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Things to Borrow From Other Games

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  • Things to Borrow From Other Games

    1. Imperialism 1's simultaneous trading market system. A real market system where supply and demand rule, unlike the Civ system.

    In Imperialism, you must use Labour (of three different levels of skill, so that Britain's higlhly trained workforce beats Russian clodhoppers)to collect timber, Labour to process the lumber into timber, and more labour to turn lumber into finished wood products. You can sell at all three levels, raw resource, processed, and finished product based on 'does anyone want it'.

    In Civ, luxury resources would have to be made more important to make workers stay happy, so that Tea or Coffee is always in greater demand than, say, Copper.

    2. Europa Universalis 2 has a lot of good influences for Civ, especially in making alliances, and relations, and all the things that affect relations.

    The semi-mystical 'Stability' number. affected and affecting so many things, might be interesting in Civ (under whatever name), but would be better if it was a value out of 100, and not only 7 possibilities like in EU2.

    3. Combat AI that follows set strategies or 'personalities' like in the old SSG game Warlords 2, where the Warlord-level computer opponents could be given fun personalities (pachydermal: slow inevitable buildup of powerful expensive units, ratsbane:makes war 'on the cheap', betrays alliances, tries to quickly overwhelm poorly defended cities, Sir Pureheart: like the Gaians from SMAC, he hates pollution, treaty-breakers, likes to fight 'honorably', Horselord: Like to have a highly mobile army of the fastest available units, always tries to 'outflank' you)

    These AI combat styles could be set or random.

    4. Rail capacity like in any number of games. Improvements and tech (Steam, Electric, Monorail, Magnetic) increase this capacity.

    5. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: The social engineering screen for changing governments needs to be in Civ IV but with more options. Also, the Units Workshop would be cool, especially if there where some default culture specific names for the units we make up.


    Most Important: Units that work, and work for a long enough period that you can build and use a lot of them. There should always be 'a point' to make new units and a useful purpose for them (I'm thinking of the Civ 2 aircraft carrier and dragoon here).
    "Wait a minute..this isn''t FAUX dive, it's just a DIVE!"
    "...Mangy dog staggering about, looking vainly for a place to die."
    "sauna stories? There are no 'sauna stories'.. I mean.. sauna is sauna. You do by the laws of sauna." -P.

  • #2
    No to the trade system you proposed.

    Yes to a more power diplomacy system.

    No to "rail capacity".

    No to SMAC-style social engineering (luckily, this will never happen).

    Comment


    • #3
      umm any reasons?

      I can understan wanting to keep things simple if you don't like trading /econ games but why the fork don't you like rail capacity?

      You know, if you have a capacity of 20 you can send 20 infantry or twenty K of coal or 5 tanks...instead of just instantly teleporting stuff to the farthest frontiers.
      "Wait a minute..this isn''t FAUX dive, it's just a DIVE!"
      "...Mangy dog staggering about, looking vainly for a place to die."
      "sauna stories? There are no 'sauna stories'.. I mean.. sauna is sauna. You do by the laws of sauna." -P.

      Comment


      • #4
        Rail capacity would be difficult/impossible to implement given the current tile improvement system, would screw over the AI, and would mess up the pathing algorithm. Plus, it wouldn't really prevent that much movement once you have everything railroaded.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by skywalker
          Rail capacity would be difficult/impossible to implement given the current tile improvement system, would screw over the AI, and would mess up the pathing algorithm. Plus, it wouldn't really prevent that much movement once you have everything railroaded.
          Since this thread is about borrowing from other games, I see a nice way to implement railroad capacity. Just have an SR-pool (strategic redeployment pool) like many strategic-level wargames.


          Integrate this with the "public work" system advocated by some: public works + econ level = infrastructure capacity of your nation. You could then use this number to determine how much units can move by railroad. I'm no expert but I guess the AI could handle it.
          In Soviet Russia, Fake borises YOU.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by skywalker
            Rail capacity would be difficult/impossible to implement given the current tile improvement system, would screw over the AI, and would mess up the pathing algorithm. Plus, it wouldn't really prevent that much movement once you have everything railroaded.
            This sounds like more of a call to dump the "current tile improvment system."

            Rails should never cover every square mile of a nation. It's one of the things that people have been complaining about in Civ 3 since day one.

            Suggestions have included an upkeep cost for rail tiles, as well as the absolute necessity of having rails boost ONLY movement, and not any sort of production. Also, do away with infinite movement.

            Doing away with infinite movement could very well adderss the problems of rails without having to implement a rail use cap.

            As for SMAC style government, there are good discussions about this in a few threads here, and I think it's a great idea.

