quote: Originally posted by M@ni@c on 01-12-2001 02:51 PM To further illustrate my examples: it's only logical then that the Greeks and English will each game turn to the sea, so there's nothing wrong with giving them beneits like "free Harbor facility in each city" or "+50% transport capacity" to simulate the unavoidable experience they will gather after decades of seafaring. As a second example: it's logical the Mongols will turn to horses as means of transport and war, so there's nothing wrong with something like "+25% Attack bonus for mounted units"., .

What if the mongols settle somewhere other than mongolia - what if they conquer China, and (unlike original time line) hold it? Do they continue to get their horse bonus? Historically conquerors of China, like the Manchus, became sinicized.

How about the english? they didnt start out on a island, or have you forgotten? this game begins in 4000 BC, the angels and saxons didnt migrate to england until 600 AD, before that they lived in North Germany. Maybe the Celtic Britons should get the naval bonus? Or anyone who starts their first city near a coast? Or maybe it could just be that if you start on an island, you have an incentive to build naval wonders (HEY! thats what we have in Civ2)

Should the Greeks be innovative democrats (Athenians?) or tough minded egalitarian militarists (spartans) or expansive religious despots (byzantines?)

what traits do the Romans have that the Renaissance Italians keep? And do the post Muaryan Indians keep the same traits as Indus valley civilization?

Also note, I am a fanatic, I will buy Civ3, whether I continue to play it is the question.

ALL civs start out vanilla-flavored. A civ that tends toward one or more aspects of civ is offered a bonus eventually; the player/AI doesn't have to take it, as each civ may only have 1 bonus at a time.
Once the aspect becomes obsolete, or the player ignores it's use for a long while, the bonus is lost. The civ is now eligible for a new bonus

FE: English get an Archer bonus at some point for building lots of archers; lose it when Musketeers replace most Archers. They concentrate then on navy and eventually get a naval bonus.

- 36 votes for either SMAC-style, or SMAC-style with added option (pre-game allocation-points).
- 84 votes for either CIV-2 style, or CIV-2 style with SMAC-style and/not allocation-points as added options.

Well, I understand civers who voted for all options = flexibility. The player is given the ultimate choice (but, at the expense for increased workload and more potential game-release bug-problems, for the game-designers at Firaxis).

What i dont understand is that so many as 19 voted SMAC-style only, some with the argument "more historically accurate". I dont get that. If Civ-3 had a timeline of perhaps 300 years; Yes, then perhaps. But the timeline is at least 6000 years.

In SMAC was quite always the Hive the strongest computer opponent because his very powerfull start SE settings and could you predict the outcome of all wars between computers. I never got a game where the morgans dominated the world even while that would be intresting to play, I never have seen how the peacekeepers conquered the hive empire, I never saw a game where communistic rebels took over the power in the morgan empire or where fasist took over the power in the peacekeeper empire(even while similar things happened a lot in real history especial with nations who are not doing it very well). But that would certainly give more replayability then a game where predeterminated variables make sure that there will never be a surprise that there will never happens something that can't be predicted.

And even giving civs random predeterminated bonuses will solve nothing because you will soon be able to discover which civ in that particular game has which predeterminated ability so from then can you predict how things will happen and also CIVILIZATIONs CHANGE OVER TIME. The Germans who are now a peacefull democratic nation with a relative weak army where 50 years ago an extremely agressive despotistic nation with an extremely strong army.

So please run as far away as you can from predeterminated civilizations attributes but let history(which will be every time different) determinate who is good in what and what character each civ has. So that you can never predict what will happens ,so that all games are different. That is real replayability.

What I'd rather see is some form of cultural set-up screen at the start of the game, perhaps with some default settings if you choose to use a standard race, but those settings should change throughout the game, the mongols shouldn't stay a warlike civ with no interest in the sea if they end up on a small island away from everyone, in civ II the japanese were in this kind of situation, they built a huge army but seldom any boats to get them to the enemy!

But most importantly, this will weaken the game for the legion of multiplayers. Just as we build only certain wonders, player will only want certain civs. We already have fights over just the civ colour, imagine if civs are differentiated??? Not worth the trouble.

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Chaos, panic and disorder - My work here is done.

The civilisations that have 'gone the distance' in the real world have undergone some amazing transformations, sometimes the whole character of a nation has changed time and time again...for example,

Britain, only 100 years ago, had an empire so large that 'the sun never went down on it'. Being the seat of empire, Britain was very militaristic, and had a rigid class structure based on old feudal customs.
Nowadays, Britain is just another European democratic post-industrial nation, and this comes through in the thoughts and feelings of it's people.

