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  • #16
    Good idea Druuge.Imagine: All units are wheeled in the early times and mountains in general are impassable to wheeled units (PTW). That changes in the modern times. Until then you could use hills for a way between the mountains. Would be a good defense for civs living behind them.

    Another problem is: On those hills, the way through the mountain, there should be a fortress. But fortresses are not used by the ai it seems. I would never leave that fortress undefended, no one would, but the ai ignores them I think. How to change? Giving the ai some troops without movement? Okay, would work until defeated, and then?

    Too less fortresses in general. Or strategic excellent locations. No AI would build a Suez or Constantinopel, they do not recognize such locations. Disgusting. But you can play around with some terrains. THis means you avoid using some special terrain, perhaps wood looks like jungle so you can use this. In the near area of Suez place everywhere jungle (with changed graphics), give them the ability to non-settle and on the right location a normal grass or whatever. Then the ai is forced to build on that excellent location.

    Some has spoken about the cities on the coast. I say: they are useless. They produce nothing and are weak. Perhaps you can give water terrains some shields and extraordinary trading boni. But there are excellent trading locations, how to simulate them? By fish or whales, less used on the map but with very good boni.

    The land cities would be weak indeed and that is correct. But it changes through middleages. How to simulate this? Perhaps mining is developed very late and the mines give very good boni.

    Or another way? An idea. I always hated it to use only trade for money. What about taxes? In the editor you can make labourers pay you taxes. So you get money from them directly. Now when the cities on the coast produce more food, they are richer than the others because of their population. Perhaps irrigating is developed later and are then more effective than water terrain. So you could simulate that effect, that the land cities grow in importance.

    But I would like to do another thing, but don't know how to do this. An old idiom says that the cities in the mediterrainian world are like frogs around a little sea (sorry for the bad translation). Is there a way to make the civs not build land cities in the first time? A changing- terrain-event would be great.

    And then the roads. Quite disturbing that everywhere are roads and railways. If you turn off the ability to produce some boni like trading you can't build any roads. Why?? I thought the ai would only connect its cities but it doesn't work at all.

    If you choose this and place them in the editor only they could be pillaged and would be lost forever. Why the hack Firaxis think roads could be destroyed? How many years would this last and by the way: imagine to destroy some roman streets. It is not coincidence that some of them are still here today ;-)

    With the roads I am very helpless. And the railoads must get the ability, and if its only for mods, to change the infinite bonus. Perhaps triple bonus but not more.

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    • #17
      Originally posted by twilight

      Some has spoken about the cities on the coast. I say: they are useless. They produce nothing and are weak. Perhaps you can give water terrains some shields and extraordinary trading boni. But there are excellent trading locations, how to simulate them? By fish or whales, less used on the map but with very good boni.
      If you have a naval strategy, the coastal cities are a must. My coastal cities always flurish and prosper, particularly if you reach the time when your build off shore platforms. However, if the coastal city is in a desert, it will rarely grow until you can affor to build a harbor.

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      • #18
        Originally posted by twilight

        And then the roads. Quite disturbing that everywhere are roads and railways. If you turn off the ability to produce some boni like trading you can't build any roads. Why?? I thought the ai would only connect its cities but it doesn't work at all.
        I am experimenting with the editor by doubling the amount of time it takes to build roads and railroads. This should make them more valuable in early game strategy. Wait for my judgement until I test more.

        Too bad I can't edit the railroad infinite movement bonus. I can just make it cost more to build. Too bad. It is so unrealistic.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by Druuge
          If I could wish for something else, then there should be a difference with a coast adjacent to sea and a coast adjacent to ocean; the latter should be dangerous for triremes - an ocean is an ocean, after all. I think that the coast of Algier, for example, is much safer place to travel when compared to Gulf of Biskaia or Chile, for example.

          BTW - interesting thread.
          I am experimenting with the editor. You can make mountains impassible. No units can then pass them except air units. This makes sense considering that no units could pass the Himalayas. Only then, you can't land on mountains.

          As for rocky coasts, i am thinking of the following:
          1) creating my own map
          2) changing ocean tiles to impassible
          3) making all deep water sea tiles and making "ocea" tiles impassible.
          4) placing on my maps "ocean" tiles next to chille or rocky shores that are impassible to any naval units!

          That may work but then the random map generator would be useless if ocean tiles in its definition are impassible!

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          • #20
            Originally posted by Druuge


            BTW - interesting thread.
            I would like the end result of this thread to be
            1) building a scenario/mod that aims at increasing realism in the game (realism defined earlier in the thread).

            and/or

            2) coming with suggestions to Feraxis (hoping they read these forums) regarding enhancements for civ4 or a "civ3 - Play Realistically"

            By the way, if anybody out there knows of such realistic scenario/mod, please make my life easier by directing me to it!

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            • #21
              I am experimenting with the editor. You can make mountains impassible. No units can then pass them except air units. This makes sense considering that no units could pass the Himalayas. Only then, you can't land on mountains.

              Okay, but is it possible to give some units the ability to cross them? I think of Mountaintroops (Gebirgsjäger) for example.

