It would be nice if the Unique Units functioned like this:

[GeoModder]

And the Aztecs started in a lake once they did establish a civilisation/city

[LDiCesare]

The "later" part is irrelevant imo since they settled America much later in the first place. You can say Aztecs built on previous civs, but then Meso Americans didn't. The lake is not a river, and lakes and rivers are modelled differently in civ. And how do you explain Incas or the previous civ that was there and was not near a river? Rivers and a mild climate make it easier to develop a civ, but then plains with horses make it easier to develop a later civ (scythes, huns, mongols, turks...).

[GeoModder]

I would have to study the climate around Cuzco better during historic times. I know that it is now a desert-like area, but that might not always have been the case.

As far as my knowledge goes, Inka's were a conqueror people as well, but were also good at organizing their empire later on. I guess that way a badly situated capital could be provided with what it needed.

[Trifna]

Inca? Titicaca lake comes to my mind, but I don't know what was its role. Anyway, I don't know to which extent rivers were a must but they got quite a role. Also, as it was mentioned, Inca and Aztecs follow earlier civs. Thus, it's a bit like saying "The American didn't start around a river". Nope... they got their first needs from what was already there for their use.

[LDiCesare]

But you talked about Mesopotamians, who aren't a civ. There were Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians who followed one another... So you can as well say "Mesi Americans" instead of Aztecs teh way you used a generic term of Mesopotamians.
If Incas and Aztecs follow earlier civs, then explain how those earlier civs (Toltecs, Olmecs, or whoever you pick) started near a major river?
And anyway, Greece is about as old as India. They benefited from the middle east civs, and from Crete probably, but htye are an old civ unto themselves. Crete, Greece, didn't start near rivers.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
I am not against difference between civ, I am saying it doesn't have to be fixed. You could pick your traits when you start the game, and stick with the traits, and let the traits be random when you run the game the next time. A civ that builds the Pyramids is different (or should be) from one that doesn't. The behaviour of the ruler should vary from game to game, too. Unique units which are available based on environment/achievements instead of starting with the name 'chinese' add variety.
I would like a civ that starts on an island to be better with ships than a civ who starts on a continent. I don't want to have the English be good shipbuilders in the middle of the desert.
The think I am discussing is "fixed". That's what this thread is about, about UUs not being fixed the way they are in civ3. Sure UUs and traits add variety, but why can't they be random, obtained through picks from the start (the way you choose your picks in MoM, Galciv and how many other games) or obtained thanks to in-game history (being on an island, deciding to build exclusive wonder X)?

[Xorbon]

I didn't think I would like it when Civ 3 first came out, but I like each civ having their own unique traits. That being said, I also like the idea being proposed here to have traits develop from environmental factors.

What I'd like to see is a combination. Every civ would have unique traits (as in Civ 3) as their primary traits. And environmental traits would act as secondary traits. Primary traits would be the same each time for any particular civ; and secondary traits would be different each game, depending on starting terrain, early choices, and other factors.

[GePap]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Nikolai, Incas and Aztecs didn't start around a major river, did they? And they still developped a civilization on their own.

And the simple question becomes, what difference did no having a rive make the the nature of Aztec civlization? What did their location have to do with the developmnent of the aggresive state that became the Aztec empire?

Or, why did the Chinese civ, Indus civ, the Egyptian civ, and the Summerians, all which grew along the banks of great rivers, not turn out exactly the same? What made a difference?

The simple point is that cultural issue, which are born of history, NOT geography, in the end are what make civs differ- From the basics of language to religion, things that are at most losely tied to a geographic reality make a huge difference.

Another problem of oucrse is that the game if civ does not deal only with the first civs- most civs in the game are civs born into, our out of, previous civs like (all European civs for example, which took into themselves huge amounts of outside influences, or both the Aztecs and the Inca, neither civ being the first civ to inhabit those regions (both actually being very new political creation, neither more than 300 years old by the time of the Spanish conquest), and of course, the American civ.

In trhe end a map generator will not be able to sort out the basic cultural differences created throught time randomly that create the differences in civs that sitck in our minds.

[LDiCesare]

The Chinese lived on rice, which requires more cooperation than wheat to grow. The Japanese are an even better example of how geography shaped culture: When you have to grow rice on hills, your wall is also your border, so you have to collaborate with your neighbours. That's not true in plains.
Rivers helped spawn empires because you had an easy way to go from a point to another one using boats, because the floods made it necessary to build (canals for instance), thus to cooperate, in order not to lose all your seeds to the river. Compare that with Greece or MesoAmerica which saw city states: Communication was harder due to lack of river ( or vast open plains), and cooperation wasn't as needed as near a flood valley.
I agree that Babylonians and Egyptians were different, but the differences are not that big. They both had sacred, divine kings, used writing systems which were initially pictographs, cultivated the same plants, raised the same animals.

From a game point of view, they are not that different, and giving one a chariot special unit while the other gets an archer is totally arbitrary. I'm just asking that, if you discover horses and the wheel first, you should be able to have a unique unit of war chariot if you so choose. If you don't, someone else can pick it instead.
As for traits, I think they have been arbitrarily chosen and it should be up to the player to pick them. Why is Greece based on the Athenian image we've got rather than on the Spartan for instance, or on Alexander's Greece? Greece can favor a democratic government if you look at Athens, a monarchy at Alexander, or an oligarchy (probably best represented by communism) if you look at Sparta. Why impose this on the player?
Again, I am opposed to fixed traits and UUs, I'd rather pick them, either based on an initial choice (for stuff like religious) or on your environment (for elephants and being warlike).

[GePap]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
From a game point of view, they are not that different, and giving one a chariot special unit while the other gets an archer is totally arbitrary. I'm just asking that, if you discover horses and the wheel first, you should be able to have a unique unit of war chariot if you so choose. If you don't, someone else can pick it instead.

