EC3 New Ideas - Final Drafts

[korn469]

This is the final drafts section of the EC3 List. This is a read only thread! please do not post in here

[korn469]

New Idea #1 - Open Source AI

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>Open source AI: an AI whose behavior can be modified
by the end user. This could be implemented as:
1) Text file(s) containing situation/action rules:
If (at_war and
my_attack_factor>enemy_defense_factor) then
attack_unit
If (surplus_food<1 and settler_available) then
irrigate
If (city_size>7 and no_aqueduct) then
build_aqueduct
etc.
2) Executable file which can be modified (dll, etc.).
This approach would allow more flexibility, but would
also require more care on the part of the programmer.

Advantages of this feature:
1) AI can be upgraded. Once the players have
discovered weaknesses in the AI, it can be modified to
remove those weaknesses.
2) Multiple AIs can be included in the game. This is
not automatic, but would presumably be easier to
implement with this approach. Different AIs could use
completely different strategies.
3) The user could be given much more control over
micromanagement details. This could allow automation
of settlers and city build lists.

Disadvantages of this feature:
1) Poorly written AIs would make the game less
enjoyable, or could even crash the game.
2) Not all users will have the knowledge or desire to
modify the AI behavior.
3) Not all users will have the knowledge or desire to
download and install third party AIs.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

[korn469]

New Idea #2 - Detailed Replay

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>The importance of a good replay system can be thought of on two fronts:

1. People are naturally interested in seeing an overview of what and how they did. This provides incentive for trying new and better things next game and comparing with other fans.

2. With the ability to watch your own and OTHER people's games, the opportunities to share and implement new strategies are greatly accelerated. (This also helps catch cheaters). This would require an actual move-by-move replay system while #1 wouldn't necessarily.

If the ticker-tape were put in and done well, the natural language summary would be little more than a spruced up compilation of all those messages. It might look something like this:

2000 B.C.: Chieftan Yin settles in the lower Danube Valley and calls his village "UberYin."

1750 B.C.: Settlers sent from UberYin encounter a friendly tribe and join together to form the city of "Yaurn" near Mt. Goe.

...

1840 A.D.: President Yin's army, consisting of the 5th Calvary Brigade and the 17th Regiment a-foot, engaged a nomadic tribe, consisting of 100 mounted archers, near New Jersey. President Yin offered a trade alliance, but was refused my Chief Arrow-Breaker. President Yin then ordered his troops to fortify the area.

Another idea: An automatic log file with settings for level of detail by category:

New Cities
Cities reaching size 8
Cities reaching size 12
Cities reaching size 16 (etc)
Cities captured [and from whom]
Cities lost [and to whom]
Cities destroyed [and by whom]
First unit produced of type
All trade units produced
All units produced
Units destroyed [by whom] or disbanded

These results could also be converted into natural language format.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

[korn469]

New Idea #3 - Hex Based Map

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>Hex Based Map

Current Problem:
The ability to move diagonally on a square based map results in uneven movement and sight.

Basic idea:
Replace the current square based map with a hexagon based map. This would mean that a unit could now move in 6 compass directions as oppose to 8 before.

Benefits:
More accurate modelling of movement and sight. More realistic portrayal of land layout.

Feasibility:
Implementation of the idea before the prototyping stage would perfectly feasible without any known disadvantages (on the assumption that code is being written from scratch).
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

[korn469]

New Idea #4 - Tourism

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>Basically, in CIV, the gross income of a city is coming from 2 elements:
1. resource processing
2. trade routes
My proposal is to introduce a third element in this picture, the tourism. Tourism money will add as the third element to the city’s income.

Tourism should appear after the discovery of railroad (or maybe automobile or another invention that gave people the ability to travel more & easily). Starting from this moment, every city that possesses a Basic Tourism Resource starts to receive money from tourists (they should exist only virtually in the game). The amount of money a city is receiving will depend on the Advanced Tourism Resources and on the Global Tourism Resources.

