LESS IS MORE: scrap the modern age!

[Maniac]

Hmm, this thread keeps getting bumped. Perhaps it's time I find the time to write a reply after all.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Toby Rowe
Shogun,

Yep, it is off topic- my appology.

I'm interested to see how US history is taught in the US, I like history - a lot, the UK when I was at school never allowed me to learn real history untill I got older, and left school. (Henry VIII never had VD for instance).

Same here, US history in our elementary shools is oversimplified because people think you are not ready to hear about the bad stuff (like the genocide of native americans or that the puritain pilgrims were religious loonies, or that slavery wasn't the top reason for the Civil War, etc...) untill you're in high school.

Oh, and yes, we are an empire, and we don't care if you like it or not.

Pax Americana; :b


Back on topic: I agree that Civ does a crap job at representing the modern global economy.

[Sava]

no modern age? bad idea...

frankly, I agree with some other posters and think that Civ should go beyond the modern age into the future as well.

[Toby Rowe]

Odin.

I love your reply!

Whether others agree that you are the last colonial nation left besides Russia is neither here nor there.

Your disarming honesty put a big grin on my face- now you can have the same crap I as a Brit already have to suffer simply as I'm British and based upon how bad all British must be for simply being one, cos we were bad throughout history- your turn America.

(I'm white British BTW and fed up about the hijacking of real history- the majority which is the people.)

Yanks might moan about being shot by the British, well one punishment in the British Armed Forces during that war was tying you to a cannon, then firing the cannon. Pretty Terminal as well.

Clearly us British hadn't moved on much since the Romans gifted us with their presence, and randomly chose soldiers to die if a breach of discipline occurred within a cohort, 800+ years later.

Toby

Edit; The Army would kill you just as readily as the Romans did in the past, for minor misdemeanours, which showed the value of a common soldier to the British Government.

To see the Navy view, see the defeat of the Spanish Armada: the Sailors were kept on board the ships for a year, within the home ports of the ships: after 12 months 50% of all the sailors were dead from disease on board- The reason?, the sailors stopped us lot being Spanish, but the treasury couldn't afford to pay them off, and they knew dysentry(spelling?) etc would kill many off, so it did and the money calculation worked.

That was the British Government then, and later when you blokes fought them as well- untill WWI infact in attitude for us lot in the UK. Like I said, about time real history is told.

[Maniac]

People said I’d better suggest some ideas to improve the game instead of suggesting to scrap part of it, so here are some…

One of the problems I mentioned in my post that started this thread was that all production was derived from the land, the raw resources. And that this system, the further in time you go, makes less sense as most added value comes from factories, banks and research labs, to say it in civ terms, and no longer from raw materials.

The solution to this is in my opinion relatively simply, ties in well with elements already present in previous civ incarnations, and has been mentioned by many other people in several varieties in the past.

Civ3 has two elements that affect production. First: shields, which mainly represent raw materials which are then in cities converted to finished goods (units, buildings…). Second: strategic resources which are a precondition for building certain stuff. But those resources are also raw materials, so you’re still stuck in the basic paradigm that raw resources are all you need to be a great power.

My suggestion would be to scrap the concept of shields, and instead:
a) expand and quantify the concept of resources,
b) add “labour” as a new requirement for producing stuff.

Quantifying resources has been suggested a lot before. Instead of controlling one of a resource being sufficient to provide your entire civilization with that material, you’d for example need two iron to train a swordsman (besides also a amount of labour), ten iron to build a factory, or two coal as a fuel to maintain your factory. Similarly, a luxury resource would only make a fixed number of people happy.

A tile of iron could provide several iron per year, eg something between one and five, a number that could be improved by tile improvements and researching technologies. If you produce more iron than you need yourself, you could stock it to a degree or trade to other civs.

Besides resources, which are still tile-based, the second requirement for production would be “labour”. That would be mainly derived from people. Farmers, those who work the tiles in your city radius, could provide a small amount of labour. However to become a really big producer, you’d need to appoint “labourer” specialists in your city, just like we already have scientists or entertainers. Those urban citizens would provide lots more labour than the rural tile-workers.

To make such a production system possible, tiles would have to provide more food, so you can support a, as the game progresses, bigger and bigger urban population that doesn’t produce food. Also specialists should also be able to be unhappy-content-happy, unlike previous civ games where they were taken out of happiness calculation.

