get "Oh..I dunno Frank...we'll just keep working it till it dries up I guess." as an answer). Thus, about all these "strategic resources" do is throw an unwelcome randomizing element into the game which gets very tiresome after a while.

And, for semi-renewable resources (horses, and Ivory, for example) there's no possibility of excellence through resource management.

A MUCH more intriguing implementation of the resource model would have been to give the player some idea of how many "points" a given mine had in it, and deduct x points from the mine as units/builds requiring that resource were made. Thus, the player would be forced to make a number of "interesting decisions" (a phrase we heard a LOT about during civ3's development) regarding what to build and why. (Hmmm...my iron mine says it only has 200pts left in it....now, I don't know how accurate that is, cos I haven't researched advanced engineering yet, which would give me a better sense of my mine capacities...so...do I want to build three extra swordsmen now, or an early foundary? (conjectural new build).). Note the difference in game play there?

With regards to semi-renewable resources like horses, each time you train a unit of cav, your herd population would decrease...by remaining at peace, you would allow those numbers to slowly increase again to some computer-defined maximum level. Additionally, horses could be "comsumed" in any number of ways besides training troops (reducing your herd could help feed a city that was starving, you could "cash in" some of your herd for x production shields to speed build improvements, etc). There are SOOOO many more interesting implementation possibilities than the ones we were given.

In my mind, that's the biggest disappointment.

Where are the "interesting decisions" everyone kept clamoring about?

Simple? Absolutely, and this, regardless of how many new toys were added.

-=Vel=-

[Deornwulf]

Vel - You have managed to very eloquently capture the essence of what I have been trying to say. I really like your resource idea. Having to make choices as to how to spend resources would make the game very interesting. There is so much more that could be done with resources to add complexity to the game without making it an exercise in micromanagement.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Velociryx
There are no "pure" cultural-enhancing builds...EVER. Every city improvement that provides a boost to culture ALSO provides a boost to something (generally happiness or research).

While this is one of Civ3's most obvious shortcomings, it is also one of the (few) things that can be vastly improved by using Gramphos' tool and the editor. Namely, korn has added 'culture-only'-buildings (e.g. theaters and museums) in his blitz mod, and from the test games I've played so far it seems that following a 'cultural' path becomes a viable strategy.

[Velociryx]

Thanks Deornwulf.....coming soon to a game near you....

While those ideas won't find their way into our early release of the Courts of Candle'Bre, I'm working up the societal model for the game's commercial release (predicated on the success of the free release), and it includes a resource system very like the one touched on here....

To Lockstep: Yep...the Blitz-Mod is fantastic...a great improvement on the game. My biggest gripe there is that we ought not have to rely on the Mod-Community to get the game into a finished state....Modding, IMO, is all about enhancing and changing the direction and flavor of a game, not providing free mechanic services on something that shoulda been done that way to start with. But that observation aside, you're quite right...the Blitz-Mod rocks!

-=Vel=-

[Dom Pedro II]

Velociryx -

I agree that there are definitely shortcomings in the economic system... fundamental problems, in fact. But certainly a step-up from Civilization 2.

The idea you have said about having units of a material I think would be very good, and is in fact what I was hoping to see in Civilization 3. It would be good if every place for resources had different values. Each vein and each deposit has a different quantity. A civilization could have veins all over the place in their civilization and still be rather poor in that resource.

What I would like to add and stress is the following: I think energy should be taken into account and a lack of Coal, Oil, Uranium, etc. should cause certain improvements not to function and units should be weakened... but the resources should be EVERYWHERE so the player isn't stuck with no resources whatsoever, but their veins may be too small to give them the kind of supplies they need to run at FULL strength. Second, I was really hoping to manufactured goods and plantations become a part of Civilization 3, but I didn't see this. Plantations would be tile improvements built within a city radius that would give Cotton, or Sugar, or other types of cash crops depending on the type of plantation. The Cotton could then be sold to another civilization, who if they had a Textile Mill, could process the Cotton into Clothes (a luxury commodity) that could be resold to other civilizations. Of course, Cotton is only one example... electronics, cars, pottery, and other such items would be involved.

There could also be Wheat, Corn, Rice, and Potato commodities that can be traded to other civilizations and would increase the "food" in another civilization's (or your own) cities. A desert city could be dependent on a grassland city for most of its food coming in. One civilization could theoretically then become the bread basket of another civilization.

Consider though the diplomatic implications for such a system. In this case, a small civilization could control almost all of the world's supply of Oil because of very large Oil quantities. Now, other civilizations might have A LITTLE to keep the basic functions running, but they can't fight large scale wars without trading with the little guy. That means 2 things... A) the little guy will be very important, and B) the big guys will want to protect him from other big guys who try to take his oil for themselves.

Now, consider the warfare implications. You are a moderately-sized civilization going up against a military juggarnaut. He has the bigger army, but you have the larger navy. He has to import all of his Oil from other countries, so you set up a blockade of his cities. Without the Oil, his factories can't run, his tanks are reduced to a mere fraction of their original strength, and his planes can't get off the ground. In a few turns, the siege will cripple him, and you can win without even having to starting chucking offensive units at cities.

