{The List-} Civilizations

[okblacke]

Originally posted by skywalker No, all civs should be (relatively) equal, though I can see how it would be difficult to get as many Iroquois citynames as German or English, and they should DEFINATELY be equal in terms of the actual game (don't make some civs better than others).

Actually, I would debate this point.

Game balance is over-rated. For a game like Civ, there's a lot to be said for making some tribes harder than others. You could have cultural handicaps for some tribes (which could be switched off), though you might want to add extra tribes per map size, knowing that some were very likely to be wiped out quickly.

There's already an imbalance that occurs from starting position. Why not add a few more intentionally.

[DarkCloud]

You could have cultural handicaps for some tribes

Hmm... but what about people who'll shout "racism" at the first sign of anything like that?

although, I do have to admit, you make a lot of sense with your points Okblacke

[polypheus]

Well the cultural and/or technological handicaps could be randomized rather than hard coded to prevent charges of "racism". Not only that but it would add more variety to the game rather than always have Aztecs be the late-starting backwards Civs in the New World.

Anyway in case anyone missed the point, what I wanted to achieve was to create various REGIONS on a given world map. There would be a couple "Europe" regions with lots high-tech nations and there would be various regions akin to our Earth's N/S America and Africa that are setup for colonization and exploitation at a later stage populated with late-starting Civs.

But if the map is set up right and terrain is impassable and REXing is eliminated, then perhaps having the computer create late-starting backwards Civs may not be necessary as perhaps certain geographical and political sitautions would make this happen more times than not.

I just feel though that exploration, colonization, and exploitation of the New World should be a natural part of the epic game which is why I suggested that certain regions of the world be populated with late starting Civs.

[okblacke]

Originally posted by DarkCloud

Hmm... but what about people who'll shout "racism" at the first sign of anything like that?

although, I do have to admit, you make a lot of sense with your points Okblacke

F*ck 'em if they can't take a joke? There's certainly an historical basis for handicapping some tribes.

I know I'm not the only Nethack player here. One of the reasons Nethack has had such tremendous longevity is that it's distinctly imbalanced. Some classes are designed to be easier for the newbie, and some are designed to be much, much harder.

And, much like the better Nethack players, the better Civ players adopt additional handicaps to keep Civ interesting.

The only real problem I see with it is adopting the AI so that it can play the handicapped civs reasonably well.

[ok]

[joncha]

I think any imbalance should come from how the game shakes itself out, not from the handicapped of civs misguidedly deemed "backward" by someone. The isolation that continents or archipeligo maps create for some civs create this already. It should not be hardcoded into any of the civs.

I think the distribution of starting techs, and the relative strengths/weaknesses of traits and unique units in civ3, along with the "luck of the draw" of starting locations, are about as far as I would accept in a game like civilization.

Historical scenarios are a different story. If you want to reenact conquest and genocide in the Americas, don't whitewash it. But to suggest that on a random earth, with random starts, nations like the Zulus or the Aztecs will always have a tough time of it is racism, whether people "shout about it" is besides the point.

jon.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by okblacke
Game balance is over-rated.

No, it really isn't.

[okblacke]

Originally posted by joncha
I think any imbalance should come from how the game shakes itself out, not from the handicapped of civs misguidedly deemed "backward" by someone. The isolation that continents or archipeligo maps create for some civs create this already. It should not be hardcoded into any of the civs.

Ah, but they already are, to a degree. It's easier to play a particular style of game based on the civ you're playing. If the map doesn't lend itself to that sort of play, you're handicapped. As you point out:

I think the distribution of starting techs, and the relative strengths/weaknesses of traits and unique units in civ3, along with the "luck of the draw" of starting locations, are about as far as I would accept in a game like civilization.
. . .
But to suggest that on a random earth, with random starts, nations like the Zulus or the Aztecs will always have a tough time of it is racism, whether people "shout about it" is besides the point.

"Racism" would be to suggest that a particular race should inherently be worse at some action or other. Note that this is already built in with tribal traits: Scientific tribes read better, militaristic tribes fight better (though the system remains the same, militaristic tribes get the extra hitpoints faster), etc.

I suggest we retire the issue of "racism" entirely, therefore, because I don't believe there's any racist intent here. Civ benefits from the variety, which can be eliminated, if so desired.

