Civ 4 - Fit for Minors?

[Fosse]

Originally posted by Drachasor
As such I like modeling them as simply smaller civs that basically never expand. They'll build some units, some improvements, and maybe 1 or 2 cities (all civs should only start with 1 city), but at a very slow pace and they'll never get more than 3 cities.

You and I are very much on the level of what Minor civs should represent, Drachasor. I still stand by more major differences between major and minor than slowing growth though. The reasons being twofold.

1) If you can create a game that will run quickly enough to be playable that has perhaps twice the minor civs as it does major civs, and the minor civs are almost exactly like the major ones, then why not just design a gam with three times the major civs and no minors?

Basically, if you can spare the computer power to run that many civs, why not simply drop the distinction and let all civs expand until they run out of room. The big guys and little guys will be differentiated the same way they always have been.

Now, as much as that sounds awesome, it brings up my second point:

2) Stripping Minor Civs of many of the Civ trappings means less to deal with on the geo-political stage.

Remember how hard it is to keep track of just 16 civs with diplomacy and trade in Civ 3.

[Fosse]

double post

[Fosse]

Originally posted by MORON
I don't believe in minor civs. Why have civs if they are so half assed anyway.

As we've stated earlier:

Because we all want lots of Civs, but having too many regular civs would likely prove too much for both computers and players. Thus, a compromise in the form of some sort of minor civilization.

[Solomwi]

Fosse

On the buildings, the only one I think would greatly hamper playspeed would be harbors (due to calculating trade routes), and minor civs shouldn't be trading overseas anyway.

Either solution (allowing shields, but only for improvements or your immunity fix) works for me.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by GePap
This is not correct. lets look at the Native American civs in the game:

The Aztecs and Inca were expansionist empires with large armies, burocracies and massive cities. The Maya had such a period that ended with massive intercine warfare and ecological collapse due to overusage. The Iriqouis Confederacy was an active diplomatic player in the NE in the game between the European empires until the rise of the US.

Right, so you picked the two notable exceptions. There are a lot of other civilizations in North America that did have a lot of time to adapt, but they kept to the old ways.

I wasn't talking about the ones you could pick from, I was talking about the ones you can't choose, and why that might be. Though, some civilizations that were minor do become major, and other ones never really adapted, but they are included as major (such as the Sioux--sp?).

-Drachasor

[MORON]

Yes, and I took over china with armor before they discovered gunpowder, so china is a minor civ.

There are no "minor" civs. Every civilization that is up to city level is perfectly capable of developing new technology and expansionism. All the civilizations that are considered "failures to adopt" never had the time to do so. For a fundamental technological revolution it takes around a century of trade and war before the infanstructure and culture attitudes match up and many civs are wipe out as a dozen kights and musketeers march into their cities.

Even the American natives, not really a major civ, have changed their lifestyle completely in two generations, from static agrian culture to normanic ones with horseback riding and guns before being wiped out. Normadic lifestyle is adopted for military reasons, just in case you are wondering.

As for the lack of technology for some civilizations, it is simply the result of bad starting location and latter starting times. (some civs only had cities since say 1000AD) Consider the polynesians with nothing but sea and very little trade with the asians, or the Aztecs that have no negibours within reach to trade whatsoever. While this is happening, the largest landmass of euro-asia has lots of tech trade and huge population, it is not surprising that the europeans managed to expand while Aztecs did not.

As for technological regression, consider the fact that an landmass the size of europe can suffer from it, it is not a trait of "minor" civs but merely something that happens by chance.

Because we all want lots of Civs, but having too many regular civs would likely prove too much for both computers and players. Thus, a compromise in the form of some sort of minor civilization.

My computer how has GHz levels of power, while civ has NOT gotten more complex than say civ2 which runs on a original pentium well enough. The only process that takes alot of processing power is AI, and we certainly can program an "Lite" AI for powers that are suppose to be stupid and weak.

As for too many civs for me, the obvious solution is to CRUSH THEM ALL

[Fosse]

Originally posted by MORON
very civilization that is up to city level is perfectly capable of developing new technology and expansionism ..... As for the lack of technology for some civilizations, it is simply the result of bad starting location and latter starting times. (some civs only had cities since say 1000AD)

Well, Civilization has no mechanism for civs starting after 4000 BC, though there were people in the land where civilizations eventually came to rise for tens of thousands of years. Perhaps you could imagine a model for minor civs that allows them to inhabit the land, have a unique culture, and eventually have a chance to develop into a full-fledged civilization?

And it also has no mechanism other than a city to represent that a culture is present in a given part of land, so giving minor civs cities seems the most appropriate way to represent nomadic territory, villiage cites, etc that might be inhabitied by an identifiable culture that hasn't developed onto the world stage.


A system in which borders simply existed around a handful of huts would work just fine for me, since it is what the game is representing that matters.


What we are searching for is a way to include the fact that by the time civilization rolled around the world is for the most part covered by people. An effective New World scenario, to adequatly represent the Europeans carving up an inhabited land, in Civ 3 would have to either be with an empty America, dozens of barbarian huts, or just a bunch of cities with crappy units in them. None of those sound very compelling.

My computer how has GHz levels of power, while civ has NOT gotten more complex than say civ2 which runs on a original pentium well enough.

But people with high GHz levels and tons of RAM had to sit for minutes at a time between turns playing with 16 civs. That's not exactly running well enough.

The only process that takes alot of processing power is AI, and we certainly can program an "Lite" AI for powers that are suppose to be stupid and weak.