[PerpetualNewbie]

Vel, I like the resource idea and all, but the implications of a more realistic resource model are pretty far-reaching. A tank, for instance, would take far more iron than 100 swordsmen, for instance. And an aircraft carrier? Voof! I suppose you could handle it by having various metallurgy techs that would allow you to use ore bodies that were previously too low-grade. Or by salvaging scrap from opponent's defeated tanks. It is definitely added complexity, but I'm not convinced that would add to the fun. In fact, I'm inclined to think that it just exascerbates the problems of starts that are lacking key resources. And the change would necessarily add a lot of time to the game -- so much so that I doubt you could finish a game in an evening. Maybe not a problem for some, but I tend to forget a lot if I have to save and then restore a day or two later, so I usually either finish the game in one sitting, or "call it" and head to bed without saving.

Pure culture enhancements are a great idea. Do you have a suggestion for how to generate great leaders? If there was a peaceful means of hurrying production, that would reduce the benefits of war, certainly.

Something I have pondered for a while is battlefield upgrades -- if your warrior manages to kill a swordsman, should he be able to pick up the sword and shield and upgrade? That would drastically reduce the disadvantage of being iron-less, something that might be good from a game balance POV, and arguably from a realism POV. I would think it should be in the same upgrade path, though, so a spearman taking out a tank just remains a spearman, but a horseman who takes out a cav would be given the option to upgrade.

[Deornwulf]

Dom Pedro - Have you been playing Conquest of the New World?



It has a fairly good resource system. Different types of ore, food, and wood produce variable levels of benefit. I'm not mad that wood was not included in the game as a resource but different types of timber could have which could increase production, allow stonger ships, etc.

[Velociryx]

Dom: I like your ideas re: partial functionality, and totally agree that such a system could have, and should have been incorporated into the overall design.

PN: I'm thinking that, given the "age threshold" (Ancient, Midieval, Industrial, Modern) break points in the game, I'd set the mineable "point" system on a sliding scale, changing from age to age (representing greater efficiencies in mining processes as certain technologies are discovered). Of course, as you say, modern equipment will "cost" more use points than older stuff, but this will at least be partially offset by increasing efficiencies.

With regards to pillaging enemy war materials....rather than having a mechanism in place to do that (which admittedly, would be accurate, but not add much to the fun factor), that could be abstracted by a "reclamation" minor wonder which would turn iron into a semi-renewable resource (even for civs that HAD no native iron ore), allowing at least some of the resource to filter to any civ that built the MW.

Peaceful Great Leaders: Something like a "Great Artist" - essentially the exact same thing as a GL, but can't be used to form armies.

Civs that reach certain cultural milestones (x culture per turn + the following minor wonders (Art Academy, Civic Centers in at least ten cities, etc) would have a % chance per turn of generating a Great Artist for as long as they remained at peace. Unlike GL's, you could have multiple GA's at any given time, although holding them prolly would serve no particular benefit, save for issues of timing (tho we could say that they'd also grant a small research boon or something).

How's that for off the top 'o my head?

-=Vel=-

[Dom Pedro II]

Actually, up until Civilization 3's release, I had been working for a few years on a board game that would implement much of the ideas I enumerated above. Well, actually, it was a board game with an accompanying computer program that would manage all of the figures like population, resource stockpiles, etc. It was played on a Risk-like board of the world (except about double the size). I never got it up and going though because every single computer program I tried to write myself flopped . But the concept was sound. I may find some programmer actually willing to help me one of these days.

One more thing I forgot to mention. The Steel Mill... (iron works basically)... it would process iron into steel that would be used to build tanks, planes, etc. It wouldn't be necessary for every city, just one or two to supply the rest of them with enough steel.

[Dom Pedro II]

Well, Vel, I don't know about the Great Artist unit, if that is in fact what you meant by a Great Artist. A unit-form would really be rather pointless, but I could certainly see that a particular amount of cultural advancements like libraries, museums, statues, etc. and maybe the amount of funding going towards the arts? would greatly increase the chances of a Great Artist "event". In other words you might get a prompt that says for example "While sitting underneath a tree, an apple fell on Isaac Newton's head and he was inspired to form the Theory of Gravity" and then you'd get the Theory of Gravity technology. Or "A Great Arts festival was held in *****", and you receive bonus cultural points or extra science bonus for a certain number of turns. This would also add onto your Final Score and so on. Something like that I think would work best. Also because it shows those revolutions made by one or two people who come up with something totally new and innovative...but they do not exist in a vacuum either... if Isaac Newton lived on the Russian steppes and couldn't read or write he probably wouldn't have thought up the theory of gravity, apple or no apple.

[Unspeakable Horror]

Dom Pedro II: You know? what you described is exactly the type of game i would have liked to see...

[PerpetualNewbie]

Get rid of the "peacetime" thing, make it purely a function of culture, and I think you might have something, Vel. Problem I see with the peacetime proviso is that it gives me yet another reason to stay at war with an AI trying to build culture. A game where you start next to Ghandi or Mao, for instance, is going to play much differently than one where you start next to Shaka or Montezuma. (Maybe that is a good thing, though. You couldn't decide what kind of a win you were going for before you started the game, for instance...)

But question for you. Doesn't limiting the quantity of iron in a resource tile make it even more important to get a large territory? As it is now, get one, and you are fine. You can play the game. Get two and you have a security blanket. Any beyond that is simply resource deprivation. Under a limited resource model, it is important to get all the iron, if only to keep the AI from wasting it on units you are going to kill with your superior units, anyway. (Presumably they could put a huge dent in the resource pile by drafting, couldn't they?) After all, if the limit is so high you aren't going to hit it if you own one or two iron tiles anyway, why bother with the complexity?