Maximizing Civilization Diversity (Addind a 3rd Trait)

[Backpack]

I have long felt limited in the choices of Civs/Civ trait (Mil, Ind, Exp, Sci, Rel, Com) combinations. Tonight I decided to do a little analysis into adding a third trait to each of the standard PTW Civ's.

First, I wanted to make sure I was maximizing the number of trait combinations by using three traits. I suspected I was, but I wanted to make sure.

2 traits per Civ, =
(6 * 5)/2 = 15 where six is the available letters for the first position, 5 is the available letters for the second position, and you divide by 2 since there are two letter slots in the word to remove duplicates.

The Combinations are
MI, ME, MS, MR, MC, IE, IS, IR, IC, ES, ER, EC, SR, SC, and RC

3 traits per Civ, =
((6*5)/2)*4/3 = 20 or rather 15*4/3=20 where we treat this as a two letter word, with 15 choices for the first letter (The double letter solution from above) * the 4 remaining possible letters, then divide by three since there are actually 3 letters used, to remove the duplicates and reversals.

The Combinations are
ERC, ESC, ESR, IEC, IER, IES, IRC, ISC, ISR, MEC, MER, MES, MIC, MIE, MIR, MIS, MRC, MSC, MSR, SRC

4 traits per civ =
(20 * 3) / 4 = 15
At 4 we are back to where we started at with 15 possible combinations.

5 traits per Civ =
(15 * 2) / 5 = 6
At 5, we might as well go back to having only a single trait per Civ. (Actually we have, but instead the single trait picked is the one NOT enabled)

6 traits per Civ =

(6 * 1) / 6 = 1
And this is true because with all Civs having All traits, then there is no diversity and all Civs are alike.

I kind of fumbled my way through this, so to anyone who feels like, please check my math / assumptions. I am always open for correction.

As long as we are limited to 6 traits, the distribution gos like this.

Traits Per Civ / Maximum Different Combinations
1/6
2/15
3/20
4/15
5/6
6/1


Thanks for reading this far... More to Follow.

KP

Edit: Fixed Title

[Backpack]

After examining the possibilities, I wanted to take a look at what was already present.

Using the PTW Editor, I compiled the following info on the 24 Civs included in PTW.

Mil = 9
Ind = 7
Exp = 8
Sci = 7
Rel = 9
Com = 8

Of the 15 possible combinations, there was 1 of each plus 2 ME, 2 MR, 1 IS, 1 IC, 1 ER, 1 SC, and 1 RC for a total of 9 duplications. This suprised me, because it had felt like there were combinations missings, but that must have simply been my desire for more complex combinations.

Moving on to the new combinations using 3 traits. There are 20 combinations and since there are 24 'official' Civ's this means we can cut the duplication in half (from 9 to 4) if we ensure that each trait combination is assigned at least once.

Below is my first cut at assigning the 20 new combinations to the 24 Civs.


Civ Orig New Thoughts / Notes
Spain RC ERC Mexico, South America
Korea SC ESC Trait Balance
Russia ES ESR Rasputin was Monk, Mosques of Moscow
Arabia ER ESR Totals Balance
England EC IEC Industrial Revolution
France IC IEC French Africa, Indochina, and Louisiana
America IE IEC US uses Com $ and low corruption to imitate a Sci Trait.
Egypt IR IER Trait Balance
Persia IS IES Trait Balance
Carthage IC IRC Trait Balance
Ottomans IS ISC Trait Balance
Babylon SR ISR Trait Balance
Zululand ME MEC Trait Balance
Iroquois ER MER Mil Society?
Scandinavia ME MER Thors-Day, Wodins-Day
Mongols ME MES Trait Balance
Rome MC MIC Appian Way, Aquaducts
China MI MIE Trait Balance
Aztecs MR MIR Complicated Irrigation Systems
Germany MS MIS Trait Balance
Japan MR MRC Toyota, Sony
Greece SC MSC Trait Balance
Celts MR MSR Trait Balance
India RC SRC Trait Balance


Thoughts??

Each trait is assigned once. in addition to that, there are 4 duplicates.
IEC is assigned 3 times (2 extra) to America, France, and England with the thoughts behind that designation listed above.
MER is assigned twice (1 extra). The reasoning behind both could be argued, and we could reassign either to a different category.
ESR is assigned twice (1 extra). Arabia was given Sci to simply balance the total number of civs with the Sci trait though it could be argued that it deserves it (I am counting in Arabic numerals (Though I seem to recall that Arabic numerals were based on a system used in the Indian sub-continent)).

