Great idea concept, korn!

Here's my comments:

Map: Great. I would LOVE a spherical map at some point, but for now this is fine.

Number of turns: Why should the game start at 3200BC in stead of just 4000BC?? I would like more turns, per year as well as including some point of science fiction, up to 2200AD (I guess we'll need a compromise or a vote on this one). I would like about 1500 turns in the game.

Number of players: I don't know if this is technically doable, but I would like up to and perhabs more than 100 player/AI entities (!!). There could be something like 10 civs at first, another 10-15 coming along the way and then 25-40 for breakaways etc. I would like civs to have civil wars numerous times throughout the game! The rest of the slots would be for the protectorates (which should control themselves and have an agenda, but be limited in their actions due to their semi-indepencance).

Growth model: Of cause. The size of the food growth box (default size 40) would be determined by SE growth rating, improvements, happyness and trade per pop in the city.

Resources: Again with the x10 system. This will make stuff like having an advance giving +10% food output possible.

Energy: It is a must. But I don't think it should be a factor untill inustrialization. Having horses or wood give energy is too wierd. Energy should be used to get factories and other production increasing
improvements to work.

Improvements: Cool. I think the improvements should increase/decrease the SE effects ratings. So a Factory could give +10 pro, which would be added to the national pro level.

Tile improvements: I agree on the PW system. It could propably be improved though.

Units: I agree.

War: I think we should use a modified version of Victors system. Unfortunately I do not have the time to read it at the moment. I think I will do it tomorrow.

Trade: Trade should definately have a huge effect. Most of your income in the later half of the game should come from trade with other civs, which would make atrocities very bad for you. It would also force you to stay nice to at least some civs.

SE: I have and SE system, which is included in The List v2.0. It is pretty complex and of cause horribly unbalanced, but I think it includes most of what we should have in the game and so it could be used as a foundation.

Reputation: I agree.

Civil strife: This is a must. I think using the CIVilians idea could work with a lot of what we want.

The 3 maps: Should be in.

Victory conditions: There should be numerous victory conditions: Make the trip to AC, conquor the world, a diplomatic victory, an economic victory (it should be more complex than SMACs lousy one - having monopoly on numerous goods and/or on the energy market is a good start), a cultural victory and a religious victory. I am not sure how the last 2 would work as I don't think a culture nor a religion should be connected to a certain civ. Religions should be individual, and operate within the civs. You could of cause support/accept/outlaw certain religions, but not control them.

Interface: Of cause!

Victor:

Again I will have to take a look at your model tomorrow.

Urban Ranger:

I think you're right.

quote: Originally posted by The Joker on 03-19-2000 12:09 PM BTW how many are we working on the project at the moment? And are more people joining?

I think around 7 have exprsseed interest. Anone can participate just see http://members.xoom.com/acchiron/opensource or mail me
youo can join our mailing list at the site also

I like the corporations idea although I think corporations should be AI controlled entities with their own agenda. I also think the civ should be able to produce processed food/MFG's and services. How about being able to turn 2 food into 1 processed food, and so forth? This would make it possible, but expensive to live without corporations.

Pris:
I don't ever think the AI has actually been using much computerpower. The stuff that needed the mhz's and the mb's have always been stuff like graphics. I would be satisfied with Civ2 style graphics (SMAC graphics was too dark and ugly) if it meant having loads of AI's and loads of gameplay options. If I am completely wrong here, please tell me, but at the moment I think it could be done.

The ideas presented here are my ideas for how we should model the decay of a civilization…

Civil Wars: civil wars happen when a group of cities change their allegiance. Listed below are types and causes of civil wars. Though civil wars could happen anytime the chance for a civil war would increase greatly if a civ lost its capital.

• Break-away republics: this type of civil war happens when a group of cities with a similar culture forms a new civ. The effects of this are local to those cities with a similar culture. This process should happen over a very short amount of time, between one and three turns. All units supported by the break-away republics would have a chance of defecting to them, regardless of where they were at the time, and all units supported by the break-away republic inside of their territory would automatically defect to them. All units inside of their territory (only from the civ they are breaking away from, not units from other civs) would have a chance of defecting to them, regardless of where they were supported from. The only exception would be the units supported from the capital.

• Colonial Wars: this type of civil war happens when a group of colonies form a new civ. The effects of this are local to the colonies. This process should happen over an extended period of time, with some of the colonies revolting and then as time passes other colonies join them. All units supported by the colonies would automatically defect to them regardless of where they were. Units inside of their territory would have a chance of defecting to the rebels if they were supported from other colonies that didn’t declare independence. Units supported from normal cities would not have a chance to defect to the colonies even if they were inside of colonial territory.

• Defections: this type of civil war happen when a city, or group of cities (or colonies) switch allegiance to another civ. This would happen if the cities had a similar culture, or similar social engineering settings, or those cities had a very low nationalism. Also a factor would be the ratio of two civs power and wealth, poor weak cities would be more likely to defect to a strong wealthy civ. This would happen in one turn and would be local to just the cities most like the civ they are defecting to. All units supported by the defectors inside of their territory would automatically switch allegiances to them. Units supported by the defectors, but that were inside of the original civs territory would not switch allegiances, and units outside of both the rebels and the original civs territory would have a chance of defecting to the rebels. All other units inside of their territory (only from the civ they are breaking away from, not units from other civs) would have a chance of defecting to them, regardless of where they were supported from. The only exception would be the units supported from the capital.

• Sessionist States: this type of civil war happens when a group of cites with similar ideal settings would declare their independence. There would have to be a great deal of difference between their ideal settings and the rest of the civ’s ideal setting for them to just declare a civil war. However after the capital fell, they would have a great chance of defecting. All of this would happen fairly quickly with all of the cities that are going to defect, defecting over a short period of turns, say less than five. All of this would be localized to the cities with the similar ideal settings. All units supported by the rebels inside of their territory would automatically switch allegiances to them. All units supported by the rebels outside of their territory would have a chance of joining them. All other units inside of their territory (only from the civ they are breaking away from, not units from other civs) would have a small chance (maybe 25%)of defecting to them, regardless of where they were supported from. The only exception would be the units supported from the capital.

