posted May 24, 1999 09:15                

1 - Geology. The game spans a couple thousand years. What to do about real earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, land creation/destruction, and even continental drift?

2 - Starting date. CivII had a quick start option, where you began with some cities already. Why not expand on it? Have options to start at the beginning, as always, with a few settlers. Or start in the midieval age, with larger empires (still not off your original continent, though), and the appropriate tech. Or start right now in the modern era, with all land controled by someone or other, and large empires. Or the future. Somtimes we want to play a quick game in the modern era, but don't want to resort to scenarios, or go through all the work to get there.

posted May 24, 1999 18:50                

Removing the emphassis on cities
The position of CIV,CtP,SMAC, and other games of this genere, is that the CITY is the center of society, and the primary focus.

Instead, I counter, that it is the network of all human populaces, all structures (mines. roads, barracks, factories, ect.), and how they interact that decide if a nation is to succede or fail.

Regions
Regions, by their definition, is the combined character of a geographical location. To represent this, regions must be added to CIV3.
Various methods of creating regions has been discussed in other threads. I prefer computer generated, fixed regions. These would conform to terrain and natural boundries (rivers, mountains, Ocean). Regions would also have a maxinum size.
I do not believe that fixed regions would subtract from the game, since real-life regions have remained the same thoughout history, though their names have been changed, and they have been contested.
Regions would form the primary borders of a society, contested regions would have interior borders similar to SMAC.

Habitation and Population
Before cities were constructed, people were nomadic... or semi-nomadic. This needs to be represented in CIV3. My suggestion would be to treat NOMADIC POPULATIONS as a mobile city, but not "improvable".
Eventually settlements were built, which grew into towns, which grew into cities.
I believe settlements should be reprented with evolving grapichs which expand to additional tiles as the settlement expands.

The concept of city improvements is simply an abstract for the implementaion of new technology within a city. I believe CIV gamers can handle a more realistic aproach to city development:
1) Technology implementation- When new technology which can benifit a settlement (let's say an Aqueduct) is discovered, that tech must first be implemented. This cost revenue (an alternative name for GOLD), and is based upon the size of a city (It is harder to incorporate new tech into larger, more stable cities). This expenditure reprensts the cost of materials, the cost to educate engineers, and incentives to implement the technology. Once the technology is implemented, it provides it's benefits to the settlement (in this case a reduction in negative health modifiers due to overcrowding and allowing larger cities). Technology may be implemented on a city, regional or national level to reduce micromanegement.

2) City improvement. A city has many diffrent aeras in which to improve... Housing, Industry, Economy, Recreation and so on. I suggest abstract level to each aera. Thus a city with a level 4 Indusstry typically can produdue more than one with a Level 3 Industry. Improvement require Public Works, similar to CtP. To increase in an aera, a certain number of PW must be spent. Like-wise any nessacary tech must have been implemented. (In our example above, an aqueduct will allow habitation Level 4 & 5 to be reached. If the city was at Habitation 3, it would need x amount of public works to reach 4 now that Aqueducts have been implemented.)
Settlements improve semi-automatically... they only use PW to improve a level if that aera is becoming inefficient due to # of people using it. (# of factory workers for Industry, total population for Habitation). As inefficency rises, a larger percent of available PW will be used to enhance that aera. You may also set Priority numbers to the diffrent aeras. This allows a more "hands-off" approach and highly reduced micromanement (you simply choose what percent of PW to enhance the city, priorities are optional, the computer does the rest based upon your population and workforce). As city level in these aeras increase, the settlement will expand to empty tiles, become denser or expand upwards. If you run out of room, you city will stagnate.

Workforce
Your workforce is handled on a city or regional basis, depending on your "National Goverment Level" (Independant/Regional/Federal).

Workforce determines not only what you produce/build but how your cities develop as well (A city lith Level 8 Industry due to a lot of factory workers is much different than a city with Level 8 religion due to lots of clergy. Detroit vs. the Vatican)

All other projects utilize PW, from mines to roads to Wonders(which appear on the map)

Other conepts will be included, and i'll expand on them later (Goverment, Stockpiles (National vs. Regional) and army production to name a few).

