Do you want random events?

[Gueron]

I voted for it, but I also voted make it optional.

Now, this presents something of a conundrum. Why should the developers waste their time on something that may not be used?

Personally, I am all for random events, as they happen.

One poster pointed out that Hurricane Katherine was a bit of an aberration and that these disastrous events occur so rarely, over the course of millennia, as to have little impact on a national scale. Well, the 1900 Hurricane that took out Galveston and a large portion of the American Banking aspect (it was affluent), there was the Chicago Fire, the San Francisco earthquakes; these did have impacts that the nation was forced to recover from. That is over the course of only 230 years.

Outside of the United States, there was the original Kamikaze, which decided the future of Japan, the Typhoon of 2004 (sorry I only know the Gregorian Calendar), and whatever event destroyed the Mayan civilization, (Back to the U.S.A. for a moment, do we know what happened to Roanoke) and the droughts in Africa, forcing migration and warfare, and such, not to mention the weather during the failed invasions of Russia. All of these events, and numerous others, had an impact on civilizations, by changing, for better or worse, the direction they were headed.

Events such as these could be simulated by random events.

Now, that said, the random events should not all be disasters. Sometimes an earthquake, or a volcano could lead to a beneficial outcome, and sometimes the events should be positive.

Also all events need to have some corresponding technology or set of technologies that may be able to provide buildings or other capabilities to mitigate disasters. These might include dikes and specialized structures for buildings that cost extra upkeep, or other penalty, to use.

Also, the random events should not automatically help the weaker or harm the stronger, but a larger empire is more likely to get hit by random events (thus the number of hurricanes that hit the U.S. while missing the smaller Caribbean islands, while a smaller empire is more likely to be affected by random events (whether negative or positive).

This is my take though. I am an old RotTK player, and there were often random events in Romance.

[Axxaer]

Originally posted by Gueron
I voted for it, but I also voted make it optional.

Now, this presents something of a conundrum. Why should the developers waste their time on something that may not be used?

There are lots of optional features in the game that the developers "wasted" their time on. I can't see this being used significantly more or less than raging barbs, aggressive ais or most of the other game options. They would not be dissuaded just because it would be made optional if they know/think that enough people will use it.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Axxaer
There are lots of optional features in the game that the developers "wasted" their time on. I can't see this being used significantly more or less than raging barbs, aggressive ais or most of the other game options. They would not be dissuaded just because it would be made optional if they know/think that enough people will use it.

They didn't waste extra time on raging barbarians or aggressive civilizations. The mechanisms are already in place, they just need to adjust the parameters.

It's not the same with random events. Random events are extremely hard to design if you don't want them to be either unbalancing or irrelevant.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Random events. Yes. Yes! Yes!! YEEEEESSS!!!!

hmm...

Random eventes have had a great influence on civilisation. Imnagine the Nile not flooding a few years or an asteorid wiping out civilisation. That's major. But you can effect them and that is how it should be done. A drought, too bad you idot, you should have built granary's. A plague, should have built a hospital. Darn lazy Hippies not wanting to work , should have built a firing squad.

[Robert]

People mix up two things.
Random events being an important factor in human civilization and random events being a fun factor in the game civilization.

The fact that the first is true doesn't mean that the latter is true too.
In fact it's not. A game mechanic that you can't prevent from happening nor that you can't handle it into your profit are just not fun.

What's the fun of a vulcano erupting and destroying one of your major cities? You can't do anything to prevent it neither can you act on it and show your managing skills. It just happens. That's it.

Nothing fun, no strategy, no competition.
It may only be fun if it happens to a dangerous enemy. But again, what's the fun of winning that way? Just use the cheat mode if you want to win that way.

It'll end up being either unfair or if it happens to all civilizations equally it adds nothing. NOTHING.

So people should really stop using the "In the real world" argument. YeS it IS important in the real world! But there are a zillion other things important for the real world that would really suck in civilization.

[LordShiva]

CyberShy

[LzPrst]

remember back in the ooooold days. at the dawn of time. Civ 1 had disasters. remember? small one. use to show up in the newspapers that came around when somethin important happened. for example:

Fire ravages Orleans, barracks destroyed, citizens demand Aqueduct.

remember those? they were a nuisance in a way. but they also added a little flavor to the game. the reason I am for random events is that it decreases the predictability of the game. If you plan ahead several turns with no risk of anything disrupting the evil plans then it reduces the game to a mere piece of maths.

Let there be some randomness that affects your cities a little. for example, famine, your crop output sinks for a few turns and your (hamlets-towns) "shrink" (you lose progress made toward town). the risk of this event happening would be greatly reduced by a granary and its effect weakened as well.

on the other hand you could have "bumper crop" a few turns where you get increased food production and growth from your hamlets. chance increased by the number of farms in a city's fat x.

I dunno. maybe it would be nice, maybe not. but I think it would add a little flavour. which I feel civ4 is to some extent lacking.

[Zoid]

LzPrst

More flavor

[Robert]

The civ1 paper events were not real.
It was a paper that showed up with a line that was funny but didn't affect the game.

The 'citizen demand aquaduct' things were not real random disasters, since you could prevent it by building an aquaduct in each city.

[eris]

As for random events on some level that is game affecting, no thank you. I have enough troubles keeping up with what is going on already as it is.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by CyberShy
The civ1 paper events were not real.
It was a paper that showed up with a line that was funny but didn't affect the game.

The 'citizen demand aquaduct' things were not real random disasters, since you could prevent it by building an aquaduct in each city.

I guess you right, but still. Random events worked well in SMAC. There is no reason why it won´t work just as well in the Civ4 expansion.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by CyberShy
What's the fun of a vulcano erupting and destroying one of your major cities? You can't do anything to prevent it neither can you act on it and show your managing skills. It just happens. That's it.

Nothing fun, no strategy, no competition.

Yes, no, maybe.

It depends on how the random events are designed. For example, rivers may flood, but you can build ****s (after you discover Construction, say) with Workers and you can put money into "river management." However, if you let it flood, new flood plains maybe created. Something like that, so you must weight your options and make a decision.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
For example, rivers may flood, but you can build ****s (after you discover Construction, say) with Workers and you can put money into "river management."

And you'll also put time into "micro management."

[Nikolai]

Cyber: I presume you have played SMAC? Didn't you like the random events there? I know I did. Or have you played any of Paradox's games? There are loads of random events there, they are, together with the multiple choice events, one of the main factors making those games as great as they are.

[johnmcd]

It's either micromangement pain or game breaking pain.

If it's only random good stuff then we've already got that in the shape of new ore deposits turning up.