Coups: coups happen when your own military units turn against you. Coups are not always violent, and they usually happen fairly quickly, unlike a civil war which can drag on for an extended amount of time. Cities never switch allegiances during a successful coup, but during a less successful coup there might be a few break away cities.

• Ambitious Generals: An ambitious general is when a high morale command unit decides to topple the government. This is very likely to happen where the government isn’t very effective and the people are unhappy and unproductive, the worse the civ is doing the more likely a general is to seize control. Also a better general will be more likely to lead a coup, so if a command unit is green morale they will be less likely to lead a coup than a command unit that has elite morale. All units attached to the command unit will turn against you, the command unit also can effect all of the other command units around it. When a command unit decides to launch a coup, all of the command units close to it does a loyalty check. Basically this should work like psi combat in SMAC on a 1:1 attack defense ratio with no modifiers (except maybe something like polymorphic encryption could act as trance and high morale could act like empath song). If a command unit turns then other command units near it have a chance of turning but the loyalty check is made based on the coup leaders morale. Also if the command unit that launches the coup is based in the capital, the coup has a larger effective radius on recruiting other generals. If the coup manages to capture your king unit then there would be a greater chance of the coup succeeding. The results of this would be one of two things. Either part of your military forces would be hostile towards you (counts as barbarian units) and you would subdue them or the coup would take over. If the coup was successful, then for a few turns the AI would run your cities and then you would play on representing the coup leaders, with the command unit that led the coup becoming your king unit. If the coup is not successful but the renegade general does take over your civ then it is like you have been overran by barbarians.

• Failed State: If at anytime you lose half of your civs power bar in less than ten turns there would be a great chance of your entire military structure revolting against you. The less time it took for your power bar to go down the greater the chance of the military replacing your government with a new one. This would happen in one turn and when it happened it would always be successful, but it wouldn’t always happen. Once again the AI would control your civ for a few turn, change social engineering setting and production to what it thought was acceptable. Then after a few (between 3-10) turns you would be in control of your civ again.

• Hard Liners: Would work in the same manner as an ambitious general, except it would only happen after you change social engineering settings. The more radical the social engineering changes the greater the chance of a coup. The longer you kept a social engineering setting the greater the chance of a coup. If the coup was successful, then not only would the AI take over for a few turns but it would change the social engineering back to what it was originally and the player couldn’t change it for 25 turns. If the coup is not successful but the renegade general does take over your civ then it is like you have been overran by barbarians.

• Rouge Military Units: units should require money for support, and when disbanding a unit it should cost a small amount of money to do so. When military units are not paid then there is a great chance that they will turn into rogue units that act basically like barbarian units. If rogue military units overcome your entire civ, it would be like barbarians overran it and you would not get a second chance.

Popular Uprisings: This is when the people turn against you. Usually not as quick or as organized as a coup or a civil war, this represents the civil strife that constantly tears at your empire.

• Peasant Revolts: this is when unhappy citizens try to seize control of a city. This would happen spontaneously and bad conditions would encourage it. If a peasant revolt happened a number of peasant units would appear in the city and they would fight the military garrison. If the Garrison won the battle the population would go down by one. The size of the peasant army would be based on the size of the city. If the city fell to the peasants it would count as a barbarian city.

• Resistance movement: This is when a city, or a group of cities actively support a guerrilla war against your civ. This would only happen spontaneously with unhappy occupied territories, or if your reputation dropped to dangerously low levels with your people. Cities that support the resistance would have a chance of partisans appearing nearby, and the partisans would have an increased chance of carrying out guerilla activity against the city. This could tie up a large number of military units trying to combat the guerrillas.

• Revolution: a revolution would occur when great changes tug at your empire, especially if your entire civ had a different ideal setting than what you currently had. It would basically have the same effect as a failed state, except it would not always be successful when it occurred. After a revolution you would not be able to change your social engineering setting for 25 turns.

• Student Demonstrations: this would occur in more advanced civs, and would basically be peaceful riots. All production in the city would be cut in half because of student demonstrations. Students would take to the streets in support of a cause, whether it was to end slavery in your civ, or to disband your nuclear arsenal. Only cities with a university would experience student riots. Student demonstrations would end when you appeased the students. If one city had a student demonstration they would quickly spread to all of the other cities with universities. Students would only de4monstrate over socially acceptable causes. Military units would no longer cause a set number of drones, but instead military units outside of your civ could trigger student demonstrations. The more peaceful and democratic your civ is the more likely students will demonstrate. Some causes would be, slavery, war, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, a more democratic form government (ie they want you to change your SE setting), greater education spending, greater health spending, starving cities ect. The students would be your civs conscious. Though marshal law could temporarily end student demonstrations this would hurt your civ's reputations and could lead to resistance movements forming.

culture: though i am still determining what this is in civ terms i think that it basically represents a people's simularities
support: although i believe in a global support budget i believe that units should still have a home city representing where they are from and where their loyalties are
defecting: this is when a unit or a city switch sides to another civ
capital: this is your civs headquaters
colonies: when you found a new city it starts out as a colony, and it takes 50 turns to assimilate that colony into your society...colonies are more likely to spontaneously revolt than normal cities
nationalism: this would be a social engineering parameter like growth, it would partially replace the probe rating it would determine how much your people wanna stay part of your civ
ideal settings: this is the social engineering setting, tax rate, ect that the people want...the more you differ from what the people want the more likely bad things are to happen to you
command unit: a noncombatant unit that lets a player form military units into a stack. players form a stack by attaching military units to the command unit. the command unit gives bonuses to the stack.
king unit: a special command unit that you could only have one of at a time. this represents the player on the map. besides having all of the abilities of a command unit, it would also have other abilities like it would make a city happier if it was in it, it would decrease corruption and lower the likely hood of revolt. losing this unit would be a serious setback to your civ, but you could rebuild your king unit.
peasant units: weak military units for the age, representing a peasant army. they would have the special ability that any number of peasant units could be in a stack without a command unit.
reputation: how your civ is veiwed by other civs and its population. carrying out atrocities against your own people could galvanize them against you.
guerilla activity: partisan units should have some of the special abilities of probe team units besides their other abilities. incite riots and carrout sabotage would be the most likely candidates. partisans, though not the toughest military units they would be problem to an occupying army.