Basic Tourism Resources
They will generate a fixed amount of money, no matter how small or big the city is.
- some natural resources (a few examples: wine, sand beaches, snowy mountains, exotic animals)
- buildings: obsolete (or not ?) wonders
- natural wonders (ex: Mount Everest, Niagara Fall); they could randomly appear during the map generating process

Advanced Tourism Resources
They will increase with a certain percentage the city tourism income
- the size and the wealth of the city (with a special bonus for Top5 cities)
- buildings (ex: hotels, casinos, entertainment centers)
- trade routes (as a trade center the city is better known)
- wonders (ex: Disney Land, Olympic Games)


Global Tourism Resources
They will increase or decrease with a certain percentage the tourism income through your entire empire
- infrastructure development (railroads, highways, airports, harbors)
- certain discoveries (ex: telephone, television, Internet – through better communication and advertisement)
- pollution
- peace & war (a war in your country should drastically reduce the tourism income in each of your cities)
- reputation of your empire
- the percentage of success fighting against barbarians (terrorists)
- happiness and freedom (of any kind) of your citizens (the happier your citizens are, the better they behave with tourists)

********************
Argument

One aspect of our civilisation that is completely missing from CIV is the tourism. And it's a fact that people are travelling more and more, and not only for business but also for fun and pleasure. There are several countries around the world, which receive a huge amount of their incomes from tourism and CIV should not ignore this particularity of the 20th century (and beyond).

<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

[korn469]

New Idea #5 - Simultaneous Turns of Play

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>The Problem

• The current turn-based model uses an unrealistic sequence, where a player can move units, attack a defender, and repeat. The defender can't properly react (reinforce, counterattack, etc.). All war declarations have a "Pearl Harbor" feeling, with significant advantages for attackers.
• Multiplayer is too difficult.

Abstract

• All players (human and AI) receive a turn report, which can be reviewed and replayed as desired.
• All players create a set of potential orders for units, cities, and diplomacy.
• All players submit orders.
• All orders are adjudicated (on schedule or when all players have submitted orders). Conflicting orders are decided using a rule-based priority system.
• Game generates turn reports.
• Repeat.

Advantages

• More realistic combat model. Forces players to consider both offence and defence. Eliminates the problem of "rolling attacks" where the defender has little or no opportunity to react. First strike nuclear attacks more difficult.
• Practical multiplayer options. In direct-connect mode, simultaneous orders creation saves considerable time. Eliminates the lag problems inherent in PBEM, as games could be hosted on web or email servers with set turn schedules. Players could receive turn reports, create orders, and submit them to the server for the next adjudication. The AI could create orders for players who do not meet the deadline. Eliminates most opportunities for cheating in multiplayer.
• Increased realism and excitement. In the real world, everyone acts at the same time, they don't wait until their turn. More tension in the rush to achieve objectives such as wonder building.

Needed to implement this proposal

• Development of a priority mechanism to settle conflicting orders, such as movement, resource allocation by competing cities, etc.
• Turn reports combining animation and text that allow detailed review of events. "Replay" of any portion of the turn report as desired by players.
• Options for reactive movement and combat. Multiple defensive and offensive postures for units. Method of determining whether a unit is attacking, defending, or both. For example, a unit could be ordered to "attack and hold," "charge," "attack and advance," "counterattack if attacked," and so forth.

Conclusion

• Simultaneous turns of play is more like a strategic level of command, where you make decisions and orders about the general plan, and then things happen according to your overall plan before you (the main commander) can change your mind.

<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

[korn469]

New Idea #6 - Rise and fall of Empires

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>Empires should become increasingly difficult to hold together as they get larger. As in real world empires, they should be subject to a risk of civil war, rebellion, secession, etc. If that happened it would not be the end of your Civ, but you might have to rebuild from a small base again if you can't deal with your internal opponents and lose part of your empire.

One benefit of this idea is that it would make the later stages of the game more interesting: in Civ2 once your empire reaches a certain size, you can't lose, and there is not much fun left in the game. If your empire was increasingly likely to crumble as it expands, the challenge of conquering the other Civs would be replaced by that of keeping your empire together.

A second benefit is that, unlike Civ2, you could not predict the eventual outcome early in the game. Getting off to a slow start in BC4000 would not inevitably mean that you will also be behind in AD2000, as is the case in Civ2.

A third benefit of this idea is that it makes the infinite city sleaze approach to the game not as effective, as with all those cities, you would be constantly at risk of rebellion in one or more of them.

Instead of the steady exponential power graphs of Civ2, my idea would result in a graph with ups and downs, as one empire grew great and then collapsed. You would have the possibility of building up an empire in a number of different eras. Maybe there could be some kind of mega-wonders that you could build in each era if you have a rich enough empire, as part of the scoring system.