Right, back to the point in hand: I say that a civilization's character becomes defined as the game goes on, so that isolated civs become insular, and civs in contact with each other become either very aggressive, or very cosmopolitan. Do you see what I mean?

In this way, by forcing an identity on your civ, you limit your game. By all means have a facility for civ characteristics for those who want them, but make sure it is possible to play a game without them...

Just a suggestion...

But I still don't see the real problem with simple SMAC-like bonus/penalties for each civ. You just have to make sure that they:
a) are balanced
b) don't restrict the player's strategies

I think that unique benefits acentuate the historical aspect of the game and make each civ more challenging to play and more fun. After all, just because the civs have unique benefits doesn't mean that the player is forced to follow history.

Assume that all the following are specialists.

@Germans

entertainer = 3 -- produces 3 luxeries
taxcollector = 3 -- produces 3 taxes
scientist = 4 -- produces 4 science
industryworker = 4 -- produces 4 shields
merchant = 3 -- produces 3 trade

@Mongols

Rule the USA like North Korea is ruled and you will see that within 50 years it will have become a very weak economie where many people don't have enough money to buy food. On the other hand if you rule North Korea like South Korea is ruled will you see that within 50 years it has become a very powerfull economie.

I do favor a MUCH greater ability to mold your culture, at heart civilization is a roleplaying game more then anything else. I play a civilization and develop it's culture, abilities, and characteristics over time. It's all up to me whether my people become warlike nazi's, or peaceful Ghandi-worshipping technocrats.

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 01-13-2001 05:42 AM What i dont understand is that so many as 19 voted SMAC-style only, some with the argument "more historically accurate". I dont get that. If Civ-3 had a timeline of perhaps 300 years; Yes, then perhaps. But the timeline is at least 6000 years. Also, historically interested scenario-designers most probably wants to tailorcut any civ-benefits themselves, and they most probably wants to have those benefits applied to a specific and limited time-period in history. Is Firaxis pre-fabricated civ-benefits going to be helpful here? Finally, bear in mind that you can have SMAC-style civ-unique benefits in scenarios, without having those civ-unique benefits in the main game. So this poll isnt about having civ-unique benefits, or not - its instead about if we should have them in the main game. [This message has been edited by Ralf (edited January 14, 2001).]

Excellent points. By introducing explicit limits to civs, you are limiting the game. Because of the factions, SMAC is viewed by some as being no more than a complex scenario.

As said many times, ideas like this are best implemented in a custom scenario where the emphasis is usually specific to a time period or types of civs.

quote: Originally posted by The diplomat on 01-15-2001 05:08 PM Another reason why a SE system is a good idea. Allow an advanced SE where the player can pick "traits" for his civ. This way, the player decides what advantaged/disadvantages his civ has. Furthermore, this avoids the problem that has been raised of a civ's benefits clashing with the starting location (ie: seafaring civ starting in the middle of land). Instead of calling them "traits" they would be called "policies" since that is what they are. They represent the player choosing to emphasize certain areas of his empire that he/she feels is important to his civs development. All "policies" would have the following affects: -research bonus in specific area (ie seafaring would give you research bonus in naval techs) -special bonus (like +10% attack) -special penalty (like -15% production) -unhappiness for certain groups of people/happiness for others. (ex: seafaring would give coastal cities bonus happiness but landlocked cities would get unhappiness penalty) SMAC-like bonus/penalties for each civ. You just have to make sure that they: a) are balanced b) don't restrict the player's strategies

I think the diplomat has a point.

If we take the bonuses and construct them according to rules:

1) blanced!
2) player chooses a trait
3) maybe player can choose more traits every era (like Imran's suggestion)
4) traits do not limit players
5) perhaps traits don't make you actually worse, they over develop an area making you better in one and there fore, reltively worse at others
6) traits don't have effects such as "can't choose democracy as govt." because this is stupid and ineffective in a long time span game, and not realistic.

There was always 1 civ that was at least a little bit better then the others, there was always 1 civ that was more popular in multiplayer then the other. If all previous failed on that is it then not possible that bonuses and balance can't be combinated.

And bonuses will always limit strategies. Who wants to play with something else then the civ with the best military bonus(even when it only lasts 100 turns) when he goes for instand conquest ?

Nobody will play peacefull with a civ with a small military bonus, nobody will play instand conquest with a civ with a small diplomatic bonus.

