First, I looked it up and the first mention of Great/Minor Nations that I found was actually Jeff Briggs explaining how Great Nations will have the ability to produce Great Leaders. But Sid mentions it at one time after that, specifically using the term Minor Nations.

Clearly anyone planning a Great and Minor nations system is thinking differently about this, something like the 8 + 8 scenario. This is far better than simply adding 24 more civs and widening the game. This is evolutionary thinking, not incremental thinking. Who cares if the map is more crowded or if the AI can handle it or not? Who cares if the river is a mile wide if it's also an inch deep? Simply adding more civs does nothing but widen the river. The probability here is that Sid has come up with a way that both widens and deepens it. I'm betting Minor Nations creates a deep diplomacy/trade/combat interaction that is quite nuanced and complex, unlike any Civ game to have come before. And to say you can't wait to just edit the rules so that Minor Nations become Great Nations (as if that will even be possible) is like saying "I can't wait to turn Civ 3 back into Civ 2." You'll excuse me while I YAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWNNNNN... huh? Where am I? Oh yeah.

quote: Originally posted by Maccabee2 on 04-14-2001 02:09 AM "...(It's after 2 a.m.; the games not out yet, and I'm already addicted!)"

I can relate Maccabee2! My roommate and I have gone back to "trying" to play CTP2 Multiplayer - only because we both need a "fix" of something "civishly" new, and to date, we still haven't been able to finish one game of CTP2 - because of the massive bugs inherent in the game and the basic "unplayability/stability" of it...Talk about someone constantly ASKING to be slapped around!

I think that is unavoidable. Quite all important current European nations where once a part of the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire has started many cities from which many are still very important. Quite all American Nations are created by Spain, England and Portugal. But they are all(both Europeaan and Americain) independent nations with there own culure. And so is it also with Byzantium. Byzantium was indeed once a part of the Roman Empire but it became independant and has developed it's own culture, which was very different from the Roman culture and it is that culture that has still a very big influence on Greece, Russia, Yugoslavia, Macedonia, ...

quote: Originally posted by kolpo on 04-14-2001 05:30 PM Also, I agree with the idea of ensuring that the same people didn't appear under different names (as in the post mentioning Rome, Byzantium, and Italy.) I think that is unavoidable. Quite all important current European nations where once a part of the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire has started many cities from which many are still very important. Quite all American Nations are created by Spain, England and Portugal. But they are all(both Europeaan and Americain) independent nations with there own culure. And so is it also with Byzantium. Byzantium was indeed once a part of the Roman Empire but it became independant and has developed it's own culture, which was very different from the Roman culture and it is that culture that has still a very big influence on Greece, Russia, Yugoslavia, Macedonia, ...

About the roman thing: It is true that the romans created a lot of the major european cities of Spain, France, England etc. My point is that these cities were quite insignificant in the roman empire, and probably will not even be programmed as roman cities. If they do: You can use their roman names (Londinium, Lutetia, Byzantium etc.). This makes it possible to have other nations inside the roman empire included. Concerning using civs like Italy and byzantium, it gets a lot harder: Rome is the capitol of both Italy and Rome, and Byzantium (Constantinopel) and Caesarea are major cities in both Rome and Byzantium. A possible solution could be to have both the romans, the byzantines, the egyptians etc. but to use the city-names of the western-roman empire to the romans, and the city-names of the eastern-roman empire for the byzantines (minus Egypt...)