The fall of the Camel

[Matthew]

So the Great Camel, conveyer of wealth and knowledge, has been unceremonially executed? No more cashes of great wealth for those who were bold enough to be the first to travel to distant lands to sell what were before hand unknown goods?

So once the land is settled, there is absolutely no use for boats but military purposes? are they now only for transporting weilders of weapons and conveyers of subtrifuge? Thus we know that any ship that ventures into our waters can only have diabolical intent?

[Sarxis]

Let the Camel die peacefully.

The commerce system in Alpha Centauri worked well- it was clean, and efficient. But that system was very 'basic', and didn't offer a lot of variety (which worked for AC, since the only commodity on Chiron was energy credits).

I am looking forward to what Firaxis has done in CivIII.

[Rakki]

I sink the ships of any other civilization i come across anyway, camel or no camel

[Christantine The Great]

conveyers of subtrifuge

They're gone, too. Where have you been?

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Matthew
So once the land is settled, there is absolutely no use for boats but military purposes?

No, I dont believe this is true.

The caravan & freight units are gone together with diplomat & Spy's, yes. But also remember that landbased trade-routes are established, NOT automatically by diplomacy-contacts (as in SMAC) - but by manually building/connecting roads/RR's to other empires road/RR networks. Its seems only logical that you must establish ocean trade-routes manually as well, with ships (although not to each and every coastal-city in that foreign empire, as in Civ-2 - one or a few transit-cities is enough). Late in the game, you can finally connect routes by your airports.

[Father Beast]

I'm of 2 minds about this thing.

Camels and spies are gone, to be replaced with abstractions.

On one hand, I recall all the things I did with them things, and will miss them.

On the other hand, I recall all the things I did with them things, and am glad they have been toned down.

Let's face it, the power of dips has been discussed on this forum, and generally agreed that they need toning down. for the power of camels, I only have to play an OCC game to see how unvbalanced that is. the number one suggestion on the civ2 strat forum is "build caravans, and when you think you have enough, build some more".

I also am relieved that I won't have those occaisions where I spend 300 years moving a camel to find a city gone, changed it's demand, or see someone off the camel in pique. same thing in moving dips, trying to establish embassies.

Look at it this way, They're going the opposite of CTP, which had a unit for every type of way to transact.

[Skanky Burns]

You *can* use boats for peaceful purposes. Just load up some settlers and workers, cart em off to a distant land, and start raking in those rare resources.

Also, you can use this city to build a road network to the civ on that continent, and thus allow trade with them.

I dont think you actually need 'trade ships' to establish a trade network with another civ, instead a harbour in your city and a harbour in one of their cities can complete the necessary network. But then again, you will probably need to contact them first to *know* where they are to trade with... so therefore you will need ships for peaceful purposes. Unless everyone is on the same continent.

[KrazyHorse]

It makes more sense this way; once exploration was done, it was usually up to private enterprise to start trade moving. You don't have to build trade ships; your citizens will do it for you

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
You *can* use boats for peaceful purposes. Just load up some settlers and workers, cart em off to a distant land, and start raking in those rare resources.

Also, you can use this city to build a road network to the civ on that continent, and thus allow trade with them.

Good point.

But then again, you will probably need to contact them first to *know* where they are to trade with... so therefore you will need ships for peaceful purposes.

Yes, I also believe that ships are needed in order to establish new ocean trade-routes. Just trading diplomatic contacts and having a coastal-city available isnt enough by itself.

[Urban Ranger]

I would like to know how espionage will be handled.

Will it be something like MoO? More complicated? Less complicated?

[Bleyn]

Personally, I find it a bit disappointing that the caravans and diplomats are disappearing.

As was pointed out in another thread, just because all of the unique units that have been seen (and probably will be seen at least in the initial release) are military units, doesn't mean they would all _have_ to be military in nature.

It would have made sense for a commercial civ to have a unique unit that was an improved caravan, or an industrial civ with an enhanced worker as their UU(could still happen). Sure you might have to expand the range of allowable UU-based GA triggers, but I think it would be worth it for them to do sometime down the line.

Furthermore, even with what we know now, I could see making the Phonecians as a custom civ with Commercial as an attribute and the Trireme(upgraded galley) as their UU. Maybe give it an enhanced cargo capacity if possible.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Ralf
Just trading diplomatic contacts and having a coastal-city available isnt enough by itself.

Thats why i had this part:

instead a harbour in your city and a harbour in one of their cities can complete the necessary network

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I would like to know how espionage will be handled.

Will it be something like MoO? More complicated? Less complicated?

I agree. Below is the only info we got so far, to my knowledge.
Dan Magaha, Firaxis in http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=27277

"And you might as well know that Diplomats and Spies have gone the way of the caravan as well; this is all abstracted to advisor screens and game interfaces."

Originally posted by Bleyn
Personally, I find it a bit disappointing that the caravans and diplomats are disappearing.

Micromanaging 2-3 routes per city was a rather tedious with 15-20+ city-empires. Also, thanks to those city-indevidual standalone foreign trade-routes, you couldnt embargo/ be embargoed easily in Civ-2. No economical warfare was possible. Finally, the AI has its well-known limitations then it comes to navigating its units just as effectively as the human player. Therefore, the more they can stuff it away in appropriate manager-screens, the better it is.

[Warm Beer]

Espionage, Schmespionage

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I would like to know how espionage will be handled.

Will it be something like MoO? More complicated? Less complicated?

Perhaps there will be none or little. I can't imagine it like MOO, all things concidered. That is one aspect of the game we have heard nothing about.... or maybe I missed something.

[Sarxis]

I do hope there is an aspect to the game that involves espionage. This 'Dark Art' would be fine if it were played in the shadows- in the background so to speak- without actual units. But I still would like to see something more than "Pay this amount in gold and you can see what your enemy is up to".

Almost October- guess we'll know soon enough.