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              • #22
                This is a great thread--I hope we can get lots of ideas on it!

                I posted this on the Civ Fanatics forum, and so I'll just copy what I wrote there:
                -----
                Note before I begin: I actually haven't played that many games of Civ III, so if I say something really, really stupid, please keep the haughty mocking to the "court jester" level.

                I think one of the worst unrealistic things is sending out troops or ships with no supply lines and they can stay away from home for maybe 1,000 or 2,000 years, not die and not forget their mission...and continually communicating back to their leader (you). Bronze age radio, brought to you by the Lost Secrets of Atlantis!

                Perhaps we could mod all units to be similar to air units, with a base and range. I can understand not requiring nuclear subs or sailing ships to have a base, but a battleship needs an oil or coaling station...and troops deep in enemy territory should require some unbroken chain of supply. (The "non-healing" before Battlefield Medicine is a very rough approximation of this.) Some many important aspects of world history cannot be modeled without the idea of lines of supply. (At least the cities have production tied this way, which I think is an excellent addition...strategic resources are one of the two coolist additions to Civ, the other one being Culture...IMO.)

                If you send a sailing vessel or warriors across temperate or tropical areas, they can "live off the land" to a large degree (but watch out for tropical disease!) However, if you send a sailing vessel to chart out the arctic, or send a warrior accross the frozen tundra, it's going to die before too long. Deep tropical forests and arctic regions should be terra incognita until relatively modern times.

                There should be some way to accurately simulate supply lines necessary for the support of troops (and if cut off, they will die), and also avoid the "instantaneous communications" from far-flung units before the advent of radio. Imagine the suspense from sending off a troop of horsemen or fleet of ships in the age of sail to chart the unknown wilds, and have them return 20 years later with detailed maps! Perhaps, like Magelleon, they would loose quite a bit of their starting strength, but come back with riches from the East! (Perhaps Magelleon's voyage could be modded to reveal continental outlines and pay a random amount of gold...with the odd chance that it will never return. And make it a small wonder.)

                Movement points on units should be modded for the various sizes of maps. For example, in an ultra-huge 362 X 362 map, each square on an earth-sized world is about 62 Km/39 miles on a side...surely even a galley can move more than 186 Km in 50 years! (This is probably the easiest mod I'm suggesting, but I'm lazy and haven't done it yet.)

                Anyway, just some thoughts. I know that there are probably "playability" reasons for the way everything is currently set up, but I'd like to see in Civ IV (or CTP III, I can always dream, can't I?) these issues addressed.

                ------

                That's my current pet peeve: lack of simulation of lines of supply and ancient communication lag. If we can mod this, great! If we can't...well, Civ III is still a fun way to waste time and avoid cleaning the house while the wife is away and when you really should be doing laundry...
                "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. And those who do know history repeat it just for fun."

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by bartdanr

                  That's my current pet peeve: lack of simulation of lines of supply and ancient communication lag. If we can mod this, great! If we can't...well, Civ III is still a fun way to waste time and avoid cleaning the house while the wife is away and when you really should be doing laundry...
                  I thought about the ship supply line and ancient instant communication a lot. It is generally realistic because each turn is actually several years. When a ship meets a new civilization on a second continent in the current turn and you know about it immediately, it is OK because the second turn the year jumps by 20: immagine the ship went back to motherland, reported, and came back to the frontier!

                  However, the artic sailing is un-realistic. In civ2, I used to sneak my triremes on artic shores to discover the world. This is fixed in civ3. A solution for Feraxis would be to create a water tile that is called "hazardous sea". The more primitive the ship unit, the higher the likelihood of sinking!

                  As for walking on the artic, the solution is to make this type of tile impassible to all units (like you can do with mountains). No cities can be built there too. I have not seen much of artic continents with the current map generator. Tundra tile is the closest thing; and tundra is more inhabitable than artic. There are no artic tiles in civ3 and no artic continents. However, to increase realism, I suggest the creation of a new tile: the artic tile. It should be impassible and inhabitable except to one very advanced unit (e.g. airplane).

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by bartdanr

                    Perhaps we could mod all units to be similar to air units, with a base and range. I can understand not requiring nuclear subs or sailing ships to have a base, but a battleship needs an oil or coaling station...and troops deep in enemy territory should require some unbroken chain of supply. (The "non-healing" before Battlefield Medicine is a very rough approximation of this.) Some many important aspects of world history cannot be modeled without the idea of lines of supply.
                    To simulate the effect of line of supply in naval strategy, play the game with highest level of barbarians and increase the strength of barbarians. World history is shaped by barbarian activities (ancient and modern)!

                    This way when I send my ship to a far away continent without resting in one of my cities every now and then, barbarian ships keep attacking it until it sinks! Here is your supply line! No close cities to resupply ship with strength, then no ship!

                    As for food supply, I always immagine an Alexandrian or Crusader army that eats from the land it occupies (an army that does not bring its own supplies!) There is always food around for my units (though I play arid settings). The exception is desert and artic. Similar to how units could die from disease in the jungle, they should also die from lack of food if a LARGE number of units are moved together through tiles with no food resources! Considering that early in the game i build roads and that I play smaller maps, I never need to simulate dying from hunger! My units cross the desert fast...

