posted June 10, 1999 16:23            

I. Number of Civilizations Included
II. Number of Civilizations playable in One Game
III. Special Abilities for Individual Civilizations
IV. Personalities for Individual Civilizations
V. “Civilization” Feeling in Civilization
VI. Minor/Major Civilizations
VII. Others
VIII. Civilizations suggested
Appendix I: Historian

I wish to thank Yin for setting up the whole system, and to some of my faithful visitors of this thread: Snowfire, Ecce Homo, Trachmyr, Eggman, Travathian, Freddz, Imran Siddiqui, HolyWarrior, Stefu, Darkstarr, Kmj, Diodorus Sicius, the Octopus, evilconquerer, Mo, Utrecht, crusher, Paul, NotLike Tea, CormacMacArt, Isle, VaderTwo, delcuze2, E, monolith94, Aharon Ben Rav, St. Leo, Cartagia the Great, PhotonMan, Harel, Transcend, paraclet, Kris Huysman .

I. Number of Civilizations Included

I asked how many civilizations should be included in the gaming software. But from the response elicited, this is not a real priority.

Seven civilizations from each of the ages included in the game (Travathian)

“Hundreds!” (Eggman)

As much as Firaxis can reasonably squeeze in, but it shouldn’t be a priority. (Freddz)

II. Number of Civilizations in One Game

Civ II allowed you to play with seven civilizations. CTP upped it to eight, but by tweaking the files, you could jack the number up to 32. However, from the responses, it is assumed that the general agreement is that there should be a choice ranging from three to thirty-two or more. It should be easy to change it – perhaps in the startup stage of the game.

Give the player the choice: see how their computers can handle it. At least 32 civilizations should be playable at one time. Otherwise, it is a step backward from CTP. (Eggman)

If I wanted to play with 100 or 200 civilizations, I should be able to do that. (Paul)

Have a drop-down menu ranging from 3 civilizations up to - and possibly over - 32. Include a warning message if one exceeds the number of civilizations recommended for enjoyable play according to his/her computer specs. (LordStone1)

III. Special Abilities

Civ II did not offer any civilizations any special abilities. Neither did CTP, so the only difference between one civilization and another was the color, the architecture, and the AI personality. However, SMAC had seven distinct factions, each with special abilities. We discussed whether this idea could be implemented in Civ III.

No. It may tick off people if some civilizations got slighted. There are too many civilizations anyway. (Darkstarr) There should be no individual properties for civilizations except for architecture and AI personalities. (Ecce Homo) No - what if Vikings have a seafaring advantage, but a random map puts them in the middle of a grassland? (Kmj) There should not be any difference between civilizatins among the lines of social engineering stats. This will cause unimaginable damage to the game on any number of levels. (Shining1)

Special abilities should be optional - you can turn them on or off. It also should play-balance. How about having civilizations “earning” advantages? Over a period of time, you could acquire points which you could spend on whatever particular advantage you want. (Eggman)

Give them a tech in what they specialize at the beginning of the game. (Imran Siddiqui)

Any special abilities based on civilizations borders on racism, and is clearly a bad idea. On the other hand, different civilizations in history are different from each other. So, different civilizations should have preferences, like this civ would take the Conquer option if this was a choice given. (NotLikeTea) Give them different motives, a la SMAC’s “Discover, Build, Explore, Conquer”. Perhaps, make the British strong in Math and Economics, and Greeks with Philosophy. Give them ‘focuses.’ (Snowfire)

How about this: about 1000 years into the game, once you’ve had a chance to explore around a bit, a screen will pop up allowing you to customize your civilization. However, there would be a limit of two or three items that you chould change, and each advantage has to be offset by a disadvantage. This could be made part of a larger social engineering area. (VaderTwo)

Possible Cultural/Civilization Emphasis(es) by VaderTwo:
Increased/Decreased:
-Amount of food
-Amount of shields required for units
-Amount of shields required for city improvements
-Amount of shields required for wonders
-Movement rate
-Attack/Defense factors
-Happiness
-Viewing range
-Amount of science rate
-Amount of money
-Amount of luxuries
-Attitude toward your civ by other civs
-Terraforming
-Random events (good and bad)

Have differentiated civilizations: Say, Mesopotamia has a start with a greater emphasis on agriculture, but have them decide where they want to lead their civilization. (The Octopus)

Each civilization should be very different from each other - otherwise, why choose one civilization over another? Have +1 research, -2 economy, etc. (evilconquerer)

Lump civilizations together in categories of civs, like “Warlike” would get Bronze Working while “Peaceful” would begin with Alphabet. It would be like how the white civilizations were always expansionist in Civ II, the blues more peaceful. (LordStone1)

Have them form special abilities over time - if one civilization has been warring for a very long period of time, they should begin to grow special abilities favoring them in war. If you build a lot of boats, you get better at seafaring. (Freddz, NotLikeTea, delcuze2) However, some should be exclusive. It would be dull to artificially train to be good at everything. Being exceptionally good at one thing should take up enough resources to preclude experts in everything. The “special abilities by doing” idea is a popular idea.

