My suggested poll responses for this would be something more like
A. 3-7 with 21 total, a la CivII
B. 8 with 32 total, a la C:CTP
C. up to 32 players at once, as CTP was supposed to have
D. A major/minor civ system with up to 8 major civs and any number of minor civs, 0-24.
E. Your suggestion here

16 civs is a must! 32 is too much I think, but at least 16, even if it is not supported!

Minor civs would have a different AI that would call for some initial growth at first, and then very slow growth afterward. It would develop science mostly by trade and luck. It would have its own special AI. And there would be lots of things to do to it (let's say Belgium)- maybe sign a treaty guarenteeing its safety, like England did, saying that "A declaration of war on Belgium is a declaration of war on me." And then trade with it and get lots of good technology from it.

Also. Make the computerplayers change leaders during the game with differen't personalities. Then your best ally can, with a switch of leader suddenly start to hate u.

With 8 civs there is not so much interaction and especially if the game has a very good diplomacy I vote for 16 civs at least.

No civ should get any tech bonuses basically because history will show that dominate(large, major) civs have advanced tech before the smaller ones

Ehh?

How can a major civ obtain better technology from a minor civ. A major civ is major because it is far ahead in science and strength. But as strength depends on science a minor civ mustnt have better technology than a major civ, or else it wouldnt be minor!

Want realism? Make it possible for a small, insignificant city state to become a major power in 200 years and the greatest economic power in history, up to that point, in another 200. Make it possible for a few tiny cities on a far off continent to revolt from their mother country and then in 150 years time dwarf that mother country in population and industrial might, all without conquering any major population centers. Make it possible for a minor civ confined to an island chain the size of California with few natural resources, still in the iron age when the major powers are for the most part quite industrialized, to in 50 years be able to compete with those industrialized civs militarily (Russo Japanese war, Japanese won), 50 years later conquer half the pacific, get throttled and bombed back into the stone age, and in another 40 years have the 2nd largest economy on earth and be #2 in industrial output, all without (succesfully, anyway) expanding beyond its original borders or skyrocketing in population.

To the contrary, through all history, it didn't matter how large you were.
Just look at all those greek city states and compare them to Persia. Do they look inferior?
Same later in history. The Europeans got the lead in technology, although they are just a bunch of small countries.
In fact, when you get a lead in science and (military) strength, like China did, your research begins to stagnate and you don't research anything new on military level because you are the strongest power in the region and you just don't need new tech.
That's why China lost it's power.

In Europe however, it was a perpetual struggle between numberous nations to have power and that inspired continual military innovations.

So scientific progress in CivX (=the larger the civ, the more research) has nothing, but really really nothing, to do with how it goes in reality.
Scientific progress is inspired by need for new and better technology.

The CivX research system isn't even worth being called a simplification of reality; it's just crap.

Ata--none of these little civs who suddenly became major powers did this without expansion by ways of conquer.

I believe that Civs who have frequent to constant warfare should be able to develop military science easier, or better yet, countries that do not engage in frequent war should have their military science stager<--for example china actually developed gunpowder centries before Europe did, but did not think of it as a weapon. Therefore European countries developed muskets and cannons before china. When the Europeans invaded the Aztecs they were far superior military wise, therefore making quick work of them. See what Im getting at.

And I agree with Maniac on that population shouldnt have anything to do with science. Im not sure howd ya fix this.

What do you think?

But, as you can see, the major/minor civ idea is only a problem. What if a small empire is far ahead in science, what is it major or minor. Or what about a big empire that is far behind in science and weapon technology: major or minor?

I may have a solution to the population doesnt equal science problem. Read: http://www.firaxis.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000187.html

I quote it for you:

quote:

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The world isnt build up this way that the civ with the highest population produces most of the science or money, or else, china would be the major world power today (because, in a civ game it would). The problem is that more people do not necessary create more science. Some educated people create much more science than a mass of farmers! Therefore I think it is necessary that lower size cities dont produce any science at all and that science production starts in cities with size 4 or 5! In addition, scientific buildings like libraries, universities have to more powerful, but also more expensive. I also think that specialists like the tax collector or the researcher should be much more powerful. Maybe there can be different types of specialists. Like a researcher when the city has no scientific buildings. When there is a library, you can have a librarian (who is better than a researcher) and when you have a university you can have a scientist (who is better than a librarian)... . This system would enforce the use of specialists and of course would again enforce the need of large cities to support those specialists (they eat like normal citizen). I dont know if this is really a solution to the 2nd problem, but anyway, I think its worth to consider!

