Nation Painting for cIV

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by armchairknight
LordShiva, that has to be the Wonderbread of posts. Devoid of virtually all nutritional content, but still bread.

Considering my aparently, weird sese of humor that dosen't neceseraly have to be taken as a compliment. I mean if I find that funny, well... just read the thread

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by eris

Even further off topic: I just got my PC back from yet another upgrade so it can run Civ 4! I'm so excited I could almost bring myself to use one of the smilies!

cIV dosen't run well on my computer.
And I've had it upgraded three times!

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru
This is ridiculous...CivIV is not Victoria or even Europa Universalis, and doesn't need to model ethnic groups. The game is far more abstract and large scale than the type of game that would need to model that kind of detail. If they did add ethnicity to CivIV, it would be so abstracted that it would probably be less realistic than no ethnicity at all. Remember that most games are on random maps, and the game is only modelling the cultural and political boundaries of the 18 (or less) most powerful civilizations in the world. How the hell would you represent the hundreds of distinct and independent ethnic groups of Africa alone and how they interacted with each other over the years? Or the dozens of kingdoms in the British Isles alone?

It seems some people have a problem because they imagine when a map shows all of Africa conquered by England, France, etc., they think it means that those areas are all English and French people. Since ethnicity isn't modelled, all that means is those areas are under the same administrative control as the other territories in that civs color, that they speak their language there, play their sports, pay taxes to that nation, etc. This accurately reflects Africa during the colonial period, though of course there were large stretches of territory that were outside their control (the colonies culture didn't have the time or infrastructure to expand borders more than once or maybe twice).

On the scale CivIV is played, modelling all other people as barbarians is good enough.

cIV already models ethnicity-read nationality ( Romans 56%,...) why not let a "nut" (stop loking at me) "rename" some of the barbarians into some important (not minor) ethnic groups (like the bantu), that do or will have a civ of their own in civ4, but have lost their indipendence in that scenario (Greeks in the 18th century) generlised groups that fit the "scale" of civ (the celts in an fall of rome scenario or the Indians under Britain in a begining of the 20th century scenarion).

[Zoid]

With the SDK available you can rename the barbarians to whatever you like.

Problem solved!

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Zoid
With the SDK available you can rename the barbarians to whatever you like.

Problem solved!

That's nice. But I want more than one national group, if I renamed the barbarians to Indians, then Africa, Korea and most of Russia would become "Indian" in an Age of Imperialism mod.

[Addled Platypus]

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[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Platypus Rex
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[Zoid]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_


That's nice. But I want more than one national group, if I renamed the barbarians to Indians, then Africa, Korea and most of Russia would become "Indian" in an Age of Imperialism mod.

Eeh, no. With the SDK you can mod in as many barbarian tribes as you desire. There is nothing you can´t do if you know how to code it.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Platypus Rex
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I´ve seen worse. It´s not like Enigma´s come back

[eris]

Well, let's try this again.

I voted I don't care. But I did have some comments.

First, I find it fascinating how Firaxis worked so hard to simplify Civ 4 from the overload of detail in Civ 3. I find that in doing so, they created a game that can be played intuitively by those who just get a feeling over time over how much expansion is too much, etc, those who play strategically, pressing advatages in war, tech or culture, and those who play analytically, micro-managing their way through the hardest levels and gifting the rest of us with articles on thigs such as "This is how your upkeep costs work down to the very last gold piece". I believe they could only have achieved such a fluid balance by throwing out the overhead of complexity that kept things unstable. Now, fans by the score want to add this feature or restore that feature, threatening the careful balance with each new addition. Agreed some ideas are almost irresistible, and even Firaxis themselves will be guilty of the same additions in the expansion pack, but I find the present version already fascinating enough. Ah well, that is what modding is all about. It's a wonderful curse we have wished upon ourselves.

Second, I think that implementing ethnicity will be dificult to do without including race and without engendering a strong potential for fomenting ill feelings. Consider how bland the religion implementation is and what a powder keg it is none the less. There is even a thread on these boards that Islam is slighted by the fact that the game mechanics result in it seldom being a state religion. You try to separate race and ethnicity when even in your poll captions you included a reference to skin color. You mention that you had high emotions on the subject from another venue and could not keep those emotional reactions from spilling over into this forum. I submit there will be others less capable and less willing to separate the subjects from each other and from the objectivity of game play.

You are right that some of the present game mechanics are clumsy. Taking the last city does make things as if the previous nationality never existed at all, which is a bit counter-intuitive, but the issues you raise are a big enough can of worms that accusations and fears of bigotry will outweigh any game play enhancements you might achieve. It is bad enough that the game silently encourages nation-cleansing, implementing the tools for ethnic or racial cleansing would mostly be an invitation to further and louder controversy.

In other words: I don't care, but I think it would be a bad idea. Or else: I think it would be a bad idea, but I don't care. Take your pick. I have managed to confuse even myself this time.

By the way, the issue of color is already in the game. The purple people and the blue people gang up on the green people and no one complains unless they are the green people. Strange, isn't it?