The thoughts I had about implementing this idea quite simply were to:
1. Increase the factors affecting citizen happiness, so that for example the level of availability of food and trade goods, and whether the population is of the same nationality/culture/religion as the leader, etc. would affect the happiness rating.
2. Make the effects of unhappiness non-deterministic, so that as the unhappiness
increases, there is an increasing risk of a rebellion in that city. Unlike Civ2, there would be no way of being certain that a city would or would not fall into civil disorder, it would be a probability dependent on the happiness. The probability could increase as you get more distant from the capital.
3. If a city goes into civil disorder, it rebels and becomes a minor Civ and starts out on its own. All units from that city from then on belong to that new mini-Civ. With regionalisation, you could also see a region rebel.
4. Presence of a rebelling city would increase the likelihood of other cities nearby rebelling, so you get a domino effect: if you don't deal will a rebel city promptly you could see others rebelling too.
4. You can station your own troops (not from that City) in a City to combat rebellion. A
city will only rebel if the strength of any local units plus the City militia (low quality units in a number proportional to the population) is greater than that of your troops.
5. You can sell arms using a spy to an enemy City to increase the quality of the militia, making rebellion more likely.

I provide this as an example to illustrate the idea. There would be other more sophisticated ways to implement the same idea of course.

<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

[korn469]

New Idea #7 - Stacking

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>For every stack that you move around you need a commander. Commanders are
special units who appear at will during the game. In later ages, with the
discovery of tactics you can train commanders. Commanders that appear at will
need to be paid a sum of money for hiring. And then per turn a smaller
amount. Commanders that you have trained, get only paid per turn, you need not
pay a hiring sum, however, you have to pay the training and training should be
much more expensive! A Commander can unify a stack by adding various other
military units to it. So you can add some warrior units and some archers for
example. The amount of units a commander can control without getting
penalties depends on the experience level of the commander. There are 6
experience
levels: Green, Trained, Experienced, Veteran, Crack and Elite. You can turn
any of your units to a commander unit, however this commander then can only
reach till Experienced level. If you succesfully train a commander he can
reach elite status. The commander gives an attack and defense bonus to the
troops he command. The bonus depend on the experience level. If you assign
more troops to a commander than he is able to control he gets penalties,
meaning the bonuses dissapear and instead, troops are fighting with lowered
attack
and defense values.
There are 3 different commanders: Generals, Admirals and Air-Marshalls.
You cant assign a General to a Naval Taskforce, logically, so when you train a
commander, you need to select the category. Of course, only in cities with
ports you can train a naval commander and only in cities with barracks you
can train a general. Plus you need a military academy in the city too. If you
dont have a military academy, you cant train any commander at all.
You can assign a name to every commander you have and you can name every
unit/army you have. After a battle, a unit may have performed so well that
you can tell them to become a commanding unit! A commander is nothing else
than a commanding unit. If you had a pikemen with 3/3 att/def and you promoted
it to commander it still has the same att/def but now you can assign men to
it and create a stack. When the commander or commanding unit gets more
experienced, the att/def values increase. Units still can become veterans, but
only some units may become commanders. Else it is of course with training
commanders. When training a commander you select which type of unit it is and
invest a lot of money. I said, you can also appoint any of your units to a
commanding unit. This is true, cause every unit has a flag:
Have_I_Commanding_Ability. And only every 20th unit or so has this flag set to
true, so only
those units can get commanders with elite level. Every other unit may still
become a commander, but can only reach experienced. So watch out for those
units, that they wont get killed! Only those units with this flag set to true,
may be promoted after a battle to be a commander (meaning: only when a unit
has this flag you get the message, "Sir, this unit has performed so well, we
should consider appointing them to a commander!"; a unit without this flag
becomes veteran, but you dont get this message).
2 commanders cant rest on the same square, however it is possible, to move
through this square with another commander, when he has enough movement
points left to go elsewhere. So, after the end of the turn, every commander
must rest on his own tile.
Unit that are stationed in cities dont need a commander. You can have up
to a certain number of units defending the city and you need no commander for
them. You can have one, but you dont need one. You only need commanders for
stack that you move around the map or with which you engage your enemy.
Aslong as they are in the city you dont need a commander. Else, I think this
would be too much micro.
But of course, making a commander is not difficult, just appoint one of
your units, the only problem is that if they dont have the special flag they
wont get past experienced and the dont get a higher att/def rate. Only those
units with the flag can get a higher att/def rate, making them more
effective in battle.
There is a chance after a battle, that you can capture their commander.
When you do so, you get information about your opponent. There is also a
chance however that he will flee!
Then of course there should be the option to bribe commanders. Depending
on some factors you have to pay a more or less high amount of money and the
stack is yours - with some information about your opponent.
As for the units, there should be an additional value than attack/defense:
ranged defense, ranged attack! Ranged defense is there to prevent the
musketeer vs tank problem. Now, when ranged units fire at other units, the
ranged
strength is taken and compared to the ranged defense value of the attacked
unit. And the ranged attack value must be higher than the ranged defense
value or the chance of casaulities inflicted sinks by 15% for every 1 point
difference. So when a formation with 8 ranged attack engages a unit with 11
ranged defense then about it inflicts 45% less damage. This is to prevent CtP's
Phalanx vs Tank problem.
There should be an option if you can completely control the battle, or
just watch it. When you decide to control it, you can move your units in
formations. You can split formations and change them. A good formation gets a
bonus in combat effectivness.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