The result will be a highly graphical representation of you NATION, not just cities. Also Micromanement of city improvement is eased, to allow for more detailed workforce, supply and economy.

posted May 26, 1999 15:43                

Some, like volcanoes, fault lines, and flood prone rivers could appear as special terrain features. "Bad occurrences" would be randomly generated. The effects of a "bad occurrence" would be generally related to the occurrence, i.e., floods cause food losses, volcanoes cause population and, perhaps, other losses, earthquakes cause improvement and/or productivity losses. The extent of the occurrence's effect (the distance from the terrain feature the effect is felt) is whatever makes sense depending on how this is incorporated into the game. (One thought in this regard is to have the bad occurrence affect "X" number of surrounding squares. That way, the player helps determine the potential impact on the city through placement of the city.)

Now for what I think could be the good part. Each such terrain feature can have an inherent bonus that provides an incentive to take the risk of settling within range of the effects of a bad occurrence. This might not necessarily exist at the outset, but instead require a new technological advance. For example, volcanoes and flood prone rivers could provide extraordinary shield production (in CIV II terms) upon discovery of the technology necessary to harness their power and either construction of some related improvement or deployment of a settler/worker to transform the terrain to implement the technology. Fault lines could be especially rich in super oil/gas fields.

To extend the technology interplay further, development of certain technologies could enable you to lessen the impact of a bad occurrence through increased abilities to predict them, and thus theoretically take some sort of steps to reduce the negative impact. Under this scenario, you are powerless until the right technology is developed, but your risk is quantitatively smaller because your cities are smaller. This is particularly true if a bad occurrence affects surrounding squares because smaller cities have fewer squares in production (this also assumes the "square" tile layout is maintained, but the concept is not dependent on this).

Where bad occurrences are tied to specific terrain, players are forced to make a risk/benefit analysis in deciding whether or not to settle an area. The player has the choice, however. With hurricanes and tornados, perhaps there should be no potential benefit, just a random chance of something bad happening. IMO, these types of things should occur only very rarely and you should be able to disable them if you choose. I know a lot of people don't like the idea of occurrences that they are powerless to do anything about, but the reality is that these things happen just that way.

posted June 01, 1999 18:49                

As much as I liked the CivII system, I think CivIII should be a hybrid of CtP and SMAC approaches.

PW: I strongly support a system of PW like in CtP. It is far less hassle than using settlers or formers - a large reduction in micromanagement. Easily the most important consideration.

Terraforming: the idea itself is sort of silly in the context of the historical period in the game. In CivII, my engineers (who appeared with Explosives, a circa 1850 tech) would run out of useful things to do, so I'd just keep changing glaciers into grassland and moving my hills onto rivers to max out my cities. Aside from the micromanagement it involves, the idea that this kind of work can be done with anything short of WAY FAR future tech is ludicrous.

At the very least, provide us with some sort of convincing explanation: a "Weather Control" technology would be a nice start.

More importantly, even to the extent that terraforming is possible, try to make it appropriately scaled. Clearing forests doesn't take more than a large fire or an iron axe, and so should appear early. Changing a swamp into a desert mountain requires a lot more - make the tech (and PW reqs) reflect this.

Styles of improvements: CivII has a nice selection of both tile-based and city-based improvements (Harbors and Supermarkets for example). This should continue. I prefer more of everything, (I know - it is somewhat inconsistent to want more more more but have to do less micromanagement ) so I like both approaches. I also think there should be city improvements which *allow* certain TI, and vice versa. I.e. you could not build fisheries until you had built a harbor, or you could not build advanced mines until you had a railroad connecting to your city.

I had hoped for more discussion of this, with examples and ideas, but it looks like Yin wants this wrapped up soon - but comments are of course welcome.

Transport TI: 2 beefs. One - I like the graphics for this in SMAC/Civ2 FAR MORE than in CtP: the ctp system is ugly. The representation of the transit type from the center of one square to the center of another should be uniform, not change abruptly at the square boundary.

Two - don't link them to special energy/trade/etc bonuses. It just provides an incentive to cover every square with railroads/maglevs/whatever. Nothing is uglier (well, maybe combining this flaw with the number One above - ecch). These TI graphics usually look quite cool when they are laid out in single stretches between cities, but when they cover the landscape like a fungus, they are hideous. Keep it simple and clean.