[Hellcat]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_


You are right, but I was drunk and realy pissed-off by redneck remarks concerning evolution and racism on another forum.

I sincerly apologise to that person, since when I opened my thread the remark seemed humurus (who could be bothered by more moding options-I tought so I linked it with a clearly untrue statement). When I cheched the thread I tought saw the same KKK member harasing me on another forum ( I use _BuRjaCi_ on that one too, my love for civ and apolyton is well known and the debate with that "redneck" was realy "intense" ).

Apology accepted.

I agree with what eris posted on the subject, hence the vote for no.

[armchairknight]

Now that I've had some time to think on it, I must admit that the idea has potential. It seems to me that it would primarily complicate military expansion, though. I really don't get much mileage out of my military. I use my military for defense and limited gain, not outright conquest. So it doesn't look like it would affect me so much. I do wonder, though, about the AI. Would these scripts also affect the AI? Would the AI handle it well? Or might they stumble over the politics of the situation?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Zoid
I´ve seen worse. It´s not like Enigma´s come back

Yeah, Enigma was (usually) funny.

[Zoid]

Nah, his routine got old after a while...

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by eris
Well, let's try this again.

I voted I don't care. But I did have some comments.

First, I find it fascinating how Firaxis worked so hard to simplify Civ 4 from the overload of detail in Civ 3. I find that in doing so, they created a game that can be played intuitively by those who just get a feeling over time over how much expansion is too much, etc, those who play strategically, pressing advatages in war, tech or culture, and those who play analytically, micro-managing their way through the hardest levels and gifting the rest of us with articles on thigs such as "This is how your upkeep costs work down to the very last gold piece". I believe they could only have achieved such a fluid balance by throwing out the overhead of complexity that kept things unstable. Now, fans by the score want to add this feature or restore that feature, threatening the careful balance with each new addition. Agreed some ideas are almost irresistible, and even Firaxis themselves will be guilty of the same additions in the expansion pack, but I find the present version already fascinating enough. Ah well, that is what modding is all about. It's a wonderful curse we have wished upon ourselves.

Second, I think that implementing ethnicity will be dificult to do without including race and without engendering a strong potential for fomenting ill feelings. Consider how bland the religion implementation is and what a powder keg it is none the less. There is even a thread on these boards that Islam is slighted by the fact that the game mechanics result in it seldom being a state religion. You try to separate race and ethnicity when even in your poll captions you included a reference to skin color. You mention that you had high emotions on the subject from another venue and could not keep those emotional reactions from spilling over into this forum. I submit there will be others less capable and less willing to separate the subjects from each other and from the objectivity of game play.

You are right that some of the present game mechanics are clumsy. Taking the last city does make things as if the previous nationality never existed at all, which is a bit counter-intuitive, but the issues you raise are a big enough can of worms that accusations and fears of bigotry will outweigh any game play enhancements you might achieve. It is bad enough that the game silently encourages nation-cleansing, implementing the tools for ethnic or racial cleansing would mostly be an invitation to further and louder controversy.

In other words: I don't care, but I think it would be a bad idea. Or else: I think it would be a bad idea, but I don't care. Take your pick. I have managed to confuse even myself this time.

By the way, the issue of color is already in the game. The purple people and the blue people gang up on the green people and no one complains unless they are the green people. Strange, isn't it?

1.)The skin color remark was used as an example to see that it's just sily to have a scenario simulating almost any period in history without any "non-civilised" tribes
(nationalitys, ethnicity), the ethnicity I refer to could be better understood as just a tool to help add some interesting decisions to mods.
2.)The interesting decisions would not overcomplicate the game as civics that affect nationality would only be player-created for mods.
3.)Race is absolutley essential to any fantasy or sci-fi scenario. Imagine a 21st century alien invasion scenario, is it logical for humans to be asimilated into the Zorg or the Gorn or wathever? You could have civics that afect how one is treaded acording to race, imagine the aliens implimenting slavery they would only use humans for pop-rushes or if they are enlightend invaders they will try to asimilate us into their culture but give us ecual rightes ("emancipation"). There would be no race in any non-moded civ game, I just want the ability to create races for scenarios not to impliment them in the game.
4.)The race thing is an aftertought, my original demand was just to eliminate the counter-intuitive dissaperance of nations after conquest, they wouldn't cause any problems, they just wouldn't roit if another nation took them right after you destroyed their civ (every one is so concern with public backlash but isin't genocide politicaly uncorect? I mean except if its hapening in Darfur).
5.)On that original demand I placed the nation painter tool in the world builder, its just a tool to change nationalities in the same way you can change religion in cities(why isn't anyone bothered by that, I ask you? ). I mean everyone here semes to think that I am proposing a radical new game feature the will "complicate" or "unbalance" the game.
8.) Difficult to impliment ethnicity without race? Well what would you call my multhiethnic german,americain,actec,incan civ4 city?
Is there race in cIV and I just haven't noticed?
9.)I demand public protest over my blue nation constantly wiphing out all others in every cIV game! I should be sent to the Hague for my war crimes, imidieatly!