the reason i picked the game to start at 3200 instead of 4000 was because the math worked out correctly for 600 turns...also i really don't think we should go that far out into the future

i see at least two problems with having the game lasting 1500 turns...

one is the length of the game which could be too long...being too long decreases replayability

two is keeping the game challenging through all 1500 turns...whats the point of having 1500 turns if the player can consistantly win in 400

but if we can solve those two problems i say sure lets go for it...

as for having 100 AI entities...well map size and game length and game balance would be the most important factors...i would rather see a smaller numbers of major competitive superpowers than a great number of small and very cut throat civs...i feel that about 30 (including splintered states) would be about the most number of civs in any one game, and that might be too many...but the number definantly needs to go up from 7

Youngsun

something about your corporation model doesn't feel right to me yet, but i will look over it again and then go on a brain storming mission and work with you on it

Steve Clark

nice pic! looks like that could work to me...how about the rest of you?

what do you mean by

quote: Korn I think you ar spot on here.

i didn't understand...my email is still giving me problems, messages often get delivered late and it doesn't always let me view my messages in my inbox but it doesn't seem as bad as what it was...but if you need to contact me, i have a temporary email address at commieXTC@hotmail.com

i will look over the spy thread, the slave thread, and Youngsun's corporation thread and write another design document

all of my documents are just first drafts and i encourage debate on them

I'll be happy even small part of my ideas of corporations makes it. Since there is only I talk too much on that thread I need someone who really suggest something new and help to simplify it more for easier understanding.

There was no significant objection from other people about introducing "corporations" into the game but the problem is many people seems unhappy about the complexity of the model.

The ideas are entirely based on CIVII, so if there are some significant changes on city view/economy/trade in CIVIII only basic concepts can survive thus do not mind many details that I wrote.(They can be changed anytime)

About the command unit, it should not be required to form a stack. Each unit is assumed to have a commander, a commander who could command two such units; however, the stack would not fight quite as well as if it had a real commander. So for instance two phalanxes would fight at -25%, or like 1.5 phalanxes, but with a normal leader they would fight at 2 phalanx strength.

Secondly, I think non-standard sizes are very important. You can not create a unit in a non standard size; however a unit may become damaged in combat and lose some of its strength. Thus a unit that has fought through many other units, and lost half its men would fight at half strength, but to be fair if that unit lost 43.7% of its strength it should fight at 56.3% strength. Since the units would be created in increments of 1000 (bigger in later ages), 43.7% percent would translate directly into 437 men, so it wouldn't be some abstract number.

The Failure of state idea is great. It points out just how civs could break apart. But the rebels should not be barbarians. They should be a new civ. After all, if they win they should be able to negotiate with the other civs and so forth.

The concepts in the game:
Culture: Couldn' it simply be the nationalistic entity of which the people felt attached too? This would make sence.

Support: I agree completely!

Colonies: I like this idea. A colony should be all newly started cities and all newly conquored cities. But a colony shouln't at all just become an integrated part of your civ after x turns. Integrating a colony should be something you chose to do when you felt it would be good to you. A newly built city could propably be assimilated after 10 turns, but a conquored city or a city that had often rebelled against you could be colonies for a very long time. I think a colony should have certain SE effects to that city. It would be something like: -3 efficiency -3 happyness -3 nationalism +5 police. This way you would be able to surpress a city that was very hostile to you, but it would need a strong military presense in the city. A colony would be controlled by officials directly chosen by your government and so you could, even in a democratic government, do more or less what you wanted too there.

I think there should be 3 kind of modes a city could have within your civ: integrated, colony and protectorate. Protectorates would be semiindependant and could be previously conquored civs (it could be bad in the long run to have a large foreign group within your civ), previous colonies that you didn't want to stay in direct control over due to the cost of the military needed, or small civs that had simply asked you for protection. You could also demand to an enemy that he joined you or you would destroy him.

Nationalism: I think each city should have a nationalism rating.

Command unit: I can live with this.

King unit: I really do not like this. The game shouldn't be too focused on persons. Kings die in very few turns civwise, and so I do not think there should be such a unit. Having a capital should be enough.

I agree with the last 3.

About the future, I can live with limited amounts of SF, but the takeoff to AC should happend at a somewhat realistic time. And it is not realistic to fly there in 2050. We propably wont even have a Mars base there yet. But like all I am in for compromises. How about 2100? It is a nice, round number!

Number of turns: Personally I would like to be able to spend weeks, even months, on the same game. But as I can see how other people might disagree, how about making it optional? There could be anywhere from 200-2000 turns, with the advance rate happending at an appropiate speed. Of cause we should focus on getting a playable game before we get into such details.

some times they should be barbarians, but other times they should be new seperate civs...though i'm not sure exactly every instance of each...

as for culture being the nationalistic entity of which the people felt identified with...well if we went with the three maps idea then we could have citizenship on the cultural map, and culture or on the culture/economic map and culture would be the nation people identified with...an example of this is Iraqi kurds, yes they are Iraqi but they think of themself as kurdish and identify with other kurdish people...how does that sound?

colonies: i like your idea that colonies have different SE values...but i don't think cities you capture should be colonies...they should be occupied territory and have different SE values than colonies...colonies should also harvest more resources than normal cities...the farther away a base is from your HQ the more harder it is to change it from a colony to a normal city so colonies should have a formula based on distance and SE factors that determine how quickly they could turn into normal cities

i like protectorates but i think they should be more like submissive pact brothers in SMAC, except you could have more control over them...like you could set their objectives and set them to build/explore/conquer/discover like you do a govenor so they are semi-autonomous but you still have lots of control over them

i think command units are very important...also i think that a units should have two values, morale and experiance...morale could never increase, except if you increased your society's morale rating...experiance would only increase after a unit engages in combat, and all units would start off with low experiance

king units would be your king exactly...it would kinda be like a HQ in unit form, but if you think it is a bad idea then we can toss it

number of turns is negociable, but still it shouldn't be too excessive

as for 100 AI's...if you had 10 civs with 20 cities each, and 10 civs with 10 cities each, and 10 civs with 5 cities each, and 70 civs with 1 city that would mean that you have 420 cities on the map...that would mean either a gigantic map or very small cites that completely overlap covering every space of land on the map...the first solution would increase game time while decreasing system performance and the second wouldn't be very fun

what is the problem with having like aound 15-20 civs starting off and having an additional 10-15 break away civs, and a few barbarian/uncivilized/collapes+disarrayed civs? couldn't that solve most of our problems?