---

Of course the whole thing has to be balanced!

Never mind.

About Atahualpa's idea.

I don't think that (only science from size 4, 5) will solve the problem.
You're right that in the beginning the perfectionist would have an advantage because his cities can grow while the expansionist has to build Settlers.
But he looses that advantage fairly quickly because no matter how big that perfectionist's city/ies may be, after a while a bunch of small cities still beat the large.
So I think in your idea, the # population is still too important.
BTW, then China would still have the best research since practically all their cities can be considered above size 5.

Actually, although most people come up with complex solutions to make something more realistic, I think for the research system, it has to be made simplier to be more realistic.
Oh, I just came up with something new while writing this (but I think it is already proposed somewhere in the list).
A library is always needed to gain a fairly amount of research points.
So no matter how big your empire is, if it is full of analfabetics (read, if none of the cities has a library), they won't generate many new ideas.
And since expansionists build libraries pretty late, the perfectionist has an advantage.

But then there is still the same problem as with Atahualpa's suggestion.
After a while the expansionist stops expanding and also turns himself to empire-building.
Then he could build a library in every city and again pass the perfectionist.

Damn, I'm writing this while I just got the idea, so I only see now I haven't solved anything with my idea.

Ok, different approach. (Sigh)

This has also been proposed I think.
When you discover something, the tech is only known in one city and then it spreads over your entire empire. This should go fairly quickly in a small perfectionist empire connected with roads, but very slow in a large empire not connected with roads (an expansionist doesn't care about TI building in the beginning of the game).

Hmm, I'm continiously talking about a expansionist, but I'm actually referring to my tactic, so I'm not sure my way of doing is common to all expansionists.

So, now we already have two things that benefit perfectionists and are a drawback to expansionists. Not seen together, they may seem minor, but taken together this may get really annoying for my (the expansionist's) research efforts.
Especially that road thing since that will create backyard regions in your empire that are significantly back in technology and ergo can't contribute science to a next technology that had the just discovered - but not yet arrived in that backyard region - as a prerequisite. So even in a large empire that may mean it will still only be a few core cities that do real scientific progress.

Yes, this may be it!... until the discovery of Railroad where communication and transport gets that quick new techs spread immediately.

Until now :
1) library needed
2) newly discovered techs aren't suddenly known in your entire empire - more realistic BTW.
3) and if a prerequisite tech isn't yet known in that region, they may not contribute science points to the following item.

But that doesn't matter in late game for reasons already mentioned above.

Let's pay some more attention to that analfabetiscm.
Perhaps not make library necessary for research, just say that without a library in the city, only a maximum amount of science icons may be actually added to the tech that's researched.
So, just some unbalanced example,
A city produces 10 science icons, but because it has no library only 5 are actually used.
If you build eg a University, that maximum number should increase.
Other similar buildings, school, research lab...

Perhaps the SE Research category should in- or decrease that maximum number with +1 = 5.5 icons maximum added, +2 = 6...
This should be easier with the x10 system (if you still don't know what I mean with it, then you should definitely read some posts of me in Civ3 - Ideas for The List or whatever that forum was called again).

Oh, BTW, in CivX you could split up your trade into taxes, science and luxuries.
Recall Science to Education.
I always wondered how an ancient government could support research.
As if more money automatically meant more science.
Perhaps this is now true, but it certainly isn't representable for the whole history.

Now to get back to where I was talking about.
Where was I talking about?

Oh yes, Research category.

Um, I'm out of ideas for now, I'm afraid.

