OTHER (ver1.0): Hosted by JT

[JT]

New other section, I will come and put what's happened so far in a minute.

[JT]

posted May 18, 1999 21:52

General features:

Reigons-As time goes by, your cities are collected into groups called regions. These
share resources, food, etc. There is a percentage of production going to whatever project you assign.

Altitude-Altitude for the terrain.

PW-Public Works instead of Formers/Settlers.

More than one worker on a square.

Note: These are only the big topics that were discussed in multiple posts. If I missed any, or you posted a building or enhancement that was not mentioned, feel free to post it here.

[Ecce Homo]

As there is no list for City Improvements...

Multiple improvements in one city - a really big city would need many granaries to take care of its large food storage.

Improvements could need employees instead of money.

[JT]

I'm not so sure about the employees idea. The money pays invisible employees to keep the improvement going. But the multiple improvement idea is definatly good.

[Kedryn]

An elaboration on regions:

In the darkest of ages, cities must be self sufficient. Over time, as you gain infrastructure and government techs, you can begin to incorporate cities into regions. The lower the tech, the closer the cities must be to each other and the lower the number of cities in one region can be.

Cities in a region must be contiguous.

All surplus food and resources above minimal requirements for city survival end up in the region's 'warehouses' where the governor can assign percentages to go back to the cities, and a percentage to keep for trade and a
percentage that goes to the civilisation's capital as 'taxes'. Perhaps this could be done with slider bars for each city in the region management window.

Regions have a 'loyalty-to-empire' factor that varies according to infrastructure compared to other regions, how much in taxes goes to the civ capital compared to other regions and perhaps even the wealth of that region (if a region begins to feel that it is practically supporting the empire, it might decide that it would be better off supporting itself as its own empire).

Trade micromanagement could be reduced by having regions trade instead of cities, which could perhaps allow for a little more complexity in trade ("Alsace seems to produce a lot of iron. Let's allocate 20% of that for export."). This might encourage city specialisation (like in the real world).

Perhaps you could also add a 'regional army' that would be supported from the region's resources as a whole rather than each individual city.

These are just my ideas on how regions could work while being interesting without turning the whole concept into a micromanager's nightmare.

-Ked

[anachron]

1) One thing that was not used to great enough effect in CivII was X-factors, such as barbarians, citizen revolts, and environmental degradation. Natural disasters, for instance, could take great effect on the shape of the game and act as a levelling (or distancing) force. Potential X-factors which would occur randomly (and rarely) include:

*epidemics (population decrease)
*earthquakes (population decrease, terrain changes, infrastructure destruction)
*hurricanes (island and coastal areas, infrastructure destruction)
*famines (desert areas, population decrease)
*volcanic activity (especially in early stages of the game, population decrease, possible wiping out of cities - volcanoes would appear slightly different from mountains so that settlers who had explored the terrain sufficiently could build elsewhere)
*cults (decrease citizen happiness, could take other random effects - this one could be either a lot of fun or very annoying)
*alien visitation (farfetched, but possibly fun)
*artificial intelligence revolt (ditto, depending on reach of game)

Any others? Comments? How difficult would it be, AI-wise?

2) Another major suggestion I have is to increase the influence of religion on the game. My proposal is to incorporate the spontaneous appearance of prophets and religions among different nations, especially in the early stages of the game. This would be more realistic and fun than the advances like Monotheism and Polytheism, and could possibly influence questions like which happiness-related wonders a nation can build and which nations are likely to ally (though the latter is not entirely accurate, historically). The ruler would not be able to affect which religion appears in his nation initially, though he can, through diplomacy or warfare, introduce a new religion to the people. The increasing influence of science and reason in the later stages would decrease the significance of religion in much the same way as CivII.

I actually think a separate strategy game based on religion and religious history would be very interesting.

3) As to the time period the game should cover - I feel that one of the nice things about the game and the ability to create sequels for it, is that it traces civilization to the present and conceivable future, and no further. Thus, I think the game should cover the period from the first appearance of Homo sapiens (not sure when that was, sorry I've forgotten Anthro 101) until roughly twenty or so years after the game is released.

A

[This message has been edited by anachron (edited May 19, 1999).]

[JT]

This _is_ the "other" thread.

[anachron]

Rats, JT, you caught my mistake... I thought I was on the Governance one - it's fixed.

A

[JT]

I _really_ like your first two ideas, but I think the game should go farther-maybe to the year 3000? This would give people both the "rewriting history" experience and the sci-fi experience. I say this mainly because I think this is one of the areas(out of maybe two) that CTP did well in. Many of the futuristic ideas I liked, like the space cities and the Wormhole Probe. Some of it was cheesy, but the basic idea was good.

[Mo]

I would do away with terraformers/settlers completly. Public works should only be able to build improvments inside the region/city radius. Settlers would have to do the things outside of the city radius. This would mainly affect roads forts and airbases. This would allow the oponents to interfere with with construction.

[JT]

I like that. It combines the best of both worlds. And it's realistic. You don't see people from NY going out and fixing farms in Kansas.

[Utrecht]

Just NY Tax dollars going to fix Kansas Highways.

Actually, PW are a pretty good way of modeling how modern infrastructure works.

i.e. The is no way Denver could pay for a 5.5 billing dollar airport. The rest of you nice folks in the country helped pay for it.