                    But again "roads" is the key word for a land-based lines of supply. As I noted in previous posts, roads are too easy to make in civ3. I use the editor to double the work needed to complete them. Ancient large empires were mostly successful because of effective communication and lines of supply!

                    I remember in civ2 that if your cities do not keep in constant touch (line of supply), they may split into two empires! I like this concept though it is complex for some players. I don't mind re-introducing this concept in civ4. This is how it should work. If the following conditions exist:
                    1) if one of your cities (new world city) is "x" tiles away from the nearest other city of your civ; and
                    2) if the new world city is not connected to any of your other cities by port or road; and
                    3) if none of your land or see units visit that city in "y" years,

                    only then this city will split and form a new civilization (or become a barbarian city)!

                    As for values of x and y, they have to be tested to balance the simulation. I suggest
                    x= 15 tiles
                    y= 200 years

                    I have to admit that the introduction of culture and borders in civ3 have had a very good effect of encouraging the building of your civilization around a central geographic area. In civ2, my empire consisted of cities on different continents with nothing in common but ancestry! This no more likely in civ3. Good job Feraxis! I think the realism in simulation proponents at Feraxis are there but silent...

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                    • #25
                      ehm...are you sure all those things are possible to be modded?
                      <Kassiopeia> you don't keep the virgins in your lair at a sodomising distance from your beasts or male prisoners. If you devirginised them yourself, though, that's another story. If they devirginised each other, then, I hope you had that webcam running.
                      Play Bumps! No, wait, play Slings!

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                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Lemmy
                        ehm...are you sure all those things are possible to be modded?
                        No. Some features discussed above can be modded others are for the civ4 wish list. I try to distinguish between the two in my posts. Please read my postings again and let me know what features you were referring to.

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                        • #27
                          I thought about the ship supply line and ancient instant communication a lot. It is generally realistic because each turn is actually several years. When a ship meets a new civilization on a second continent in the current turn and you know about it immediately, it is OK because the second turn the year jumps by 20: immagine the ship went back to motherland, reported, and came back to the frontier!
                          I can see the realism in how this relates to exploration vessels, but once you explore an area, it still takes the same length of time to move in it, which is unrealistic.

                          For example, I send a galley out to explore, and I find an island six squares away that I want to settle. 100 years to travel there, and a 100 years to travel back is a bit much!

                          Perhaps there could be two "travel modes": (1) an exploratory mode, which is very slow, when you are mapping out an area and (2) a regular travel mode, after mapping an area and travelling well-known sea lanes.

                          I agree that exploration should be slow, but travel in well-explored areas should be relatively fast.

                          Maybe fast travel speeds for all units, combined with heavy barbarian/pirate activity, could simulate this, as suggested. That way exploration is limited by the barbarians, but once an area is "civilized" (i.e., those nasty barbarians are dead), travel and communication within the Empire is rapid...but in Terra Incognita, you best be prepared for long and difficult explorations!
                          "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. And those who do know history repeat it just for fun."

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                          • #28
                            Perhaps this idea could be worked out. What do you think about fleets reacting like aircrafts? The ships remain in cities given orders to do missions. Exploring, trading, transporting, fighting, guarding, do an embargo and so on. Infinte range, but dangerous because of storms, monsters (decided by the mod), enemy fleets...

                            When a fleet is guarding a single location and another fleet meets them (0-3 coordinates nearby) they fight.

                            Trading Ships could increase trading importance. You choose ships to trade, and a target. Both cities get the bonus. I always wanted to play a city like for example Byzanz where east and west were trading. What about that?

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by bartdanr
                              For example, I send a galley out to explore, and I find an island six squares away that I want to settle. 100 years to travel there, and a 100 years to travel back is a bit much!
                              It is very realistic to spend a 100 year settling after discovery. The New World was discovered in 1492 but it was not before 1600 that settlements started ! The speed of the Spaniard's galleons was the same whether they were exploring or settling!

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                              • #30
                                Supply lines and roads

                                I played few games where the time needed to build roads and railways was doubled. They were lot of fun because then you focus your strategy on
                                1) linking city early in the game
                                2) choosing shortest path
                                3) building military support lines
                                4) protecting the roads that are very time-consuming to build

                                Guess what? The computer AI turned out to be stupid. When road are easy to build (default settings of civ3), the computer opponents has roads everywhere connected his cities and providing supply lines by the 1 AD. But when you double the time to build roads in the scenario editor, i can easily destroy supply lines of the enemy, cutting his access to strategic resources (in default settings, enemy has raods on every tile so you cannot destory supply routes). I can easily transport my troops in the ancient world because I focused on supply lines, while the AI cannot because its strategy is short-term: it builds roads to increase wealth and not to ensure supply lines; if roads are easy to build, ultimately the AI can link cities; however if roads are not easy to build, the AI has a big shortcoming.

                                It is fun! Try it. Go to the editor and double the number of turns it takes to make roads and railways (i think it is under worker actions).

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