Weapons and technologies faults in Civ games

[Slax]

I agree SoulAssassin in principle

I've always thought that neighbouring civs and civ that have made contact should be given some science advantage towards discovering advances each of these civs has already discovered, adjusted according to the length and type of contact.

But they only get an 'advantage' (a certain number of science points towards a specific advance). They still must complete the science point accumulation. It does not mean leaps to advances far from the science level they have attained.

[sebanaj]

another thing would be, before u didn't get the knowledge of a technology u don't know it exists, so u have to find it... not on a list of next buys! with this we would get into more depth and realism, rather than getting knowledge because someone else used something... u would get to know that those things exist

[Admiral PJ]

even if , say a indian aquired a musket from an english invader, he wouldn't be able to reproduce it without detailed knowledge of the manufacturing process and chemistry science to make the gunpowder. Therefore only technological countries that are similar and close in advance rate should be able to work out technology from the other.
Perhaps cities near foreign nations should get extra science bonuses for cultural/scientific mixing and copying or learning from the other.

PJ

[PGM]

Originally posted by nlmalph
I have NO PROBLEM whatsoever with people making suggestions based on realism BUT YOU MUST also provide a gameplay and game balance rationale.

If firaxis implemented every "realism first" persons suggestions, the game would suck horribly.

If you have a killer suggestion for implementing it while maintaining game fun and balance, I'm all ears.

[Urban Ranger]

He has a point up to a certain point.

I think a simplied model can work like this:

1. Unit A fights with Unit B
2. If Unit A wins, it has a certain chance of finding stuff left by Unit B
3. If Unit A's civ is within a certain range of Unit B's civ, it gains certain bonuses when it starts reseraching the civ advance needed to build units of type B.

For example, say a tank attacks a rifleman and losses. The civ that controls the rifleman unit has a chance of capturing a tank or two. That civ then has a bonus when it starts to research the tech that allows tanks to be built, if it is also in the Modern Age.

[GaryGuanine]

The issue I have with this idea is that being able to make a unit is not simply a problem of realizing that rifling the barrel of a firearm increases accuracy. It's getting together a huge infrastructure to produce great amounts of rifled barrels. The "scientific advance" isn't just figuring out how rifling works, it's figuring out how to make lots of rifled barrels.

I would think this idea would apply much, much more to the ancient world. A sword vs. a club is much less of a leap than smoothbore to rifled gun barrels, though it still doesn't really apply. The club-wielders simply don't have the ability to produce lots of swords. It's not "sharp metal object", it's "get metal from ground, heat up, work into shape, fold over, etc."

Gary

[gremalkin]

Civ 2 covers this.. Science is gained from trade, representing communication with other nations. (Further increases in trade with caravans).

If one is attacked by an enemy with firearms and you are still weilding swords, any intelligent person will surely aim all their research at firearms. This is representative of picking up guns from the field of battle and depending on your current technological level learning to reproduce them.

I think that research works fine as it is, fairly realistic and highly competitive.

If it aint broke, don't try to fix it.. Nice rant tho..

[Sava]

I must apologize for that rant, I did not mean to resort to name calling. I got aggravated at the fact that that guy did not understand my point and then basically said the idea sucked based on his misinterpretation.

One more thing I wanted to respond to is that Civ games have no concept of world travel. One could say that the trade represents that. But I disagree with the method that trade and science are aqcuired.

I am a big opponent of the roads and rail = trade. As long as the cities are linked, the amount of roads in the city ZOC shouldn't impact trade, and certainly shouldn't impact science. Until close to the Age of Invention, there was no concept of "scientific development". Countries didn't research technologies the way they are researched in the game.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with the specifics of my idea, I think that all civers in general would agree that the science model needs to be more realistic.

This is the goal of my idea so as not to confuse any one else.

To keep the flow of scientific research, i.e the ease of the interface, the speed of the game, the same as previous Civ games. But, at the same time, changing the symantics of the tech interface in the game so that it is more accurate as to how science and technology is acquired. Also, I feel that seperating and allowing simultaneaous research is something that should be addressed. Some trade of technology, especially in ancient and medieval times should not be under direct control of the player. Other technologies should be able to spread word of mouth throughout the world based on travelers. Simple things like making pottery, glass making, gunpowder, iron smelting are relatively low skill applications that require little time to learn, and should be treated accordingly. But other techs, Nuclear Fission, Fusion Power(conjecture), Stealth technology, should not be able to be just passed by word of mouth.