The basic labour production of your citizens could be increased by technology and city improvements. For example a guild in the middle ages or a factory in the industrial age. There could still be stuff on the land that would provide a labour bonus, eg a forest, a horse or cow special tile.. But the reason those would provide labour and speed up production would be because they help the people build things - wood as a fuel, or a horse to transport materials - not because they would be raw materials. So the main focus would be: people => labour. And not eg hills with mines producing shields or labour. .

With such a system you could simulate a Japan which has lots of citizens and factories, but no raw materials. They can still import them and be successful. This isn’t possible with the shield production system.

***

Another issue I touched was that Civilization can’t recreate trader countries such as Portugal, the Netherlands or Venice. Here I’ve also got some ideas, but unlike the idea regarding labour above, this idea has little already existing roots in Civ3, so the possibility it could ever become reality is rather slim…

In any case, just like in Civ3 inter-civ trade would happen in the diplomacy menu by selling or buying resources. The problem in Civ3 is that you only need to know each other and have a connection by road or harbour with each other to make trade possible, even if the trade partners live on the opposite sides of the world. This makes it impossible to represent in-between traders such as those mentioned above.

The solution could be to have trade routes actually running over the map, also an old often suggested idea. The AI could auto-calculate what’s the shortest/fastest (or cheapest – see below) trade route from one capital to another. Roads, rivers, available technology would play a role to determine the best route, and of course often sea routes would be preferred, in most of history the easiest way of transporting stuff.

To make sure there’s an incentive to create a better road, harbour network etc, there should be a cost in gold to make an interciv trade possible. The longer the trade route between the two civs is, the more expensive it is to maintain. This encourages to trade with neighbouring civs instead of civs on the other side of the world, and encourages improving your infrastructure.

Another thing that could affect the cost of a trade route is how often it passes through cities, colonies or trade posts (a new tile improvement?). If the imaginary trade caravan or ship can’t resupply at one of these every x tiles, the cost of the trade routes increases. So for example Portugal knowing a sea route to China isn’t enough. To trade cheaply they would have to build a series of trade posts and supply points along the way where the trade route could pass through. Once the investment made, the Portugese could then trade the Chinese resources at a cheaper price to other European civs than if those tried to trade with China itself or with the muslims who have a land trade route with China.

A benefit for a civilization to let a trade route its no part of pass through its territory could be that each trade route provides a bit of gold to every city it passes through. That way those civs would too have an incentive to improve their infrastructure network and attract trade. This way for example cities on the Silk Route could be recreated. Or of course civs could embargo trade from certain civs and prevent some routes running over their territory.

Trade routes that run over the map open the possibility for pirates and raiders that could leech some gold off the trade route. This would in turn increase the use of navies to protect against piracy, and thereby solve the frequent complaint that navies don’t serve the important role they played in history.

In any case, I think having a trade system a little more expanded than “connect your capitals by road or harbour and you’ve got instant trade” would add a whole new dimension to the game, and solve many of the current problems.

[Lambiorix_be]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
So, instead of improving any deficiencies, just toss the whole age out? Well, I'm glad Firaxis will not take this suggestion to their programming team -- that would clearly be a step backwards for Civ.

Whatever happened to the slogan "Build a civilization to stand the test of time"?

It would change to "Build a civilization to stand the test of time until the modern age which is too confusing and difficult

I fully agree with this statement. The solution to a problem is not by throwing it away but by investigating how to improve it. Suppose Sid had said after Civ I that instead of improving the game he would have thrown it away and spent his time on gardening or something like that

A problem is but a challenge waiting to be resolved...

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Lambiorix_be
The solution to a problem is not by throwing it away but by investigating how to improve it.

This is comment most often given in reply to my post. But everyone seems to be forgetting we're not writing Civ4, Firaxis is. To repost something I posted earlier:

I'm sure we could come up with a decent way to represent the modern age. However that would require more than a few tweaks to the game. And we've heard enough Civ4 will be a conservative sequel, with slogans used such as "Simplify, simplify, simplify" and "less is more", which I quoted here. So you have to be realistic: Firaxis isn't gonna implement anything that would dramatically change the game. Therefore the best possible solution we can hope for seems to me to simply scrap the modern age.

Oh, for the record, I posted what I think is a good way to improve the industrial age in the post above yours.

