That stupid 1 turn = 1 year move-range issue

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Grumbold
2) If your neighbours are technologically equal to you then the defensive units can be built to the new tech standard while you are still advancing your out-of-date units. Unit upgrade may help here, if implemented.

Well, you have a point there.

But the unit-upgrades shoudnt be a Civ-exclusive thing - only available by those who have built the major Wonder in question. If anything, something like the "Leonards Workshop" should now instead be a mini-Wonder, buildable by every Civ. I dont think that unit-upgrades should be available without building such a mini-Wonder.

Also (important!): even if this mini-Wonder is built, only the city-fortified units (or then field-units city-fortify themselves, later) is/gets upgraded. Compare it with the fact that only wounded units that city-fortify themselves gets healed in one single turn - not the ones out in the field. These mini-wonder allowing unit-upgrades should basically follow the same principle.

And (also important!) these upgrades shouldnt be totally free. Its going too cost you either shields or money - in reduced amounts, yes, but nevertheless.

I think that it is important and necessary to downtune the Civ-2 style "Leonards Workshop" unit-upgrade effects, by implementing above tweaks. Otherwise, the whole upgrade-thing gets way too cheesy & inflationary. Remember that a big part of the game-challenge lies in the fact that you just cannot have everything simultaneously. You must choose, and make calculated trade-offs.

[Sava]

I dislike the unrealistic turn system because, in my eyes, Civilization is about building a Civilization. You all might be yelling, "Duh!" right now, but just think about it. There were lots of Ancient Civilizations from 3000-2000 BC. In fact, you could make a game soley dedicated to that time period, but in Civilization, that time period only lasts for 20 minutes or so. Alexander the Great conquered the known world in 20 years. That's one turn for the Ancient Age. That just isn't right. I'm sorry if you think gameplay will suffer, but from my POV it already is suffering because of the unrealistic passage of time.

I have some suggestions that I've messed around with implementing in Civ 2. Increase movement points for units. If Alexander marched from Spain to Eastern India in 20 years, I want to do the same thing. Make turns 2 years in Ancient Age, then get smaller and smaller (2 years, 1 year, 6 months, 3 months, 1 month). The other area that needs work is the technology tree.

Gunpowder and Steam Engine are roughly at the halfway point of Civ 2's tech tree, yet those two discoveries happened a thousand years apart from each other. The Chinese were using Gunpowder around 700 AD. And the Steam Engine wasn't invented until the early 1800's, yet they are on the same level in the tech tree. Another point I'd like to make is that if the Steam Engine is the halfway mark, that means we've discovered everything from Steam Engine to Stealth in the last 175-200 years. But it takes nearly 1000 years to go from Steam Engine to Stealth, depending upon what "Age" you are in when you are researching that part of the tree.

The other aspect of technology I dislike in Civ games is that War does not play a part in scientific development. Excuse me, but War is the driving force of discovery. The Spanish American War saw the jump from Ironclads to Destroyers with the development of Naval Tactics. WWI saw the invention of Flight, the tank, the automatic rifle, and Morphine. WWII was responsible for everything we use today. Germany developed the first cruise missile (the V-1). The US put penicillin to use. The Jet engine, nuclear fission, radar, and even the computer saw its first real use during WWII. My point is, War was the driving force behind these breakthroughs. But War has no bearing on scientific research in Civ games. Just food for thought, as at this point, I don't know how you could change the tech model to be realistic.

[Provost Harrison]

SoulAssassin, you are losing grasp of the concept again that it is a game. Realism is influential to the game, not necessarily the core. The most important thing is that it is fun!. it would be silly to have increased research when at war because people would be at war all the time because of it. These things have to be balanced.

[Grumbold]

I think it would be perfectly playable to have differing advantages to research in wartime and peace. You need stability and wealth to educate your citizens and make technological progress more likely. A period of war focusses on the need to generate practical benefits from the theoretical knowledge.

The one thing that I think all historians can draw from the progress of man over the centuries is that an isolationist society, whether peaceful or warlike, stagnates in comparison to those who are constantly in contact with other cultures. The competitiveness and friction drive each to excel while the contact allows startlingly different ideas to be exchanged and built upon.

Civ III may be partly achieving this by making the focus on trade much stronger. A country which can keep on good terms with the whole world and obtain trade goods should be capable of great technological progress while the continent spanning nation which has no contact with anyone else should be disadvantaged.

If warfare plays a part in qualifying a nation to build certain mini-wonders then that can help distinguish between the peaceful theorists and the nations whose ideas have been tried, tested and improved in battle.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin
I dislike the unrealistic turn system because, in my eyes, I have some suggestions that I've messed around with implementing in Civ 2. Increase movement points for units. If Alexander marched from Spain to Eastern India in 20 years, I want to do the same thing. Make turns 2 years in Ancient Age, then get smaller and smaller (2 years, 1 year, 6 months, 3 months, 1 month). The other area that needs work is the technology tree.