Have special abilities be assigned based on geographical starting positions. For example, if your first city is near a desert, that civilization can get Irrigation as their first free advance, or get +1 in farming. Build on that idea. (Diodorus Sicilus, CormacMacArt) These attributes should be limited, however, like a single tech or a +1 bonus in something. This will solve the problem of offending anyone by giving out racial attitudes. (Bell) Everyone seems to like this idea.

IV. Personalities for Individual Civilizations

One of the things you could always depend on in Civ II was that you had to squash the Mongols and the Russians immediately, since they were aggressive, expansionist, and extremely warlike. Should this be carried onto Civ III?

Each civilization should have a distinct personality. When playing on the Earth map, the personalities should mirror the real-world ones. However, on a random map, the personalities should also be randomized. (Travathian) For example, “Isabella of Spain should be a total bitch” on the Earth map, but not on a random map (Imran Siddiqui)

Allow personalities to change over the course of the game. A semi-warlike civ can become a pacifist if they lose a big war. The Babylonians can become warlike if their borders are threatened. (Mo)

It would be interesting to have different personalities for one country based on whether the leader was male or female. Stalin would be more warlike, while Catherine would be more enlightened. (Cartagia the Great)

Have a randomize option on the menu like on SMAC. (Freddz)

V. Civilization “Feeling” in Civilization III

The only thing that separated one civilization from another when playing was the color of the shield and one of the four architectural options. We discussed whether this concept should be expanded, so that you get more of a civilization-ism feeling that you are playing the British, not an orange civilization.

Allow unique individuals from certain civilizations pop up as random events. For example, if you were the French, Pasteur would pop up as a random event and give you a science boost. But Pasteur wouldn’t pop up for the Aztecs. (the Octopus)

Replace color-codes with flags. Britain should fly the Union Jack, not some orange shield. (Eggman) This would help if we had 32 civilizations – more variety of colors.

Allow historical names to be used for specific units. The Japanese could have the Samurai, while the Greeks have the Hoplites, and the English their Knights. But all three would be the same unit, just different names. (Shining1)

It is important to be able to tell apart civilizations if you choose to use colors. What happns if you have so many civilizations you have to use red, maroon, chartreuse, puce, and vermillion? (Diodorus Sicilus) Implement different shield designs, like with multiple color designs like stripes, polka dots. (Eggman)

See Minor Techs in Section VII: Other

VI. Major/Minor Civilizations

Obviously, this is a very new and radical idea. People are split on this topic, but we are definitely leaning toward allowing minor civilizations. The big issue are what abilities do the minor civilizations have? Overall, this seems like a very exciting innovation and would greatly enhance the realism of Civ III.

You should consult Microprose’s Birth of the Federation team on this issue. They can probably help you out. (LordStone1)

-You start off with 6-8 major civilizations, and you can choose the settings for minor civilizations: none, same # as major civilizations, double the number, etc.
-Civilizations can upgrade or downgrade between major and minor civilizations
-Minor civilizations should have different diplomatic options and ought to be able to be colonies, client states of major civilizations, or complete integration but with a separate military structure, etc.
-The minor civilizations do not have an expansionist policy. (SnowFire)

How about, every time a city revolts, it becomes a minor civilization? (E)

-Reduce what minor civilizations can do – it will also reduce the algorithms.
-Technology leakage should be the main way the minor civilizations can receive technological advances. (Trachmyr)

-There should be a lot of minor civilizations to start out with, perhaps 16. As the game progresses, they will slowly be reduced and then there will be a group of major powers.
- Major civilizations can have one extra settler and begin their city one unit larger than minor civilizations at the beginning of the game.
-They can merge with other minor civilizations to become a major civilization.
-They can be integrated with a major civilization but have autonomy for a period of time.
-They should not attack any major civilizations unless that major civilization is very weak and they have a good chance of winning.
-Any civilization with nuclear weapons automatically becomes a major civilization.
-Minor civilizations cannot participate in the U.N. or any other similar organization.
-Major civilizations can be downgraded to a minor if they become too weak.
-They ought to easily agree to alliances with major civilizations. (Mo)

How about having them control ONE city? That city should be very developed, have a lot of farms, and wide borders. They could merge with other civilizations. They cannot wage war but they can defend themselves, and they can’t sign any treaties except for trade. (Harel)

No. If a civilization begins in a bad location or is under an inept government, it will stay a minor problem. Let history play itself out. “History Rewards the Strong.” (Utrecht)

It should be included, but not using different civilizations. If you have around 30 cultures available, you can then have 16 as majors and another 8 as minors. (Shining1)

VII. Others

Well, other stuff that didn’t fit anywhere.

