How many civs in Civ 3?

[Roman]

How many civs will it be possible to have in one game of Civ 3? The number of leaders (16) seems somewhat encouraging if that means we will see the possiblity of 16 civs per game. If not...

[Ilkuul]

I hope there will be many more than in Civ2.

However, if Civ3 allows the possibility of cities of existing empires revolting to form new independent civs of their own -- which I really hope it will! -- then the number of civs you start the game with will have to be less than the total number possible: perhaps a lot less.

It would be good to hear from Firaxis what sort of numbers they have in mind.

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Ilkuul

Every time you win, remember: "The first shall be last".
Every time you lose, remember: "The last shall be first".
[This message has been edited by Ilkuul (edited April 04, 2001).]

[Insigna]

I think that you should be able to play with up to 64 civs. They should have generic leader graphics for all the other civs if they don't have time to make that many. But more civs is more realistic and more fun.

This topic was discussed at length last Oct, Nov, and Dec. Also one of our Apolyton guys who is a programmer wrote a quit long post explaining how hard it is to have more than 8 civs. As you know Civs 1, 2, and TOT all have 6 plus barbarian plus you to make 8 total. CTP 1 and 2 have 7 plus barbarian plus you for 9. I read one of the posts last week, one of our players was playing with 16 Civs in CTP and he said it was taking up to 15 min. for the computer to complete its turn.
Remember this also “Sid” has already said many months ago he would keep the computer requirements as low as possible so almost everyone can play. CTP 2 will run on P-1 166 w/64 Megs of RAM.
If we have more than 10 to 12 Civs, I will be surprise. This month issue of CGW has a picture of 7 leaders, maybe that is a hint. But I guess you can keep hoping.


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[MrFun]

64 civilizations!? How much Mountain Dew or Surge did you drink??

In my opinion, the maximum of 18 civilizations is the best limit. Otherwise, there would be NO early expansion without conflict, and the prehistoric and ancient world was sparsely populated.

Only when peoples started migrating and shifting did some of the first conflicts and wars break out.

[Insigna]

Well 64 would just be an option. I have a fast computer so that would not be a problem andthey could just have much bigger maps which would get rid of early conflict I don't see a problem for it as at least an option. And i dont't drink Mt. Dew or surge.

[Roman]

Remember that the maximum no. of civs can only easily be one of those binary numbers: 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. Of course you have to subtract one from each of these numbers to account for the barbarian civ. Now, Ctp2 succesfully implemented 32 civs, so I cannot see why Civ3 couldn't have 16. In fact I think it well might, since the CGW article states there will be 16 leaders...

I hope they have more than 8 civs. I hate those artificial limits - they really hamper my scenario-making. In Civ2 I would always first run out of civs (my main grieviance about limits), then cities...

let's face it: the most probable if there are 16 leaders is that there will be only 8 civilizations in each game
i'd really hope it be 16 (seems a good and reallistically doable number), but i fear it#s only 8

[MrFun]

That would be a mistake on Firaxis part to limit it to 8, but we will be able to modify the minimum number to something higher (I hope).

[kolpo]

16 civilizations to choose from ? That is even less then civ2. Will they call it civ0 then ?

And if they only include 16 civilizations will the civ limit be 7 or something I fear. In both civ1 and civ2 played I quite always with the maxium number of 7 civs because it is more fun especial in diplomacy with more civs. And 7 civs means actualy 4 civs because quite always will some of them die soon. What is the sense of complex diplomacy when there are only so few civs ?

The maxium number of civs is a core gameplay thing which is in my view much more important then animated leaders, animated units and other things who are fun the first week but who you will turn off after that.



[This message has been edited by kolpo (edited April 06, 2001).]

[MrFun]

Koplo - let me clarify my viewpoint.

I would like 42 - 60 civilizations to choose from, and from that list, you should be able to play a game with a maximum 16 civilizations.

[Roman]

quote: Originally posted by MrFun on 04-06-2001 05:19 PM Koplo - let me clarify my viewpoint. I would like 42 - 60 civilizations to choose from, and from that list, you should be able to play a game with a maximum 16 civilizations.

Well, we know that there are 16 civilizations to choose from. That is fine by me, as long as we can play a game with 16 civilizations in it. I am worried, though, that they will restrict it to 8.

[MrFun]

There no use complaining about number of civilizations that Firaxis sets.

We should be able to modify the number of civilizations in a game.

[Insigna]

Only 8 civs would definatly be a step in the wrong derection. At least 16 hopfully more would be nice. This is one of the most basic aspects of the game. I wonder what Dan Magaha has to say about it?