.

Do the math.

2 year turns from 4000 BC to 1000 AD. thats 5000 years, so 2500 turns.
lets say 1 year turns from 1000 ad to 1700. 700 years, 700 turns.let say 6 month turns from 1700 to 1900. 200 years, 400 turns
lets say 3 month turns 1900 to 1980. 80 years, 320 turns.
and 1 month turns 1980 to 2000. 20 years, 240 turns.

2500+700+400+320+240 = 4160 turns. assume you average 2 minutes per turn ( can be faster at opening, but generally much slower mid and late game - remember this is a human playing a game, not a computer running a simulation.) thats 8320 minutes = thats 139 hours. if i play 3 hours a day (egads - wont work for me - I have a LIFE) it will take 47 days to finish ONE game.

Try again.

LOTM

[Ralf]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin
Excuse me, but War is the driving force of discovery. The Spanish American War saw the jump from Ironclads to Destroyers with the development of Naval Tactics. WWI saw the invention of Flight, the tank, the automatic rifle, and Morphine. WWII was responsible for everything we use today. Germany developed the first cruise missile (the V-1). The US put penicillin to use. The Jet engine, nuclear fission, radar, and even the computer saw its first real use during WWII. My point is, War was the driving force behind these breakthroughs. But War has no bearing on scientific research in Civ games.

Wars have mostly driven war-technology only - not so much civil technology. At best we can talk about some spin-off effects to the civil area - and the latter only under peace = thriving international commerce & culture-exchanges, mind you. These military-tech civil spin-offs have however, also an enormously overpriced pricetag attached to them; both in terms of human suffering, and also in terms of huge economical; industrial & human brain-drain cost to the military machine/ war-industry.

Also: one thing to bear in mind is the reduced free-minded creativity of scientists (and people in general), that lives under heavy stress then their own country gets bombed/ is under siege, and/or then they is forced too live under autocratic martial laws. Not so much then it comes to speeded-up conventional war-technology advances, I admit - but more when it comes to free-minded scientific paradigm-changes in general.

This is to some degree true to any government-type/ society that is engaged in prolonged wars (especially on their own territory), but it was blatantly easy to spot in ideologically singleminded totalitarian states; like Hitler-germany and Stalins Soviet. Behind their thin surface of "effectivness" and "believes on modern mass-production", they also are pestered with almost unavoidable paranoiac scape-goat backstabbings, combined with surprisingly rigid and sterile views on both science and economy.
Ideologically adjusted minion-scientists together with party-book equipped political small-popes always seems to pop up from the woodwork, and grow tremendously in influence. Free-minded scientific objectivity and economical common sense on the other hand, often takes quite some beating. At least for as long as the national war-situation really gets dangerously critical. Then these ideological "thinking-rules" perhaps gets pushed aside, for a while - at least then it comes to science & technology.

By the way:

Flight was discovered by the Wright brothers 1903 - before WW1. Because of its enormous civil potential, flight would probably develop reasonably fast anyway, although I agree that the two world wars speeded things up somewhat. Morphine was discovered by Friedrich Sertüner, year 1805, and penicillin by Alexander Flemming 1928.

[Your.Master]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin
Gunpowder and Steam Engine are roughly at the halfway point of Civ 2's tech tree, yet those two discoveries happened a thousand years apart from each other. The Chinese were using Gunpowder around 700 AD. And the Steam Engine wasn't invented until the early 1800's, yet they are on the same level in the tech tree. Another point I'd like to make is that if the Steam Engine is the halfway mark, that means we've discovered everything from Steam Engine to Stealth in the last 175-200 years. But it takes nearly 1000 years to go from Steam Engine to Stealth, depending upon what "Age" you are in when you are researching that part of the tree.

Umm...

A man by the name of Hero in Ancient Greece (BCE times) invented the Steam Engine. So...yeah, the real world timeline seems pretty reasonable in Civ II terms if you consider that it made more effort to go to steam engine than gunpowder to start.

I agree, some things are just wrong about it. But I wouldn't be overly concerned if it wasn't fixed: it irks me, but it doesn't break the game.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Ralf

By the way:

Flight was discovered by the Wright brothers 1903 - before WW1. Because of its enormous civil potential, flight would probably develop reasonably fast anyway, although I agree that the two world wars speeded things up somewhat. Morphine was discovered by Friedrich Sertüner, year 1805, and penicillin by Alexander Flemming 1928.