But I think you get where I'm heading too.
Make population less important.
Ideally, it should have nothing to do with population and just say that every civ researches at the same speed, no matter how many trade, how mane cities or how many populatio you have; and that the research speed is only affected by how much money you put in education (BTW, isn't putting 70% of your trade in science-education abnormal. Belgium puts *only* one thirth of all it's taxes in education. Which other country can say that? So in all Civ games eg 70% is super unrealistic) and how good your science infrastructure is.

Ok, now I really have to stop. Done with my opus.

Okay, I think you were pretty good with your maximum science theory, but still doesnt solve the problem.
When you dont want population to influence your science rate, then you mustn think that population generates science!
Lets get backt to the specialist idea (in the quote above):
When a city is built there is only very little science to get, may a maximum of 2 per city (=base amount). But, when you turn some of your farmers into specialists (researchers) then you gain a lot more science! Lets say about 8 per researcher. Then, when you build a library, the base-amount is raised to 4 and your researcher is upgraded to a librarian. This librarian produces 12 science points. Now, by building a university, the base amount is raised to 6 and the librarian is upgraded to a lecturer (or teacher) and generates 18 science points. Now, the last building would be a science-laboratory and then the base amount is raised to 8 and the lecturer is upgraded to a scientist who generates 27 science points. So, as said above, you need larger cities to support those specialists!
The problem that rises with this method is: that you are very dependant on specialists and you need quite a lot of them. But, a lot scientists means a lot food. But, I have a solution to this (you didnt thought eh?): Its horribly unrealistic that most of your men are outside in the fields and harvest food. In industrialized countries, about 5%-10% of the people work in the agriculutral sector, so I think that with certain advances, your people harvest more food, so that in the end, about 30% of the cities people are factory workers (another kind of specialists, could be named blue-collar worker as well), 10% are farmers and 30% are scientists and 30% are white-collar worker (who add to the cities income). And these 10% farmers should be enough to support the city! Just look at Moo2! In the end, you have about 2 million farmers, and the 28 million rest is divided upon miners and scientists (1 million=1 pop icon). In Moo2, your farmers output is increased by some improvements (weather control, to name one), which could also be a way.
Anyway, have we solved this problem now? Not really, eh?
Well, because someone that expands quite quickly is not so good in the beginning, but then when his cities reach the size where they can support people he boosts up. But well, what do you do in the beginning anyway? Settler-City-Settler-City! So, why allowing a 3 city nation to become as strong as someone who took the risk and expanded.

English
French
Spanish
Germans
Russians
Polish
Swedish
Denmark
Vikings
Greeks
Romans
Ottomans
Arabs
Egyptains
Mongols
Chinese
Japanese
Indians
Zulus
Portugese
Americans
Iroquois
Sioux
Aztecs
Mayans
Incas
Australians
Canadians
Brazilians
Ethiopians (or any other African Power)

That makes 30....

Can we have all of these in one game? I'd say no.. I'd say only 15 MAX to a game.

Nevertheless, 16 is a must everything more than that, why not?

You forgot some..
Babylonians
Persians
Carthaginians
Byzantine
Celts

I do think the first two are too important to exclude. The last 3 arent so important but could still be included. Im sure you just forgot them and didnt do it on purpose. If you're gonna include civs such as Polish, Incan, and Mayan, you've why not include these.

Babylonians
Persians
Carthagians
Celts
Byzantines

Babs and Persians are definate as are the Carthagianans and Celts. I don't know about the Byzantines though.

As For Byzantine, they may not have had the brilliance or prestige as other more well known civs, but they stood quit a long time.

As for the Celts, I really dont care for them, its just they had'em on CivII, I dont see why they should have'em on civIII?

I also dont think Countries such as Canada, Australia, Poland, Denmark, Brazil and the Ethiopians should be on there, basically because I dont think of them as Civilizations! Actually, I dont think America is a Civilization either, but they have had a more signigicant impact. It would be quit unwise to leave them off.

Dont get me wrong here, I understand perfecetly why a lot of people want to see them on there, but I dont see what their significance(sp??) is in history!

But at least, include every country that the game is sold to.

I totally disagree with you. Empires like persia were more significant that any modern day country.

