Disenchanted

[Velociryx]

The Human Element of Diplomacy

The game's designers could do MUCH worse than studying the sliding relationship scale used in EU and EU2. -200 (hatred) to +200 (adoration), and every interaction you have with them (and their allies) modifies that number. You want to turn them into a friend, then you've got to WORK at it....not just give them your world map (which you gave them two turns ago anyway) to turn them from cautious to friendly.

And, once you HAVE worked at it, I agree, there should be tangible benefits....the fruits of your labor, expressed in trade subsidies, more willingness to leap to your defense if you're attacked, settlement agreements ("okay, I'll agree not to settle in the fertile plains north of you if you agree to keep hands off the area around the Mundago River, reserving that for me.")

Other stuff: How about providing natural benefits to civs that go beyond their starting Civ-traits. Give the Germans a bonus when it comes to cranking out, say, artillery type units. Indians and Chinese could have a bonus where production of infantry based units are concerned (reflecting their real-world advantage in having a massive population)....stuff like that. This would reflect itself into the diplomatic mix if/when unit trading becomes available with neighboring civs.

If I had more patience for that sort of thing, I'd be sorely tempted to take up programming....the ideas presented over the past few days on this thread, and since Civ's release on a variety of threads here, would make for the beginnings of a GRAND game, even if they aren't implemented in Civ....

-=Vel=-

[moomin]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Good observations on the delay in food bonus tiles and Barbs!

In truth, I had not given the impacts of these proposals much thought on small/tiny maps (yep...LOL...I guess I'm biased toward the bigger maps)

I was a huge map player back in SMAC, but I find Civ3 unplayable on map sizes larger than standard, and fun at tiny only. I usually play tiny/16 civs. There simply isn't that much room for failure in that kind of setup. And you'll be _lucky_ to set down four cities of your own.

Here's a bit of the thinking behind those two proposals in particular:

Barbarians: Tribes like the Huns, Vandals, Hittites....these guys were *terrifying!*

Which may be true and important to the recreate-history crowd, but doesn't fly with me - I care for gameplay only. I guess there's more vocal "historians" on these forums than there are playing for the sake of it players, though. I'm not so sure beefing up the barbs will accomplish much... the HP will adapt by having more military escort for settlers (once the cities are down the barbs are irrelevant - who cares about money in despotism anyway?), the AI will have their settler/spearman combos crushed, and never adopt. I don't think it's a good idea.

By bulking them up, at least on standard and larger maps, not only does it give the player pause with regards to popping goody huts and exploration, but I've not seen on the larger maps that it hinders the AI particularly, AND it has a side benefit of strengthening the Expansionist trait somewhat.

Expansionist sure need all help it can get - especially on tiny... but my prefered solution would be to pop more barbs from huts, not stronger barbs. It's a sad fact that barbs aren't a threat to cities (there is usually no "barb" territory left in my games by the time I switch to republic, and loss of gold is nothing under despotism). Perhaps all barbs should be two-movement units.

With regards to food production bonuses, I thought Crop Rotation coming at the start of the middle ages put it just about perfectly....consider:

In the Ancient Age, you're running Despotism (actually a food negative...sorta). Research Animal Husbandry and some of your cities get a food boost (a quite welcomed one, too!).--side note: The AI has an *uncanny* ability to plant cities where resources will show up in the future (making me think they know about them before we do), so I don't think this will result in higher percentages of badly placed AI cities in need of razing).

If the AI can still "see" them even before they have the tech, then it's probably fine. I see an mega-exploit combining the no-capital corruption and the AI resource-detection coming up, though... And it does kind of reduce the power of despotic pop rush. Or not. If I know I'll _probably_ be moving my cities to exploit wheats/cattle later on, I'd even more prone to use the massive pop rush/disband city strategy early on. And it's already way too powerful. In fact, if every early city grows pop at a slower rate, the successful player has to dedicate _more_ of them to pop rush and disband.

Once you research Monarchy/Republic (late Ancient Era), you get another food bonus when the restrictions of Despotism come off/Republic boost.

And finally, if you're looking for a further boost (if early high growth is part of your overall plan), you can research crop rotation to get it. IMO, the reason people balk at the moving of wheat stalks is cos they're used to seeing them/having the benefit from game start, but it's been my experience that Granaries are seldom necessary, cos my cities grow faster than I can control them if I build granaries. With the proposed changes, I think it'll be much more of a strategic choice.

Or...no?