I could not be more opposed to this idea. If civ is doing poorly its AI should kick into high gear, if anything. My above ideas for minor civ AI were simply to excise its AI as much as possible, so that one minor civ or twenty would not add signifigantly to turn times. Downgrading a major AI civ that peforms poorly is unlikely to help, especially since it is the big AI civilizations that take forever to move their units, not the guys with only three cities left.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Drachasor


Right, so you picked the two notable exceptions. There are a lot of other civilizations in North America that did have a lot of time to adapt, but they kept to the old ways.

I wasn't talking about the ones you could pick from, I was talking about the ones you can't choose, and why that might be. Though, some civilizations that were minor do become major, and other ones never really adapted, but they are included as major (such as the Sioux--sp?).

-Drachasor

two? I mentioned 4.

Besides the fact that civs in the Americas started behind without many of the advantages that civs in Eurasia had, most areas were not the friendliest for civs.

As Moron said, civs adapt to their surroundings: th Sioux started as agriculturalist, but then they got the horse and turned to nomidic hunters becuase that was more powerful.

[MORON]

An effective New World scenario, to adequatly represent the Europeans carving up an inhabited land, in Civ 3 would have to either be with an empty America, dozens of barbarian huts, or just a bunch of cities with crappy units in them. None of those sound very compelling.

But that was what were there. Crappy cities that can be conqured by a thousand man, poorly armed huts that gets overrun by settlers and an comparatively low population density and the occational nomandic barbarian that smacks a settler.

Applying history in gameplay terms the new world is effectively empty, so empty that they had to ship a huge number of people from africa. In civ we don't care about culture, we care about pops, cities, shields, gold, beakers and panzer armies. If the new world had none of that than it is effectively empty.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by GePap


two? I mentioned 4.

Besides the fact that civs in the Americas started behind without many of the advantages that civs in Eurasia had, most areas were not the friendliest for civs.

As Moron said, civs adapt to their surroundings: th Sioux started as agriculturalist, but then they got the horse and turned to nomidic hunters becuase that was more powerful.

Oops, I can't count.

Anyhow, yes, all civilizations adapt, the question is about how much they adapt. The Aztecs and Incas really didn't have time to adapt, and the more northern Native American tribes didn't really adapt all they much. They hunted buffalo before, and with the horse they could just do it more efficiently.

Anyhow, I made my case based on the Japanese, who quickly and rapidly took up industrialization, and did their upmost to educate or modernize their people and technology. They are a great example of a "major civ". There are some examples that are inbetween, and other examples of civilizations they adapt very, very little. There are primitive tribes today, for example, that could change, but they don't. For some cultures, adapting to a more modern lifestyle is something they shy away from. Though that can change with the right impetus. They might trade for better goods, but they won't learn how to make them themselves. A civilization that won't learn how to make new things* is one that cannot be termed "major" in the long run.

-Drachasor

[GePap]

Originally posted by Drachasor

Anyhow, yes, all civilizations adapt, the question is about how much they adapt. The Aztecs and Incas really didn't have time to adapt, and the more northern Native American tribes didn't really adapt all they much. They hunted buffalo before, and with the horse they could just do it more efficiently.

Tribes like the Sioux might have hunted a buffalo here or there for meat, but nowhere to the extent they did after the horse, if only becuase it was not that effective. After the horse they stopped being semi-nomadic subsistance farmers and became nomadic hunters, and they survived a hell of a long more doing that than they would have staying in their old camps when the US begun expanding westwards.

A civilization that won't learn how to make new things* is one that cannot be termed "major" in the long run.

The Mongols were not partiuclarly inventive- I can't think of any ideas they provided the world becuase other civs did not even adapt their military structure-but they are a mayor civ simply by the fact they conquered the biggest land empire in history and in doing so changed history.

A minor civ is a definition in the game simply to maximize the number of players without using up far too much AI power and creating a venue for dynamism in the lineup of civs, to combat the ECS as it was termed. It isn't a "judgement" on the qualities of a civilization.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by GePap
A minor civ is a definition in the game simply to maximize the number of players without using up far too much AI power and creating a venue for dynamism in the lineup of civs, to combat the ECS as it was termed. It isn't a "judgement" on the qualities of a civilization.

VERY well put, GePap. Far more direct than my page long rants!

[Abdul Alhazred]

Why not making a new the list with it ?

[GePap]

Overall I like Fosse' proposal best in terms of not allowing a minor civ to have a build queue and so forth to save on AI power.

As I said, I think we need to allow for building imporvements to be created in these cities randomly as units are, if only to make the MInors richer, but also from a self-interested bit, to make their cities worth taking without too much problem, and to make their possible accension to Mayor civ status simpler.

What gets built would be based on the civ characteristics of the minor civ.

I think that the list of Minor civs and Mayor civs should be the same-ie, you can play any civ in the game as a mayor civ. Of course, this means a significant set of civs to choose from, which would mean massive storage space if bells and whistles like animated leaderheads were instituted. I would rather have animated leaderheads out of the game.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by GePap
As I said, I think we need to allow for building imporvements to be created in these cities randomly as units are, if only to make the MInors richer, but also from a self-interested bit, to make their cities worth taking without too much problem, and to make their possible accension to Mayor civ status simpler.

Well... that does make sense the more I think about it. My mind is changed. Now, where is Soren?

I think that the list of Minor civs and Mayor civs should be the same-ie, you can play any civ in the game as a mayor civ.

YES! Definatly

I would rather have animated leaderheads out of the game.

Please, get them out. Hundreds of megabytes for NOTHING. I'd find the atmosphere much more immersive with a simple realistic portrait and richer messages (as opposed to the jokey junk in Civ III).