quote: as for 100 AI's... [snip] ...the first solution would increase game time while decreasing system performance and the second wouldn't be very fun

Computers tend to become faster and faster. I think that is what we should have in mind when setting arbitrary limits. Why 100? Why not 101? Or 64? I feel strongly that there should not be too many predetermined limits. Instead, there could be a user-configurable maximum on the number of units and the size of the map.
I always found the maximum size of the map in Civ II to be too small. I would not mind if it would take longer to play the game. In fact, that was exactly why I wanted a larger map. I definitly think it would be preferable if there was a default limit, and people could easily change this. There could optionally be a warning that it could possibly be less fun to play the game if the limit was set really high.

Barbarians:
Perhabs, but most of the time they should be a new civ.

Culture/nationalism:
This is exactly what I had in mind. Great!

Colonies/occupied territory:
I like the idea of having occupied territory being different from a colony. But I do not at all think that a colony/occupied territory/protectorate should assimilate into your civ automatically. When it happened it would be something you had chosen as you thought the time was right. As I said before a colony should sometimes stay that way through the entire game (or untill you finally gave it up due to the cost).

Protectorates:
Great idea of letting you set their objectives. But they should still have full control over their units. You could move your units freely in their territory and inside their cities, but they couldn't do the same thing with your territory. A protectorate should be controlled from a central government (all the cities would work together) and have a capital. It should also have it's own SE settings. This would mean, that in a democratic protectorate you might not get it to build what you wanted it to all the time, due to the legislature. You could make certain deals with the protectorate (like "Sell me 200 energy for 100 gold per turn") that the protectorate could not break. Whether Science and Tax should be payed to you (you could say something like "30% of your net income is to be shipped to me") would be set by you when creating the protectorate, and could be changed by you at all times at the risk of creating unhappyness. The protectorate could declare independance at all times, but would have to fight a war with you to gain it. A protectorate that was not very strong would usually be satisfied with being a protectorate.

Command units:
Then let's include them!

King units:
I still don't like this.

ok i see your point...and i agree there should be no arbitrary limits, but i think we should base the default game on a much larger map than civ2 had but not big and include the option of letting people make maps whatever size their computer can handle...same with the AI, have the default game have a comfortable number of AIs for the map size but there would be no set limit, just use map size to control it...a question though, civ, civ2, and SMAC all had 8 AIs does that mean we have to go like we can have either 8 or 16 or 32 or 64 or 128 or 256 or 512 ect AIs? or can we just pick a number?

there is one thing that alwasy bothered me about civ games though...movement rates, when a unit has a movement of 1 then terrain doesn't matter, so if we had a larger map we could have faster units (would almost have to have faster units)

i think that we should use something like the following movement system

siege weapons: 2 movement
infantry: 3 movement
mounted units: 5 movement
mechanized infantry: 6 movement
armored vehicles: 7 movement
piston fighters: 15 movement
jet fighters: 20 movement (refuel)
advanced jet fighters: 25 movement (refuel)
piston bombers: 25 movement
jet bombers: 35 movement (refuel)
advanced jet bombers: 45 movement (refuel)

barbarians:
yeah most of the time they should become an independent civ, but sometimes mostly when peasants or rogue military units overthrow the government in a city they should become a barbarian civ but overtime they would either become a normal civ or would join with another civ...

colonies:
as for colonies and occupied territories, they should have to go through an assimilation period and after that period then if you wanted, you could have those cities become a normal part of your empire but you wouldn't have to

protectorates:
Joker, i think we are thinking about the same thing with protectorates...you could be as nice to a protectorate or as oppressive as you wanted, and you could order them around but they would still control their units...also you couldn't order them around on a city by city basis, you'd have to order them around as an entire civ

command units:
here is another though about command units, your technology would determine the maximum number of units you could stack together without a command unit with no penalty...as your technology got better you could stack more units together...however command units woulds always be useful because of the combat bonus they provided

quote: does that mean we have to go like we can have either 8 or 16 or 32 or 64 or 128 or 256 or 512 ect AIs?

We can just pick a number. 4,8,16, etc. are nice round binary numbers. It is sometimes more efficient to use these, but not in this case.

quote: as for colonies and occupied territories, they should have to go through an assimilation period

How about cities which have previously been under your control? Let us say I built a city, and it was captured by a civ. If i recaptured it a few turns later, I think I ought to be able to quickly assimilate the city.

'Another feature of ancient empires deserves emphasis, to wit, the fact that there was an optimal size for such polities. The smooth functioning of a tax-collecting administration required the king to reside for at least part of the year in a capital city. Information needed for meting out reward and punishment to key servants of the crown could best be concentrated in a single locality. Such matters had to be attended to promptly, or else the administrative machine would quickly run down and cease to be capable of concentrating resources at anything like maximum capacity. It was equally vital to maintain a bodyguard around the person of the ruler, sufficient to overawe or defeat any likely rival who might meditate revolt. This, too, was best achieved by residing much of the time in some central location where natural routes of transport, especially waterways, made it feasible to gather necessary stores of food year in and year out from the surrounding countryside.

But if a capital city was essential, and if residence by the ruler for part or all of the year in the capital was likewise essential, then a limit was automatically imposed on the extension of imperial frontiers. To exert sovereign power effectively, a ruler had to be able to bring superior force to bear if forcibly challenged either by revolt from within or by attack from without. But if the ruler and his bodyguard had to reside at least part of the year in a capital city, then a march of more than about ninety days from the capital became risky.