>>United States of America, Canada, Mexico, Brasilia, Argentinia, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and the northern ones (I dont know their english names), Soviet Union, China, India, Mongol(sp?), Iran, Iraq,<<

They should only include the most important civs in the 6000yrs of know history. And Most of the ones you mentioned dont make the top 20. Thats why they made it where you can type your one civ in, so you could practically make any civ you want. Several Ancient civs were very important in the long run of history and would be greatly discouraging to see them left off.

I also think they will atleast keep the ones they had on civII. They definitly should add Sumer.

Adding all the countries that it sells to is a complete waste of their time.

HAVE ONLY THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CIVS FORM BOTH ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES.

quote:

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I also dont think Countries such as Canada, Australia, Poland, Denmark, Brazil and the Ethiopians should be on there, basically because I dont think of them as Civilizations!

---

Ata

Not only was Poland a great (large) nation, but at the time it was considered a center of learning, enlightenment, and was possibly the most tolerant of racial/ethnic diversity in all of Europe. As for Ethiopia, maybe they should use Kush/Nubia instead, a nation which played a vital role in sub-sahara trade and conquered the Egyptian Empire for a while. Sure, the Ethiopians resisted European rule, but more specifically they resisted Italian rule in the 1930's, which ain't saying much. No disrespect ai miei fratelli italiani, but they literally couldn't fight to save their lives! How do tanks lose to men with rifles (and poorly organized riflemen at that)? And in the Spanish civil war, they were the ones regularly getting beat up by the Lincoln Brigade.

So what if Ethiopia was the only African nation to resist European control. What the hell does that account for?

It really doesnt matter if Denmark controlled scandinavia or not. A lot of peopled control it.

I agree Brasil is a major SA country, but only major to SA and not Civilization. Its done piddly squat!

And I really coundnt care less if Canadians and Australins screamed at anyone, because thats why you can create your own civ!

Poland they can add, at least they've been around long enough to be apart of history.

And about Ata<-- I really dont give a **** what he thinks anymore.

I also had a brainstorm. How about if they allow about 10 slots for the player to custom and save his own civs which then could be used as the players civ or as a computer opponet? Understand? So essentially I could add another 10(?) civs cusomized to my own liking(civ name and perosnality, city names, ruler names, city icons and so forth). This would be of course on top of the civs they have already on the game. This way each person could have what they like--whether its modern countries or ancient civs.

They'd make the game with 10(or how ever many) of the civs blank. There would be no obligation to fill these in as they game would(should) have ample civs to play with.

Number of Civs in a game?

More than 32	385 / 43%
Up to 32	237 / 26%
Up to 16	183 / 20%
8 is enough...	70 / 7%
No opinion	12 / 1%

"First of all, what major civ did not start out as a minor civ? At the time the small city of Rome liberated itself from Eutruscan rule around 500 BC I would say that it was a pretty minor entity compared to China, the Persian empire, or even some of the Greek confederations.
Want realism? Make it possible for a small, insignificant city state to become a major power in 200 years and the greatest economic power in history, up to that point, in another 200. Make it possible for a few tiny cities on a far off continent to revolt from their mother country and then in 150 years time dwarf that mother country in population and industrial might, all without conquering any major population centers. Make it possible for a minor civ confined to an island chain the size of California with few natural resources, still in the iron age when the major powers are for the most part quite industrialized, to in 50 years be able to compete with those industrialized civs militarily (Russo Japanese war, Japanese won), 50 years later conquer half the pacific, get throttled and bombed back into the stone age, and in another 40 years have the 2nd largest economy on earth and be #2 in industrial output, all without (succesfully, anyway) expanding beyond its original borders or skyrocketing in population.

Actually the story of a minor civ becoming a great power, sometimes even overshadowing older civilizations, is the rule, not the exception. Of course this degree of realism would be hard to impliment, so for practical purposes we should probably content ourselves with the myriad of China type eternal civs that we have gotten so far. (Yes, I know that some of these success stories can be achieved against the AI (artificial idiot), but not likely in MP." (Matthew)

So the important question: how to limit the research progress of large populous empires and favouring small, perfectionistic civilizations should be considered again!