[JT]

Yeah, I think the PW system was the other system CTP got right. I'd vote for that in Civ3.

[meowser]

I would like to see an alarm clock option. Say you want to play for 1 hour. At the beginning of your session, you set it for 1 hour. When the hour is up, it will ask you if you would like to save and quit or continue playing, or allow you to again set the alarm clock.

[Trachmyr]

WALLS - Like a bunker/fortification, but greatly hinders movement to cross. Regional walls can also act like roads, esp. for infantry (i.e. The Great Wall of China, not sure about Hadrian's Wall). It would completely prohibit movement of vehicles/calvary unless deystroyed... but that may take some time with primitive weapons (give the wall hit points?)

What do you think? I will also post in Combat list

[JT]

Very, very cool. Perfect for a peaceful country. Probably 40 HP, so it will decrease the amount of time you spend on destroying it when you get new weapons.

[Trachmyr]

I posted this before, but it was not picked up, nor was there any feedback. So I'll post it again.

Base Support Structures... a new city improvement

This Improvement includes ALL of the critical structures of past ages (Ancient, Bronze, Iron, ect.) under a single name and structure.

This would include stuff like: Granaries, Aqueducts, Markets, ect. But NOT barracks and other more specailized or optional structures.

This structure will give all the advantages of included buildings (and replaces those buildings), but at reduced upkeep cost

This structure will AUTO upgrade when you enter a new AGE if you have built all included structures of the previous age. Otherwise you may pay for the diffrence, or build the upgrade (labor required depends on how many structures have been completed).

This structure builds much faster than if building all of the componets. And you can RUSH BUY at no penalty.

The result is, that in the middle and especially the late game, you don't have to fumble about building arhaic structures. You will be able to found and develop a thriving city, without the need for that city to have been there from the beginning. Personally I hate building Granaries in the 1900's.

Tell me what you think...

[JT]

Hmmmm......intresting........but then, why include the other buildings in the game at all?

[This message has been edited by JT (edited May 19, 1999).]

[Trachmyr]

You must still build building of the current AGE if you want to stay ahead of the game... and waiting for the AGE to advance to take advantage of the upgraded BASE SUPPORT STRUCTURES, will leave you waiting a long time (longer if you don't build Science upgrades).

Also this way you can have more advanced/modern buildings of a former type.
University>Schoolhouse>Modern University
Harbor>Port>Port Facility

So if you don't build stuctures of your AGE, you WILL fall behind. And not all structures are automatically included.

[MBD]

Maybe the proposed list of city improvements and/or terrain improvements could be another whole topic.

[the Octopus]

The game should provide more recognition for "interesting" things that happen in the normal course of the game. For example, if a particular unit happens to fight in a series of very succussful battles and seems to be extremely lucky, it's home city should throw a "we love our troops" parade for a year or two, like the "we love the president day" parades.

[Widowmaker]

There should be the ability (either by the human players, or automatically by the computer) to name significant geographical locations. Large seas, mountain ranges, lakes, ....etc. I think this was present in the SMAC world (I only played the demo). It would really help in identifying with regions of the planet. A lot of times later in the games, it starts to get a little confusing if your empire is large.

"The Ural Mountains", "The Baltic Sea"...etc.

Would be very cool.

[the Octopus]

When the map generator is creating the map and placing Widowmaker's place names, it should take the starting positions of the Civ's into account, so we're likely to get a Nile River in Egypt, or the Andes Mountains near the Incas.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I like PW as a concept, but I don't think it was implemented very well. I know it was very frustrating trying to build a road between two widely separated cities. I think PW and borders should be combined, so you can build PW anywhere inside your borders. In unclaimed territory, maybe use CTP's system of building only next to an estabilshed PW. And you shouldn't be able to build in hostile territory.

[JT]

Yeah, that's pretty good. I think the PW system should be in CIV3.

[JT]

Same here.

[kmj]

the Octopus and Widowmaker have two great ideas: the recognition of special events, and the ability to name regions. Though, I think that whoever is the first to discover a region should be the one to name it, not the map-generator. I would really like to see both of these, especially the region-naming, in CivIII.

about your post EnochF:
I want Dana Scully to be my science advisor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh.
That would definitely make CivIII the coolest game ever.

[kmj]

Here's something that I guess goes in "other".

The idea of national flags. Instead of using colored shields, it would really be cool to see a flag to differentiate nations. And when you create a new game you should be able to customize your flag and edit it throughout the game. It would be a pretty easy thing to add, and it wouldn't get in the way of gameplay. What do people think of it? I think it would go a long way towards individualizing each game experience.

[JT]

Sounds good to me. A simple program like "Paint" could probably handle it, unless it went into 3-D effects and stuff. Otherwise, good idea, and easy to include.

[MBrazier]

Interlace Public Works with Regions -- each region, not each city, has its queue of Public Works projects to be done. And put a size/population limit on the size of a region, which depends on the current government model.

This way, when the game starts and you're in Despotism (or the equivalent) the largest region possible is one city; as your government gets more effective, the possible size of a region goes up, and you can concentrate the tax funds from many cities into one project. The burden of micro-management becomes a disadvantage of early governmental forms, to be relieved by technical advances.