Dreaming a History for a World yet to hit shelves

[deity]

No AI..

I'm against any AI, just people!

Civs with more land and nearer AI will be WAY benefited... unbalanced.

ozzy, you look great

Capo looks like Sun Tzu

[deity]

16 players in civ 3

I believe 16 civs are included in civ3.

[Rasputin]

Fourth Reich!!

I would like Germany !!

I think Europe although crowded is a good place for me to start ...

[Rasputin]

Re: 16 players in civ 3

Originally posted by deity
I believe 16 civs are included in civ3.

But only 7 are human with 1 barbarain at a time, I beleive, but apparently some customization allows 16 to be played at once but not all screens configured for this

[OzzyKP]

Re: No AI..

Originally posted by deity
I'm against any AI, just people!

Civs with more land and nearer AI will be WAY benefited... unbalanced.

ozzy, you look great

Capo looks like Sun Tzu

Not traditional AI. Just some AI in the New World. Perhaps the Iriqouis and Inca. Capo suggested stunting them somewhat so they'd be like the native people from Earth history. We don't want to go overseas and find a powerful, advanced empire, but we also don't want to just see empty land, because thats not how it worked on Earth.

I think a stunted tech tree or some population limits would be good ideas to stunt them. Or perhaps just a scattered barbarian-like civ that doesn't really advance or function on its own, but is there to slow down would be colonizers.

And that's not a pic of me, thats my namesake, Ozzy Osbourne.

Also, like a bolt of lightening i've come up with another thing to look for in players-- one or two people with a stable, fast connection to avoid technical difficulties during game play. That can make a big difference in big games like this.

[Rasputin]

Connection speeds

Yes the Cable Users should probably be the hosts, seems to work better that way. I jsut wish our Australian Telcom company would run cable my way, I guess after making $4.1 Bill profit they cant afford to yet !!!!

[belinda9]

another perspective

OK so I've been following this discussion and a few things come to mind..
Been kinda lurking on here reading yr ideas.
First of all, I don't expect to get in on this one (I've been down this road before) but I might throw my hat in as one of the pool of subs -- depending, of course, on how I react to civ3 the actuality!

but there are a couple of things you might want to think about

1st of all, I wouldn't go hogwild and start off with 10 people. Actually, I think you'd do better overall limiting it to 5 or 6 just because of the mechanics of online play. Anyone who's been involved in HOTW2 lately can attest to how frustrating it is to spend an hour getting everyone successfully logged in initially only to play three or four turns and have someone kicked off, requiring yet another restart, etc., etc. Regardless of how wonderful Civ3 may turn out to be, the fact remains that you will still be having to deal with the vagaries of ISPs/phone systems worldwide. I think a smaller core and a stable pool of available subs would work better for you. So assuming you leave the Americas open for colonization at the start (too bad; I'd love to see what could be done with the Aztecs!) six people could mean 2 per each other continent (2 in Europe, 2 in Asia, 2 in Africa)

Also, concerning the Americas, I'd think you'd make it more 'even' if you had a hampered AI or 2 -- one in South America and 1 in North: or even just the one say in Mexico/Central America. Otherwise, it just becomes a race to see to can get the sailing tech first to get over there and establish a good beachhead before the others -- I mean, it's not like you don't know it's there, do you? If whoever was first had to deal in some fashion with existing peoples, it might mean someone has to "team up" in order to get rid of them, or at the very least it cuts down on the otherwise obvious advantages of being the first one over there. Of course, I don't know how possible it is to "hamper" and Ai, either

just a coupla cents worth from a semi-interested party. but y'all do what you want

[Rasputin]

AI ?? Easy or hard

Its interesting that some people ahv eposted here and stated that meeting an AI while the others dont is an advantage. That may be because they are basing their comments on their experience in Civ 2 . I am hoping that the AI in Civ 3 will be smarter and able to hold its on agaisnt a Human. If this is so then if it is possible to limit the AIs tech to certain ones and not others you can guarantee that the first one their will struggle to overcome the AI until they get the tech advantages, as per real life colonisastion of the Americas, then perhaps it could get interesting if a foriegn civ then landed and aided the AI to hold out the original invaders. Perhaps allowing tech gifting to AIs.

Just my .02c worth

[Rasputin]

If it comes down to any voting system, you get my vote Belinda, I think your role palying in the HOTW2 is brilliant. (I just dont like the fact you are so damn secretive )

[OzzyKP]

AI Advantage or Disadvantage?

We are getting mixed comments on the idea of having American AI, I want to try and address this from my point of view.

Some see having AI as an advantage for the first person to reach there, typically AI is fairly easy to conquer which would mean a bunch of already made cities that an invader can just storm in and take over. In this case the first person to America would have a tremendous advantage to reach it and have nice sized cities with plenty of infrastructure already established. Easier yet since people are talking about stunting the tech tree for the AI. Very unbalancing.

On the other hand people think of it as a disadvantage. Those who hypothetically are stuck in Europe with little land find the only place they can expand is in America, but they have to fight tooth and nail for it. Meanwhile other players in Asia and Africa have lots of empty land they can peacefully colonize. Very unbalancing.

