Apolyton CS: Civilization III: The List v1: Civilizations (page 2)

CIVILIZATIONS
-Summarized by Thread Master: LordStone1-
LordStone1@yahoo.com

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6. MAJOR/MINOR CIVILIZATIONS    TOP

Obviously, this is a very new and radical idea. People are split on this topic, but we are definitely leaning toward allowing minor civilizations. The big issues are what abilities do the minor civilizations have? Overall, this seems like a very exciting innovation and would greatly enhance the realism of Civilization III.

6.1) You should consult Microprose's Birth of the Federation team on this issue. (LordStone1)

6.2) You start off with 6-8 major civilizations, and you can choose the settings for minor civilizations: none, same # as major civilizations, double the number, etc.

6.3) Civilizations can upgrade or downgrade between major and minor civilizations.

6.4) Minor civilizations should have different diplomatic options and ought to be able to be colonies, client states of major civilizations, or complete integration but with a separate military structure, etc.

6.5) The minor civilizations do not have an expansionist policy. (SnowFire)

6.6) How about, every time a city revolts, it becomes a minor civilization? (E)

6.7) Reduce what minor civilizations can do - it will also reduce the algorithms.

6.8) Technology leakage should be the main way the minor civilizations can receive technological advances. (Trachmyr)

6.9) There should be a lot of minor civilizations to start out with, perhaps 16. As the game progresses, they will slowly be reduced and then there will be a group of major powers.

6.10) Major civilizations can have one extra settler and begin their city one unit larger than minor civilizations at the beginning of the game.

6.11) They can merge with other minor civilizations to become a major civilization.

6.12) They can be integrated with a major civilization but have autonomy for a period of time.

6.13) They should not attack any major civilizations unless that major civilization is very weak and they have a good chance of winning.

6.14) Any civilization with nuclear weapons automatically becomes a major civilization.

6.15) Minor civilizations cannot participate in the U.N. or any other similar organization.

6.16) Major civilizations can be downgraded to a minor if they become too weak.

6.17) They ought to easily agree to alliances with major civilizations. (Mo)

6.18) How about having them control ONE city? That city should be very developed, have a lot of farms, and wide borders. They could merge with other civilizations. They cannot wage war but they can defend themselves, and they can't sign any treaties except for trade. (Harel)

6.19) No. If a civilization begins in a bad location or is under an inept government, it will stay a minor problem. Let history play itself out. "History Rewards the Strong." (Utrecht)

6.20) It should be included, but not using different civilizations. If you have around 30 cultures available, you can then have 16 as majors and another 8 as minors. (Shining1)

7. OTHER    TOP

7.1) Don't always start with Despotism as your government. You should have a choice at the very beginning: Tyranny, City-State, or Tribal. (Cartagia the Great)

7.2) Colonies should be able to be built, or conquered cities could be converted into colonies. They would produce more trade and more capital, but be slightly more expensive to defend, and the people would have a better chance of rebelling than other cities. If they did rebel, they could take neighboring colonies (even some of other civilization's colonies) and create a new civilization. (Cartagia the Great)

7.3) Make civilizations more spread out in starting positions. In Civilization II, the historical starting positions sometimes put six civilizations in Europe and one in America. (crusher)

7.4) Pop in a (perhaps unpaid) historian on the team to do research into civilizations like for city names, leader names, special scientists for those random events, etc. See Appendix I. (LordStone1)

7.5) Minor Technologies should be allowed - each minor technology should have a single prerequisite. The minor technologies cannot be researched directly. Each minor technology is a dead-end addition to the technology tree. There is a small chance of the minor technology popping up randomly between the time where the prerequisite technology is discovered and the research into the next technology. Each civilization has a few minor technologies that ALWAYS occur. China will always get "Ming Vase-Making" while Greeks would always get "Rowing Cushions" and the English the "Long Bow." With the Long Bow, you could add your range to your Archers. Minor technologies could also affect city improvements, components, WoW's.

7.6) The advantages are: (1) Interest - you don't get them every game; (2) Tradability - since you can't actively research all of them, you'll nearly always have something to trade, even with a superior culture; (3) Historical Immersion - they add an even greater depth to the historical aspects of Civilization, by including important discoveries that don't make the main technology tree; (4) Less stagnation - if it takes you 20 turns to research a technology, you have a very good chance of picking up the previous discovery's minor technology, too; (5) Civilization Differentiation - an option to automatically give minor technologies to the civilization that discovered them in real life.