With this assignment, there are now the following balances

Mil = 11
Ind = 12
Exp = 14
Sci = 11
Rel = 12
Com = 12

For a complete balancing of the traits, the easiest fix would be to change France from IEC to MIC and then change the Exp in America, England, Iroquois, or Scandinavia into a Sci. The problem I have with making this last change was that I was trying really hard not to alter any of the original two trait designations Firaxis gave, but rather to add on. Regardless, with these two changes the above can be balanced so that there are 12 civs with each of the 6 traits, there is one Civ with each combination, and no combination is used more than twice.


Personally, I don't have a problem leaning on expansionist at the expense of Mil and Sci slots. I want this balance for two reasons: Greater Choice of Player Civ, and Greater Diversity on Huge Maps with all the Civs playing. With Huge Maps, Expansionist becomes more valuable, Scientific is devalued by the great number of tech trading partners available, and I personally don't warmonger enough to benefit from Mil so I rarely play a Mil Civ. (This last point may change because I wasn't willing to spend one of 2 traits on Mil before (Other than Rome), but now with three traits, I can see myself taking a Mil Civ out for a spin more often.)

Thoughts?

Note: Please, I ask that no-one complain about my being biased for or against a Civ, or for having used a racist or stereotypical viewpoint in assigning traits. The notes included above are simply the fleeting thoughts as I tried to balance the game. No harm nor foul was intended.

More to Follow, and Thanks for listening

KP

[Backpack]

And Now - Advanced Civ Trait Diversification.

In the discussion so far, I have talked mainly of increasing the number of traits to 3, and then balancing that for diversity of play/competition. Now I will look at another level of diversity. Before I was talking about giving all the Civs the SAME number of traits, but if we consider the possibility of an uneven number of traits between Civ,s we can delve even deeper.

Before I concluded that 3 traits yielded 20 different combinations. The use of 2 or 4 traits offered only 15 combinations each. But how about allowing unbalanced Civs? What if some civs had 2, some 3, and some 4 traits? This yields

2 = 15
+ 3 = 20
+ 4 = 15
---------
Total 50 Possible trait combinations. Wow! Now we're talking a diverse selection. But At this point I think we have also unbalanced the game. To bring it back into balance, we can change the numbers of UU's available to a civilization.

Imagine: The baseline average Civ gets three traits, and one UU. A UU can be traded in for an extra trait or a trait can be traded for another UU.

This infact open up even more possibilities.

0 Traits, 4 UU's: 1 Slot
1 Traits, 3 UU's: 6 Slots
2 Traits, 2 UU's: 15 Slots
3 Traits, 1 UU's: 20 Slots
4 Traits, 0 UU's: 15 Slots

For a total of 57 combinations or Traits and # of UU's


The reason I go to this level is that variety is the spice of life. I love having a ton's of different Civ's to choose from , both to play and to play against. By adding in more unique 'slots' we can have more civs without just minor differences in Traits or UU's. I'd love for someone to put together a set of 57 Civs to fill all the slots described above. Sure you may only be able to have 31 on a map with you at one time, but there are limits to even today's desktops (and my free time to wait between turns).

Take England for example. I imagine it reassigned to the Ind, Exp, and Com traits. What if I'm in the mood to play or play against England but I'm in the mood for a pangea game? Well, Maybe Someone will clone england for me and create the Britains and instead of the Man o War UU, they get the Mil trait as a bonus. Slap on a different Leaderhead (or don't), and away we go.

I admit, the extremes of the above may get ridiculous. I was mostly envisioning the 2, 3, and 4 trait groups with 2, 1, and 0 UU's respectively which give the greatest number for the least change.

Thoughts?

Thanks for listening

KP

[Backpack]

Would you like to take this to even another level craziness???

How about Negative UU's?

Imagine this...

0 Traits, 4 UU's: 1 Slot
1 Traits, 3 UU's: 6 Slots
2 Traits, 2 UU's: 15 Slots
3 Traits, 1 UU's: 20 Slots
4 Traits, 0 UU's: 15 Slots
5 Traits, -1 UU's: 6 Slots
6 Traits, -2 UU's: 1 Slot

Total = 64 Unique Civ Slots.


Now.... What's a negative UU?

A negative UU is a penalty Unit given to a Civ to compensate for an added trait. It is essentially a clone of an existing unit (preferably a mainstream unit in the major upgrade path for city defense or Ancient Arms) that has either an increased cost, or lowered performance in it's stats, or an added resource required. Imagine a double cost warrior, or a pikeman that is equivalent to a spearman or a spearman that requires iron working (or even iron). Because it's in the upgrade path, or an Early unit, you will in most games be hard pressed to avoid paying the penalty.


Firaxis limited the duplication to no more than three Civ's with a particular trait combination. The variety was only in the UU's, City Names, Agression Rating, and Culturally linked groups. By implimenting the above described system, and using the same 3X limit, we have room for 192 different Civ's.