[Cyclotron]

42? 50? Holy smokes!

I personally would like 10-16 civs. It is challenging when you are facing big nations with lots of power and resources... but it is easy when you are just facing tons of divided city-states. I think over 20 civs just makes it way too easy. Why does everyone want so many civs, anyway? More is not always better!

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- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

[MrFun]

Cyclo - you did not read my clarification post in here.

[Roman]

I agree that 16 civs in one game is the most we can realistically hope for, but I surely don't want only 8 civs in one game. This would not be so bad in normal games, but it would severely restrict my ability to create scenarios.

[Jon Miller]

How about starting with many civ and then have many eliminated and absorbed by others through history.

example: you and two rivals are fightig over a archipegio. The king of oneo of the civilizations marries the only daughter of the other one meanig that the same leader is now over both civilizations. While now there is a huge culture difference in the one civ it is now twice as largge and so now you are really in trouble (more so than if they just allied).

example 2: A part of your nation feels distant culturally from the rest of it, they split off and form a new civilization and you lose a quarter of you population.

example 3: Your nation finds a small technologically backwards nation, you over run their cities and take them over. But your new cities are now culturally much different than your old ones.

Jon Miller

[MrFun]

Um - no thanks, Jon.

[me_irate]

In ctp 2 i played with as many as 14 civs. But i didn't finish any of the games because of how long it took for the computer to move in late game. While ctp2 set the max to 8 civs, you could change it in civ.txt file. I believe that since civ3 is being designed to be mod friendly, we can expect to do the same thing with it. For those who have the faster computers they would be able to play with more civs even if the game ships with a default of 8 civs.

[Roman]

quote: Originally posted by me_irate on 04-07-2001 12:02 PM While ctp2 set the max to 8 civs, you could change it in civ.txt file. I believe that since civ3 is being designed to be mod friendly, we can expect to do the same thing with it. For those who have the faster computers they would be able to play with more civs even if the game ships with a default of 8 civs.

That's all I'm askin for anyway. In Civ2, though, you could not change this in the text-file and I fear that the same will be the same in the case of Civ3.

[kolpo]

I think they shouldn't do that with a text file but with a menu at the start of the game. So that you not only have the options 3-7 civs but also the options 8,10,12,15 and custom number of civs. Because most civ players won't know that can be changed with text files.

[raingoon]

You guys all realize that according to Sid himself, Civ 3 will have both Major and Minor Nations, right? And nobody knows anything about the rules concerning Minor Nations, so keep that in mind, but I think it's pretty clear that Firaxis is keeping the number of Major Civs within the scope of what Civ has always been, while trying to add more complexity and interaction to the game world. Probably creating a situation where the game map shows up to 16 civs, including both Major and Minor.

Some things I would guess might be true about these "Minor Nations":

1) Players can now choose to trade with Minor Nations to avoid contributing to the economy of an enemy Great Nation, a drawback of Civ 2.

2) Minor Nations can join Great Nations in various ways, including by public vote, by conquest, by annexation and by vassal. Probably can be affected through both trade and culture. I predict there will be only limited dipomacy between Major and Minor Nations.

3) Your civ can rebel and part of it become a Minor Nation. Watch for lack of cultural development being a factor somehow.

4) Minor Nations probably can be colonized. Can pay dividends to you and can cost you almost everything you have defending them.

These are just my pie-in-the-sky educated guesses, but again, we do know that Minor Nations will be in the game and I think that points to the answer for the question, how many civs in Civ 3? 7, total. Plus barbarians, maybe. Plus Minor Nations, definitely.

[Wittlich]

Raingoon has made a valid point here ... I completely forgot about the major and minor civilizations which will be in Civ3. IMHO, having this element in Civ3, 8 MAJOR civilizations would probably work out fine (especially if there are a number of MINOR civs in play)

[Adm.Naismith]

Sure Raingoon, I too hope that Minor Civ concept will save this part of the game.

I voted the old poll for some more Civ: not too much, because I share the fear of too many Civ killing the game concept, playability and PC resources for decent AI.

I hoped that inside city borders Firaxis would remove workers assigment on tiles, to cut AI trouble. That's not in the news, so Firaxis is forced to keep the number of nations small enough.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

Well, then there is some hope! If there can be 16 Major civs, and a bunch of minor ones that would be just fine. Info about civ3 has got me on a rollercoaster of "That's Great"'s and "Oh, Noooooo"'s!

