Meta-Events

[Scooby_Doo]

Hello,

I know that this idea has been whispered about on the forums before but I thought I'd bring it out into the open for discussion.

Having played loads of games of Civ 4 I'm starting to develop a comfortable winning strategy which works 9 times out of 10 because there's often little real variety between games in my opinion. I would quite like to see some big events put into the game which would really shake things up so that I'd be forced to adapt my strategy from time to time.

I know that many people don't want such events for precisely the reason that I do i.e. they're game changing and therefore can ruin your plans for victory. However, I think it would add a refreshing change to the game. Any thoughts?

I had a few ideas, off of the top of my head, of the sort of events that could be added:

Religious schism (as discussed in another thread about random event religions)

Civil war (effectively you would create an angry 'vassal' state from your own cities)

Natural disasters (fairly self-explanatory)

Coups (this idea needs some fleshing out but basically it would be enforced civis changes for x number of turns, i.e. your civ would suffer a right-wing coup and suddenly you have to run police state, theocracy etc etc)

Multi-stage diplomatic events (not even sure if this is possible but I think it'd be cool to have branching events where your responses to the previous stage dictate your options for the next, handle it really badly and you suffer a total breakdown in your relations with a particular Civ)

Misfiring nukes

Anyway, these are just some ideas. Of course they should be able to affect the AI as much as the player.

By the way, I'm no modder so I have no idea if any of what I've said is feasible.

[Skanky Burns]

I'd shy away from events that basically screw the player over randomly. There is the world builder if you want to deliberately challenge yourself...

[Ming]

Re: Meta-Events

Originally posted by Scooby_Doo
Having played loads of games of Civ 4 I'm starting to develop a comfortable winning strategy which works 9 times out of 10 because there's often little real variety between games in my opinion.

Are you playing at the highest difficulity level?
Do you always play the same civ?
Do you always play the same map type?

When ever I start feeling comfortable about being able to win every time, all I need to do is change something to make it difficult again

And if all else fails, I just need to play MP with some good players

[Virulent]

I think having some giant game altering events would be fine as a mod, but it's definitely something I wouldn't like to see in the core game. I think the Chaos mod which was originally supposed to come out for BtS but was dropped at some point would probably have ended up to be something like what was described in the OP.

[jkp1187]

Scooby-Doo,

Check out some of the mods both here and on Civfanatics. There are a few that will meet some of your requests.

1.) Schisms and Civil War: jdog5000's REVOLUTION mod adds the possibility of civilizations splitting, and new civs emerging from barbarian states.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=226034

2.) Coups: a couple of civ-specific random events in my events mod ("JKP1187's Events") involve coups or attempted coups against the main civ, with a possibility of a forced civics switch occurring.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6176956#post6176956

3.) Disasters: there is a pre-existing "tsunami" event that might destroy a preexisting coastal city, but it is not active. It can rather easily be activated.

I am also always interested in new ideas for events for my own mod, so feel free to suggest any!

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Virulent
I think having some giant game altering events would be fine as a mod, but it's definitely something I wouldn't like to see in the core game. I think the Chaos mod which was originally supposed to come out for BtS but was dropped at some point would probably have ended up to be something like what was described in the OP.

I agree.

[johnmcd]

Not the right use of 'meta' either.

[Crossfire]

When I get bored I either switch to an OCC game, or try a 3 cities only culture victory, or just up the difficulty. Honestly, I haven't won a game in over a month. OCC seems very hard on Emperor and a win on a regular game on Immortal is nearly in my grasp but I haven't managed it quite yet.

I would not like MEGA Events though, I always turned them off in GalCiv.

[snoopy369]

OCC difficulty decreases linearly with number of civs on any given map size. Deity OCC is not particularly challenging on a small map with 18 civs, for example.

[Ming]

Originally posted by snoopy369
OCC difficulty decreases linearly with number of civs on any given map size. Deity OCC is not particularly challenging on a small map with 18 civs, for example.

No kidding... That's how I got one of my first cheap Deity wins.

[Crossfire]

Yeah, but I tend to play OCC on a large map with the default number of civs (maybe plus one), same as I play almost every other game.

[Blaupanzer]

Hear-hear for default # of civs + 1.
OTOH, Negative on really mega-events which most of those in the OP were not! That option smacks of "Call to Power" or .

[TriMiro]

Scooby_Doo if you want to try different strategies and possibly be forced to use different strategies try Rhye's and fall of Civilization mod. Every civ there requires completely different strategy.

Random events as you describe simply make the game bad. Random is good, but too much random is very bad. Is this a strategy game where victory is determined by my skills and thinking or is it blackjack where everything is just luck.

[Scooby_Doo]

Ultimately, whether an element of the game is good or bad is a question of personal preference. I never play MP so if I think it would be good to have large scale random events am I wrong in my opinion?

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by Scooby_Doo
Ultimately, whether an element of the game is good or bad is a question of personal preference. I never play MP so if I think it would be good to have large scale random events am I wrong in my opinion?

If you could have a large scale event which had a big point score impact it would be good.

You could summon a negative one on yourself and secure a stack of points as compensation maybe: your iron mines have been exhausted! or Godzilla hated your capital!

Or summon a positive one for yourself and lose a ton of points: Your people have learned to be Philosophical too! or Your people have learned to cultivate the desert and farm tundra!

It would let you either make a game you'd won interesting again or give you a leg up back into a game that you were losing badly but enjoying otherwise.

I think they should be 'on demand' though rather than just turning up arbitrarily.