Don’t always start with Despotism as your government. You should have a choice at the very beginning: Tyranny, City-State, or Tribal. (Cartagia the Great)

Colonies should be able to be built, or conquered cities could be converted into colonies. They would produce more trade and more capital, but be slightly more expensive to defend, and the people would have a better chance of rebelling than other cities. If they did rebel, they could take neighboring colonies (even some of other civilization’s colonies) and create a new civilization. (Cartagia the Great)

Make civilizations more spread out in starting positions. In Civ II, the historical starting positions sometimes put six civilizations in Europe and one in America. (crusher)

Pop in a (perhaps unpaid) historian on the team to do research into civilizations like for city names, leader names, special scientists for those random events, etc. See Appendix I. (LordStone1)

Minor Techs should be allowed – each minor tech should have a single prerequisite. The minor techs cannot be researched directly. Each minor tech is a deadend addition to the technology tree. There is a small chance of the minor tech popping up randomly between the time where the prerequisite tech is discovered and the research into the next tech. Each civilization has a few minor techs that ALWAYS occur. China will always get “Ming Vase-Making” while Greeks would always get “Rowing Cushions” and the English the “Long Bow.” With the Long Bow, you could add your range to your Archers. Minor techs could also affect city improvements, components, WoW’s.
The advantages are: (1) Interest – you don’t get them every game; (2) Tradibility – since you can’t actively research all of them, you’ll nearly always have something to trade, even with a superior culture; (3) Historial Immersion – they add an even greater depth to the historical aspects of Civ, by including important discoveries that don’t make the main tech tree; (4) Less stagnation – if it takes you 20 turns to research a tech, you have a very good chance of picking up the previous discovery’s minor tech, too; (5) Civ Differentiation – an option to automatically give minor techs to the civilization that discovered them in real life.

This shouldn’t affect the game balance in any great extent, and doesn’t imply that one race is superior in one area than another. There ought to be two per civilization, and at least one minor tech for about 80% of the techs on the tree. (Shining1)

Implement restrictions for expansions like in CTP – the government determines how many cities can exist in one civilization before problems arise. (Depp)

Civ III should be able to read your computer and figure out just how many civilizations your computer can handle. For example, there would be a message: “You have a Pentium II-266 with 128 MB memory. You have chosen 20 civilizations. Your game will be moderately slow.” Or “You have a P-III. You have chosen seven civilizations. Your game will be very fast.” (Trachmyr)

How about having a different kind of civilization in the game along with the normal, city-based one? Nomadic civs! You start with a tribe, not a settler. Tribes have a radius like a city, but they can slowly move. They exploit the terrain differently: no agriculture, but hunters in the woods, herders on the grasslands and plains. They automatically generate Warriors or other military units for the population. Certain improvements would be impossible, but they could have alternatives, such as if they had xtra food, they could put in into Increased Production fabricating things like weapons, trade goods, etc. They would be major traders, and should have an advantage in borrowing techs from settled civilizations they contact, and possibly spreading them to other civs in trade routes. But eventually, the nomad civilization would have to settle down, because Gunpowder, for example, pretty much requires permanent structures to manufacture. But they could do this either by starting their own cities or conquering a lot of other cities! (Diodorus Sicilus)

VIII: Civilizations Suggested

One of the favorite pastimes of Civ players was picking over the choices of civilizations for the game. Obviously, that tradition continues to this very day!

You must include the Arabs! They have been a glaring omission from Civ I and Civ II. (Imran, Eggman, Freddz)

Include all civilizations that either (1) deserve it or (2) are fun. (Eggman)

Include every civilization you sell the game to. (Darkstarr)

Why not have an alien race that crashes onto Earth in the future? (crusher)

They should be included on the basis of distinctiveness, geography, and greatness. But basically, I’ll be happy as long as I can include my own civilizations. (Shining1)

Some civilizations should have a higher chance of being selected than others. If I was playing with 3 other civilizations, I would certainly be disappointed if they were Luxembourg, Andorra, and Liechtenstein. (Paul, Aharon Ben Rav)

Perhaps have civilization names change over time, either in a pre-chosen direction or totally random. You could go from the Franks to the French, the Magyars to the Hungarians, the Slavs to the Serbs, Bulgarians, Russians, and so forth. But if the Franks had a lot of contact with the English, it could become the Franklanders or something.  (Cartagia the Great) Others don’t like this. It would be too complicated. (Imran Siddiqui)

Expand the roles of Barbarians in the games. Why can’t they trade? They can be like middlemen between civs. They could also become normal and start clawing for the top instead of randomly attacking cities and units. (Diodorus Sicilus)

(Ecce Homo, Shining1, HolyWarrior, Stefu, Kerris, Trachmyr, monolith94, Cartagia the Great, Harel, Transcend, Diodorus Sicilus, NotLikeTea, Imran Siddiqui, CormacMacArt)

Aborigines
American
Anatolian
(Anglo-)Saxon
Argentines
Assyrian
Australian
Austro-Hungarian
Aztec
Babylonian
Berbers
Belgian
Brazilians
Byzantine
Canadian
Carthaginian
Celts
Cherokee
Chinese
Cossacks
Danes
Dutch
Egyptian
English
French
Ethiopian
Finns
Gauls
German
Ghana
Greek
Hellenic
Hebrew
Hittites
Huns
Incas
Indian
Irish
Israeli
Japanese
Korean
Khmer
Luxembourg
Macedonian
Mayans
Mesopotamian
Mexican
Minoan
Mongol
Moors
Native American
Nigerian
Norman
Norse
Norwegians
Persian
Phoenican
Polynesian
Portuguese
Polish
Roman
Russian
Scottish
Siamese
Sioux
Spanish
Sumerian
Swedes
Tibetans
Thai
Turk
(Visi)Goths
Vikings
Zulu