Sorry, I phrased my post wrong. Those discoveries were put into use during the wars. Basically, Flight was considered useless until the brainiacs in the army said, "Hey! We can drop bombs on the enemy with these things (planes)." Penicillin was discovered in 1928, but, never used until 1938 when the British Army Scientists "re-discovered" Flemings findings and used the drug to fight infection on the battlefield. I did a ten page paper on the history of Penicillin during my Pre-Med two years ago. And BTW I got an A. I did make a mistake about the morphine though.

And Ralf... about your views on "war-technology", take a class on WWII and tell me if you still feel the same way. It's amazing how people will list mindless rhetoric without actually knowing anything about the subject the are talking about.

Scientific discovery often is not met with great praise, unless you discover something to meet an immediate need. I'm not going to argue with you about this since you probably won't change your stubborn opinion on the subject. Ignorance is a disease, too bad there's no cure.

Lord of the Mark:

You are thinking so one-dimensionally. By changing the way the game is played, one turn wouldn't just be two minutes. Some turns could be skipped altogether. It's a shame my ideas are read by people who have no imagination. Here is what I want to see in Civilization.

A game which realistically represents every aspect of human Civilization, war, trade, scientific discovery, culture, and the realistic passage of time (I'm sure I left something out but bear with me), while also being easy to play and not time consuming.

In order to do this, AI models must be written to take care of the time-consuming meaningless tasks in previous Civ games. Cities are founded by people. I propose Settlers be completely taken out of the game. Caesar didn't dictate where cities were built, Abraham Lincoln didn't dictate where cities were built, etc. Why do we control it in this game? So many people are used to it that they are too stubborn to let it go. Tile Improvements. I say, let that be AI controlled also. Leading a Civilization isn't about building irrigation and roads, its about leading your people. I have more ideas but I'm not going to list them as they are read by people with no vision. I bet a million bucks that people will read this and say, "oh, the AI in Civ sucked because the CPU moved back and forth like an idiot, so AI's are a bad idea" Others will say, "oh, the gameplay will suck, let's not even think about this person's idea"

I guess if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Your.Master


Umm...

A man by the name of Hero in Ancient Greece (BCE times) invented the Steam Engine. So...yeah, the real world timeline seems pretty reasonable in Civ II terms if you consider that it made more effort to go to steam engine than gunpowder to start.

I agree, some things are just wrong about it. But I wouldn't be overly concerned if it wasn't fixed: it irks me, but it doesn't break the game.

Genius, that was Ancient Rome. And he died before he ever made a working model. So if I write down an idea for a Fusion power core, then die, does that mean I invented it? NO IT DOESN'T!!!

To all of you:
Civ games are fun, I'm not saying they aren't, but keep an open mind about new ideas. Imagine the ideas implented in such a way that makes the game more fun. New ideas have always been looked upon as stupid. Guys like Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstien, Christopher Columbus, and Nikola Tesla (the true inventor of the light bulb) had new ideas once. Just food for thought. And don't even think about saying Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, because if you think that you are retarded and you need to take a history class.

[Sir Og]

A game which realistically represents every aspect of human Civilization, war, trade, scientific discovery, culture, and the realistic passage of time (I'm sure I left something out but bear with me), while also being easy to play and not time consuming.

SoulAssassin you can only have realistic passage of time if all the players in a game (AI or human) make exactly the same decisions as the real leaders in world history did.
Imagine a game played by some poor human players. It would be normal for such a game to end in 2020 AD with the civs still using musketeers. Now you can't blame that outcome on unrealistic passage of time.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin
You are thinking so one-dimensionally. By changing the way the game is played, one turn wouldn't just be two minutes. Some turns could be skipped altogether. It's a shame my ideas are read by people who have no imagination. Here is what I want to see in Civilization.

Soul, it all depends from the rules we agree when discussing: if we are speaking about a more radical, different kind of TBS about World History of Civilization, we can speak free and agree or not, but surely your opinion can properly be debated.

I liked lot of radical proposal into two years of debate about SMAC / CIV III.

The problem is Firaxis has a Civilization franchise to squeeze as an orange, not a real need for taking the risk of a different Civ. That will probably be the target of a new, aggressive company.

We aren't without imagination, simply your proposal doesn't fit into the conventional border this forum usually draw, hence some disagree and/or misunderstand you.

I guess if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself.

There are plenty of alternative Civ at work right now. I hope you'll find a good project to join, because I'm ready to play any good strategic game will finally come.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin



Lord of the Mark:

You are thinking so one-dimensionally. By changing the way the game is played, one turn wouldn't just be two minutes. Some turns could be skipped altogether. It's a shame my ideas are read by people who have no imagination. Here is what I want to see in Civilization.

A game which realistically represents every aspect of human Civilization, war, trade, scientific discovery, culture, and the realistic passage of time (I'm sure I left something out but bear with me), while also being easy to play and not time consuming.

