I really don't have any ideas except it should be based more on the civilians outlook on life. If the civilians (ex. Middle East) hate a civ next to them they shouldn't get peanlized for a war. If the hate has been passed down for generations then they should get a military advantage with better production or the like.
If a Civ has been peaceful for most of it's life it should get a penatily for going to war, not really a penatily just a lower war production, unless the people of the civ hate the enemy or the enemy has been hostile towards it. The lower production would eventually increase as the war progressed or could decrease depending on the general populations feelings. The exceptions would be if it's a peacekeeping mission. They should get an edge for peacekeeping units because they are so peace loving. (I know that sounds strange. Giving a unit a bonus because the civ is peace loving, but anyway)

Any comments? This should probably be it's own thread.

- Recruitment for the army can only take place in those regions that are already well assimilated in the civ. Having captured alot of cities means more territory to defend.
- More people to police, especially in newly captured cities.
- Bureaucracy, more regions and cities mean more local leaders that have their own agendas. Corruption, power game.
- Convinience, ones a human is satisfied he/she stops strive for improvements.
- Slavery, in history this has been a major reason for breaking down empires. The slaveowners don't need to develop trade and production as long as the slaves supplies them with all they need. Also, slaves are not loyal soldiers, they have to be heavily surpressed for preventing slave revolts.

quote: Originally posted by Evil Capitalist on 08-02-2000 06:31 AM Just a point about slavery. It is argued that the money from slavery and slave run industry was what tipped the balance and started the industrial revolution.

Actually not, the inventions that led to the industrial revolution was in many ways caused by the fact that mideval europe was in constant lack of labor force and therefore had to develop better technices for producing goods. If europe in that time instead had imported slaves many of these improvements would not have developed (atleast not as quickly). But it's true that the english got alot of money from selling slaves to america. If you look in american history, where did the industrial revolution develop fastest? well, what i've read it was the northern USA that had industries (that produced clothes from the cotton produced by slaves in south USA)so yes in america the industry got some help from slavery, but it was economic and certainly not scientific. I truly believe that the american industrial technices was mostly developed in the northern parts. But the industrial revolution took place first in England not USA, and even if they sold slaves to USA they never had slavery in their own country. But there is some reasons why slavery did not cause so much trouble in America:
- a capitalistic economy, (which i think always spur innovation and development even if it has it's disadvantages)
- the methods for keeping slaves from rioting was more advanced. (better weapons to kill slaves that won't work)

But the thing is still this, sure north americas clothing factorys wouldn't have developed so fast if the cotton from south
had been more expensive. Slavery was a sheap production method so the southern choose slavery rather than spending alot of money on developing machinery for picking cottons on the fields.

Stuff2:

Europe imported thousands of slaves. And slavery does not hinder industrial production, but it does hinder economic development.

Personally I think the efficiency rating could be tweaked to make sprawling empires hard to keep together. Terrain, technology, distance, other empires would be factors in addition to the usual "distance from capital/ # of cities/ courthouse" variables.

So..for example(arbitrary numbers here)
'World Empire' 200 pts

Flat bonus, once your civ attains this level, you get 200 pts.

For different eras, you get different amount of points for holding onto your civ.

Ancient Era
1 pt per turn

Iron Age
5 pts per turn

Industrial
15 pts per turn

Or something like that..

AT

In Civilization however we have to live with a compromise.
I agree that the game should be less steady. If you don’t lose cities through war (what rarely happens to me ), your economy always remains stable, unhappiness rises only as much as your cities do, considering you don’t change your government.
In order to get more action to the game I had a few thought, some surely already expressed by someone else, some maybe not realizable, but I hope there are some useful.

1) Happiness: In civilization, happiness is based mainly on the City Size. Sure, size is a factor, but what’s with unemployment in bad economic situations? Is there no opposition if you use nukes, or if you keep polluting the environment? Is there no religious unrest, no nationalist movements in conquered cities? I could keep going on without end. Of course a game can’t cover all factors, but a little bit more depth I think would be good. Here some suggestions:

a) Conquered cities could get an ”assimilation degree” and more unhappiness, when the degree is low. If those cities are rioting, enemy units should pop up near the city. Buildings like i.e. a theatre could alleviate, the advance Nationalism aggravate and Television maybe alleviate again that effect.
b) Allowing different religions: Buildings should have the same effects (whether a church, a synagogue, a mosque) in the game. Conquering cities with another religion should cause unhappiness there, if your government is not Republic or Democracy. After the discovery of Communism the effect could be lowered.
c) Unhappiness could be bigger in cities with low trade and high production or cities far away

2) Economy: Although we cannot make the economic model of Civ much more complex as we don’t want an economic simulation game, but economy in Civ is too stable. A sea square will always produce 2 trade, 3 with a harbor. There’s no fluctuation, no “good times” or “bad times”. I could imagine something like trade cycles, trade routes could be blocked by intermediary powers, but different from CtP I would give up caravans, automatically allowing trade routes between cities of civs who know each other. The profit from trade routes would then depend on the attitude of eventual intermediaries, the good, city size and the trade cycle.

3) Civil Wars: Civil Wars could be introduced easily to Civ. A few ideas?
The discovery of Monotheism could make the city with the oracle and its “daughter cities” declare independence with a 50% chance.
Changing government could cause some cities to split from your civ (I don’t know how this could be done easily though)
In Democracies people could force you to abandon rioting conquered cities.

4) Plagues and other disasters
I know there are people who don’t like random events but disasters had so much influence on history, we just can’t totally neglect them. Crop failures surely played its part in the decline of the Maya. Pestilence stopped the population boom in Europe in the 14th century.
I’m sure that has been discussed but for me, it’s inevitable in Civ3.

5) New Civs: If the world was covered with more barbarian “cities”, there could be a mode that triggers a tribe to become a civilization after an existing civ seized to exist. New civs later in the game should not begin with nothing, their technical level should be adjusted to those civs nearby and they should get something like an expansive force and some settlers to expand.

For now, that’s all I can think of.

------------------
Wernazuma

quote: Originally posted by CornMaster on 08-01-2000 02:28 PM He wants a game with more action not less. Orangesfwr: While your idea is good I'm not going to enjoy a game where I get a penality for being aggressive. The rise and falls idea is good but not the way you are proposing.

I'm not proposing a direct penalty for what kind of Civ you run, but rather a system that encourages democracy and peace towards the later half of the game and expansion and war in the first half of the game. In real life there is a trend...

Time---------------------------->
Tyranny---------------Democracy
War-------------------Peace
Expansionist----------Perfectionist

Does that make sense? That's all I was trying to say.

Theben - Yes militaristic expansionist civs were great in the times of the Roman and English empires...but what are they now? They're nations that get declared war against...examples: WW2 - Italy, Germany, Japan; Ottoman Empire

If the US declared war on some nation in Europe or Asia tomorrow, everyone would be against us. No one likes expansionists this day in age.

Notice we haven't been fighting many major wars recently

quote: Notice we haven't been fighting many major wars recently

Liar! Liar!

quote: Originally posted by OrangeSfwr on 08-10-2000 01:17 AM Notice we haven't been fighting many major wars recently

Actually, this isn't strictly true. There are hundreds of armed conflicts going on every year. We tend not hear of these as they usually going on in 3rd World Nations.

In actuality, the 20th Century has been the bloodiest century yet.