Appendix I: Historian

Following the idea that a historian should be on the team, Diodorus Sicilus offered to take the position. Here is what he said:

If the CivIII crew is looking for an Unpaid Historian, I’m not quite Unpaid but could be for them.
Qualifications: 15 military history titles in print, guest lecturer in Military History at the ORIGINS gaming convention, contributor of scenario information to both SSI and Talonsoft games, author or collaborator on two sets of historical miniatures rules, familiar with almost all areas of military history (MA on Alexander the Great, recent writing on Soviet and German army in WWII) European Ancient, early modern, and modern history, Asian ancient and medieval military history, and American Colonial, Native, and early modern history. Some background in Ethnology and Geography, reasonably fluent in German, Russian, Ukrainian, and French.

His e-mail address is: ccsfort@earthlink.net

Whew! Okay, if you got any problems with this, e-mail me, all right? Thanks!

posted June 10, 1999 21:22            

Not really. My idea is for Civilizations, which had a ounger form, to be started in that form. The French would start as the Franks, and the Spanish as the Visigoths at the beginning, with the cities of the correct name. When the right technologies are found, these civilizations would ahve the choice to become the Civilization they changed into. The Franks could become the French or the Visiogths the Spanish. Or, if you chose, you could change thier name to something you preferd like the Franklanders, or something of that sort. City names would also upgrade at that point if you wanted to. This would be nothing fancy at all, nothing complicated, but it would add that extra touch to the game.

posted June 11, 1999 12:43            

Your right, in one way or another, everyone has existed from the stone age. they were just part of a larger group (the Indo-European group which migrated from the Volga, of the Mass Slavic migrations) or so. Later these groups broke off and formed their own societies, and cultures, which have been elvoving up to them odern day. My idea would show case this, and allow you to change the name of your civilization at given points to reflect this change. After all the FRENCH have not been around since the Stone Age. However the Germanic tribes which eventually formed the Franks were, and the Franks then became the French.

My idea wouldn't be radical, and wouldn't do a great deal to the game except add a bit more atmoshphere to it. It would just give you the chance to rename your leader, and Civilization at certian points. It wouldn't change your ratign with other Civilizations(MABE would update City names...MAYBE), but nothing else. And you could even choose not ot do it. For instance, if you were playing the Romans and you had the CHANCE to change their name you would not have to do it, so a Roman Empire COULD, conceivably, remain intact to thel ast stage of the game. If your palying the Birtons(who would become the English..or maybe it would be the Anglo-Saxons who become English...not sure) you could change until you were the British Empire.

posted June 12, 1999 01:43            

i totally agree with you on the dyanasty idea. every so often (55-70 turns or so) your leader should die of natural causes. there could be a funeral ceremony for your old leader and a coronation/inaguration ceremony for your new leader.

also maybe make it extreamly difficult but a spy unit should be able to attempt to assassinate your current leader

i was reading about what people thought about having different SE choices for your civilization and some didn't want them or some wanted them to change over time. if you have the Social Engineering choices determined by your leader it would change whenever your heir took power. if your reign was a brutal dictatorship your heir could either follow in your footsteps if you kept the same government type. (your civ keeps the SE modifiers) or your heir be a revolutionary and change some part of the government. and by changing things your civs inherent SE modifiers would change.

educating your heir could be a cool feature in the game. determing who his teachers were (was it aristotle that was Alexander the great's teacher?) hiring a great philosopher to instill high morals in your heir, or have your heir learn at the feet of a machivelian figure. appointing him (or her for that matter) as an ambassador or if they joined the army would have an effect on what type of vision they would have for your civ

korn469

posted June 12, 1999 08:51            

Everytime an emperor dies, every 50 turns ( or by assination )there is some chance ( depending how good he was, a bad emepror would increase the chance ) that the newer cities ( let's say, the last 20-25 turns? ) would revolt and make a new civ.
Minoun to greek, to roman, to helenism... etc. Therefor, assiniation is a good weapon, as it may remove from the enemy control on his newer cities.

Same thing when you change SE. Beside the revolts by gov replacing, you have a chance your civ will evolve into a newer type. This change won't effect anything beside your leader name and city names. If a change does accure, then the city names would start to be replaced, from the newest cities to the oldest one, in a ratio off: 20 turns = 1.
Meaning, a city created 100 turns ago would change her name after 5 turns.
The chance would be decided on how many SE you change and how drastic the change is. A democracy to republic won't matter, while a democracy transformed into a dictatorship has a good chance of evolving. If you also change market/army/goal SE, the chance also increase.

posted June 13, 1999 16:21            

1. IMHO it would be great if one had the ability to grant freedom to a certain number of cities so that they may form another civilization, i.e. Britain being forced through war or civil unrest to give independence to United States & India or allowing independence to highly developed nations when the time is right such as with Canada, Australia, N.Z., etc. This could be linked to government types. For example, when one changed from a Imperial government to a Democracy (with a high city distance penalty) one would have to give independence to some far off territories that were constantly revolting due to distance or high development.