Sea Transport: Railroads in CivII allowed unlimited movement points, and given the scale of a turn (1-5 years by that point in the game) it makes sense. Airlifts also allowed for a reasonable approximation of the capabilities of the modern nation to rapidly reposition equipment and goods (although I'd prefer some sort of system with limit on total number of airlifts in a turn, but not tied to any one city - in Berlin, the Allies had a fixed number of aircraft, but they could fly them all into one city 'round the clock).
So why is sea power so damn slow? Solutions:

- Shipping - Allow sea transport TIs that scale with technology (sailing ships, modern cargo, and some future hydrofoil-style-thing, for examples). A player places (or builds, if you're going to use a "sea-former" type thing) a ferry/trade route which allows for fast-faster-instant (depending on type) transport from a city/port accross the ocean. Then, you just "drive" your tank across the ocean, although it could not attack and would have a defensive value of 0 if it got caught there. Just like a road or RR, it can be pillaged/pirated and destroyed, which would constitute an Act of War.

Sea power units are still needed to protect the routes and power project, as are transports to land equipment in other locations not served by regular trade routes, or if a player is cautious and wants the extra protection that Galleons/Transports provide. Different players could have their routes cross, but I imagine they would be rapidly cut in a war.

- Bridges/Tunnels - short one-square distances could be bridged over shallow water, a la the Japanese islands and the Florida Keyes; or tunnels in similar places like Chunnel. More advanced future-techs allow for longer bridges or under-sea tunnels.

Supply Crawlers in SMAC - generally a bad idea. Too much micromanagement, and too little relevance to Civ3/human history. They allowed for huge cities to be sure, but CtP has demonstrated that there are other ways to solve this.

Aside on Huge Cities in general: I'd rather see a more developed economic system that could mimic some of these effects, but at least the game should recognize that availability of food hasn't been a determinant of city size for over a thousand years. Cities create demand for food which is almost always met. Food can be interrupted to be sure, resulting in short-term famine and decline, but long-term city growth (even over the "mere" decades of a medieval-period Civ turn) depends more heavily on other factors like employment, social policy, war, disease, peace, and immigration. The demand for food that large cities or burgeoning rural populations create *drives* agricultural innovations, money economies, and cashcropping, not vice versa.

Upgrading of TI: older TI in a square should reduce the cost of an upgrade, but should not be a pre-req. Players should be able to plop down the newest available TIs immediately on unimproved land... they'll just cost more.

posted June 01, 1999 19:52                

In CivII it was the railroad, and in SMAC it was the forest.. a generic TI to cover everything.

posted June 14, 1999 10:32                

1) If a CTP slavery system is included I would like the ability to choose the city where slaves are sent and also the ability to sell/exchange slaves to other civilizations. If you age going to have a slavery system what good is it if it cannot replicate the brutal slave trade which contributed to the instuition's ultimate demise.

2) I would like the ability to trade/buy cities from other civs and the ability to grant independence to a group of cities or region that were causing me distress (e.g. if the Democracy government type has a high distance and # of cities penalty and some of the far off cities thereby revolt, I could replicate the US & phillipnes Uk & India scenarios.)

3) I agree that an AOE-type of landscape with cliffs & beaches should be adopted.

posted June 15, 1999 16:40                

Around a year ago this concept was mentond. In the past, communication within a nation was very important to keep the nation together. If citizens didn't hear from its capital for a long time, they might revolt. When you first start the game, the farther away a city is, the more likely it will revolt. Such as having a 1 out of X chance of revolting, and a 1 out of X+X (or some other complex equasion ;-) )chance of seperating from your nation. City size will also effect this, as well as the number of you cities. Having units moving back and forth between citys can lower chances of revolt and seperation by representing comunication between cities. Having roads betwwen cities will also lower chances of revolt. Traid routs will lower chances further, as well as goverment type, and certen technolagies (raidio, television, etc). This will help reduce the problem of "If you build 20 cities in the first 50 turns, you will win the game."
Hopefully you get the idea I'm talking about.

posted June 15, 1999 22:55                

Also, the whole point of the game is to build an empire.

posted June 16, 1999 20:00                

BTW, nothing personal to you, Dave. I just have fun defending and debating.