The problem is that that has really little do do with how these UU's in the game came to be. Take the Egyptian war chariot- It was not until after foreign invaders had brought horses to Egypt, several dynasties into the civilization, that war chariots came into being. So then what kind of UU would the egyptians have?

As for traits, I think they have been arbitrarily chosen and it should be up to the player to pick them. Why is Greece based on the Athenian image we've got rather than on the Spartan for instance, or on Alexander's Greece? Greece can favor a democratic government if you look at Athens, a monarchy at Alexander, or an oligarchy (probably best represented by communism) if you look at Sparta. Why impose this on the player?

Government has little to do with traits, specially since you are free to chose a government. As for your point, yes, civs have had long histories- and you CAN choose any traits to you like, with minor use of the editor.

Of course, what is true of Greece is NOT true of Egypt, or Summeria, or say England. That is the problem in picking out special cases to try to prove a point.

Again, I am opposed to fixed traits and UUs, I'd rather pick them, either based on an initial choice (for stuff like religious) or on your environment (for elephants and being warlike).

One, you do have a choice to pick traits- you can always chose to play your own civ, and thus are able to take any traits you like- as a playuer you have that freedom, NOT to chose a premade civ to try your own, with your own name, own city names, whatever.

As for the other issue, you don;t HAVE a choice of religion. in any sense of the word. And as for the environment, again, given the limited types of environment, unless we get far mroe complexity about environment, 9 out of 10 game4s will start the same, you on plain or grasslands on a river. What would these difference be based on?What size of area determines the choice?

[GePap]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
The Chinese lived on rice, which requires more cooperation than wheat to grow. The Japanese are an even better example of how geography shaped culture: When you have to grow rice on hills, your wall is also your border, so you have to collaborate with your neighbours. That's not true in plains.

"More cooperation"? Actually thought, Northern China grows wheat, NOT rice (areas like Beijing are not at all suitable for rice).

Rivers helped spawn empires because you had an easy way to go from a point to another one using boats, because the floods made it necessary to build (canals for instance), thus to cooperate, in order not to lose all your seeds to the river.

Of course, perhaps is was because rives allow for easy irrigation, large food surpluses, large populations and bigger cities, and thus an ability to send people out.

Compare that with Greece or MesoAmerica which saw city states: Communication was harder due to lack of river ( or vast open plains), and cooperation wasn't as needed as near a flood valley.

This of course would not explain the Aztecs, who grew up in a city state, but tried har to create an empire. And how would you account for the Inca, who grew in an environment even more difficult for transporation and communication (no mayor rivers, VERY high mountains) and yet formed an immense mountain empire?

I agree that Babylonians and Egyptians were different, but the differences are not that big. They both had sacred, divine kings, used writing systems which were initially pictographs, cultivated the same plants, raised the same animals.

You know what, the same could be said of the Chinese, thought of course, pictograms can also be seen in the Maya, who had pictogram language, and the divine king was certainly and Inca trait. Yet the differences between Babylon and Egypt are great enough for anyoen to point out very simply if a piece of art or architecture is one , or the other.

If your annalysis holds, then there is no point in having more than one European civ for example-(specially give how much they shared in cultural heritage at the start), and the actual lkist of different civ types will be very small, again, because the conditions under which large agricultural communities that form Cities (a Civilization) are limited.

For mroe diversity, you need to get into cultural differences (yes, Greece and MesoAmerica had City state, but then, they were very different types of cultures, where they not?) that go beyond these differences (and why would anyone want to play City states that would then get swallowed by giant empires relatively quickly anyways?).

[LDiCesare]

So then what kind of UU would the egyptians have?

Mameluks?
City states ultimately become an empire. Check CtP2 Cradle mod for a good way of representing it as a government type.

Babs and Egyptians were very different from Turks, mongols or Greeks, and much more so than they differed one from another. And yes, what's the point of having different European civs from a Japanese or African point of view? The game is western centric, that's just a choice from Firaxis given its target audience. That and the fact that European civs had conquered most of the world around hte 19th century.

As for changing traits by modding, there's a difference between a menu that lets you choose your picks and launching an editor to mod the game. Wherever traits can be modified is not imediately straightforward to me when I launch civ3.

[GePap]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Mameluks?

BUt Mameluks were turkish slaves of Arab masters of Egypt, in no way connected to the ancient Egyptian civ that is Egypt in the game (as opposed to the Arab civ)

Babs and Egyptians were very different from Turks, mongols or Greeks, and much more so than they differed one from another. And yes, what's the point of having different European civs from a Japanese or African point of view? The game is western centric, that's just a choice from Firaxis given its target audience. That and the fact that European civs had conquered most of the world around hte 19th century.

Oh, I agree the game is Euro-centric. I can think of many civs that wouldbe more interesting, like Polynesians. That said, again,environmental determinism does not lead to cultural differences which form the backbone of the differences of Civilizations.

As for changing traits by modding, there's a difference between a menu that lets you choose your picks and launching an editor to mod the game. Wherever traits can be modified is not imediately straightforward to me when I launch civ3.

Oh, I agree there that like in Civ2 a "use you own civ" button would be nice. That said, we already do know how to change the situation.

[Trifna]

Since you are discussing all this, perhaps some of you would be interested in this article about "hydraulic empires". It's about rice, water, the need for hierarchization, etc.

[realpolitic]

UU's in civ3 gave me a "window" in which I'd prefer military strategy, which gave the game more variety. As of feats, any feat tied to tech (except maybe early in the game) is unbalancing, but there was also the entertainment feat which could stimulate improvements, especially if civ4 retains culture. Maybe a medical feat too.