2. I also like the CTP system of Ages but would like more of them (something like ANCIENT, CLASSICAL, MEDIEVAL, RENAISSANCE, INDUSTRIAL, MODERN & COMPUTER) m with city graphics that changed for each age and were different from each civilization or groups of civilizations, (Northern European, Oriental, New World, Meditarean, Near East, Native American, Indian (sub-continent), Russian & African) at least until the modern age.

3. There should be multiple Leaders (like Enoch said) that change over time for the AI controlled civilizations (at least one leader for each age if a system such as CTP was adopted). Additionally, when there is a revolution a leader should also be replaced. Each of these leaders should have a different personality that would effect the game play (Washington [no alliances, allows slavery] different than Lincoln [no slavery] who is different than Teddy Roosevelt [foreign expansion, alliances]). The number of revolutions could be dependant upon the civilization which could have a revolution variable/coefficient, e.g., it could be high for the French and lower for the British, etc.

posted June 14, 1999 10:19            

------------------
The Notorious P.I.K.
"Read my clit, not gonna do it."

posted June 14, 1999 15:52            

------------------
Imran Siddiqui
Moderator SG Forums - www.sidgames.com/forums/ ,

"Sir, I would rather be right than be President."

-Henry Clay

posted June 15, 1999 09:52            

------------------
The Notorious P.I.K.
"Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams."

posted June 18, 1999 05:59            

I think that there should be at least the number of civilizations available as offered in CTP.

posted June 20, 1999 13:07            

I figure that at the start of the game, there should be a small number of minor civs randomly distributed on the map. Some will be out in the middle of nowhere, others will be near the major civs. As the game progresses, minor civs will spontaneously pop up in unclaimed areas. Those that start up near established civs will be more advanced than those out in the middle of nowhere (they learn from their neighbors). Hopefully, by some time (certainly by 1800), most of the land (with some unpopulated areas remaining to be discovered) will be populated by somebody and diplomacy replaces exploration as a major factor.

When a major civ dies (or becomes marginalized), one of those minor civs should become a major civ.

posted June 21, 1999 13:02            

Minor civs should also have that ability to go into some sort of defensive pact with major powers. This could be in the form of a true alliance (they go to war with you) or as a protectorate (if anyone attacks them, you automatically go to war against the aggressor but not vice-versa). This allows them to remain independent as any attack will result in a war. The result is the ability to woo minor powers diplomatically without having to worry about major powers squashing them and ruining all your work.

As an additional bonus, trade with independent minor nations should be greater than internal trade. Gives another reason not to squash them immediately.

posted June 21, 1999 17:17            

Well my cousin went out and bought the Star Trek:BOF game, and I must say that it is an excelent game. I'm enjoying playing it much more than CTP, and that is rather sad, isn't it? After playing it, I have to say that minor civilizations are a MUST HAVE.

Anyway, here are my ideas for how minor civilizations would be used in this game. Most of this has been said before, I'm sure, but I don't care

Minor/major change- Every Civilization would have a chance to be either minor or major civilization. this chance would be set in the rules.txt or it's equivlent. For instance the Romans would ahve a 80 percent chance of being a major civ, but the Belgians would have, perhapse, a 30 percent chance of being a major civ.

This would allow us to get all of the civilizations we want into this game, because there would be a need for many civs.

joining-as in BOF Minor civilizations could join your nation either through conquest or through joining. If you conquer them you msut KEEP them under your controll, and they might stage rebellions to get out of your control. When conquered they'd act like any other conquered civilization, most likly.

If they choice to becoem one with you, they become like any other city. However, any settlers built from those cities would carry some of their ethnitiicty with them, so that if they decide to break free they'd try to take those cities with them. If they join you, you msut make sure to treat thme very nice, you cna't expell their population or the like.

It would be possible to liberate a minor civ, or any other civ for that matter, if you take that city from the enemy.

Minor powers would start with one or two cities, but couldn't build any more.. They could, however, irrigate and the like.

They would pop up in unclaimedl and all throughout the game, until most territory is taken by someone. This would represent how we have many differany nations on Earth, liek the Greeks, Irish, French, Germans and the like, we don't just have 7.

posted June 22, 1999 09:49            

Cartagia: I actually mentioned the "probablity of becoming major/minor" in another thread, except I added a different twist- not only would it affect how big a chance that it would be a major civ, it would also affect the chance of it simply being included. For instance, the British and the Chinese would be included in most games, while the Sioux might only show up as a minor tribe rather rarely, except on large maps with a lot of minor civs. It involved a certain number of points for being a major civ, and for being a minor civ. The general idae is you stick all the major civ stones in a bag, and pick out 6-8: Since Britain has 6 stones in the bag and Belgium 1, the drawing is rigged. And then, with all the civs not selected to be majors initially, they get their minor civ stones thrown in the bag. So it would be like:
Britain: 6,6 (high chance of being included)
Belgium: 1,5 (small chance of being major, okay chance of being minor)

