Meta-Events

[jkp1187]

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?

Play the game with whatever rules variants you want. That's why the developers made it so mod-friendly.

That said, there's a lot to be said to make sure that whatever changes you implement are reasonably balanced. In my experience, making a few smaller changes generally goes a long way. But that shouldn't dissuade you from experimenting on your own.

[The Priest]

I'm all in favour.

Yes of course these shouldn't be part of the Core game, but we all know that. I still remember my first CIV 2 game when late on Boxing Day my brother and I thought it was going well and then ... the elephants landed at Birkenhead. The unexpected challenge - what are we going to do? will the empire collapse? frantic playing in the hope we can stop the rot. That is what I enjoy, not steady as she goes lets unroll the strategy.

BtS has done lots in this regard by making it far more likely that the AI will land a serious load of Elephants in teh middle of your Core cities, which is great (in a masochistic way). But its still not often that the AI really gets me worried. The events are nice, but they don't have that sort of impact. So I'm all in favour.

The Black Death reduced the population in much of Europe by 50%. Now that would be nasty (and of course, may well affect more than one civ).

[Scooby_Doo]

Yes, absolutely. It seems to me that BtS has taken tentative steps towards having a bit more variety in the game but to my mind it makes sense to take it a step further and have variety as a core element of the game through random events.

Anyway, the fact that there's been a few mods on this issues shows that I'm not some sort of variety-loving crackpot.

[Scooby_Doo]

Yes, absolutely. It seems to me that BtS has taken tentative steps towards having a bit more variety in the game but to my mind it makes sense to take it a step further and have variety as a core element of the game through random events.

Anyway, the fact that there's been a few mods on this issue shows that I'm not some sort of variety-loving crackpot.

[Theben]

As a mod, why not.

As part of the core game, no way.

[martin mcmartin]

I am always hoping for more and bigger events to take place, so I am in for these. OTOH, it depends on the game I am playing. sometimes I am just not in for it too much. I HATE the tornado's for instance, love the ones that have bad and good effects both, cause those do really make you part of the event (esp. the one you can choose to run full scale tests on people to get a +2 in happiness for the rest of the game, it make me think a while before I choose the third option... )

I would opt for a tick-box option "mega events" or better "raging events" before launch of the game. not part of core game.

my favorite would thus be mega events that could, maybe partly, be countered or influenced by you as a civ. you could get a certain amount of time to react to something. it is already in the game by obtaining a certain resource (i.e. get there with your army to secure the spot). same could be done with natural disasters etc... (build 5 aquaducts to reduce effects of floods by 50%, get 20% chance as AGG civ to draft amount of units in case of emerging barbs). whatever, these kind of things. bull**** in some way, but I like it.

Mc

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by martin mcmartin
I am always hoping for more and bigger events to take place, so I am in for these. OTOH, it depends on the game I am playing. sometimes I am just not in for it too much. I HATE the tornado's for instance, love the ones that have bad and good effects both, cause those do really make you part of the event (esp. the one you can choose to run full scale tests on people to get a +2 in happiness for the rest of the game, it make me think a while before I choose the third option... )

I would opt for a tick-box option "mega events" or better "raging events" before launch of the game. not part of core game.

This can very easily be done. It's just a very small SDK mod to add a tick box to the "Custom Game" screen, then a single short line of Python code for the event itself will make triggering dependent on whether or not the box was checked. Of course, if you're making these as a mod, you wouldn't need the check box. Just don't load the mod if you don't want to play them.

my favorite would thus be mega events that could, maybe partly, be countered or influenced by you as a civ. you could get a certain amount of time to react to something. it is already in the game by obtaining a certain resource (i.e. get there with your army to secure the spot). same could be done with natural disasters etc... (build 5 aquaducts to reduce effects of floods by 50%, get 20% chance as AGG civ to draft amount of units in case of emerging barbs). whatever, these kind of things. bull**** in some way, but I like it.

I've tried to make the random events I added for my own mod in this fashion. Again, if you can flesh out some more ideas, I might add them to a new version of the events mod.