The problem with the tribes, the way they are now (and the way they would be exaggerated) if they were specifically made with certain advantages, was pointed out to me by a friend who's a student of "cultural geography". Others have mentioned it here, too.

Take the Zulu out of the jungle and give them a fertile plain to develop on. Will they be more successful? Presumably. Will they still be Zulu, however?

Would the English still be the English if they didn't inhabit that floating rock in the North Sea?

There's no question that the U.S. of A. would not be what it is without having had its frontier to expand to.

There's a serious temporal factor in all this, too, which is completely unimplementable in the current model. You don't have America without a history of religious repression in Europe, John Locke, and a middle class.

And perhaps this is the flaw with tribal traits, period. As many have suggested, and I'm coming to agree, a civilization's traits evolve from its actions (which in turn evolve from its geography, at least in part).

This could be an interesting way to go for Civ 4. Start each Civ out with no techs. As the people develop, their skills grow. Near a river? They can develop irrigation. Lots of mountains? They can develop mining. In a jungle? Unlikely to develop either irrigation or mining, but greater movement through jungle terrain (and perhaps warrior skills from fighting the elements).

Fighting could result in warrior code, horses in horseback riding (eventually).

Caravans could make a comeback, resulting in road tech and, once a route was established, resulting in the possibility of resource trading. Trade would result in currency.

Trade would also result in concepts between civs transferring. They use this thing called a wheel to haul stuff. We need to get some o' that!

Religion could evolve along traditional lines: Bad luck, like disease, starvation, extraordinary bad or good luck in battle could give birth to mysticism. Evolutions like an entrenched religious class seem to be tied to wealth (and not, as Civ has it, Monotheism :sigh: ).

What would be cool would be--there's a new game coming out that does this...can't remember what it's called, but it lets you choose your culture's identity mid-game. You can't play the Americans in the stone age, but you can become the Americans later on.

It might be particularly cool if you could switch your national character at age changes, and this had an impact. Well, we used to be Egypt and industrious and religious, but now we're Greek, so we're scientific and commercial, and then we became Rome, so we're militaristic and expansionist.

Something like that might be cool. The switch could take place like government switches, with the interim time giving you no bonus at all.

Anyway, long rambling message that I hope makes some contribution.

[ok]

[okblacke]

Originally posted by skywalker


No, it really isn't.

Yes, it really is.

Shall we exchange another 12 posts like this, or would you like to elaborate?

In MP, game balance is important, though (IMO) it's also important to allow handicapping.

In SP, game balance can be death, because once you've won the game, it has no replay value. Part of Civ's best replay value comes from the fact you can start off in a horrible position with the wrong traits. Like expansionist on a small tundra island.

[ok]

[Plotinus]

I very much like the idea of traits evolving through the game. It does seem silly to give the Mongols a UU that rides over mountains like they're plains if the Mongols in your game live on the biggest desert this side of Jupiter. Obviously, in real life the English are sea-faring because they happen to live on an island, the Dutch are agricultural because they are squeezed onto the edge of a continent and have been forced to create what is essentially dehydrated sea to live on, and so on. Of course, making traits solely history-dependent would remove the element of choosing which Civ to be in the first place. It would be nice ot have a balance between the two - Civs are hard-coded in some ways, but evolve in others.

[Nikolai]

What about something like this:
CivA starts on an island with good possibilities for agriculture. Because the civ builds lots of ships and irrigration, they become seafaring and agricultural after some time. Now, let's say that later, they begin to build lots of industry, thus gaining the possibility to become industrial. If the game is set to let a civ have only two traits(this should be moddable), CivA should get the option to either replace one of their old traits or keep them as they are.

What do you think?(hopefully this isn't proposed yet. I've not had the time to reread the thread. )

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by okblacke


Yes, it really is.

Shall we exchange another 12 posts like this, or would you like to elaborate?

In MP, game balance is important, though (IMO) it's also important to allow handicapping.

In SP, game balance can be death, because once you've won the game, it has no replay value. Part of Civ's best replay value comes from the fact you can start off in a horrible position with the wrong traits. Like expansionist on a small tundra island.

[ok]

That's not bad game balance. The game is unbalanced when certain strategies are inherently worse than other strategies. If you want a more difficult game, you choose a higher difficulty level.