My view on minor civ advancement: Yes, they get most of their techs from Tech bleed. The result is (and perhaps this can be programmed in) that an isolated minor civ or group of minor civs (like in America) will still have bows and arrows when the Europeans come across. On the other hand, Belgium, a protectorate of England and France, survives in the middle of a major nation minefield because it has strong friends and all the technology of its many friends. Which reminds me, in the modern era, the era of de-imperializing, Germany would be quite annoyed if it became part of England after WWI. Instead, you have to decide a policy with what to do with the defeated nation- spend lots of money occupying it? Give it back to the nation, with a Versailles-like clause? Or just give it back?

posted June 23, 1999 09:12            

The concept of minor civs reflects:
(1) some civilizations never became more than bystanders (or pawns, depending on the situation) in history
(2) some, if not most, land not settled by one of the major powers eventually will have some sort of developed civilization on it that our heroes will eventually have to interact with. At the moment, this land is treated as if it is either uninhabited or populated with people still firmly in the Stone Age.

However, there are complications with implementing this concept within the Civilization mold. Should minor civs be obvious or should it take investigation to figure out who is a major power and who isn't? Should major and minor powers be treated differently or the same in diplomaticly (I would say the same - however, I doubt major powers would agree to become protectorates unless they really are in big trouble)? Can all but defeated major civs be relegated to minor status and a minor power rise (fairly quickly - cheating would not bother me here) to take its place? Really, the only thing that would seem obvious is that minor civs shouldn't try to win the game and major civs should.

posted June 23, 1999 09:28            

Look at our century. Korea was an important war, but not a major civ (at the time, at least..). Vietnam was an important war, but not a major civ. Look at today.. is Yugoslavia a major civ?

Most of the important political/millitary actions of the last 100 years have involved minor civs to a great degree. Seldom does one major power go to war with another major power directly. In the second world war, Germany attacked the smaller countries before dealing with the really big powerful ones.

posted June 23, 1999 09:28            

I think civs shouldn't have any bonuses-minuses, however they should have agenda like factions had in SMAC. This would be lots of fun, especially wen we get to diplomacy. However, careful must we be when we decide which civ gets which agenda.

Also, I like idea of minor civs. I think minor civs should be born:

1. by revolution, and
2. if barbarians hold one city for, say, 3 turns.

posted June 23, 1999 11:04            

I added in another thread (Game Atmosphere) about Cold War competition being more involved then just a peaceful arms or space race (the olympics was an idea). But if you have minor civs you can have client state wars like we had in the past 50 years (instead of al the aliances being entangling and nuclear war always breaking out).

posted June 23, 1999 12:01            

Further, every time the computer pops out a new minor civ, each existing minor civ founds a new city (space permitting). Do this until there is no more room for minor civs. Minor civs will place a VERY high priority on getting alliances.

With some thought from Firaxis, the "major minor" civs (the oldest ones, which will have 5 cities in the modern era) can be an important part of any cold wars. That would answer alot of problems I've seen raised regarding realistic diplomacy in the modern era.

On dynasties--it sounds like great fun; there could be some really cool, fun movies of burials and coronations. Plus, with the "newspaper" idea from another thread, you could have another way to keep track of what you civ accomplished (in the reign of Abraham Lincoln III, the Americans converted from a monarchy to a republic, conquered 2 cities, founded 3 others, etc. etc.). I suggest that there be a small "window of death;" the rulers last from 50-70 turns, at random. Or better, it starts at 35-55 turns for Abraham I, is 40-60 for Abraham II, etc. Each AI ruler will be more or less warlike, expansionist (the scale for this should be bigger than from -1 to +1), and each successor will be more or less like his dad/mom, but slightly different. Let's say the scale will be -10 to +10. If Genghis I is +8 warlike, his successor will be (randomly) between +6 and +10.

Or maybe not completely random. A civ with Pyramids will have a bias towards expansionism, a civ with Sun Tzu will have a bias towards fighting.

posted June 23, 1999 19:49            

As an alternate to the minor power concept, if wimpy powers would act like wimpy powers (grovel and look for alliances) this wouldn't be such a big idea. But they don't. The Zulus down to one city demand tribute and threaten you with their two units and declare suicidal wars against enemies 20 times their size. A change in AI might change things for the better.

Of course, this doesn't deal with the fact that a standard Civ2 game has a grand total of seven civilizations. On anything but a small map, that leaves huge tracts of land unclaimed. I would prefer to have something to fill those spaces.

Also remember that even though CTP had 32 civs, Firaxis may stick with the ole reliable 7 or 8. Having more civs may make the AI more difficult to program. This allows them to have more civs without complicating the AI too much.

Plus, in every edition of Civ, diplomacy is unimportant. With minor powers, diplomacy is very important. To be quite honest, I want some peaceful options to expanding my empire beyond building a size one city and waiting 50 turns for it to be useful.

posted June 24, 1999 12:42            

Didorius, I have no idea what you're getting at when you say it's unrealistic for some civs to be minor. That's ridiculous; it's far more realistic than the current system!! Take Europe in 1618, on the verge of the 30 years war. England, France, and Spain, Austro-Hungary were the big dogs (IIRC). Prussia and Switzerland and Denmark, etc., were minor powers. Today, Japan and China are major powers, and Korea and Vietnam are minor powers.