[martin mcmartin]

thanks jkp for the answer!

unfortunately I am not a modder and I am not at all familiar with it, the only thing I can pull off is some stuff with the worldbuilder interface. I can read programming language, but I can't write it. it would be wonderful if there would be a mod with these kind of events!

here's some ideas:
- landslides. 1 to 4 coastal tiles (dis)appear. event could connect as well as break two continents apart with all the side effects that come with it (wonders effects, trade, etc.). effect is countered/reduced by traits (CRE?) or whoever discovered the tech with the levee. otherwise, the effect can be countered partly by workers and/or workboats. best would be not too much microman, i.e. send workers and boats there, but if you have enough free workers/boats, they are assigned automatically. there are events that auto-assign workers to a tile to clear the problemo.
- seismic activity. change a part of the map (max 10 tiles or so) in terms of location, resources and terrain in such a way that tiles are somehow rearranged on a certain latitude. they could move all 1 spot to the west, lakes could form, etc. side effects would be cities that lose pop or improvements. what would again be nice, if some the meta events give options on how to deal with the problem: "your people have managed to find a way to rebuild your lands! you get 5 fast workers to help overcome the situation". or, "the tragedy has forced your people to create a new version of the forge/granary/levee, giving you a temporary (or permanent) boost in production/growth/health".

enough for now, otherwise my boss starts whining. if you are interested, I have loads of ideas to post, just need some time to write them down. let me know if above ideas are worked out well enough, or that you would like a detailed version of every event separately.

Mc

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by johnmcd
Not the right use of 'meta' either.

I tought it was a typo on his part


What he refers to is called Mega Events in GlaCiv and its really fun.

[martin mcmartin]

hi johnmcd and Heraclitus,

never played Galciv, and no typo on my side, that is of course if you are talking about my meta event post above (yes, I know my english sucks). otherwise, ignore this post.

I meant it just as it is, "meta the event", or, "that what happens after the actual event". in other words, there is 2 events! the "event" and the "meta event", the aftermath..

Mc

[Heraclitus]

ah I understand.

That is an interesting proposal.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by Scooby_Doo
Anyway, the fact that there's been a few mods on this issue shows that I'm not some sort of variety-loving crackpot.

You can still be a crackpot, even if people agree with you. No free ride for having friends.

[Diadem]

It's interesting to consider that civilization was in fact originally based on the Avalon Hill board game of the same title. In this game, disasters play a huge role. In fact most of the teching you do in this game is aimed at reducing the detrimental effects of disasters.

Vulcanic eruptions could wipe out several cities. Floods could decimate you, especially if you were Egypt. And of course there was the civil war which basically wiped out half your empire.

Such things could be in civ4 as well. But to make it fun, it would have to be carefully thought out. One thing that made those disasters fun in the board game was the regularity with which they occured. You *knew* you were gonna get hit with disasters pretty much every turn. You couldn't know which one, but still, you played carefully and planned your strategy accordingly. And all the other players did the same.

Very major random events in civ4 would have to be structered the same way. If they happened once or twice a game they would be gamebreaking. Some civs would be fubarred while others continue without a care in the world.

You need major random events that either happen rarely, but effect everybody, or occur often enough to affect everybody roughly equally during the game.

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by Diadem
It's interesting to consider that civilization was in fact originally based on the Avalon Hill board game of the same title.

That isn't correct. While they may have heard of the old AH game, Sid Meier himself stated in an interview that he'd never even played the game until after the first version of "Sid Meier's Civilization" was published in 1991. There was no doubt some influence but Civ wasn't "based on" the old AH game.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1523/the_history_of_civilization.php?print=1

That said, I kind of agree with what you're saying with regard to the gameplay balance of major events. If a city-smashing event happens once to one player, all it does is more or less ruin that player's chances of winning.

But here's a better question: would a city-smashing event regularly happening to all civs actually be fun?

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by jkp1187


That isn't correct. While they may have heard of the old AH game, Sid Meier himself stated in an interview that he'd never even played the game until after the first version of "Sid Meier's Civilization" was published in 1991. There was no doubt some influence but Civ wasn't "based on" the old AH game.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1523/the_history_of_civilization.php?print=1

I wonder about claims like that a little. If I wasn't paying a licence fee I'd certainly put the distance I could between my idea and their idea.

Anyway, both are great games and the lesson on mega events from the AH game would need to be learned - frequent and equitable or not at all.