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Civ3: Assuming you are Civ x and start with Civ y and z on the same island. So after setteling every free spot you build up your military and conquer y and z so that you get more land and more security in order to develop faster. I think this is boring because you know beforehand that all civs you encounter early on wont make it far (or you die trying). An aggressive island strategy is IMO the best way.
I think to grow it should not be a necessity to kill off your neighbours.
I think Civ needs several types of relation:
A. Mutual
B. Parent-Child (parent helps the child to try to get to A.)
C. Master-Slave (master exploits the slave)
For this to work I propose some kind of "bond" system.
A bond is a common identification and communication level that 2 civs share. It is less than on a leader-leader level, but more on a your people - his/her people level.
There are 2 operations to bonds: Weaken and Strengthen. They do not need to be created as they are automatically there. They cannot be destroyed, because you cannot control them ultimatively.
There are 2 parameters that influence a bond:
1. Distance - stronger bonds with closer civs
2. Thickness - the thicker the stronger
You can control both parameters.
1. Distance
Is the distance between the two cores of the two civs.
A core is a weighted average of all your cities locations. The weight would be the size/development of a city.
Obviously you can control it by building/developing more cities in direction to the border of the civilization you want to strengthen the bond. Or weaken the bond if you place your cities away and try to increase size and development of cities further away.
I say size/development because size would be easy for building up and testing the system, but development would reflect the core location better. Development would be the output of a function that takes size, number and type of buildings/wonders, corruption/crime, productivity,.. .
2. Thickness
Is a percentage that reflects the intensity of a bond.
Once you reach 100% the strongness (the effect) of the bond can only be changed by tweaking the distance.
Thickness is controlled by diplomatic deals.
3. Putting it together:
effect = c/distance * thickness
c...is a constant factor that increases as you research. Certain techs like Flight strongly decrease the effect of distance. Initial value: 1
distance...a number in Z
thickness...a real number [0..1]
This is for simplicity. In a more complex formula you could bring in situations when there is a road connected or when civs are seperated by water and they just researched navigation,...
Now for A, B and C mentioned above:
A. Mutual:
Mutual bonds give equal benefits to both. Both civs regard them as being equal. This is clearly the bond that gives you most benefits. To strengthen it you have to do actions that benefit both civilizations. Giving gifts wont increase the effect but rather turn it into B. A deal where both civs benefit equally strengthens the bond most.
B. Parent-Child:
This gives more benefit to the Child and less to the Parent. The parent Civ regards itself as superior but has no hostility against the child civ. It tries to help the child civ grow to become equal as well so that the relationship might turn into A. One sided helpful actions against the child civ help turn the bond in this way. It can only be turned into A once the Child is able to shell out deals that benefit both civilizations.
C. Master-Slave:
A bond that draws off of the slave and gives to the Master. The Master Civ regards itself superior to the Slave and there is little reason that he wants to change this relation. The slave could only be freed by uprising and batteling the master.
Successful demands and tributes strengthen such a bond. This bond is really destructive to the slave. He/She loses research that the master gains. There is only benefit for the master.
Final notes:
The formular in 3. may not be too correct, but I didnt think it is my job to think out all the details. This is a concept after all. One thing that needs to be reflected for example is the factor introduced in A,B and C which one benefits how much or loses (in the case of M-S).
As of 2. I could ellaborate more on diplomatic deals but I leave this to Firaxis. I just want to say that there should be more than what we have now. Since bonds should reflect relations on people-people level, deals that are not visible to the ppl should have less of an effect. Besides it should be reflected somehow the benefits of a war when 2 vs 1. If one of the two civs take all the cities and leaves most of the fighting to the other then this would likely to turn into C. So the game needs several functions that evaluate the benefits of your actions to other civs.
I'd like to hear your comments.
I think to grow it should not be a necessity to kill off your neighbours.
I think Civ needs several types of relation:
A. Mutual
B. Parent-Child (parent helps the child to try to get to A.)
C. Master-Slave (master exploits the slave)
For this to work I propose some kind of "bond" system.
A bond is a common identification and communication level that 2 civs share. It is less than on a leader-leader level, but more on a your people - his/her people level.
There are 2 operations to bonds: Weaken and Strengthen. They do not need to be created as they are automatically there. They cannot be destroyed, because you cannot control them ultimatively.
There are 2 parameters that influence a bond:
1. Distance - stronger bonds with closer civs
2. Thickness - the thicker the stronger
You can control both parameters.
1. Distance
Is the distance between the two cores of the two civs.
A core is a weighted average of all your cities locations. The weight would be the size/development of a city.
Obviously you can control it by building/developing more cities in direction to the border of the civilization you want to strengthen the bond. Or weaken the bond if you place your cities away and try to increase size and development of cities further away.
I say size/development because size would be easy for building up and testing the system, but development would reflect the core location better. Development would be the output of a function that takes size, number and type of buildings/wonders, corruption/crime, productivity,.. .
2. Thickness
Is a percentage that reflects the intensity of a bond.
Once you reach 100% the strongness (the effect) of the bond can only be changed by tweaking the distance.
Thickness is controlled by diplomatic deals.
3. Putting it together:
effect = c/distance * thickness
c...is a constant factor that increases as you research. Certain techs like Flight strongly decrease the effect of distance. Initial value: 1
distance...a number in Z
thickness...a real number [0..1]
This is for simplicity. In a more complex formula you could bring in situations when there is a road connected or when civs are seperated by water and they just researched navigation,...
Now for A, B and C mentioned above:
A. Mutual:
Mutual bonds give equal benefits to both. Both civs regard them as being equal. This is clearly the bond that gives you most benefits. To strengthen it you have to do actions that benefit both civilizations. Giving gifts wont increase the effect but rather turn it into B. A deal where both civs benefit equally strengthens the bond most.
B. Parent-Child:
This gives more benefit to the Child and less to the Parent. The parent Civ regards itself as superior but has no hostility against the child civ. It tries to help the child civ grow to become equal as well so that the relationship might turn into A. One sided helpful actions against the child civ help turn the bond in this way. It can only be turned into A once the Child is able to shell out deals that benefit both civilizations.
C. Master-Slave:
A bond that draws off of the slave and gives to the Master. The Master Civ regards itself superior to the Slave and there is little reason that he wants to change this relation. The slave could only be freed by uprising and batteling the master.
Successful demands and tributes strengthen such a bond. This bond is really destructive to the slave. He/She loses research that the master gains. There is only benefit for the master.
Final notes:
The formular in 3. may not be too correct, but I didnt think it is my job to think out all the details. This is a concept after all. One thing that needs to be reflected for example is the factor introduced in A,B and C which one benefits how much or loses (in the case of M-S).
As of 2. I could ellaborate more on diplomatic deals but I leave this to Firaxis. I just want to say that there should be more than what we have now. Since bonds should reflect relations on people-people level, deals that are not visible to the ppl should have less of an effect. Besides it should be reflected somehow the benefits of a war when 2 vs 1. If one of the two civs take all the cities and leaves most of the fighting to the other then this would likely to turn into C. So the game needs several functions that evaluate the benefits of your actions to other civs.
I'd like to hear your comments.
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