Further, I don't see how it stifles play at all to have your normal 3-7 civs (or more), and up to a half dozen minor civs. If anything, it ENHANCES play; you have another decision to make, how to treat minor civs, and whether to get involved in the struggle between the Belgians and the Dutch, for example.

posted June 24, 1999 14:39            

Imran: The problem with that is that under CivX, if you leave the Aztecs in Mexico until 1500 and then come for them with your sophisticated arquebuses and crossbows, you're in for a shock- the Aztecs will have colonized the entire continent and have ironclads by then since they've had no natural enemies. Historically, some civs have just sat there in the New Stone Age and never broke through to high technology. Even the Incas, who were quite advanced compared to most Native Americans, never discovered bronze working. In a normal game of Civ, this simply wouldn't happen.

And plus, remember there are always chances of reversals- the Arabs were a minor civ up till around AD 700, after which they became a major civ (and still are today). The Japanese were a minor civ up until Perry, after which they became minor (and, if we were running a game of Civ, the Dutch would then get kicked out of the major power position).

Another good idea to incorporate what DS says- Maybe only start with 4-6 major civs, and as the game progresses, grow the number to 8-10 as lucky minor civs like Japan are annointed major powers. Maybe, if the Incas were lucky enough to beat Pizarro, they'd be promoted to major power on the spot since they've seen such advanced technology, and start researching and founding new cities normally.

Speaking of the Incas, the minor civs should definitely NOT be limited to one city, unless of course they're so crowded out they never got the chance/lose all their cities but one. I'd say a normal expansion in the early game, if a bit slower than most, to 2-3 cities that are in comfortable distance. Perhaps 4. Later in the game, minor civs with unusual amounts of unsettled territory around them can expand even more to 7-8 cities, make war on their fellow minor civs (like Japan invading Korea, the Aztecs attacking the other Mexican tribes) and perhaps become Major Civs if succesful enough.

And I reiterate- technology bleed should be on the basis of nearby civilizations. If you use "All but one of the major civ's techs," you're going to wind up with horribly backward MN's, quite unlike the Belgium of today, and on the flip side, the MN's in a Major Nation starved area will be TOO advanced, since they never really ran into contact with that. Enforce the rules with them; they only get technologies they research, even though they have a scant 2-3 cities to do it with. As for how the bleed should be handled, I say each nation at war counts as 1/3, each neutral nation 2/3, each nation at peace 1, and each nation in alliance 2. What do those numbers mean? If Tech A is in the hands of a civ the MN is at war with and a civ the MN is at peace with, the MN point tally for that tech is 1. That means that every turn, the MN has a 1/N chance of discovering the tech through bleed. If the MN met another nation and formed an alliance, it would have a 3/N chance of discovering the tech every turn. N would be equal to the rate of tech bleed to Minor Nations, hackable in the rules.txt file. 8 would be a standard number for fairly heavy tech bleed; 6 would mean it's really hard to keep secrets from them when they get the critical add to "1" on a tech; and 16 would delay them getting a tech for a good bit, even if they have friends with the tech. It should be noted that if the point score for a tech is below 1 for a minor nation, they have no chance; I.E. If you're the only one in contact with a MN and you're at war with them, there will be no leakage. The virtues of this system is that the more contact a MN gets, the more techs that bleed to it and the faster it gets them; but if you, a major power can keep the MN isolated, they will be at your mercy. Don't count on it though; remember, other MN's count in this calculation. If you and other civs let a certain tech slip to them, and they're at peace with other MN's, a tech can spread through the MN's despite the best efforts of the major powers.

"But," you say, "then I'll simply conquer every MN that comes before my path, before they have a chance to bleed some of my technology. And so will the AI. Result: No MN's."

Well, you fix that through what I call "far contact." You don't have a radar as to where these civs are. When you get close enough, these trading minor civs get a level of contact with you that's not quite neutrality, but more info than the closed tounges of war. So I give far contact with a civ 1/2 a point. So if you and another civ both have a certain tech and are both reasonably close to another MN, they start rolling the dice to get a chance at bleeding it to them.

Besides, if you aquire a repuation as a ruthless conqueror, your conquered citizens will revolt and throw you out at the first sign of weakness. Keeping loyal, homeland-supported Imperial Garrisons in every town is going to tax your resources. And should you recruit any native units to help you, a la Romans recruiting Germans... god help you if they join the angry populace.

Plus, I forget where the topic for nationalism was, but I'm going to put it here. Earlier in the game, this should play far less a role- all the barbarians tribes of Northern Italy considered themselves Roman after a fashion, and the unification of Italy in the 1800's provoked no dissent. Same with Germany, a minor tribe who starts an independence movement and eventually unifies to a major power. But Balkanized areas in more modern times stay that way. The Irish did not become British after being conquered; they still considered themselves Irish. Thus Irish nationalism while occupied against Britain is greater than Northern-Italian nationalism against Italy (there is none, basically.)

posted June 24, 1999 17:07            

* I oppose the idea of civs being labelled "major" and "minor". I do not see any advantage before simply having more civs.