            I haven't played EU or Imperialism, but the types of labor and such sounds like too much hassle for the Civ system if we had to worry about it directly. Perhaps have the education level of your civs have an impact on production levels. Education level would be figured based on population with libraries and universities and such. Too dumb a populace, and production suffers. If everyone is perched in an ivory tower, then production declines, in part to simulate the fact that the "salt of the earth worker" isn't out there, and in part to keep the late game production levels (when everyone will likely have all the education based improvements and huge populations) in balance.

            Comment


            • #7
              I think upkeep is the simplest, best solution.

              Comment


              • #8
                skywalker, please don't say something without the arguments, since it's the arguments that are interesting here

                I think Civ IV could learn from Galactic Civilizations for:
                - trading
                - United Nations, reputation and all the diplomacy
                - interface
                - minor civilizations
                - random events (maybe, depends how it's used)
                - the possibility of orienting your economy: pro-demography, pro-industry...
                - multi-threaded AI
                - the possibility to finance others' wars!
                Last edited by Trifna; December 15, 2003, 00:34.
                Go GalCiv, go! Go Society, go!

                Comment


                • #9
                  I think it would be cool to have 'centres of trade', like in EU. These extremely valuable provinces add a lot to the strategic element.

                  Suppose that you designate a certain city as a CoT. This city then forms mini-trade routes with all nearby cities, and it can then form major trade routes with other centres of trade.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Suppose that you designate a certain city as a CoT. This city then forms mini-trade routes with all nearby cities, and it can then form major trade routes with other centres of trade.
                    But of course, that designation would come as a large cost to your civilization unless of course your civ traits were Mercantilistic, correct?
                    -
                    As for rail capacity, I do agree that it seems only practical to limit the amount of people who can ride the rails to a certain level for each section of track... after say, 5 units have passed over a certain section in one turn, they should be able to move no more unless certain advances are discovered.
                    -
                    I would also suggest adding air capacity to the game... basically designating air routes for supplies in the game.
                    For example: Armor Units in Washington can be put onto a Cargo Plain and flown to the front in Tripoli, or something of that sort.
                    -->Visit CGN!
                    -->"Production! More Production! Production creates Wealth! Production creates more Jobs!"-Wendell Willkie -1944

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Unit Workshop!
                      Social Engineering!
                      Custom Civs!

                      -Jam
                      1) The crappy metaspam is an affront to the true manner of the artform. - Dauphin
                      That's like trying to overninja a ninja when you aren't a mammal. CAN'T BE DONE. - Kassi on doublecrossing Ljube-ljcvetko
                      Check out the ALL NEW Galactic Overlord Website for v2.0 and the Napoleonic Overlord Website or even the Galactic Captians Website Thanks Geocities!
                      Taht 'ventisular link be woo to clyck.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Stacked Movement/Combat
                        Scripting


                        I leave Public Works out because otherwise Civ4 might be nearly as good as CtP2.5.
                        Concrete, Abstract, or Squoingy?
                        "I don't believe in giving scripting languages because the only additional power they give users is the power to create bugs." - Mike Breitkreutz, Firaxis

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I leave Public Works out because otherwise Civ4 might be nearly as good as CtP2.5.
                          I'd prefer it if they also left out Stacked Movement/Combat. But too much has been posted here: Soren J. and Mike B. have undoubtedly got the idea by now.

                          Let's hassle them about scripting. It's a lot of work to put in a scripting language. That'll keep them busy.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Fosse

                            Rails should never cover every square mile of a nation. It's one of the things that people have been complaining about in Civ 3 since day one.
                            Try day one of Civ1...

                            Suggestions have included an upkeep cost for rail tiles, as well as the absolute necessity of having rails boost ONLY movement, and not any sort of production. Also, do away with infinite movement.

                            Doing away with infinite movement could very well adderss the problems of rails without having to implement a rail use cap.
                            There has to be some stop to the infinite movement issue. I have read several good ideas on how to deal with that (two right here in this thread). An upkeep cost puts the proper burden on the player (and AI) to decide if railroad is really needed.

                            I do like the connection between railroad in a tile and improved production...I guess because it makes sense. In the real world, that's how most stuff is moved around. However, the playability factor is more important in this case, so I could leave it behind.

                            If the railroad production bonus is dropped, then we could pull back a good idea from Civ2 regarding irrigation and farms as an upgrade improvement. The railroads would be implied by this upgrade. Mines could also have an upgrade path to "strip mining" or some other term implying moderning mining methods. Once again, railroads implied, but not visible on the map and not built to enhance production.

                            I can't remember where I just read this (what thread in Civ Games General/Future) but someone proposed that railroad bonus for military units could be infinite only between cities in your own borders. Units need to get off the trains IN CITIES, and then engage the enemy. Seems like a good idea and it employs common sense.
                            Haven't been here for ages....

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
                              Stacked Movement/Combat
                              Scripting


                              I leave Public Works out because otherwise Civ4 might be nearly as good as CtP2.5.
                              Scripting?
                              Haven't been here for ages....

                              Comment

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