When he invaded Greece, Xerxes trespassed far beyond the ninety-day radius of action from his capital in Iran. As a result, his campaigning season was cut too short to win a decisive victory. By invading Greece the Persians had in fact exceeded the practical limit of imperial expansion. Other empires in other parts of the earth conformed to similar limits, except when no formidable enemy existed beyond the imperial frontiers. In such cases comparatively modest garrisons and peripherally mounted expeditionary forces (like the one Xerxes took with him to Greece) might suffice to enforce and extend sovereignty. This seems to have been the case, for example, in southern China during most phases of Chinese expansion beyond the Yangtse. When, however, the Chinese encountered effective local resistance, their armies met the same fate as Xerxes' did in Greece. Vietnam owes its historical independence to this fact.

Transport and provisioning were, therefore, the principal limits ancient rulers and armies confronted. The supply of metal and weaponry, though important, was seldom a critical variable; and the industrial aspect of warfare remained corresponingly trivial.'
(source: W.H.McNeill: 'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

About command units, I think they shouldn't be "eternal", I mean, you can't build a command unit in the Bronze Age and have it on the battlefields until 1939. They should become obsolete, probably when you discover next major militar advance (something like Bronze working -Iron working -Feudalism -Gunpowder, etc).
The only thing I don't like is that of "ambitious generals". A general shouldn't be able to snatch you away from power. Why? Because under Republic and Democratic governments, you never lose the election for president. That's part of the game.

Protectorates idea is great if you can give them orders but cannot move their units. This would depict perfectly well feudalism situations (the protectorate being your vassal actually).

I think you're doing a great and innovative work here! Keep it up!

Barbarians:
I can agree on this one.

Colonies:
I think you should be able to make a colony and an occupied city an integrated part of your civ whenever you wanted too. But if it wasn't assimilated (it's people had converted to your nationality or, in the case of occupation mostly just gotten used to being a part of your civ, but still keeping their own nationality) it would create great problems (the lowered police rate would propable make them declare independance without your units being able to supress them). I also think that conquored territory previously under control should assimilate very fast. Something like 1 or 2 turns, and it could become integrated back into your civ.

Command units:
Cool!

Nationalism:
Although the normal people did not felt connected to a certain nationalistic entity, the elite of the nation often did so. Civs have shown to be completely conquored by others, and stayed this way for 100s of years, and them breaking apart. Vietnam was conquored by China for something like 500 years, and though it broke apart! The best way to portray such events in Civ3 is with nationalism, even before the Discovery of the nationalistic advance. I agree though, that nationalism should have greater effect after the discovery of nationalism, as shown in history.

King units:
I wasn't aware of the importance of kings moving around. Then maybe we should include it anyway... The greates flaw I see with king units is, if loosing that unit would mean loosing the game. That would make the king unit something you would never use, no matter how good it was. Like those missions in Starcraft where you had some unit that, if it got killed, you would have failed the mission. Even though the unit was usually far better than the other ones (it had all sorts of bonuses) you always just secured it deep inside your base, and never moved it out of there. If the king unit is to work it must be so that loosing your king would be a bit like loosing your capital. It would give some penalties, but you could always build a new one. If that is what the king unit is to be then let's go for it!

Different speed at different ages:
I think all this should be customizable. It should be up to the player how many turns the game should last, and how many turns each age should have.

Jgv:
WELCOME ON BOARD!

I agree with you that command units, like all other units, should become obsolete.

Protectorates:
The would work like your examble, but also with other counties. During the Cold War both the US and USSR had numerous protectorates around the world. Cuba was a US protectorate (the military dictatorship was supported and more or less controlled by the US), but when Castro came along it suddently shifted to a Soviet protectorate. Southern Vietnam was a US protectorate, the north was a Chinese one etc.

I think higher movement rates, especially in the earlier parts of the game are essential to allow empires to be created quickly, as happened in history (Alexander for example). There are practical reasons for the small movement rates because of the alternate turn system. But in earlier times, when the game turns are long, this results in effective movement for infantry units of 50 miles/year! Even doubling, or tripling the movement rates would not significantly alter this anomaly. An idea might be to have a shorter campaigning turn time (e.g. one week or month) that the game switched to while an army is inside the borders of another Civ. That could be difficult to do in multiplayer, though, because players not involved would have to sit around while those at war did a number of these short turns. Another possibility would be to have much longer movement distances, but allow the defender an extra turn when one of their units is attacked, during which they could move any of their units to support the one attacked (assuming stacking). The distance that they can move would be the same as the distance moved by the attacking army (adjusted for the different movement rates of infantry/horsemen etc.)

Game turn length

I support the idea of having an adjustable number of years per game turn, with the rate of production adjusted accordingly (i.e. city production rates should be in shields /trade /food per year, not per turn) The default should be equal number of turns for each age.

Nationalism/culture

I agree that differences of culture should be a factor throughout the game, even though nationalism should be an advance (?) that develops later. I would suggest that cultural similarity should be a factor affecting the likelihood of a city or region revolting.

Protectorates/vassal states

This is an important idea, weak Civs should always tend to gain the protection of a more powerful one, in exchange for taxes. There could be varying levels of autonomy, with at one end the Civ keeping its own troops, and just paying tax, and at the other the Civ being run by your own installed leader. The less freedom allowed, the greater the unhappiness with the arrangment (and hence the more likelihood of switching alleigance to another Civ)

Ambitious generals

I think this is an excellent idea. While I agree with jgv_fiera's idea that you always win the elections, that doesn't stop the generals taking over. This occurred just recently in Pakistan. And, of course, Pinochet did it in Chile. In the Roman empire it happened more than once, which is why the elite troops (Praetorian Guard) were kept in Rome to protect the emperor and to prevent the generals seizing power.

King units

This would be an interesting addition. Monarchies would be particularly affected by the king, I think. Could we also have the possibility of marrying our kings? This was an important way of cementing political relationships throughout most of history. Kings could be held as hostages, ransomed etc.

quote: I would suggest that cultural similarity should be a factor affecting the likelihood of a city or region revolting.