[korn469]

New Idea #8 - Energy

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>An energy resource model could and should be implemented in Civ 3, as distinct from the current production resource model in Civ 2. Where production resources would remain as SHIELDS, energy resources could be depicted as BARRELS.

Energy could be derived from animal power, wood, water, wind, coal, oil, uranium, and solar, depending on your current level of technology. The map would seed certain Special Energy Resources according to their energy yield potential. E.g., the more profitable the resource is to exploit, the less frequently it would appear on the map. Perhaps Uranium, which might yield the most barrels per site of all, would be the hardest to find.

The use of Energy in the game would be in combination with production shields to create units. Some units, like battleships, could not be built without HUGE volumes of energy barrels, the kind of volume a lower-yield resource like coal couldn't begin to provide. The balance of the game should dictate that building a unit like a battleship, and supporting its movement (see below), would require that the player locate, secure and exploit a resource with no lower yield ratio than oil. It is suggested the production model be changed such that one energy barrel would now be needed per shield to build. This could be modified by certain improvements and wonders. Any ratios suggested here are of course subject to practical testing.

Various areas of the game that would be effected:

Trade and Trade Routes - first, trading energy or buying and selling it outright will help players who missed the exploration and resource grab; secondly, even those who succeed in controling resources should have to initiate trade routes (made instantly with a small fee) from their oil producing colony to their production heartland. It should therefore be possible to make a blockade against an enemy. This would finally give players a reason to have a navy - to protect their own energy trade routes while disrupting their enemy's.

Diplomacy - includes negotiating trades of energy barrels, resource rich land, the outright buying and selling of energy barrels as mentioned above.

Transportation - The game would require each road tile and highway tile to consume energy barrels, thereby adding a strategic cost to unchecked city expansion; rail tiles should be free to maintain, but movement on them would now cost a certain amount of energy (see "Unit Movement" below).

Exploration - a new game feature: locating resource deposits.

Technology Tree - discovery is needed before the player is able to locate/use a resource.

ICS - it will cost more to have more infrastructure, thereby helping to restrict unbridled expansion.

Unit Movement - a new movement model whereby modern units consume energy barrels to move; on undeveloped terrain moving one space would require one barrel of energy, so a tank moving three spaces across a field would require 3 energy barrels. This cost would be modified by, going highest cost to lowest, road, highway and rail -- for instance, a tank moving 11 spaces on a highway might require 3 energy barrels, where a railroads would require either much less or a fixed amount of barrels as a "fee", while a stealth fighter flying 11 spaces through the air would require 11 energy barrels.

Land Control - necessitates the need to explore, control and defend resources.

Game Interface - energy "barrels," or another icon, would now be tracked alongside production shields.

Map Tiles - new tiles for Special Resources.

Early Energy Sources

oxen ranch (grass and plains, animal power, greatest energy production)
lumber jack (forests, uses wood, high energy barrel production)
mills (river tiles, uses water, medium energy barrel production)
wind mill (hills, uses wind, medium energy barrel production)

Later Energy Sources

open pit uranium mine (uranium squares, greatest energy barrel production)
oil well (oil squares, high energy barrel production)
coal mine (coal squares, medium energy barrel production)
dam (river tiles, medium energy barrel production)
solar panels (desert tiles, low energy barrel production)
wind power plants (hills, low energy barrel production)

Pollution - energy barrels should be the sole determinant of pollution; energy barrels might produce pollution on a one-to-one per barrel basis, but increased technology would lower this amount.

Overall Impact

Energy barrels would now be needed for production - i.e., you can't process shields without using energy barrels. Thus, no matter how many shields per turn your city collects, if it doesn't have energy barrels it cannot apply those shields to production. Before factories it would take one energy barrel to use one shield. As factories are built the amount of shields utilized per energy barrel would go up.