* There has never been a tribe called Vikings. A viking was a sailor from Denmark, Norway or Sweden in the 9th to 11th century.

* Firaxis should include any contemporary or historic nation/tribe for which twenty city names, one male and one female leader are known.

Anyone who disagrees?

posted June 24, 1999 21:50            

Let me give it a shot. I'll start by saying you may very well be right.

Still, it is my opinion that if you start a game on a normal map with 14 civs, a good number of them, maybe 5, will have basically no chance. They'll be hemmed in, and gone in no time, by 2500 BC. OK, now you're down to 9. And I'll bet that you lose a few more by 1 AD. So, now you've just got a normal civ game.

OTOH, if you periodically create minor civs, in *safe* locations, and give them a different diplomatic program and status, then you won't have a normal Civ game. If you start with 7, but follow my idea of creating minor civs every 50 turns (for example), and have each grow by one city every 50 turns, then you have a better chance of having them survive to modern times, and affecting the game.

posted June 25, 1999 01:29         

We need a few little Polands etc. which rarely rise to great heights but are between a rock and a hard place and can be used (forced to be allies) or abused (forced to give tribute/conquered).

posted June 25, 1999 06:26            

You should be able to chose opponents and the once chosen automatically should be the great civs, not the irish or nigeraians (no offence :-)

posted June 25, 1999 06:56            

Transcend: Basically what you say is in the idea as well. But for those initial turns, before some civs are declared minor- well, you might well get Belgium, Mali, the Sioux, the Khemer, and the Polish as your main civs. I have absolutely no problem with them occasionally becoming major civs if they have a good start location and another major civ is weakened to the point of minor-nation ness. But making it fully dependant on location creates basically an equal chance that any civ will rise to prominence, when we want to create a ton of classical minor civs who normally wouldn't get included, and let them fill up the world.

posted June 25, 1999 08:20            

It would be good to have a pool of civilisations, where we could deselect the ones we don't want to see in the game. For instance, if you don't think Australians and Americans etc. are 'civilisations' (like me), then you'd deselect them and they wouldn't have a chance of appearing. Also, after creating your own civilisations, you could import them into this list to be selected instead of fiddling around with txt files and swapping one civilisation for another.

Also, the 'three civilisations of every colour' idea from Civ2 might have to go (although it doesn't have to), replaced as other people have suggested with more appropriate flags like the union jack etc. You'd still need a set colour for each civilisation during the game, perhaps each civ can have three colours they could possibly be at any one time? That would allow greater colour variation, then if say all the civs with various shades of blue got selected. I think it would also be more 'familiar' than random colours.

Anyway, this would make it possible say for the Indians to be in the same map as the Mongols and the Sioux, and the same with the French, Germans and Vikings (as examples from Civ2).

posted June 25, 1999 10:12            

Also, I would again like to ask that Firaxis have LOTS of open slots for custom made civs and setup the game so that they all can be used. 64 slots (including the default civs) should be more than enough (maybe more if minor civs are included). I should be able to pick ANY of the 64 civilizations to play with (unlike CTP where once you had a certain number of civs, the others would fall off the bottom of the queue) and they should all be part of the pool from which the computer opponents are picked. Also, if there are graphics files linked to civs (like custom shields or leader pictures), they should set aside space or come up with some system that will allow me to customize them all.

posted June 25, 1999 17:39            

RATHENN: I like your pool of civilization ideas it would be way better than what civ2 does now.

EGGMAN and RATHENN: The civ colors argument is big too. If they have the engine read from other .GIFs/.BMPs like in CIV2 that should make a huge Flags pages (instead at the bottom of the Cities.gif) and have each civilization take a flag and shield off of there by a number read in the rules.txt(1 to 128 maybe, giving us slots for making our own). A leader page with GIFs/BMPs based on the same idea too (you could even scan yourself in Multiplayer games or make way better scenarios).

Flavor Dave: You hit on a big issue with your brief mention on how civs get wiped out and your back to a regular civ. I love the major/minor civ idea (whether specified or not, just for diplomacy sake) but how are we going to prevent the little guys from getting swallowed up. It could be a personality trait to minor powers (i.e. tolerant or not) because some civs in history prefer small trading partners or buffer states (diplomacy and the need for buffer or territory disputes actually created a lot of the minor states in Europe like Belgium and Poland). But some warlike states didn't respect them (Hitler). There might have to be a border guarrantee function and maybe an ability to build puppet states too.

- I still kina push the various resource huts ideas as a determining factor of major and minor and also a away to complicate research so you don't get space age Aztecs. Science was a mixture of not just investments of money and building but of trade, contact, and resources. This could add to the minor/major debate and would help in the Aztecs with Nukes problem.

posted June 27, 1999 18:48            

Anyhow, THIS THREAD IS CLOSED