[Lambiorix_be]

Originally posted by Maniac


This is comment most often given in reply to my post. But everyone seems to be forgetting we're not writing Civ4, Firaxis is. To repost something I posted earlier:



Oh, for the record, I posted what I think is a good way to improve the industrial age in the post above yours.

I noticed that you indeed suggest some improvements.

Your remark about the fact that civ4 is not created by us counts also for your suggesting to scrap the modern age. We can only hope that from time to time a developer checks this forum and takes over one of the proposed ideas/suggestions (even if only partially)...

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Lambiorix_be
Your remark about the fact that civ4 is not created by us counts also for your suggesting to scrap the modern age. We can only hope that from time to time a developer checks this forum and takes over one of the proposed ideas/suggestions (even if only partially)...

Yeah I know. I see Soren Johnson Firaxis regularly in the online members list of Apolyton, so I can always hope he opens this thread once. Of course I know there's very little chance Firaxis would in fact scrap the modern age, but who knows my little analysis of some characteristics of the civ system I made in my first post could start them thinking on some matters.

[Toby Rowe]

Dunno about scrapping the modern age- I'd like it to be possible, but take a lot longer to reach it.

I definately prefer the other periods- exploration, trading and diplomatic periods.

The modern Era is fine if like Civ 2 you can switch off things like nuclear weapons and partisans.

Maniac,

Within trade and special resources, surely you could ensure each nation can only have one single luxury item within it's borders- thus making trade paramount- and war less likely amonst the current AI attitude of most nations.

I personally miss the individual nature of Civ and Civ 2 whereby not only did the town have to build the caravan but you also had to decide which town to trade with, clearly your favourite nation was unlikely to be attacked by you, although the AI was bonkers in attacking you in both versions.

You did need to physically get the Caravan into the city you chose to trade with, and as you ponted out, sea was normally the fastest way- and you naturally protected the vessel carrying it/them with warships.

Civ 3 lost that aspect, but gained the reality that there is no trade if you are at war with a nation. If the AI can be programmed to understand the implications of declaring war upon it's (sic) "best" trading partner, then the odd behaviour in Civ 3 would be eliminated; we choose our City-city trade, whilst still having to get the caravans to the city.

Once a trade route was established, if a land route: unless you are at war with a nation your trade needs to pass through, it should remain unhindered, but have possibility to be disrupted if at war- per turn, with commiserate loss of income on that turn.

You mentioned 3 different nations that were largely traders, and avoided war if possible in real history- the Dutch and British both needed each other for trade;- during the Napolean declaration that no European nation was allowed to trade with the UK- surrogate trading began, so historically, trade did continue even if it passed through enemy territory, or through her ports- suppressed perhaps, but never stopped.

On the resource issue, please fix 'em into one single position per nation, the constant randomness of one vanishing and a new one appearing at breathtaking regularity, marked only by a tiny black strip of writing is not only infuriating but pointless- I'll never understand why the programmers thought this a "fun programming idea"!!

Ideally, resources should be common within each nation, remain fixed and certain units only be allowed to be constructed with the city borders that have that resource. I still prefer a "national army" concept with only militia units guarding and keeping order within a town. (no limit on the number of armies you can field, bar treasury limits).

Almost every nation has a region where a special resource exists, or a luxury comes from (French cheese or UK coalfields, the quality of both can't be beaten in older days) If you could replicate the above using the Civ 3 model, t'would be good mate.

Toby :-)

[Russian_King]

Originally posted by Adagio
I dissagree, they shouldn't cut the modern age, they should just fix it up a little. And I prefer there to be a near-future (to 2100 AD) in the game also...

For me the game first starts to get really interesting when getting near the modern times

I do agree that they should cut out the race to AC and make it to the moon instead, though not as an instant win, just something that gives some extra score...

i agree, race to mars maybe? centauri is just waaay too far fetched!

I think it shouldnt even end there! i think u should be able to colonise mars!

have transports that bring unit to mars in a few turns, those units set up special stations which terraform the atmosphere slowly. have different nations contributing to this to make the process faster. in the end ull have 2 maps to play with one on earth and one on mars.

maybe design a whole new solar system! have random planet type and size generators so u wont even know what theyre like until space age.

anyway, i might have to make a new thread for it, any suggestions?