This brings up a question; how do we determine what kind of culture a given city has?

quote: Could we also have the possibility of marrying our kings?

I am sure we could, but how would the two kingdoms benefit from it?

quote: If you want any help with programming or whatever I am willing to help.

Yes, indeed we could use your help, which would make us four programmers.
If you do not mind, I will send you an email with information on what has been done. You could also join the mailinglist if you want.

I would suggest that each starting Civ has its own culture. Then new cities take the culture of the settler that founded them. Cultures would become less atagonistic as trade between cities of different cultures occurred, and more antagonistic when a war occurs.

Marrying Kings

This could have the effect of creating a strong alliance between the two Civs involved.

You can e-mail me on mcooke01@globalnet.co.uk

Yes, Marrying Kings should mean a strong alliance between the two Civs involved, but only for a time period (between 25-40 years, I think).
After that, both kingdoms may unite finally under a unique heir, or they could come apart again, in case there isn't a common heir to both crowns.

This is sensible, and makes diplomacy a very strong weapon, specially for Monarchies (of course, only Monarchies should be able to join themselves by marrying their kings). The Spanish supremacy in Europe during the 16th Century was created mostly in this way, following the alliances policy of the Catholic Kings.

I was very pleased to find this thread. I have been planning similar project of open-source civ for a long time, but haven't had courage to start that kind of project alone, partly because of my guite unsufficient (for now) programming skills, and partly because I know it would take much time alone. I have been making quite detailed plans, unfortunately mostly in my head, of a very flexible, yet fairly simple civilization system. I'd like to introduce to you the key ideas that I have created. Some of the ideas I have got from others, mostly on these civ3 forums. Some ideas I have developed further, some I have got myself. I'm sad I cannot give credit to all those innovative minds that have influenced this system of mine, but I'd like to thank all you participating in the discussions on these forums. All these ideas should be considered as a "sketch", and they can, and should, be developed further!

I think the first thing we should be doing right now, is to get started with a map system. It is quite obviously the key element of the game, and most of the game time is spent on it. Let's concentrate on it, for now. Following is my suggestion for a map system. It may look complicated, but actually it isn't. When the hard work is done, it is VERY flexible and diverse. If some things need to be cleared (I bet those things come in heaps), I'll be glad to answer any questions. Please make your own suggestions for enhancements.

The Map:

We should use rectangular map composed of hexagonic tiles, and an approximated spherical map for navigation, general overview of the known world, and possibly for orbital units. The sphere map should be done by drawing the rectangular map on a sphere, by shrinking the width of the map near polar regions, and finally adding polar caps on each top of the sphere; on the rectangular map, only the edges of the polar regions should be visible, like in civ/civ2. The poles should generally be inpassable by all but airborne and orbital units. In the modern world (1960?---) the players could build small bases on the polar regions, they could be visible in the globe map. The globe map should be "planet-like", with realistic colors for terrain types, possibly taken from satellite maps. The player could choose to view some information drawn on the globe, i.e. city names.

The main map view should be the cylindrical rectagle map. It's built from hexagons each having a texture representing its terrain type. The tiles should be composed of smaller tiles; these sub-tiles would be for visualization purposes only. Let me explain this:
-The size of hexes should be slighthly bigger than in former civs.
-Each hex tile is divided to smaller hexes.
-Each sub-hex will be colored with a single rgb color, depending on the properties of the hex.
-For example, the more fertile the ground in the hex is, the greener the sub-hexes are, the dry and scarce hexes would be yellow. Higher elevations would have darker colors, rocky ground would be painted with shades of brown.
-The colors of subsequent sub-tiles of each hex would have a slightly different color, determined by some sort of a formula. This way, each tile would get a unique coloring, with minimal effort.
-According to the forest-type and the amount of forest, small trees would be drawn on some sub-hexes, on rocky areas small rocks would be placed. Some tiles would be "mountain top" tiles, and would have small mountains on them.
-The tile enhancements would be placed in subtiles, according to the player's wishes. This way, the TI's don't, more realistically, take the whole tile, and this makes it clearer to place multiple TI's in one square. Player builds TI's in the same way as city improvements or units; by starting building projects. He chooses the TI to build, and when cursor moves over the map, subtile the cursor is on turns black. Then player just places the TI on the desired spot, and the project is started.
-The roads always start somewhere, and end elsewhere. They should be treated as objects; the object would store the coordinates of the road and draw it on the map according to those coordinates. The roads would also be dealt with building projects. The player draws the road in whole on the map by clicking the subtiles, in the same manner as when drawing a continuous line in painting programs. The corners will, of course, be "rounded".
-Each subtile may have only one sprite and road on them. So, placing a farm on a subtile will hide the forest on it. Building airport in a city will hide the building on the same tile. Roads do not overlap the former sprites on the subtile. Destroying the TI will reveal the sprite beneath it.
-In the beginning, the cities would cover one sub-tile having a sprite of small buildings on it; when the cities grow, more building-sprites will be placed in subsequent tiles. Eventually the cities will grow to cover multiple tiles. City tiles will also have roads drawn on them.

With this system, we get far better looking map than with the civ2 system with minimal work; it allows a huge amount of tile sprites, but the sprites would be created automatically from the given tile properties. Each tile should have at least these properties:
-fertility: decides the amount of food produced, if farmed
-elevation: higher elevations decreases living conditions and makes movement more difficult. Rivers flow downhill, on level ground they start to form curved shapes. Dams built in rivers would be more efficient when built in steep ground.
-rockiness: makes movement slower, provides good defensive spots, increase mineral production, if mined
-density of forest: the vegetation of the tile depends on the other properties of the tile and on the geographic position of the tile. Generally, the amount of forest tells, how many subtiles have trees on them. On the equator, the trees are jungle trees; in desert, they are palmtrees; northern regions have mostly pine trees, and tundra regions only small trees.
This system makes also possible for the tiles to change their properties gradually.