[POTUS]

I think that game balance is not important, as long as there are some strategies that work for each civ, but different strategies work better in some situations, than in others.

[okblacke]

Originally posted by skywalker
That's not bad game balance. The game is unbalanced when certain strategies are inherently worse than other strategies. If you want a more difficult game, you choose a higher difficulty level.

It always seems to come down to semantics, doesn't it?

You're talking about a different kind of balance than I am. And not very precisely, if I may be so bold.

I mean, if my Civ strategy is to build nothing but warriors and try to take over the world with them, that's inherently worse (i.e., "less likely to succeed", I can only guess that's what you mean by "worse") than a strategy that involves acquiring techs, building a few cities, doing some terrain improvements, etc.

It's inherently harder in Civ to win being a pure pacifist or never expanding. People do it, of course, but these are considered challenges for the best players. They're bad strategies for winning.

Civ offers a lot of incentives to balance strategies, but it still heavily favors certain approaches. Expansionist, industrial and military approaches in particular in Civ 3. In previous Civs, science was a killer, in the sense that you could turtle-up and trust in your tech to protect you from AI onslaughts. (Though Civ has always favored expansionist play.) C3C practically requires a certain degree of military aggression (probably the direct inverse of how much you expanded).

If Civ were truly "balanced" (in this sense of the word), it would be just as feasible to dominate without expanding with new cities or military. You could do it with trade or science or culture.

Of course, it'd be an entirely different game.

[ok]

[okblacke]

Originally posted by skywalker
That's not bad game balance. The game is unbalanced when certain strategies are inherently worse than other strategies. If you want a more difficult game, you choose a higher difficulty level.

OK, so what I'm talking about, as far as "game balance" is probably exemplified by "Starcraft", and it has nothing to do with strategy. (There's really only one feasible strategy in "Starcraft" but a fair number of tactics.)

In any basic Starcraft map, all players start off with equal footing. Whichever race, where ever they are physically loacted, they have an equal chance to win. Each troop type has a counter and each tactic has a counter-tactic.

By contrast, Civ is wildly imbalanced. The Civs are in no way on equal footing. (I think someone recently posted a start on a two-square island. ) In addition, the inherent characteristics of certain tribes almost always succeed over the others (in my Conquest games, the Celts, Portugese and Dutch are always the killer tribes, when they exist).

This is what I mean by "game balance": at turn 1, all players start in an environment that gives them an equal chance for success. In other words, the only thing that determines who wins the game is player skill.

The greater the impact of the starting position, the less balanced the game is. In games of chance (like poker or craps), the high randomity is balanced by quantity. Over time, good and bad luck are overwhelmed by statistics. It's harder to play a 100 games of Civ than 100 hands of poker, though.

In MP, game balance is pretty critical. Ideally, you can set it. And, of course, in Civ, the best players can minimize the impact of their starting positoin to a degree.

In SP, game balance is not really that important. In the early days of computer gaming, games were wildly unfair to compensate for the fact that there wasn't much to them. Your goal was to "beat the game" and, once you beat it, it was over.

These days, games tend to favor the player, since most people don't like to lose. (They're shorter, too.) The SP games with real longevity (not including modding) are the ones that add imbalance in a manner that makes them satisfying to beat. (That's why a lot of folks really wanted that emperor-diety substep added.)

Of course, in Civ, two things pop up:

1. Trying to balance a game is probably technically impossible without completely eliminating geographical variety and random tribe placement.

2. The adjustible game imbalances that pass for "difficulty levels" are just a serious crutch for inadequate AI. C3's AI is much better than previous Civ's, but this sort of imbalance is going to be necessary for a long time to come, I expect.

OK, lecture mode off. I hope that clarifies what I'm trying to get across.

[Kuciwalker]

In MP, game balance is pretty critical. Ideally, you can set it. And, of course, in Civ, the best players can minimize the impact of their starting positoin to a degree.

A special balanced MP map generator is planned for the next C3C patch.

In SP, game balance is not really that important. In the early days of computer gaming, games were wildly unfair to compensate for the fact that there wasn't much to them. Your goal was to "beat the game" and, once you beat it, it was over.

However, such "imbalance" should be based on start position and randomness. Nonrandom things need to be balanced for MP to work.