One intelligent suggestion I want to support: the education level of a civilization. What percentage of people in a civilization actually have mastered the art of reading and writing? As we all know it will only increase very slowly with time. My suggestion for the moment is the following:
Only that amount of research points counts as positive that's proportionate with your current level of skilled workers.

Another idea: make exchange of knowledge more dependent on trade and other contacts. In Civilization and SMAC you can trade knowledge with civilizations while you don't even know their geographical position and have never established an embassy. This should be forbidden: without an embassy and regular trade contacts cultural exchange just becomes impossible. Neither should it be possible to develop Flight without having knowledge of the Wheel.

This is all a part of our huge "let's make it so large civs aren't stronger than smaller ones" project. Perhabs the most important breakthrough Civ3 should include.

Having read this post I think that Maniac's 3 ideas (libraries needed for real research (of cause inventing the wheel or ceremonial burial wouldn't be tough without libraries, but inventing stealth or superconducter should require it), advances spread slowly across your empire (with a speed of maybe 3 squares per turn, roads and railroads would increase this speed) and that a prerequisite advance is required for a city to work on the following)) combined with your idea that a part of your research would have to be used for education to preserve advances, with this amount raised with a larger population should do the trick.

Maniac's ideas wouldn't work in modern times (most cities are developed and railroads make research spread instant), but there your idea would be even more important as your population grow with time.

Another idea I would like is more advances. So many that you as one civ could never discover them all. This would encurage research trade and would make it neccesary for you to be friend/allied with at least a few civs. It would also solve the China-stagnation-problem: If you are the only developed civ in your area you have noone to trade research with and so you stagnate, unlike those small civs with lots of neighbors.

For your civ list I am a bit frightened about criticising it due to your enormous historical knowledge, but here goes:

What is the Indus/Dravidian civ?

I would say that the Azecs were mightier than the Mayans.

There should, though, be nomads and pastoralists, who would be like barbarians except that they wouldn't appear out of nowhere but would always be there, carrying on in their stone-age ways. Perhaps this is more like what is meant by 'minor civ'? Call it a marginal civ, maybe. Anyway, these might have their own (simplified) personalities: peaceful, warlike, neutral. You can either gradually nudge them, or forcible push them, onto less prodctive lands (reservations, perhaps, or just poor land) or wipe them out (or both). You would do this by talking to them like any civ and demanding that they withdraw. Maybe they can also join your civ (adding to the population of your nearest city, if the city is within a certain number of squares). It would all depend on your personality and theirs. I think this scheme could replace goody huts (goody huts must die!), which conceptually represent sort of the same thing-- minor barbarians/indigenous populations who attack you, join you, give you bribes/gifts (in the form of gold), whatever. As long as they don't turn into cities. I hate coming across, for example, Bombay out in the middle of Siberia-- when all the rest of India is in southern Asia-- all because Gandhi discovered an advanced tribe there. That's not how civs expand, historically. And then from the player's end, I hate finding an advanced tribe in possibly hostile territory, far away from my armies. It's annoying and stupid, and anyway it doesn't make sense; if the people in the goody hut were so advanced, why aren't they a civ?

Also, I vote for playing as many civs as you want at the same time (as long as there are enough colors-- and please, make sure colors are distinct even to those of us who suffer from common varieties of color blindness! Maybe have a color wheel?), with the option to limit the number of civs if you want. And you should be able to play whatever civs you want at the same time without the hassle of editing rules.txt! It's ridiculous that you can't play Greeks and Carthaginians at the same time. Maybe you want to play only a certain subset of civs-- all ancient civs, e.g. You should be able to do so through the interface.

A quotation about the Indus civilization:

"There followed a long period of slow evolution, which gathered momentum towards the end and resulted in the spectacular Indus Valley Civilization (or the Harappa Culture as it has been more recently named) in c. 2300 B.C. The antecedents of the Harappa Culture are the village sites of the Baluchistan hills - the Nal Culture, and of the Makran coast to the west of the Indus delta - the Kulli Culture, and certain of the village communities along the rivers in Rajasthan and Punjab.