It is suggested that at some point a new advancement would make it possible for shields to be turned into energy barrels - such as synthetic fuels produced by germany at the end of WWII. Perhaps it would take two shields to make one energy barrel.

A suggested New Wonder - "OPEC," would increase oil production by 1.5 times per square and leech 1/4 of energy barrels produced from oil squares belonging to other civs.

Where shields might well continue to be locally gathered by each city, energy barrels could be collected from developed resource tiles in colonies within or outside your civ's borders, sent via an unobstructed supply route (abstracted on the game map) to your civ, where the cost of national infrastructure is taken off the top and the remainder is disbursed to each city to be processed with shields for production.

Excess barrels would go into individual city reserves, located in each city, the capacity for which would be equal to 10 times that city's population (before modifiers, which might take it up to 15 energy barrels per citizen). Reserves would be used to fund movement of units from that city (if applicable), and then to make up for any shortfalls in future production.

Balance

High production resource sites should be rare, and it should take a great deal of energy barrels to support a large civ's needs. If one civ gets extraodinarily lucky and manages to gain a site that produces copious amounts of energy barrels (i.e., several uranium sites together), limiting the storage capacity in each city would check them from being able to build an insurmountable stockpile.

The race to control resources would add a fun new layer of strategy and excitement, and the balancing act of USING those resources is nothing less than fundamental to a world class 4X strategy game.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 09, 2000).]</font>

[korn469]

New Idea #9 - Expanding City Radius

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>As a city grows in way of population and improvements, the radius of the city itself should grow too. Instead of only occupying one of the squares, it could take up 2, 3, maybe 4 as the city grows. As this happens, maybe include more squares that the city can use for food, shield, and trade production.
If the city radius itself does not expand, have the squares that can be used for production dependent upon the population, so the larger the population, the more squares that can be managed/used by the city.

Maybe as cities grow, if two cities were close together, they might be able to grow together (e.g. Dallas/Ft. Worth).

I see the 'expanding' city idea as real life. One of the goals of Civ is to make it real world, and the fact that cities expand is very realistic.

If two cities did become one, the choice could be given to combine the two, at which point the city would cover a large area. If this happened, duplicate improvements could be sold off automatically and all production would go toward one item. However, the city should be able to support 2 times the number of units permitted.

If the player chooses not to combine the two, there could still be a trade bonus because of the close proximity to each other.

<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 09, 2000).]</font>

[korn469]

New Idea #10 - Automatic Patrolling

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>Provide a way to have units automatically patrol between one or more points. If they contact an enemy unit they become activated and go to manual control. Patrol could be tied to places, or to things - such as aircraft carriers.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 09, 2000).]</font>

[korn469]

New Idea #11 - Domestic Politics

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>Give the people a WILL OF THEIR OWN!

In CivII the people are only a passive element in the game, easy to control and almost 100% predictable. They'll never revolt when -like I do each turn- you meticulously control the factors influencing their behaviour. The only influence they ever exert is on foreign policy.

So domestic politics actually don't exist. Apart from SE I would like to introduce the possibility of spontaneous revolutions, coup d'etats, civil wars, feudal risings, secessions, peasant revolts, colonies declaring independence, famine and tax riots. Most governments spent most of their time just trying to stay in power!

We, living in the year 2000, actually cant imagine the very restricted influence most goverments had over most of their subjects during most of history, certainly before the French revolution. Even strong, able and "absolute" rulers like Louis XIV didn't make a great difference. He couldn't for example tax his own aristocracy without serious risk of an aristocratic rising, which always could topple his government. And since that same aristocracy owned most wealth in his kingdom it was nearly impossible to control the royal budget, let alone his kingdom.

And all Roman emperors who didn't understand how to rule in cooperation with the Senate, sooner or later lost their lives. Later that influence shifted to the army, but the actual situation didn't change: work in accordance with the wishes of the army and the ruling elite or lose power!

So in my opinion- though I like the idea of social engineering for gamepurposes- the SE options should be more restricted and your power balanced by the elite and people having their own agendas, heavily influenced by religion or economic interests. I think the population of Civilization is much too easy to suppress, even on Deity level.

