Probably the most important thing is to know the current state of discussion before making suggestions. Your ideas will help out a lot more if you can explain how they fit into what we currently have, or alternatively how their better than what we have now. Only by knowing what's there already can you pitch your idea in the right context. Most of the models for areas in the game have already been locked in at a high level. We had to close off discussion on the very basics that some point, or we'd never make any progress. However, there's currently a lot of room in the area of specific implementations within the constraints we've already agreed upon. And also, I have to say it, some of the things we've already agreed upon make turn out to be dogs ;-). There are well over 1000 posts here discussing various aspects of the game, and links to a bunch of HTML documents on various areas of the project. I don't expect you to read it all first ;-). But do take at least a look at the main web page to see basically what's going on. A link is in the thread "For an overview of the Clash project - read this". After that you might want to check out the area appropriate for your suggestion in this thread before you post. Otherwise you may spend all your time coming up with great ideas we've already had ;-) or at least discussed. I know most of these threads are quite long, but you can
always call up the right one and use your browser's search capability to find whether we've discussed what you're thinking about.

Another great tool that Apolyton gives us is forum search capability. On the page that shows all the Clash threads in the upper right part of the page is a link to their search engine. If you want to make a suggestion, or find out what's been discussed in a particular area, the search tool is really helpful.

Finally, there's simply browsing the thread titles. If you set the box under "Post new topic" on the main Clash Forum to say "show all topics" instead of "...from last 10 days" you'll see the whole forum first page, and can access pages 2 and up (older topics) near the bottom right of the forum.

Once you find a thread where your idea belongs, please post it there rather than starting a new thread. Future readers of those threads will thank you! It will also make life a lot easier on the dukes. Only if you have a suggestions that goes off in a seriously different direction from the previous discussion should you start a new thread.

I wish I could respond to every post individually. Right now I do it when I don't feel like coding, and that works when there's just a few posts. But when things are lively I can't post that much or I'd lose a lot of time that I think is better spent in design and coding. However, I will do my best to publicize the ideas that I think are really good, and get them implemented.

Regards,

------------------
Mark Everson
Project lead for The Clash of Civilizations
(That means I do the things nobody else wants to do ;-) )
This Radically different civ game needs your suggestions and/or criticism of our design.
Check our our Forum right here at Apolyton...

That said, remember that if the AI is reasonably good it won't have gaping holes in its strategy that Need to be adapted to how you Exploit them . I think the best time to address these secondary AI issues is when the bread-and-butter AI is at least partly done.

Say each game will make an A.I. file which will be split up into sections, e.g. social, political, and combat. Then you were allowed to pick, and match say.

I left a note on the web page in your honor.
It reads:

Well, I'll just 'bump' it then.

bump.

Good thought, but there are two reasons why not.
1) the info is already up on the web page (under Suggestions)
2) there is limited space at the top of the forum page...