Later it could be possible to create separate 3d map; like someone wrote, each hex could have a center node and six corner nodes, which would be shared each by two other hexes. Each of those nodes would have a different elevation, stored in a binary 3d data file. The 3d map in SMAC was bad, it can be enhanced a lot by making the differences in elevations much smaller; for example, 1000 meters would mean only a few pixels on the map screen. To create mountains, the mountain-top sprites would be placed on the top of the mountain range.

How this should be done:
-Let's create a class "map". It has properties, like width, heigth, etc., and it has member classes "tile information" and "sprite map".
-The tile information is an array of classes "tile"
-The tiles belong to class "tile"; The tiles have their own properties. Each sub-tile of every tile has a certain number-code, which is used to place the tile improvements on the sub-tiles.
-The roads, rivers, tile improvements and cities are separate objects and are stored in a separate array.
-The sprite map-class is an array of bitmap sprites.
-The sprites of the tile are composed by creating the subtiles by certain calculations, that are based on the properties of the tile, as specified above. The sub-tile sprites, i.e. the trees, rocks, etc., should have a hidden/visible property in the tile info class. This is needed elsewhere, as specified below.
-The sprites should be made ready in the beginning of the game and stored in the map; The tile information and the sprite map should be separate.
-The tile improvements, cities and roads are placed on the correct sub-tiles with a separate routine. If there is a sub-tile sprite, like tree or rock on the sub-tile, it is hidden, not deleted.
-The tile properties may change, by natural disasters etc., or by players' actions. The program should monitor those events, and when the tiles have changed, the map is re-calculated.

I know this could be clearer, but this is the best I can come up with right now. I hope it guides the others to make right questions, so it can be made better. I'm quite low-level programmer myself right now, but I have pretty good understanding of object-oriented programming and c++. I have got Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, and I'd be happy to use it for this project. Perhaps I will even learn to use it properly. I suggest, that we name a lead programmer, who has the most experience of programming, and his job would be to design the core of the game and guide the other programmers in the making of it. I think I could be one of the programmers, though I might need some guidance in the beginning. The main role I think might suit me best, would be the overall organizer of the game creation process. If you like this system I propose here, it would be quite easy for me to combine my own ideas with the ideas of others to create the best possible system. I have also some graphical capabilities, so I can at least direct the other artists.

Korn has impressed me with his idea-developing skills. He could direct the discussion in the forums and possibly elsewhere to combine all the ideas in one package. I think the forum should be divided to smaller topics, like "graphics", "game concepts", "user interface" etc. Who would do that?

The Interface:

The second thing, that should be done, is the user interface. When the map and UI are ready, it's easy to start building the game gradually on them. Let's move in small steps.

I have been thinking, that the interface should be constructed of "rooms"; in each room the player could do different things. The possible rooms could be:
-Construction projects: for managing the building of city improvements, tile improvements, wonders etc.
-War room: for commanding your military forces during peace or war.
-Local government: The empire should be divided to "homeland", "provinces", and "colonies", later even "space colonies". Each region should have a varying level of independency, to reduce micromanagement, and to add realism. In this room you can give orders for your governors.
-Social engineering: here you can build your society.
-Research Center: here you can monitor the scientific and technological advancement of your civ.
-Space Center: to manage your space program
-Market: for management of your trade pacts etc.
-Budget room: here you control your cash flow, direct it to the targets you want and handle your general finances
The lower fourth of the screen should have a toolbar. From there you can switch between different rooms and there is shown also different kinds of information, depending on the situation.

How this should be done: The game should be created for windows environment using Visual C++. This way it's possible to take advantage of windows menu system etc. The toolbar should be one class, the buttons and info screens its children. The menu classes should read certain files, where the images and texts for each button, menu item, infoscreen etc. are specified; this would allow easy modification of the user interface, and smooth internationalization. Also the code for menu and game events, ai etc. could be stored in VBscript-style files, like this: if event_name then action_name etc. This might be little complicated, but it would pay back the effort in easier modification of the behavior of the game. It is also possible, that these files could be "compiled" in some way or other to increase performance.

This is what I could come up with today. There's more to come. Discuss these things! Here are the things that should be done asap:
1. Name the lead programmer, who
2. Leads the programming of the map system.
3. Continue the discussion, in order to establish
4. Basic game concepts, which most of us can agree with; some things can be done changeable by user
5. Then, start a more detailed discussion to create a complete game system; possible areas would be: diplomacy, science, tile improvements, city improvements, social engineering, etc. I will soon publish here my own suggestions for these areas. Let's try to argue as little as possible, concentrating the argument on the most important things, and solving the not so important clashes by compromises and making these things changeable by the user. See you soon, and keep up the good work here! Let's show that it's possible to make a good game with a volunteer work and open source system. Remember Linux!

I know this is going to be a prick, but would it be possible to draw up a very sketchy pic to illustrate your tile idea? (Don't go to too much trouble). I think I've got some idea of what you're talking about, but some better visualisation would be good.
Feel free to ignore this request if it's too much work to bother with. Although... I guess you'd have to do one sooner or later anyway.

quote: Howdy howdy ho! Sorry, this is somewhat off topic, but I think this is important.

Oh hoy, there! Actually, it does not seem off-topic at all.

quote: I think the first thing we should be doing right now, is to get started with a map system.

I agree with that. General consensus seems to be that we should use hexagon-shaped tiles. However, VetLegion has previously suggested a different map-layout but did not have time to describe it in detail, which is why there has not been a final decision to use hexes.

quote: I have got Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, and I'd be happy to use it for this project.

Welcome to the team then, which makes us five programmers, and about nine people all in all. It cannot go all wrong then, eh? :-)

quote: The game should be created for windows environment using Visual C++.

That has already been decided. However, I think we should attempt to make it compile with other compilers as well, so we can easily switch compiler later if that turns out to produce a smaller executable or a faster game. I can test the game with BC++ 5.5, DJGPP, and G++, as well.

quote: This way it's possible to take advantage of windows menu system etc.

This is not, though.
I like the standard menus, buttons, toolbars, etc., just not in games. GDI is terribly slow, and has no support to avoid tearing whatsoever.
The current sourcecode is based on DirectX. DirectX was designed with games and multimedia applications in mind, in sharp contrast to the standard window-system and GDI.

quote: and smooth internationalization.

