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I was watching the Second part of Guns, Germs and Steel and was wonding about how this fellows Geography determining winners and loosers in History could enlighten Civ gaming.
Civ takes major account of Geography, Resorces and Tecnology. But I think it is lacking in the field of Germs. As we all know New World Civilizations were devastated by old world Diseses, yet the Old world picked up very few diseases from the New. GGS atributed this to the differing levels of Animal Domestication between Old and New world. Most human diseases are transmited through and originate in our domesticated animals, this process continues even to this day with Avien Flu from China. The Old world Domesticated virtualy ALL of the worlds animals. Virtualy non were domesticated in the New World or Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus Europeans had already been exposed to and developed resistences to a smorgasboard of diseases over the course of thousands of years. Ofcorse the introduction of a new Disease (Black Plauge) was just as devastating to Europeans as it would be to anybody without imunites. The old world simply had more "plauge amunition" when it came to biological warfare intentional or unintentional.
Now how to model this process in a Civ game. First off Pluage events should be BIG events capable of making deep 25-50% cuts into your population (But populations should rebound faster with the now abundant food and space). They might as well be Empire or Continent wide event rather then a single city event. I cant think of any case ware a major disease outbreak failed to eventualy spread to all possible areas in a short time after escaping its initial breakout point. Now if we take the idea being used or Religion and adapt that to Animal Domestication then you can get new Diseases to come into the world. Each time a player researches Animal Domestication they spawn a new Disease, all the Diseases would be named so you would actualy get to have a "Small Pox" plauge or a "Cholera" Plauge. Now the cool thing is that the Discovering player imediatly gets Imunity to this new Plauge (after all they developed it their people are already exposed and coexisting with it). Forign Empires can be hit by a Plauge ofcorse and for a few turns (3-5) they suffer badly but also get imunity. Imunity last for a period of time or their could be some way of constantly creating new Plauges as time goes on. The more forign contact the player has the more Disease they will suffer but they will recover and be stronger for it. The incressed contact will accelerate them tecnologicaly and they can start to get some Medical tec to lessen the effects. These Civs will be at a major advantage when they come across more isolated Civs as they will by the mear pressence of their ships and explorors infect the locals with possibly several deadly plauges thus weakening them for a invashion.
Civ takes major account of Geography, Resorces and Tecnology. But I think it is lacking in the field of Germs. As we all know New World Civilizations were devastated by old world Diseses, yet the Old world picked up very few diseases from the New. GGS atributed this to the differing levels of Animal Domestication between Old and New world. Most human diseases are transmited through and originate in our domesticated animals, this process continues even to this day with Avien Flu from China. The Old world Domesticated virtualy ALL of the worlds animals. Virtualy non were domesticated in the New World or Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus Europeans had already been exposed to and developed resistences to a smorgasboard of diseases over the course of thousands of years. Ofcorse the introduction of a new Disease (Black Plauge) was just as devastating to Europeans as it would be to anybody without imunites. The old world simply had more "plauge amunition" when it came to biological warfare intentional or unintentional.
Now how to model this process in a Civ game. First off Pluage events should be BIG events capable of making deep 25-50% cuts into your population (But populations should rebound faster with the now abundant food and space). They might as well be Empire or Continent wide event rather then a single city event. I cant think of any case ware a major disease outbreak failed to eventualy spread to all possible areas in a short time after escaping its initial breakout point. Now if we take the idea being used or Religion and adapt that to Animal Domestication then you can get new Diseases to come into the world. Each time a player researches Animal Domestication they spawn a new Disease, all the Diseases would be named so you would actualy get to have a "Small Pox" plauge or a "Cholera" Plauge. Now the cool thing is that the Discovering player imediatly gets Imunity to this new Plauge (after all they developed it their people are already exposed and coexisting with it). Forign Empires can be hit by a Plauge ofcorse and for a few turns (3-5) they suffer badly but also get imunity. Imunity last for a period of time or their could be some way of constantly creating new Plauges as time goes on. The more forign contact the player has the more Disease they will suffer but they will recover and be stronger for it. The incressed contact will accelerate them tecnologicaly and they can start to get some Medical tec to lessen the effects. These Civs will be at a major advantage when they come across more isolated Civs as they will by the mear pressence of their ships and explorors infect the locals with possibly several deadly plauges thus weakening them for a invashion.
, 1996-Perot 
, 2004-Bush :|, 2008-Obama :|, 2012-Obama 
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