Again, I am sorry for my ranting before. Sometimes I forget we're all fans of the same game(s).

[Sava]

One more point I wanted to make is that people seemed to be stuck in this Modern Age, Ancient Age, type of thinking. Ages, such as Bronze Age, Iron Age, Jet Age, etc, are referred to in the global sense. Which means during that time, the entire world (except for isolated peoples) were using Iron or whatever. At no point in human history has there been such a gap in technology, except for peoples that remained isolated from Europe and Asia. The difference between a nation like the US and a third world country is not the level of science, necessarily. The difference is the abundance of resources and the quality of the infrastructure. If Iraq had the resources, there is no doubt in my mind that they could very well produce the same goods as the West.

Europe is a prime example of what I am talking about. Because of how close the different nations in Europe are, their technological development has been somewhat even. It is absolutely impossible to have a tank vs spearmen scenario when countries are so close together. Countries have constantly been warring each other, and so the technological capabilities have been no secret. Only a few instances of technological superiority have arisen.

Nazi Germany's Blitzkrieg is the most recent example. The Nazis had better artillery, airplanes, and tanks then the rest of Europe at that time. That's why they pushed so hard and fast throughout that part of the world. But once England could match their air power in the West, and Russia could match their artillery and tank power in the East, the advancing stopped. Then with the help of the US, the big three were able to defeat the Nazis.

The reason Europeans were able to extend their influence into the Americas is the simple fact that the Native Americans (North and South American tribes) had never seen such weapons before. The Europeans came too fast for the Native Americans to catch up technologically and were subsequently all but wiped out. Had the Europeans been slower in their Exodus to the New World, the peoples in North and South America quite possibly might have caught up, technologically.

[fluffy]

where's the 'realism' in chess? are you suggesting it should be changed too?

give me gameplay anyday - I get enough 'realism' in real life!

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by fluffy
where's the 'realism' in chess? are you suggesting it should be changed too?

give me gameplay anyday - I get enough 'realism' in real life!

You win if you kill the King

Gameplay: priority 1
AI: priority 2
More Civs: priority 3
Realism: priority 4

[SerapisIV]

Re: Weapons and technologies faults in Civ games

Originally posted by SoulAssassin
Most people will read this and say, "but what about the third world countries today? They aren't as advanced as the US."

The reason those countries aren't advanced is because they don't have the resources in which to build an infrastructure. It's not as if a country like Zimbabwe can't build a space shuttle, I'm sure if they wanted to, they could learn how in less than 5 years because that knowledge is so common. It's that Zimbabwe doesn't have the resources to make a space shuttle. Revolutions, such as firearms in warfare, and the industrial revolutions, have taken place in every country with the means to build an infrastructure. It has nothing to do with their scientific power. Any scientific advance that is going to be so helpful and so common, isn't going to remain a secret.

Japan's got all the technology you can think of and they can barely build a space shuttle. It's been 15 years since they first proposed it and they're still not close to actually using one.

Also China, they've had the resources for years, even direct technical aid from Russia for at least 10 and they are only now attempting to replicate Gagarin and Shepard. There's a lot more to tech, especially modern tech then appears.

[Edward]

If we allow tech secrets to leak out of advanced nations, how about letting my French spy walk into an English town and buy a roadmap. If techs can become general knowledge then I think the locations of older roads and cities should as well.

At least give me a "steal maps" option.

[RobC]

Originally posted by SoulAssassin
Any one who posts saying, "uuuhhhh that would make the gameplay suck...." is obviously retarded.

Wow...what incredible logic. Anyone who disagrees with you is obviously retarded. Grow up. In any successful game, gameplay trumps realism. The most realistic you can get is real life, and if that was so fun, who would waste time and money on computer games. Scenarios and simulations like these are interesting because you can focus on certain things like diplomacy, science, culture, or war in a simplified model based on balancing investment in the different areas. A game that's not realistic can still be fun, but what's the point of a realistic game that's no fun to play? Yes, part of the fun is the fact that the game is loosely based on our world's history and civilizations, but I don't think that the somewhat simplistic science/technology model detracts from the enjoyment of 're-writing history'. If you have some specific suggestions as to how you could incorporate a more realistic model while maintaining the fun of playing the game, you would probably get more support from others in this forum. If all you want to do is throw a fit because people don't agree with your rants, then maybe you should relocate to the alt.childish.tantrums newsgroup.