I'm not sure. Will you take the risk of starting building infrastructure in your early cities, given that they may turn out to be _one_ tile off that wheat, or will you build a massive army instead and wait for the bonuses to show up. At that instant, you disband your early cities, plonk down new ones, and go to war while you build in the new cities. If this turns out to be as successful as it seems to me, it'd rather narrow down the options for early game successful strategy, wouldn't it?

[Heliodorus]

The canal idea has great merit. But when thinking about our world, the Suez and Panama canals are 20th century doohickies that required a vast amount of money and technology (the Panama Canal, IMO, is basically the Civ equivalent of a Great Wonder).

The concept of "Most Hated Enemy" is very good, too. I think I would like to see that extended to not just one nation. I think democracies and republics ought to have the war wariness penalties waved when fighting on foreign soil against an enemy that attacked the democracy/republic on the dem/rep's soil (or water). In this game as it stands, it is impossible for a rep/dem to fight world wars abroad under any circumstances, and that's sad.

Vel, I think your corruption ideas have tremendous potential, too, and hope some form of it can be included in the future. One of the things from CTP/CTP2 that isn't in this which ought to be is the warning system that informs the player that you're about to exceed the efficiency limit in cities. I don't open the editor, I don't know how many is too many, and the computer should tell me.

On the upgrading idea, I think to disband units because a new technology is available offers more negative than positive. It's great if you can afford it, but a variety of circumstances might mean that you can't. Imagine buying from a neighbor the tech needed to change musketmen to riflemen because you're in a war and need the defending tech units - then you realize that your purchase of that tech means half your musketman will be disbanded because you can't afford to upgrade. ANd your borders collapse. D'OH.

Also, that idea seems complicated given the nature of UUs. I have only played the Romans, and I leave legions hanging around into the modern era because they can't be upgraded, and they have some decent benefits (and mostly because I don't have the heart to disband my LOYAL LEGIONS - it's the Romanophile in me). But you'll have Iriquois horse warriors, Impi, Immortals, Legionary, etc. that have usefullness well beyond their main era of production - so now automatically disbanding them weakens that civ, or NOT disbanding them when they're for all intents and purposes obsolete but aren't the "generic" unit strengthens them even more (Iriquois being the one that comes to mind because those horse warriors are the bane of the world until modern cavalry).

Sticking to military matters - I just don't care that bowman can hurt or kill tanks. I don't. I'm so much happier with it this way because the AI's GROSS lack of tactical finesse is counterbalanced by an admittedly one-dimensional combat system. I accept that as a strength of this game.

UNLESS you can convince me that you can program the computer to impliment combined arms attacks in which it can both manage force protection and economy of force in pursuit of objectives, then you tinker with the combat system at your peril, I believe.

The classic example of the computer's inept offense occurs at sea.
The computer can have a numerical advantage at sea, but as the player you can outthink them with bombardment and a nearby port. You damage units, they withdraw, and you destroy isolated ships each turn before you return safely to port. The same principle applies on land, especially with the advent of the howitzer and the bomber. The computer does not know how to use those kinds of units advantageously. It only knows how to bombard terrain and in defense of cities. At best, on offense (outside of the ancient, early Medieval era) the computer can sustain a 20-turn offensive, and is capable of very few flanking maneuvers (if you practice the concept of reserve forces, which all good humans should against this new AI by now).

Most importanly, no matter how much smarter you make the computer, the human flexibility will always find a way to trap the computer in its own thinking.

In combat, the only card not stacked in the human player's favor is production (on harder difficulty settings). Just as the movement changes in enemy territory counterbalance that advantage, so too does the basic combat model. I really worry that you're going to screw that up, and then combat will be like the old Civ2 games where blitzkrieg doesn't even describe the success of the human offensive efforts. Has Firaxis ever explained why they chose the simple method?

[Velociryx]

Hmmm....That's an interesting though bout making ALL barb units 2-moves. Might have to experiment with that this evening when I get home!

I dunno....in the testing I've done with the resources, it's made the game a much more strategic affair....your arguments have been excellent ones, but I'm still inclined to leave it in (the delays, that is) for the time being and see what an open betatest of the mod reveals....hey, if lots of people wind up hating it, it's back out....the goal is to increase the strategy aspects and fun factor....so if it proves to not work so well, it'll vanish in the end!