In order to do this, AI models must be written to take care of the time-consuming meaningless tasks in previous Civ games. Cities are founded by people. I propose Settlers be completely taken out of the game. Caesar didn't dictate where cities were built, Abraham Lincoln didn't dictate where cities were built, etc. Why do we control it in this game? So many people are used to it that they are too stubborn to let it go. Tile Improvements. I say, let that be AI controlled also. Leading a Civilization isn't about building irrigation and roads, its about leading your people. I have more ideas but I'm not going to list them as they are read by people with no vision. I bet a million bucks that people will read this and say, "oh, the AI in Civ sucked because the CPU moved back and forth like an idiot, so AI's are a bad idea" Others will say, "oh, the gameplay will suck, let's not even think about this person's idea"

I guess if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself.

Skip which turns - skip every 49 turns in ancient age, then play one - thats what we do already

Or do you mean skip the ones where there's nothing to do at the player discretion - the way most of us do enter-enter for the first few turns when we dont have anything to do.
Reasonable, but i already assumed that in my 2 minute average - i assume many turns would be skipped, but that would be balanced against some 10 minute turns. And remember as long as the game is turn-based, and skipping is at player's discretion, it does not take zero time - i still want to peruse the situation and make SURE i want to skip this turn.

What you are leaning toward is more of a real time game with variable speed - that might work - thats how i play simcity - slow things down and make decisions, then put on max speed and let the city run itself. I understand EU works something like that.
It might work for a civ like game, but not i think with the currentb turn based paradigm.

In any case the kind of game you want is very different from what i would be interested in. You seem to want all civilian management to be automated, and mainly to lead in wars. Frankly Im not interested in that.

You really believe that the Roman govt did not found cities? They were called colonia, and were deliberately placed with strategic purposes. I suggest you read something on the Romanization of Italy, especially the Po Valley.

During the colonization of America colonies (cities in civ terms) were often founded at the instigation of European governments, with strategic and economic motivations.

Govt's dont do terrain improvements ? Try reading any good history of the US in the 19th c. Lincoln may not have sited cities, but he had a lot to say on the building of the transcontinental railroad. Which was of stratgic as well as economic importance.
I suggest you also examine the history of Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal (maybe TR wasnt a leader in your opinion?) the British and the Cape to Cairo railroad, Darius of Persia and the Nile-Red Sea canal, and the Russian authorities construction of a railroad across central asia as a stratgic thrust toward India. ANd oh yes there is the trans-Siberian RR, the German RR system in the late 19th c, the Vienna -Trieste RR in austria hungary. The debate over "internal improvements" in the US in the 19th c. The US interstate and DEFENSE highway system. The roman roads and their role in the maintenance of empire.

Sorry, building of civilization has VERY MUCH been about building terrain improvements, as much as or more so than leading in war.

LOTM

[Ralf]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin
It's amazing how people will list mindless rhetoric without actually knowing anything about the subject the are talking about. [...]

I'm not going to argue with you about this since you probably won't change your stubborn opinion on the subject. Ignorance is a disease, too bad there's no cure.

If one cannot defend ones viewpoints calmly & logically, then sweepingly sneering judgements about the opponents competence, often can be the most effective camouflage.

Besides; what makes you think I was criticizing every word you wrote? My reply was meant to be complementary - a sobering reminder, that our history & the development of our civilization is/has been a very contradictive and multi-dimensional Pandoras box, to say the least. Something that is very hard to squeeze into simplified historical first-degree equations.

It seems that I stepped on some sore toes there - otherwise, I cannot explain your unmotivated outburst.

Scientific discovery often is not met with great praise, unless you discover something to meet an immediate need.

Well, thats true. But did I wrote anything in my prior reply that contradicted that.

[art_vandelai]

I'd like to see CIV III implement some realistic rules for air combat. If you have airplanes sitting at an airfield near your border, and an enemy sends units toward one of your cities, your planes should be able to scramble to defend the area. Perhaps some kind of setting on airfields that will allow defense of a certain number of tiles, provided the enemy is within sight. And airports in cities should also allow similar settings

This might also be effected by radar some way (e.g. only if the units are in sight within your borders). It would make satellite/radar/airfields/listening posts, etc. a bigger part of the military aspect of the game.

[Dr Strangelove]

It would be nice if some air and naval units had a "patrol radius" within which they would have a chance to intercept an opponent attempting to move through.

One of the problems I have had with the limited movement allowances in the previous Civilization games has been the tediously slow movement of trade. Perhaps it would be better if Civ 3 adopts a trade system akin to the type used in CTP.

Putting the problem with the slow progression of trade aside I'd still like to see Civ 3 have more realistic movement allowances for modern units, with game balance restored via a supply chain requirement simply because it would be innovative and make the game more than "Civ 2.5".