posted June 27, 1999 23:01            

Also, the Vikings are sort of a catch-all for all of Scandanavia. As I mentioned before, Denmark and especially Norway are long-shots at best.

Hopefully, there will be plenty of empty slots to fill with any civ you desire. ARE YOU LISTENING FIRAXIS? MORE CIV OPTIONS IS BETTER!

posted June 28, 1999 07:06            

I participate in an internet raytracing competition. In one round, a fellow did a scene featuring a sunset. He carefully researched astronomy to get the exact size of the sun in the sky, even accounting for factors like atmosphere. As accurate a sunset as is possible.

Now, when the results came in, he recieved the same comment over and over again: the sun is way too small. And it was true, it did look too small.

What does this have to do with Civ? Well, it shows that the APPEARANCE of accuracy is far more important than accuracy itself. Perhaps the Swedes were more important than the Vikings, but people THINK that the vikings were more important. Perhaps horned helmets were inaccurate, but people THINK that they were accurate. No matter how many references you cite, and how much research you do, we still think that vikings should have horned helmets, and unhorned vikings just look wrong.

In another thread (or an earlier version of this one, I can't remember) I suggested that proper spellings be used. Mao Zedong instead of Mao Tsetung, Chinngis instead of Ghengis. Again, these are more accurate, but since they don't match popular opinion, people will never accept them.

Everyone has read about Ghengis Kahn and Mao Tsetung, therefore they are correct. Similarly, everyone has seen horned vikings in movies, therefore vikings wore horns.

A result of pop culture? Yeah, but it can't be discounted either... Appearance of realism is more important than realism itself.

posted June 28, 1999 18:52            

Yeah, and be sure to get city placement right, just to please all us stubborn, nitpicking perfectionists Cities like Birka and Jelling should be some of the first on the Viking list. Unlike what Activision told us, Copenhagen isn't a Viking city, neither is Bornholm. Actually, Bornholm isn't even a city, it's an island

I like smileys.

posted June 30, 1999 12:00            

Who "discovered" North America in 1492?

Our textbooks say Christopher Columbus. French texts say Christophe Colombe. Of course, his parents probably called him Christopho Colombo..

posted July 01, 1999 20:34            

One thing that is debatable is what really defines the civilization and that is what it looks like its heading to here. To some its appearance, some its language, borders, culture. Theses are the more traditional definitions, but America (among other nations)really defies all ofthese (borders too, look how many people live abroad and corporations do too). Perhaps in the 21st century civilization is a different meaning altogether. I'm just saying what a civilization is should be agreed upon (and seems already dictated by microprose) and then we can get over the whole viking argument.

posted July 01, 1999 22:18            

"BR, there's some controversy over whether the Scandinavian countries are Vikings or not. My suggestion is to go with whatever you want and let them deal with it themselves."

posted July 01, 1999 22:58            

One thing I would like to see is for civilizations to become really differentiated. Have the civs have personality and uniqueness. In Civ2, the only difference between the various civs is if they attack you now or later (except for the perfectionist civs, which failed to grow and thus were doomed). It would be nice to have science dominated civs and really warlike civs and very diplomatic but cunning civs that ACT differently. I don't just want Alexander picture and name up there, I want to fight Alexander (or a decent fascimile). Also, I should have the option to randomize these personalities. Maybe even have multiple leaders with all different personalities to get a real feel (Who wants a peaceloving Alexander? Give me a Plato!)

posted July 02, 1999 13:47            

I have been thinking more on the "minor" nation concepts and can see the "realism" need for it, but frankly, they would seem to get in the way and slow the game down.

I am a firm believer in letting the game decide who is a minor nation and who is not. Realisitcally there were two main reasons that a civ rose to the top.

1) Geography
2) Leadership

The map dictates 1 and we the gameplay/AI dictate the second.

What I would not mind seeing is that surrendering of a civ to another and that second civ beoming a minor. Again the game dictates this.

posted July 02, 1999 14:12            

It sounds tempting to give each tribe five leaders with a rudimentary personality of his or her own, but in the end this is going to end up being a lot of busywork for programmers. I mean, I can come up with five major leaders for America, England, France, Germany, Egypt, China, Rome, Greece, the Hebrews, probably Spain, probably the Arabs, maybe Japan... but that's about it. And some nations in the game will have only dictators as leaders. Who would be the ideal choice as "peaceful leader of Babylon"?