If you want to wipe out the indians in colonization will you choose the Spanish or the French ? The Spanish
off course because they give you a small bonus against the indians and the peace with indians bonus from the French is useless then.

quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse on 01-13-2001 09:44 PM I am strongly against unique benefits. Firstly, the racism charge is a risk, reinforcing stereotype

The best summary I've seen of why this is a horrible idea is the one below:

quote: Originally posted by AustralianJeremy on 01-15-2001 04:29 PM So, we have the following very good reasons why unique attributes are a bad idea in Civ3: 1. No civilization has maintained any particular attribute over 6000 years 2. Civ covers periods where current civilizations simply didn't exist (America, Australia etc) - so what do they get? 3. The best explanation for nations being different isn't their genetics, it's their EXPERIENCES within the world. Civ2 ALREADY models this. Civilizations make the most out of where they start. If Firaxis wants to reward, say, shipbuilding nations (and I suppose it makes sense that a nation that's built lots of ships should have stronger ships, simply from experience), then it could simply have defence and attack bonuses based on how many naval units that civ's produced. (Say after you've built 25 battleships they get +1 attack. BUT this would need to be limited - three levels at the most.) 4. racism - it's not wrong because it's "un-pc", it's wrong because you're assigning characteristics based on the genetics of that first settler unit. Didn't we all start out with the same ancestors anyway? Surely the differences are in how we run our Civ... 5. gameplay balance - as people have pointed out, what's an equivalent to the roman empire's military skill around 30BC? Rome should only have a super powerful empire if the Roman player's playing that way. What, if I'm playing the Australians in a battle with the Romans do I have to lose every time just because we didn't have a warrior Civ then? What's the point of playing a Civ differently if it's constrained by race? I notice in the poll that the pro-unique civs vote is winning. That's more than a little scary...

The poll results are frightening given that the developers and the voters have in mind something like the AoE model. That's nonsense, and in my opinion, the only plausible explanation for the "unique benefits" is related someway or another to -geography- or -accumulation of experience-.

In AoE2, they gave the Turks the priviledge of building so many types of cannons, and I believe that ruined the balance of the game because the other nations' towers and units just didn't have the effect the cannons had. The reason? The famous cannons employed during the siege of Constantinople? Nonsense! and how about the growth rate of the Chinese? Chinese farms somehow more fertile? Also, what kind of unique benefits for the Americans back at 4000BC? How many of the original Civ nations were present then? Allright, this is not SimHistory, but... Anyway: Sid won't do anything that'll make the game feel silly. Let's not make such a big fuss, we don't know how it's going to be.

quote: Originally posted by kolpo on 01-17-2001 04:03 AM If you want to wipe out the indians in colonization will you choose the Spanish or the French ? The Spanish off course because they give you a small bonus against the indians and the peace with indians bonus from the French is useless then.

Fair enough, the french bonus will be useless in this situation, but how are you any worse off than if there weren't any bonuses in the first place? The answer is that you aren't.

Besides, who says that a peace bonus would be useless in that situation. I can think of ways it could be useful even if you wanted to conquer the native americans. Given, it probably would never be as strong as the spanish bonus.

If all civs are inherently the same, THEN your strategies are decreased. If you finish the game with the spanish, then it is the same as finishing it with all the other civs. This was never the case in SMAC. I played (and still do) all the factions in SMAC (admittedly the UoP is my favourite). In civ1 I only ever played as the Greeks because I thought they were pretty cool and there was no incentive for me to change who I played as, they were he same anyway. With differentiated civs you can develop strategies that suit that civ (this doesn't mean it is restricted by the civ). For example in civ3 the americans will probably have a capitalist/economy bonus. This doesn't mean that you can't build a strong military. Your civ can have both military bonuses (from government/SE bonuses) and your civ bonus (economy). The civ won't have the possibility of being as strong militarily as sparta (if you had your starting military bonus and then chose military SE) but it would still be strong militarily. I can't see how that is limiting your strategies, unless you refuse to play as anyone but your chosen civ. For people who feel that way, just have the option to choose which civ bonuses you want at the start. That way I could play as the morgans but have the universties bonuses or the spartans bonuses.

Other people claim that the actual bonuses were too unbalanced in SMAC and would as such ruin civ3. I never found this the case. I did find that Yang was too powerful for the AI. A good player can adapt to the situation and find a use for their bonuses and a shield for their weaknesses, no matter what they are. Firaxis did a pretty good job of balancing the SMAC factions and I have no reason to assume that they won't do the same good work with the Civ3 civs.

