Re-writing history: The promise since Civ1

[cassembler]

How about a "History book" feature that allows a player to "scrapbook" screenshots, enter text, make statistical notes, graphs, and charts, etc.

This textbook could be an xml file, which obviously opens up possibilities.

How cool would it be to re-read the history book of your first Civ game? Death tolls on a per-battle basis, the growth of literacy, the fall of those backstabbing SOB Russians... the American-Chinese nuclear war...

[Heresson]

I think it's a splendid idea. I really like graphs
Could it be kind of what's in EU2?

[Max Sinister]

How did they solve it in EU2?

[Adagio]

I came up with this idea a year or two ago, so naturally I support it

Ok, my idea is a little different with the fact that it's the computer that writes the story. For the computer to write the story of course there has to be lots of options for it to be varied, but it would still be easy to make it write like this: (days and months are just random dates the computer insert to make it more like a history book)

February 6 1904: The backstabbing Indians broke our peace treaty by attacking our glorious fleet
June 21 1904: Our allies the Zulus joined the war on our side
July 4 1910: We sent out the first nuclear bomb on Earth. Indian capital destroyed
May 21 1911: Our army conquers the last Indian city on this continent (landmarks should be named to make it easy to read the history book). India surrender

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Max Sinister
How did they solve it in EU2?

There is a ledger which gives most info you want about the state of the game.

[1889]

This is a very cool idea. Adagio's suggestion could work well since the computer keeps track of all that stuff anyway, except we only get to see it on the little VCR summary at the end of the game.

I would like to have a log book to refer back to or even just a text note book to make some strategy notes.

Maybe I can have a recordkeeper as a 7th adviser, or maybe the cultural adviser could do it. You know that guy has some spare time.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by 1889
This is a very cool idea. Adagio's suggestion could work well since the computer keeps track of all that stuff anyway, except we only get to see it on the little VCR summary at the end of the game.

I was thinking about making it possible to see it while playing the game, not just after

There could be two versions of it:

1)
The one you can see while playing the game. This one is nation specific so you can only read what your nation knows at the time of the events. This 'book' goes into detail about your nation, like when did your nation connect the first two cities with a railroad

2)
A world history book that tells all the greatest things happening on Earth. It doesn't tell about minor nation acomplishments as the above, but only about events that changed the world (like when the first nation to connect two cities with a railroad). Minor wars with only few casualities probably wont be recorded
This 'book' comes after the end of the game (and is save-able)

[joncnunn]

Actually, now a days a history book for a western country is more likely to read:

Feburary 6 1904 The Brave Indian freedom fighters attacked our fleet full of greedy sailors. We deserved it because our govtment refused to meet the Indians modest demands.

June 21 1904 The Zulu govt is bribed into joining the war on the brave Indians.

July 4 1910 Our govt violates international law by dropping a nuclear bomb on the Indian capital and killing millions of inconent civilian Indians, including thousands of children.

May 21 1911 Hostilities cease with the Indians, but our govt in violation of international law continues the occupation of all Indian lands on the ____ contientant.

Originally posted by Adagio
I came up with this idea a year or two ago, so naturally I support it

Ok, my idea is a little different with the fact that it's the computer that writes the story. For the computer to write the story of course there has to be lots of options for it to be varied, but it would still be easy to make it write like this: (days and months are just random dates the computer insert to make it more like a history book)

February 6 1904: The backstabbing Indians broke our peace treaty by attacking our glorious fleet
June 21 1904: Our allies the Zulus joined the war on our side
July 4 1910: We sent out the first nuclear bomb on Earth. Indian capital destroyed
May 21 1911: Our army conquers the last Indian city on this continent (landmarks should be named to make it easy to read the history book). India surrender

[Adagio]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Feburary 6 1904 The Brave Indian freedom fighters attacked our fleet full of greedy sailors. We deserved it because our govtment refused to meet the Indians modest demands.
(...)

That would probably be the way it's written in the Indian history book... but it's still much better than what I wrote

[joncnunn]

One would normally think so, but a lot of the more recent US history books are written by ivory tower professors with an anti-US view.

Originally posted by Adagio

That would probably be the way it's written in the Indian history book... but it's still much better than what I wrote

[Adagio]

But who says the country I was talking about was the US? It could be that this history book belongs to a nation that only has done good (everybody's happy etc) so I doubt a history book written in that nation would be negative towards it's own country...
And this is a history book written by the government, which of course only wants it to look like they're right

[Max Sinister]

Originally posted by joncnunn
One would normally think so, but a lot of the more recent US history books are written by ivory tower professors with an anti-US view.

Oh, so are you an expert?

[Proteus_MST]

AFAIR Civ 1 had the option to export the worlds History into a text file at the end of the game. I really liked this feature.

It would be a great idea to be able to write your own log, with entries for every turn (and of course with automated entries like cities built and inventions made).
In some games of CtP/Civ I even tried to make one on paper
(but it got too strenuous after a while)

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by joncnunn

Feburary 6 1904 The Brave Indian freedom fighters attacked our fleet full of greedy sailors. We deserved it because our govtment refused to meet the Indians modest demands.

Genius! Give the man a cookie.

[Max Sinister]

@Proteus: Really, they had? I had Civ1, but can't remember.