Back when I first suggested dynasties, I just figured there would be variations on a single name unless the player chose a new one. Maybe the leader would occasionally change from male to female, so Comrade Hatshepsut would take over from Consul Rameses, but I never considered that the democratic leader of Egypt would be Anwar Sadat.

posted July 04, 1999 20:20            

I have to agree, although I must say I do agree with the idea of giving a Civilization two or morel eaders of each gender, each with a slightly differant personality, it should shake things up a little bit.

posted July 05, 1999 11:22         

Instead have a group (say 5) of choices of leaders that each civ can make. Each has different characteristics and personalities. By characteristics I mean:

- unit offense , defense and movement
- hit points and firepower
- effectiveness of administration (reduced corruption in cities around the leader)
- effectiveness of leadership - attack and/or defense bonus given to units within 2 squares of it
- tactics - increased or decreased viewing range

As the unit gets "older" , it would permanently lose hit points until it reached zero or was killed. When it declines to a few hit points, the civ would be given the option to build another to replace it and that unit would come into existance when the previous leader "dies".

However, if a leader is killed, there would be some turbulance and a civ would have to build a new leader from scratch and have no benefits as a civ would have no leader in the period between when the previous leader was killed and the new leader was built.

posted July 05, 1999 11:28         

Perhaps certain leaders wouldn't be available until a certain date or a certain technology is reached.

Certain techs would give all of the leaders additional bonuses to continue to make them useful as technologies advanced. For example, discovering leadership would give all leaders a +1 to their offense and defensive amounts (from eg. 4/2/1 to 5/3/1)

Maybe for some variety a civ would not be able to replace a recently deceased leader with the same unit it would have to be another leader unit.

posted July 05, 1999 17:17         

------------------

quote:

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"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!" -- John Cleese, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

---

posted July 06, 1999 01:29            

Maybe it could be a victory condition: get the aliens to contact you, and convince them that you are worthy of their technology.

posted July 06, 1999 13:53            

As I've said in other forums, Civ is an historical game, while SMAC is an SF game. Games that try to combine the two usually ruin both.

If Civ has aliens, I will not buy it.

PS: I also read the Worldwar series (well, second book). I'm a great fan of Alternate Histories, but I felt that the aliens spoiled it for me. Couldn't some other kind of more realistic occurance have cropped up, with equally dramatic effects? In soc.history.what-if, we refer to anything occurance that is unexplainable for the sake of an interesting situation a result of "Alien Space Bats", invoked by vigerous arm waving.

posted July 06, 1999 14:05            

Ah... ah... *optional*!

Excuse me.

posted July 06, 1999 14:15            

And I've got to say that, as much as I enjoyed the system of meeting minor alien civilizations and slowly convincing them to join my Federation, I don't think this style of play would suit Civilization. Human history has only rarely proceeded in this fashion. Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, maybe the Hapsburgs, and eventually the European powers in the Eighteenth Century. And the didn't so much assimilate as they did conquer. And really, when it comes right down to it, when the European powers were colonizing the various islands of the Americas and meeting minor tribes... let's face it, they were finding goodie huts, not minor civs.

posted July 06, 1999 17:06            

EnochF: the minor civs thing i think is important, and a real reading of history like alexander and the Roman Empire you will see that they never conquered ever city by force a lot of cities and states bandwagoned or like roman in italy or the prussian unification of germany they forged an alliance but eventually the alliances became unification. Also alexander may have built a lot of cities but the romans rebuilt/"modernized" a lot of cities only in the new world massive city building is what made nations in europe tribes were everywhere and were assimilated, so civ in a lot of ways is unistorical by how everyone builds cities everywhere. Minor civs are essental and the presence of many should also be a feature that adds to the tech tree (every time you contact someone it stimulates progress so we can have something to mimic development rates bewteen the new and old worlds and that was contact with competing civilization because hegemonic empires tend not to progress well without outside contact).

posted July 06, 1999 20:43            

What about the novel idea of making the late game more interesting by, oh, I dunno, making it more interesting??

posted July 06, 1999 20:52            

Erosion of the nation state: national borders are eroding. See the book Barber, "Jihad vs McWorld" global corporations on one end tear apart the state while smile ethno-centric tribal groups erode it as well.

Or read an article in Foreiegn affairs by Kaplan, "the Coming Anarchy." same idea but focusing on the tribal concept and the failure of law and order by distant government centers.

Then there is Huntington's article "Clash of Civilizations" where similar cultures that may compete economically become allied superstates when it comes to military action or foriegn policy in relation to other cultures (i.e. the West vs Islam etc.).

How to model these i don't know but man it would be fun!

posted July 07, 1999 19:25            

BTW, my Alien friend is very mad by everyone's comments. Have to go, here come the men in white coats!