[St Leo]

Hmm, 64 civs at 3 cities per civ would work quite well on an average Civ2 map. Coupled with a good diplomatic AI many civs would make for a fun game.

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Leons Petrazickis (St. Leo)
http://aventine.cf-developer.net/minizigg/
petrazi@sprint.ca

[Fintilgin]

Well, if nothing else, I hope they allow the option, /unsupported/ of course, to play with a large number.

Let's say they restrict it to 8 at once (which I fear they'll do). In the text files there should be the option to edit that number, up to say 32, 64, 128 or something. You know like this...

/Number of Civilizations. If you edit this value, Firaxis and Infogrames cannot provide technical support. Tweak at your own risk!

Civnum = 8

If I have a fast computer then I should have the option to play with a big bunch of civilizations at once. I might have to add my own art and city names and such, but that's no big deal. The CTPs allowed this. If Firaxis wants the out-of-the-box number to be seven or eight, that's fine. But if they HARDCODE that restriction in so we can't play around with it, I'll be very, very sad.

Europa Univeralis runs 80 or 90 nations at once. They don't have as much to think about as CivIII countries likely will, but I'm sure most top of the line computer now could run at least twenty or so. Imagine how many Civ or CivII nations a modern computer could run. If a few years from now I want to try CivIII with fifty opponents I should have the chance to try (even if you think that's crazy).

Joe
(With his one and only pet peeve with the Civ/CivII/SMAC line of games)

[Adm.Naismith]

Well, it seems to me an already chewed argument, but...

Lot of people seems to believe any number of Civ can be playable given a PC with enough steam (any commercially available, of course): well, not really.

Some factors must be considered:
1) adding a Civ increase the number of interactions (at least diplomatic and strategic) in a very power hungry way for AI controlled Civ, because you can't simply add 1/n Civ equivalent PC resource, you must consider every Civ already on the table must multiply their interaction with n+1 Civ.

If 7 Civ interacts each one, itself excluded, 6*6=36 "computation" needed,
8 Civ needs 7*7=49 so 13 "computational units" more than before.

32 Civ push the requirements to 31*31=961, a huge 26 TIMES more!

This must be taken with some salt, because all of us know it doesn't consider all the other factors, as huge maps to assure enough room for every Civ, less interaction on the field because some Civ will scarcerly meet (but they still must been considered by AI in crossed alliance, long trade, etc.), small initial number of Cities per Civ (but more great for succesful conquerer players by mid game).

I don't want to bother you with more (bad) math, so I'll like to target your attention to the overkill turn sequence:

2) In pure TBS like Civ any player risk to be crushed from enough players ganged against him/her, because any players must wait the end of the game sequence before react (with military action or allegiance). After a sequence of 35 other players it will be flat dead, without a chance.
We'll need something more on the line of Simultaneous turns or other hybrid system to cope with all this, IMHO.

Ok, I hope I raise some doubt to all enthusiast of large numbers of Civ

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Fintilgin]

You don't raise much doubt in my mind!

I used to play Civ1 on my old 40mhz 386. I imagine my new 866 Pentium III could handle far more than than 32 Civ1 style computer civilizations with no appreciable slowdown.

Again, look at Europa Universalis. Each one of those 90(!) odd countries can have diplomatic relations with each of the other nations, including like and dislike, royal marriages, military alliances, causus belli, etc etc. All these countries can move their armies around, start wars, explore, trade, and improve their proviences. I understand that the game runs quite well on computers much, much slower then my own. Not only that, but the AI is generaly regarded as very good for a computer game. Will CivIII AIs need more complexity? Sure, but I doubt enough that most folks with mid to upper range computers couldn't handle more than 7 or 8.

Ganging up? Well, I hope that CivIII uses AI that goes a little beyond having everyone automatically gang up on the leading power (although a little of that is good). As for the turn based thing, if you have 35 people attacking you, then you're likely dead no matter WHERE you are in the turn sequence! You're likely dead if you have the six or seven attacking as well.

Anyway, it could well be that play-testing and balancing the game becomes more complex the more computer players you have on the map. This is why I'd be cheerfully satisfied if Firaxis limited the /official/ number to 8 or so, but allowed users to fiddle with this number like the CTPs did. Leaving the option open is all I'd like.

In my opinion the 7/8 max in all the various spin-offs after Civ1 hangs on more from -tradition- then any other reason. Why not ten for example, or twelve? Are those numbers going to reduce the game to a crawl? Probably not.

"Well, golly, if seven civilizations was good enough for Civilization, it's good enough for Civilization III."

Joe