If you impliment the basic system described earlier, you have opened up from 3 * 15 = 45 Civs, to 3 * 20 = 60 Civs.

If you go for the middle ground (and this is the way I would love to see someone put together a mega Civ Pack) and limit yourself to the three big trait groups (2, 3, and 4) you have a total of 3 * 50 = 150 Civ slots to use.

And Last, If 60 wasn't enough... If 150 wasn't enough.... If even 192 wasn't enough slots for you, you could always startmixing and matching with extra negative UU's. After 192, Every Civ gets a negative UU AND a positive UU in addition to the grouping above. (Give Civ 193 a negative UU and a positive UU (-1 + 1 = 0) and start letting trait combinations be duplicated a fourth time.

It's endless.

Oh well, After all this talk, and all this math, I'm gonna go plug in my new traits on the basic 24 and play a game and see how it feels.

Later

KP

[Cian McGuire]

I like the most of the ideas presented here, and I too have considered adding an extra trait.

I'm not ecstatic about the particular trait choices you've made, but then again some of Firaxis' particular choices left me a little stumped, too.

Also, I believe the last iteration, that of the negative UU's, to be taking the idea a little too far. Since we can only have a total selection of 32 civs, having a total above that is simply extraneous. Therefore, I would personally stop at the second phase, that of the three traits, but having the "Advanced Civ Trait Diversification" wouldn't be too far out of bounds either.

In terms of your trait selections, I would have it as this:

Civ Orig New Thoughts / Notes

"Spain RC ERC Mexico, South America"
Militaristic, Religious, Expansionist - I have no idea why Firaxis went with Commercial. Yes, they amassed a fortune from plundering Aztec and Incan temples, but due to the vagaries of the markets at the time, their very wealth was impoverishing them. In any case, they are much more Militaristic than Commercial.

"Russia ES ESR Rasputin was Monk, Mosques of Moscow"
Expansionist, Militaristic, Scientific - Russia's army has always been its key asset and means of diplomacy and one of the dominant forces in Europe for several centuries.

"Arabia ER ESR Totals Balance"
Expansionist, Scientific, Religious - Arabia experienced a scientific renaissance a few centuries before Western Christianity did, and they were the ones to transmit the knowledge of the ancient world to Europe as it emerged from the Middle Ages.

"England EC IEC Industrial Revolution"
Sounds good.

"France IC IEC French Africa, Indochina, and Louisiana"
Sounds good as well- not to mention their European considerations. They might have been late to the colonizing-scene, but that was due to their quest for land in Europe.

"America IE IEC US uses Com $ and low corruption to imitate a Sci Trait."
Sounds good.

I'll add more later- got bored typing

[Sheik]

This is interesting though I think your third post gets a little to crazy for my taste.

I am counting in Arabic numerals (Though I seem to recall that Arabic numerals were based on a system used in the Indian sub-continent).

Correct.

[Nor Me]

I tried 3 traits some time ago. Played about 10 games with it. Was pre-PTW so needed no duplicates and was able to remove what I then considered to be too powerful combinations. We agree only on England, Germany, Persia and Japan.
It doesn't really make the civs that much different though. When half of all civs are expansionist, say, then playing an expansionist civ is less unusual.
I also tried giving every civ a free tech from a later era. That made them play differently. And I doubled the difference between UUs and the base units.
Some of these changes were less balancing. Thats the trouble with your next idea. Why have 64 unique civs when some are much better than others. If I wanted to win, I would only play 1. might have trouble with the Golden Age if the negative UUs didn't trigger it though.

On a smaller map, those doubled cost warriors would be even better than chariots!

[congobeast]

kwpulliam1973: "Russia ES ESR Rasputin was Monk, Mosques of Moscow"

Cian McGuire: "Expansionist, Militaristic, Scientific - Russia's army has always been its key asset and means of diplomacy and one of the dominant forces in Europe for several centuries."

I agree with you in principle, insofar as Russia's military might has been the key to it's power and diplomacy; but that has been more a response to the -size- of the thing, than the skill.

To be a little more specific; the :Militaristic: trait allows nations to get their units more experienced quickly. Historically, Russia's military has been a force due to it's massive size; not so much it's skill. Look at the battering that 'human wave' tactics gave to the Wehrmacht during the Counterblitz from 1943-44. It wasn't skill, it was numbers.

On the other side of the coin, the Eastern Orthodox Church was key to Russian development after Peter the Great, until the rise of the Soviet Union- the time when Moscow rose to preminance, and Rus became a major world power, rather than a Mongul speedbump to Europe.

For my money, replace "M" with "R".