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- Biddles

quote: Originally posted by Biddles on 01-17-2001 09:39 PM Given, it probably would never be as strong as the spanish bonus.

quote: I played (and still do) all the factions in SMAC (admittedly the UoP is my favourite).

quote: The civ won't have the possibility of being as strong militarily as sparta (if you had your starting military bonus and then chose military SE) but it would still be strong militarily.

In you arguement you've answered why there shouldn't be bonuses. Never as strong, you have a favorite (because of those high tech bonuses?), won't be possible; pretty cut and dried that you admit certain civs will be better than others.

quote: Other people claim that the actual bonuses were too unbalanced in SMAC and would as such ruin civ3. I never found this the case...A good player can adapt to the situation and find a use for their bonuses and a shield for their weaknesses, no matter what they are.

Uh, did you ever read Vel's strategy guides? He's pretty clear about how each faction is tailored made to a certain overall strategy: builder, momentum, or hybrid (which has the most flexibility). And that limits you. After all, you don't want to be Miriam or Yang if there's no one nearby in the early game, do you? The builders will leave you behind, technologically and monetarily. Conversely, builders want to be left alone, which won't happen when Santiago shows up on your doorstep right away. And SMAC, as has been pointed out by several people here, is a game based on a few hundred years (which actually is enough that even SMAC faction bonuses/penaltys should change over time), as opposed to civ which is 6000 years.

I'll say it again: experience, not pre-determined!

quote: Fair enough, the french bonus will be useless in this situation, but how are you any worse off than if there weren't any bonuses in the first place? The answer is that you aren't.

Everything except the spanish have on this part an disadvantage: not having that bonus !

If you give an advantage to 1 civ give you the disadvantage of not having that advantage to all other civs !

It is all RELATIVE ; if 1 because stronger in something become the other weaker in that thing !

quote: Originally posted by Lancer on 01-12-2001 04:02 PM How about, the more a civ does something, the better they get at it. In other words, all Civs start out vanilla. When a Civ builds X # of ships, they get better at it, and build better ships. The more they fight ships the better the sailors become.

Yes! this is not only a nice idea that makes sense it also makes the game enjoyable. Although CTP2 is increasingly becoming a dirty word, this is one element it did get right.

example. In CTP2 the first person to circumnavigate the world gets +1 naval movement point for 25 turns. this is a nice bonus with no danger of unbalancing play (only for 25 turns)

quote: Originally posted by bagdar on 01-18-2001 07:22 AM I'll play the Greeks (most of the time), the Chinese or the Zulu (not as much as the other two) as I always have with Civ I and II, on the world map. Both because I like being these guys, but also because I like where they start on the map. I don't think I want any limitations to things I want to do with the Zulu, Greeks or the Chinese!

I assume your playing on an earth map here. If you are your saying that you like individualized factions (who wouldn't like the greek starting position, you can wipe out 3 or 4 civs in the first turns of the game.)

All that I'm saying is at least give people the option of playing with the preset civs. Whether you want preset civs or not, I don't see how you can argue with that. (Even if you prefer the trait idea that would be replacing aspects of SE, you could still start with bonuses).

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- Biddles

Well from the game play point of view, obviously the latter is all right, as long as there are no AI problems with changing from the default rules. When im playing civ it wont matter.

It matters when i step out into Apolyton. I dont want a Civ community dominated by discussions of the best "races" to play, as is AOK or SMAC. I also want Civ to continue to be a tool that teaches those who play about the contingency of history - I dont want the false lessons implied by unique civs.

I guess im being "politically correct" here - or rather politically INCORRECT in terms of the current flavor of the time. The new politically correct libertarian stance is that I should be satisfied with what i get to play myself, and shouldnt be concerned with anyone else. I also shouldnt be concerned because cultural products such as games and movies have no impact on the culture, and are for fun only and everyone chooses what they like which is best for them, and stop being such a sourpuss, anyway.

Unfortunately I dont share the above assumptions.

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- Biddles

quote: Originally posted by Biddles on 01-19-2001 10:42 PM Both generic and unique civ's shouldn't be too hard to implement (see above), so why deny people (including yourself) the option of greater playability (If you get sick of generic/unique civ's, you can switch to the other).

Well, giving the player an optional free choice, is of course better then "SMAC-style only".

However, whe problem with this poll, is that many look at it at a simple choice between 100% generic and 100% civ-unique. That is totally wrong.

With the old Civ-2 model you already had...