The Harappa Culture was the most extensive of the ancient civilizations in area, including not only the Indus plain (the Punjab and Sind), bus also northern Rajasthan and the region of Kathiawar in western India. It was essentially a city culture and among the centres of authority were the two cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. These were maintained from the surplus produce of the country, judging by the elaborately constructed granaries found in both cities. Another source of income was the profit from a flourishing trade both within the northern and western areas of the sub-continent and between the people of this culture and those of the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia.

The cities show evidence of an advanced sense of civic planning and organization. Each city was divided into the citadel area, where the essential institutions of civic and religious life were located, and the residential area where the urban population lived.

Among the many remains of the Harappa culture perhaps the most puzzling are the seals - small, flat, square, or rectangular objects with a pictorial motif, human or animal, and an inscription. The latter remains undeciphered and holds promise of interesting information when it can be finally read.

By 1700 B.C. the Harappa culture had declined and the migration of the Indo-Aryans from Iran in about 1500 B.C. introduced new features into the cultural background of north-western India.

There is evidence of the Proto-Australoid, the Mediterranean, Alpine, and Mongoloid in the skeletal remains at Harappan sites. The Mediterranean race is generally associated with Dravidian culture.
The last to come were the people commonly referred to as Aryans. Aryan is in fact a linguistic term indicating a speech-group of Indo-European origin, and is not an ethnic term."
(R. Thapar: A History of India")

As you will surely notice this civilization meets all criteria of a true civilization: agriculture, cities, writing and organized religion! Of course some consider it only a forerunner of the Indian/Brahmanic civilization. Because of the great gap in time -roughly a millennium- I would argue otherwise.

The Maya and Aztecs were in my opinion both part of one Meso-American civilization. It is true that the Aztecs were more powerfull. Their relationship is more or less the same as between Babylonians and Assyrians: the first created a civilization (actually the Sumerians did), the second were a nation of warriors who conquered most of the Middle East but were culturally nothing but a continuation of their betters. And of course the Babylonians survived longer. I wonder what would have happened to the Aztecs if the Spanish hadn't arrived.
But such conclusions will always be debatable.

If there are nomads/pastoralists - which I would applaud- they should be aggressive, disagreeable and military superior. They will be tamed by cultural integration.

An idea that I strongly support is that of a later starting date of some civilizations, especially to frustrate the advanced player. Order of appearance doesn't need to follow history as it happened. Give the poor Incas their chance!

I like the possibility to have as many civs as you would like. You could say that you wanted perhabs 10 civs at first and then 20 starting randomly as time goes. Or you could say that the number of civs starting along the way could be random, so an unhapitated island would get some civ on it if not colonized. With modern time computers it shouldn't be a problem controlling this large amount of independant AI's.

Thanks for the explanation of the Indus civ. I hadn't even heard about it before.

BTW I have read that some historians think that the Azecs would propably have ended up destroying them selves if the Spanish hadn't come. They were really obsessed with death, and sacrificed loads of people every day to the sun.

For the civs started later I don't think they should be completely useless. I think that if an advance you're researching has been discovered by a civ you have contact with it should be significantly faster to research. Maybe 10% cheaper if 1 civ has found it, 20% if 2 has down to perhabs 70-80% if 20 civs have discovered it. This tyoe of research spillover would be historically correct (no civ is 1000s of years behind in research, except for civs with no contact with others) and would add to the excitement of the game as the strongest civ at one point could be passed by another one.

I also think civs should be able to start with some advances. For instance if a civ has broken off from another one (it should be possible that 10,000 people leave one of your cities and found a new civ somewhere in the world) it shouldn't start off at ground zero. It would get most of the technologies known in the city it broke off from.

Well, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVEYBODY!!!

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Then others evolve, spring up, align, grow, conquer, die...

That would be cool.

No limits on the number of civs in the game. A civ will be MINOR in the PLAYER'S mind. Or Major.

Civil Wars, rebellions, new outpost of new civs (taking along their old nations techs (at least, majority)), etc.

Knowing that there are X amount in the game, and when I have to smash Licoln's America because we are on the same land (and I want his's shares), that the Chinese will suddenly pop up is boring.