Don't worry toooooo much about the no-capitol exploit and pop-rushing/disbanding....I've read a lot of posts in the strat section that seem to indicate a strong belief that both will vanish shortly as viable possibilities (makes sense, given that Jeff outright said that Soren surfs the Strat section looking for exploits and closing them). That's no guarantee, it's true, but based on the current game design and the trends we've seen so far (closing of the palace bounce exploit and IFE), it seems a pretty safe bet.

Now....what'd really be cool is if you could "plant" wheat stalks on your own with the aquisition of a certain tech.....that'd really kick. If it was up to me, I'd add in a whole new list of "level two" terraforming options, and do away with the rail bonuses altogether. In that way, your terrain wouldn't look HORRIBLE by the end of the game (rails everywhere), and you'd have more to do with your workers/more control over the exact layout of your resources.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Excellent points about UU's....perhaps they should have an exemption to the autodisbanding rule? (on the thinking that the civ that spawned them may have some cultural attachment to keeping them around, or somesuch...besides, as you say, Jags are really useful for the whole game!)

-=Vel=-

[moomin]

Originally posted by Velociryx

Now....what'd really be cool is if you could "plant" wheat stalks on your own with the aquisition of a certain tech.....that'd really kick. If it was up to me, I'd add in a whole new list of "level two" terraforming options, and do away with the rail bonuses altogether. In that way, your terrain wouldn't look HORRIBLE by the end of the game (rails everywhere), and you'd have more to do with your workers/more control over the exact layout of your resources.

It goes without saying that that would really be great. But I don't think its in the cards as far as patching goes. Maybe in an expansion.

Overall, the thing that irks me the most with Civ3 - UI issuess aside - is that there really is no viable strategy of vertical, as opposed to horizontal, growth. If I could dream I'd have lots and lots of effects that'd kick in as cities reached a certain number of people and built certain buildings. I'd have interesting choises for building stuff on my land. But as is, if you don't spread like cancer early, you are out of the game no matter how well you build up, since you'll be out of strategics.

How I loved my litte 10-base Zak empires back in SMAC! Building forests, farms and boreholes, building infrastructure, getting the exploitation of territory _just right_. Fighting defensivly only... that kind of strategy is simply not viable in Civ3.

Your mod undertaking is inspired and I wish you best of luck with it, but frankly, barring a serious rethink by Firaxis and a major patch resulting from that rethink, I personally believe that Civ3's long term playablity won't improve to the point where it's actaully worthwile to consider it.

And I would be overjoyed if the result of the "public beta" would have me eat those words.

[Velociryx]

Hmmm....I kinda agree/kinda disagree about your vertical investment statement....here's why:

Under the corruption model the game currently uses, you are *actively punished* for expanding beyond the number of cities considered optimal by the game's designers. Get too big, and none of your cities will have much in the way of production, in spite of the fact that you build courthouses everywhere (well, not quite everywhere, as they seem to have no effect on your cities 8-tiles or closer to the capitol/FP). --side question....what exactly/how exactly do courthouses resolve corruption? Is it a fixed percentage (that's what the manual says), or does it calculate your cities "closer to the capitol" than they really are, giving you a break on production because of it???

So...depending on map size and optimal number of cities, you're pretty hemmed in with regards to how big you can grow and remain decently productive.

Nonetheless, you're dead on with regards to the need to REACH that stage by spreading like a bunny on viagra. If you don't, you're toast. Simple as that, which makes for a pretty linear early game, it's true.

More builds and more TYPES of builds would partially strengthen the vert. strategy, but you're right in that, at the end of the day, I do not regard the vertical strat in Civ3 to be as strong as it was in SMAC, regardless of the corruption model.



-=Vel=-
PS: Thanks for the kind words on the Mod! We should have something testable soon, if you're interested.....
-V

[Akka]

About the upgrading units...
With each unit comes a support cost. This cost represent the salary of warriors, but also the equipment they need, ammunition, replacement for broken weapons, etc...
For me, the upgrading cost of an unit is the instant buy of enough supply to rearm completely the entire unit, and the cost of paying training with these new weapons.
I can hardly imagine a 20th century country that send M-16 ammo to one units and iron sword to another, just because it never paid the money to give in one time the stuff necessary to equip this unit. I rather imagine that slowly, over time, the old weapons are replaced by new ones, and that replacement is part of the support cost. As the new weapons are slowly integrated in units, soldiers learn how to use them.

What I mean is that units should upgrade automatically, while this should take some times. Let's say, for each turn or each 2, 3 or 4 turn, the unit would gain 1 point in Attack or Defense or movement rating, until the unit reach the A/D/M rating of the unit it's supposed to upgrade to. This to reflect the slow introduction of new materials, tactics and so on in the unit.