Actually peasant revolts occurred almost every second year, mostly as a result of crop failure and the subsequent famine. Tax collecting would be another reason to revolt.
Another constant, more dangerous threat to each government was the aristocratic "cabale". And we should never forget the danger of pretenders within the royal family, possibly encouraged by foreign powers. (for example the War of the Roses or the incountable palace revolutions at the court of the Romanows)

To include these elements I would like to introduce different levels of political control, like interest, influence, protectorates and actual annexation. In this way large, sprawling, quite informal empires can be represented, but also a highly centralized city-state. The relation between centre and periphery will shift constantly; the power of the political centre can diminish or grow again, offering more possibilities for foreign intervention and disputes over control of a minor power. To control a region you would always need the support of the local elite, sometimes priests or the aristocracy, sometimes moneyed interests or local party officials.

This would also create the possibility to interfere in the politics of an other great power by supporting the local opposition. Perhaps that opposition is more willing to make peace or allow trade!?

So instead of the gamers dictating the social conditions I would prefer a game dictating the limits of government. Let people revolt because of crop failure or high taxes! Let the aristocracy thwart your plans and secede, carrying half the kingdom with them. The influence of the priests has also been immense; they could anathematize you or confirm your divine right to rule.

Finally the people should have its own character and loyalty to a religion or civilization, which wil not change easily. So factors like militarism, individualism, religiousness and conservative/experimental should be introduced.

<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 09, 2000).]</font>

[korn469]

New Idea #12 - Different Levels of Cities

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>How about having different levels of cities, say a village, a town, a city, and a megapolis. These levels would have progressively greater radii so that they could gather more resources, and the improvements that one can build would also be dependent on the type of city. For example, cathedrals would only be built in a town or above, while superhighways could only exist in a megapolis.

The cities would change status based on two main factors: population growth, and certain city improvements. For example, any town size eleven or above with an aqueduct will become a city, or any city of size seventeen or above with a sewer system will become a megapolis.

The city radius of the settlement will increase as the settlement increases in status, however it will only grow to a certain limit. The highest level, megapolis, for example will be able to gather resources from squares that are four or five squares away, but not more.

To remedy potential problems in the modern times and make cities built late in the game equally viable I propose the following solution. A city founded by an engineer instead of a settler could begin at size three or four and immediately achieve the status of a city. Meanwhile, the engineer would also be more expensive to build than a settler.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 09, 2000).]</font>

[korn469]

New Idea #13 - Recruitment System

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>The idea of the recruitment system is that you build a unit by building only the weapons and using a certain population to create the unit.
to make recruitment work properly, I suggest using the "x10 system" for population where pop is multiplied by a factor of 10. ( "real" population instead of "heads" would be ideal but it would require too many changes in the other areas of civ3 and probably won't make it into civ3, so I think that the "x10" system" is therefore preferable).

recruitment would work in the following way:
let's say we have a city of pop 20. (what use to be pop 2 under the current civ2 model). The player would set the production queue to a certain weapon say "tanks". A certain number of tanks would be produced every turn depending on the city's industrial capacity. When you have enough tanks for 1 pop to use, you could take 1 pop away from whatever it is doing and make it into a "tank unit". (notice that it's only 1/20th of the pop, that is why a x10 model for pop is needed) If that same city also produced guns for example, you could combine both (1 pop as infantry and 1 pop as tanks) into one single unit that would be called an "army" and would be composed of the corresponding infantry and tanks together.
NOTE: If you disband the unit, the pop would return to work but you would keep the weapons, so you could reconstitute your army by simply rerecruiting your pop. This is a big change from civ2 where disbanding a unit is more final.

The major improvements that I believe recruitment brings to civ3 are:

1) as in History, population itself would be the primary ressource to building an army. Building the weapons is not enough! Raising an army now has an effect on your city, since that pop is unavailable to work in the city, and if it is killed off in combat that pop is lost. This makes war more authentic! This makes raising an army more interesting as well as making war more balanced. Long protracted wars will be more difficult. In civ2 you could basically wage war from the beginning of the game to the end.

2) war planning is simpler and more interesting. Instead of dozens of units wondering around the map, recruitment gives the player "armies" which can be moved around. For example, I could have my entire military force split into three "armies". Now the player only has three units to move. Also, it would have a more authentic feeling of being an general. You would move Army I ( composed of X infantry, Y tanks, Z artillery) to the South toward Gedansk, as you move Army II, around Leningrad to capture Smolensk, for example. There is a sense of military planning.

Final comments:
1)support costs (food+gold+shields) should be reduced (especially food) in a way that is balanced and that does not make raising an army too difficult.
2)building weapons would take less time than building the equivalent unit in civ2. This solves the famous problem of a warrior taking 200 years to build. As you could build a warrior unit in one turn.

<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 09, 2000).]</font>