- AI-civs with some extensive temperament- and emphasize differences between themselves.
- Those civers who dont think that above is enough can tweak the civ text-files themselves (= more fun).
- Scenario-designers can start from a clean slate and directly tailorcut their own time/era civ-unique benefits, without having to waste time in nullify benefits, that have been force-feeded upon them by the Firaxis-team.

With the SMAC-model only you have...

The confused game-feature/bug-report problem:

SMAC had only seven factions (= easy to overview). In Civ-3 the player can choose upto 6-8 AI-civs from a pool of perhaps 30-40+ available AI-civs. Now, if each and every one of them have their own unique "hardwired" benefits, its going to be hard to overview and keep track of them all. This together with the fact that most average civers just "jump-start" without reading the manual that much, it is easy to predict that this is going to produce some bug-patch demanding e-mails, that perhaps was a result of those hard-to-keep-track-of SMAC-style civ-benefits instead.

The time/era civ-benefit/compromise problem:

Compare with a game like "Age Of Kings", with a much shorter timeline - only 1000 years; playing through pre-modern times only. In the AOK-case, its not that difficult to design historically consistent benefits to each AI-civ.
But, what about the timeline in Civ-3? Its at least 6000 years, for crying out loud. Admittedly, the first 2-3 millenniums pass by quickly. But, still; dont you guys see the obvious problems with 100% static 6000 years through several time-eras, civ-unique benefits?
Well, perhaps those "hardvired" SMAC-style benefits isnt that rigid/static after all? Perhaps they change 2-3 times through the timeline. If so, is that good? Isnt such stepwise changing SMAC-style civ-benefits, likely to produce even more "mistaken game-feature for a BUG" reports to the Firaxis-team?

The feeling of being forced down a specific path:

I didnt like that in SMAC. In theory I could choose between 7 factions, but in practice I played 1-2 factions over and over again, because the other faction-benefits simply was too far off. It really felt rather limiting after while. The problem gets even worse in multiplayer games, because then one have to argue what best civ to choose, and who is going to put up with that unbalanced crappy religious faction (refering to SMAC).

The time-consuming game-balancing problem:

1) The option to turn off unique bonuses.
2) Earning bonuses through gameplay.
3) Changing bonuses over time, also based on gameplay.
4) Less radical bonuses than SMAC, thus bonuses that have less of an impact on gameplay.

Don't we already have one bonus system in place? Wonders.

As for the way they could implament it..

Ill give you 3 seperate nations or culture as examples

1) The English upon reaching the tech level for archers the english would get a special archer with diffrent stats to that of everyone else ie a higher defense value say 6 instead of 4...Another way this could be done is all Archers produced by the English are Veterans when they come off the production line whether theres a barracks or not. This advantage would obviously be tempory as soon as the English developed Gunpowder the Archer would be retired from your build list as it would be obsolete.

2) The Spanish. Similar to the Archer when the Spanish develope the technology for medivial marine transport ie the ships that took the Spanish to the Americas, the Spanish transport ship of the era would have more room for the land units on board this would reflect that Historically the Spanish built Galeons in that time period which where larger than any other ship of that time, and that other nations did not generally build galleons hence making it a Spanish advantage. Steamships start to appear

3)Romans. Another way you could define an advantage is by if a nation used a particular form of Goverment well.
For example lets assume Civ3 contains an Imperial Empire style system of Goverment ie similar to that set up by the Roman Emperor Augstus. The Romans could have an advantage built into that system of goverment that no cities would be unhappy due to distance from the capital. Historically this would be justified because the Romans had a strong centralised system of Goverment. Now eventually that system of goverment would become less and less practical as time went and the romans would eventually choose a diffrent system of goverment (Historically the Centralised Roman system was found lacking and the empire broke in 2 ie Rome and Byzantium)

So as you can see from the above examples the advantages should be tied to when that Culture or nation was a great power historically.

The Americans for example would have no advantages till fairly late in the game as they are a very young country compared to the French, Greeks, English.

And for those who dont like national advantages turn it off at the start the of the game.

That makes everybody happy

Well thats my 2 cents

1.) All civs start generic.

2.) 2 options to turn ON-
-The option to allow benefits over time & experience.
-The option to choose from a list of benefits either a) Before the game starts or b) as soon as your 1st city is settled. AI civs get to cheat in either case by comparing their immediate surrounding terrain (includes more than they can "see") vs. a table that gives them a decent bonus in areas that will be useful.

Hardwired benefits/penalties are not acceptable under any circumstances.