I hope we can find a middle ground between these two complaints to make it realistic yet not unbalancing. Lets say we pick the Iriquois and the Incas (north and south america) the Iriquois were not known for huge metropolises nor were they known for massive civic improvements like roads and farms. Perhaps we could stunt them in this respect. Lets say we scatter a bunch of Iriquois cities throughout N. America, or Eastern N. America. We limit the population of these cities to 1, 2, or 3. We deny them the ability to build anything besides military units. We stunt the quality of those military units. That way there wouldn't be any cities able to be conquered, all the population would be killed off while being attacked (slaughter of entire populations of native americans, historically acurate). Plus they would be quite a burden with lots of Indian braves attacking your first settlements. However it wouldn't be too difficult since they would lack advanced technology. I like Belinda's idea about tech gifting, thats accurate and playable. The Indians didn't start out with muskets and horses, but by the 1800's they all had them.

The Incas we give more population too and make them stronger, but still have nearly as many defenders in a city as the population, and without city walls most of the people get killed off by attacking. Accurate and playable.

Some of the things I propose seem too difficult to just tweak, the AI may have to be built by hand before the game starts to meet suitable specifications. I don't know, we still havn't gotten a look at Civ3.

Well those are my ideas on the topic. Does that sound better or still unbalanced?

[The Capo]

Sorry guys...

Hey I'm sorry about Thursday, my electricity went out right as we were re-starting, then I got booted.

After that it came back on like five minutes later and I tried to get on, but for some reason my computer wouldn't go to the Windows prompt. So finally I got it fixed yesterday (Friday) and put it together this morning. I'm so sorry about that.

Anyway, as far as Civ3 goes... Man Deity, you punk, I wanted to be the Irish! There's no way we'd both be able to play if we did it like that. So I guess I'll have to switch or you'll have to switch or something... then again this game is months away so there's no rush to get this figured out.

As far as the AI goes, there should definitely be AI in the Americas. The simple rush to get boats and set up shop is too unrealistic. The problem I have with Civ is that its players tend to focus on ONE THING AT A TIME, which leads to unrealistic play and unrealistic assumption of power. If we simply allow the person who discovers ships to get to America first that gives a huge disadvantage to the others players. For instance you have a tribe in Asia, the Chinese, and four in Europe; Russia, Britain, Rome, and Germany competing for territory. In Europe it would be necessary to develop land technology such as military units and things that would help cities grow since space and resources are so cramped. While in Asia everything is open and easily accessable, therefore the Asian would have a better chance at just getting ships and sailing over to America while the European would be fighting tooth and nail for simple squares of land just to feed its small amount of cities.

In your assumption, the "closer" tribes, in this case the Europeans would have an advantage in the Americas. Which is clearly not the case. Now if we had AI onc the Chinese, who zipped to boats since they didn't have much else to do, landed in the Americas they wouldn't completely dominate the natives as much as the Europeans, who were busy developing field technology, due to the simple fact that they didn't have neighbors to deal with. This evens the scale a bit since the Europeans would be busy squabbling, do you understand what I'm saying?

Based on this, I think we should have AI in the Americas. Since we are able to tweek this I see no reason not to have three; the Iriquois, Aztecs/Maya and Incas. But two is fine too.

[belinda9]

OR
How about this? (always assuming it can be done)
instead of AI in Americas, which would have cities to be taken over, etc.
Just pile BUNCHES of barbarians there

I know in various games past, these have been a real disadvantage to a player who goes about settling sparsely populated new lands, only to have to continually fight off those pesky barbs. And maybe this would even be more in keeping with the whiteboy, Euro-centric take you guys seem to have towards the game -- they're not _really_ a civilization, they're just pesky barbaric savages that have to be dealt with.

just a thought

[belinda9]

Originally posted by Rasputin
If it comes down to any voting system, you get my vote Belinda, I think your role palying in the HOTW2 is brilliant. (I just dont like the fact you are so damn secretive )

Hey, thanks Raz. I'm taking that as a compliment

[deity]

Re: Re: No AI..

Originally posted by OzzyKP

And that's not a pic of me, thats my namesake, Ozzy Osbourne.

Yah

[The Capo]

Originally posted by belinda9
And maybe this would even be more in keeping with the whiteboy, Euro-centric take you guys seem to have towards the game -- they're not _really_ a civilization, they're just pesky barbaric savages that have to be dealt with.

I don't believe anyone said that the native Cultures of the Americas were not civilizations. The Incas developed a very well-run federation of states similar to the early Greek and Roman Republics. They also developed highway systems with rain ducts and fruit groves along the roads so that people could eat and drink while they traveled. The "Emperor" as the Spaniards incorrectly called him was actually elected by a Senate of the provincial chiefs, he was still at the behest of this ruling body.

The Aztecs, while a little more brutal than the Incas also set up a very complex government. Although this was more or less based on a tribute system they held over various other tribes, which contributed heavily to their downfall. Otherwise the Spanish wouldn't have found them as quickly, and would have been grossly outnumbered without native aide.

All I'm saying is, I take offense to your assumption that I hold these people as lesser than myself based simply on the fact that we would give the "Native American" AI lower stats than our own. The reason behind this wasn't that we feel (at least myself personally) that they are inferior in any way to European people, it was because we wanted this to be more a colonial thing rather than a mano y mano fight.

By the way, why was it that you found it convenient to exclude the Asian, African and Middle Easterner from your comments? They too would benefit from the weakened American AI? "Centrism" comes in many packages.

Peace.