7.7) This shouldn't affect the game balance in any great extent, and doesn't imply that one race is superior in one area than another. There ought to be two per civilization, and at least one minor technology for about 80% of the technologies on the tree. (Shining1)

7.8) Implement restrictions for expansions like in C:CtP - the government determines how many cities can exist in one civilization before problems arise. (Depp)

7.9) Civilization III should be able to read your computer and figure out just how many civilizations your computer can handle. For example, there would be a message: "You have a Pentium II-266 with 128 MB memory. You have chosen 20 civilizations. Your game will be moderately slow." Or "You have a P-III. You have chosen seven civilizations. Your game will be very fast." (Trachmyr)

7.10) How about having a different kind of civilization in the game along with the normal, city-based one? Nomadic civilizations! You start with a tribe, not a settler. Tribes have a radius like a city, but they can slowly move. They exploit the terrain differently: no agriculture, but hunters in the woods, herders on the grasslands and plains. They automatically generate Warriors or other military units for the population. Certain improvements would be impossible, but they could have alternatives, such as if they had extra food, they could put in into Increased Production fabricating things like weapons, trade goods, etc. They would be major traders, and should have an advantage in borrowing technologies from settled civilizations they contact, and possibly spreading them to other civilizations in trade routes. But eventually, the nomad civilization would have to settle down, because Gunpowder, for example, pretty much requires permanent structures to manufacture. But they could do this either by starting their own cities or conquering a lot of other cities! (Diodorus Sicilus)

8. SUGGESTED CIVILIZATIONS    TOP

One of the favorite pastimes of Civilization players was picking over the choices of civilizations for the game. Obviously, that tradition continues to this very day/

8.1) Include the Arabs! Glaring omissions from CivI/CivII. (Imran, Eggman, Freddz)

8.2) Include all civilizations that either (1) deserve it or (2) are fun. (Eggman)

8.3) Include every civilization you sell the game to. (Darkstarr)

8.4) Why not have an alien race that crashes onto Earth in the future? (crusher)

8.5) They should be included on the basis of distinctiveness, geography, and greatness. But basically, I'll be happy as long as I can include my own civilizations. (Shining1)

8.6) Some civilizations should have a higher chance of being selected than others. If I were playing with 3 other civilizations, I would certainly be disappointed if they were Luxembourg, Andorra, and Liechtenstein. (Paul, Aharon Ben Rav)

8.7) Perhaps have civilization names change over time, either in a pre-chosen direction or totally random. You could go from the Franks to the French, the Magyars to the Hungarians, the Slavs to the Serbs, Bulgarians, Russians, and so forth. But if the Franks had a lot of contact with the English, it could become the Franklanders or something. (Cartagia the Great) Others don't like this. It would be too complicated. (Imran Siddiqui)

8.8) Expand the roles of Barbarians in the games. Why can't they trade? They can be like middlemen between civilizations. They could also become normal and start clawing for the top instead of randomly attacking cities and units. (Diodorus Sicilus)

8.9) CIVILIZATIONS THAT COULD BE INCLUDED:
· Aborigines
· American
· Anatolian
· (Anglo-)Saxon
· Argentines
· Assyrian
· Australian
· Austro-Hungarian
· Aztec
· Babylonian
· Berbers
· Belgian
· Brazilians
· Byzantine
· Canadian
· Carthaginian
· Celts
· Cherokee
· Chinese
· Cossacks
· Danes
· Dutch
· Egyptian
· English
· French
· Ethiopian
· Finns
· Gauls
· German
· Ghana
· Greek
· Hellenic
· Hebrew
· Hittites
· Huns
· Incas
· Indian
· Irish
· Israeli
· Japanese
· Korean
· Khmer
· Luxembourg
· Macedonian
· Mayans
· Mesopotamian
· Mexican
· Minoan
· Mongol
· Moors
· Native American
· Nigerian
· Norman
· Norse
· Norwegians
· Persian
· Phoenician
· Polynesian
· Portuguese
· Polish
· Roman
· Russian
· Scottish
· Siamese
· Sioux
· Spanish
· Sumerian
· Swedes
· Tibetans
· Thai
· Turk
· (Visi)Goths
· Vikings
· Zulu

Appendix I: Historian

Following the idea that a historian should be on the team, Diodorus Sicilus offered to take the position. Here is what he said:

If the Civilization III crew is looking for an Unpaid Historian, I'm not quite unpaid but could be for them.

Qualifications: 15 military history titles in print, guest lecturer in Military History at the ORIGINS gaming convention, contributor of scenario information to both SSI and Talonsoft games, author or collaborator on two sets of historical miniatures rules, familiar with almost all areas of military history (MA on Alexander the Great, recent writing on Soviet and German army in WWII) European Ancient, early modern, and modern history, Asian ancient and medieval military history, and American Colonial, Native, and early modern history. Some background in Ethnology and Geography, reasonably fluent in German, Russian, Ukrainian, and French.

His e-mail address is: ccsfort@earthlink.net

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