We could have that as well, even if we do not use the window-system and GDI.

quote: Also the code for menu and game events, ai etc. could be stored in VBscript-style files,

Why not go for the real thing then? If we used OLE for the interface between the AI and the game, people could use their favourite language, with minimal effort required by people using various scripting-languages. I think what makes it a good choice is that people could still use 'real' languages to extend the AI without changing the game sourcecode.

quote: It is also possible, that these files could be "compiled" in some way or other to increase performance.

I have previously suggested a multithreaded model, on the mailinglist. I think this can pontentially improve the AI quite a lot. There are a number of things the AI could do while the user is taking his turn, without invalidating the game-logic.

quote: I will soon publish here my own suggestions for these areas.

I will look forward to that.

My grandfather had a series of mini strokes over the weekend and has been hospitalized, and I will be gone for the next few days, but i will catch up as soon as things slow down here and my schedule gets back to normal

About your OpenCiv initiative, why don't you take the opportunity to introduce the concept of Simultaneous Turns of Play as an improvement of old TBS?
Its role into the game engine build is enough relevant to need to be adopted early in a game development, so I think is "now or never".

Some of you already red (and voted) of it on my (originally, then backed up by ChrisShaffer) suggestion in Essential Civ 3 poll, but I can copy and paste it, or link, if you would tell me how to anchor the link to the right post.

I suppose you can see the benefit to build your game with enough differences to act as "special weapons" against major "gorillas" as CIV III and CTP2 with their full time and full payed development teams.

I'm afraid that my programming skill is so rusty to be useless with modern languages, and you have lot of designers available, but I will be happy to see your success and therefore I'll put my suggestions here and there hoping they can help you.

quote: Originally posted by MidKnight Lament on 03-27-2000 07:34 PM I know this is going to be a prick, but would it be possible to draw up a very sketchy pic to illustrate your tile idea? (Don't go to too much trouble).

I have been working on a pic and finished it tonite. It's quite large, though (1000 pixels wide). I have space ready for my future website, but there's currently nothing on it-that's another task which needs to be finished soon-so I made quickly a simple page, where's the picture and some descriptive text. All, who are interested to know more about this map system I propose, please check out the webpage at www.kolumbus.fi/amjayee. Comments and further suggestions are welcome.

JacobH, Thanks for your comments and info. You are propably right with the user interface. The reason, why I proposed the windows-style GUI, was that I liked the civ2 system and was wondering, would it be possible to combine the windows menu, like in civ2, and the control bar system in SMAC. Perhaps it would be better, as you said, to use DirectX and make a GUI similar to tha SMAC, but of course it needs to be enhanced. Especially the colors were horrible.

quote: (how about just giving the game more smaller tiles, and where units, cities etc can fill one or more tiles)?

I think it has to do with the following (from the website):
"Each tile has certain properties, that I discussed earlier. These properties decide the color of the tile; the sub-tiles are painted each with an rgb color, varying randomly around the color of the father tile"

The way I understand it, each large tile has associated with it a colour, and a random seed. Random values are then generated from the seed and are treated as brightness-values. Each subtile will then have the colour of the large tile, adjusted to its own random brightness-value, thus eliminating the need for a per-tile colour-value. Is that correct?

quote: Originally posted by JacobH on 03-29-2000 04:26 PM The way I understand it, each large tile has associated with it a colour, and a random seed. Random values are then generated from the seed and are treated as brightness-values. Each subtile will then have the colour of the large tile, adjusted to its own random brightness-value, thus eliminating the need for a per-tile colour-value. Is that correct?

Quite correct. What I had in mind, is that since each tile will have its own, unique ID number, and each subtile will have an index number to find its location inside the father tile, these numbers can be used for all the randomizing tasks. The idea behind this system is, that we get much larger variety of tile coloring with minimal effort.

Other possible way to use this idea is to create a "gliding color" effect; The colors of the subtiles are adjusted to approach the colors of each one of the neighboring tiles. This will create a continuous, gliding coloring throughout the map. It will be looking really cool, if the globe map is implemented. I think if we succeed, the space view will look like satelite pictures-without clouds, of course.

Joker, thanks for your point. It made me notice, that we can quite well use the sub-tile system only for coloring and creating the rivers, that make curves inside the tile randomly, for randomly alternating coastline, and for forests of varying density. Cities, units, mountains, rocks, etc. could be made in a similar way as in CIV2 and SMAC.

This makes the whole system clearer to me. Keep discussing, guys! I hope we can agree with a graphics system soon and start actually creating it.

JacobH, you have mae good points for the programming issues. Would you mind to be nominated as the lead programmer, at least for the time being? Your responsibility would be to guide the programming process, to standardixe the code and to program the core of the game, which you have already started with quite professional touch. Are you a pro?

Matthevv has also made quite good points about the game structure. I hope he is able to finish the document of this structure he has proposed. This way we will soon have the wireframe of the program running.

I need to consider these new ideas I have got about the map system. Meanwhile, check out the complete, but still not final and quite rough description of my map system that I finished tonite. Couple of things will be changing, as I told earlier in this message, but I hope it will give you some new ideas, so you can guide me to the right direction. It is also available as a .txt file, so you can read it offline. The website is the same as earlier: www.kolumbus.fi/amjayee

Keep up the spirit!

quote: Would you mind to be nominated as the lead programmer, at least for the time being?

No, I do not mind. In that case, I will devote more time to the project.

quote: Are you a pro?

No. I used to study computer-science and mathematics, but not being able to get up in the morning is kind of a problem. I have been programming for the past twelve years, though.

quote: I need to consider these new ideas I have got about the map system.

Once again, you have done a lot of thinking. I have skimmed the text, and I think there are a lot of good ideas. Perhaps you would read Korn469's documents (they are in the vault), and compare the differences? I will examine it in closer detail later.

quote: It is also available as a .txt file, so you can read it offline.

Could you upload it to the vault? I like having all of the data stored in a central place. Once we move all of the files to SourceForge, it will be much easier for people to download and we will get various tools to manage the data.