This can't be actually made in the game, but it would prevent the ridiculous swordman+modern armor combination in the same army.

Also, the cost of each unit should be independant, as I don't think a milicia is as costly to keep on the field as a full armored division.

[moomin]

Originally posted by Velociryx
So...depending on map size and optimal number of cities, you're pretty hemmed in with regards to how big you can grow and remain decently productive.

It's actually worse for small maps. On large/huge maps, you can always hope to be able to trade for strategics, even if you don't have them yourself. On tiny maps, where there will be _one_ of the late strategic resources on the map, there is no hope to trade for it. You got it or you don't. And since the transcend victory equivalent requires three of these, you have to expand or war just as much as if you were going for a domination victory.

More builds and more TYPES of builds would partially strengthen the vert. strategy, but you're right in that, at the end of the day, I do not regard the vertical strat in Civ3 to be as strong as it was in SMAC, regardless of the corruption model.

The vertical strategy wasn't exactly strong back in SMAC either, if you compare it ta an all-out Yang ICS for exemple, but at least is was viable and satisfying. It's not even close to being viable in Civ3. I've read here that reducing warmongering was a stated goal of the Firaxian design effort for Civ3 and I can't say I think they delivered that.

PS: Thanks for the kind words on the Mod! We should have something testable soon, if you're interested.....

You are welcome. I don't have Civ3 on my drive anymore and have all the fun I could ask for playing AoW2 at the moment, but if people with opinions I respect rave about it here once it's released I might just give it a spinn

[SirOsis]

I think this is one of the better threads to come around in awhile and it has me thinking about some potential changes that would make gameplay better in my opinion.

I really do enjoy Civ3 in the beginning eras. I have yet to finish a game because it just becomes tedious and has very little excitement for me when I have to move workers all over the place.

What I would like to see is a different way of handling cities, food and shields. Food and shields should be like commodities that you can transport to different cities. Let's say you have a city that is in an agricultural region. You should be able to take some of this excess food and transport it to another city. This would allow frontier cities to obtain more food. Corruption could be related to the distance travelled. If you're concerned with losing some of this food to corruption you could send a guard with it to prevent theft or barbarians from taking it.

The same could be done with shields. Production of units and buildings should not be limited within the production sphere of an individual city. You should be able to draw from all the resources in your empire to construct whatever you wish.

If this sort of production is adopted then you should have to build certain structures or equipment (that come available due to civ advances) before you can build a more complicated structure.

Take building the pyramids for example. These were not built by one city alone but required Egypt to call upon all it's resources to build. It would take engineers, laborers, politicians, tax collectors, scientists, food, resources, etc. to construct such a wonder. All of these would come from the entire empire not just in the area surrounding the city.

Therefore, it should be possible to share with other cities if you wish them to grow. Washington DC isn't limited in size due to the fact it doesn't have fields next to it. It can import the food required to maintain it's size. As it can import "shields" to build monuments and civic buildings.

I do have some other ideas unfortunately I've run out of time and will have to convey them at a later date.

[Libertarian]

Why?

[Spaced Cowboy]

All of you guys need to apply for the playtesters. It is the only way that we are going to see any improvements made. The fact the FA is requesting them means that something is up (and it is not the continued sales of their game which is quickly dropping off the charts).

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by RPMisCOOL
...which is quickly dropping off the charts.

And Thank Heaven!

They should really not be making a bundle with CivIII. Life is unfair enough without this.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by moominparatrooper
Overall, the thing that irks me the most with Civ3 - UI issuess aside - is that there really is no viable strategy of vertical, as opposed to horizontal, growth. If I could dream I'd have lots and lots of effects that'd kick in as cities reached a certain number of people and built certain buildings. I'd have interesting choises for building stuff on my land. But as is, if you don't spread like cancer early, you are out of the game no matter how well you build up, since you'll be out of strategics.

Yes! The game should clearly allow a "Great Britain" strategy where you slowly and carefully build a compact civ, and can capitalize on a technological lead to 'break out' to controlling a good chunk of the world before they catch up. But the friggin' ancient units beats tanks kinda screws that .

[Captain]

humanitarian victory

wow.

I wish I had found this thread and read it before writing my own post about my disenchantment.

this went slightly off focus though.
back to your original analysis - it was the lack of options in the late game. it's war or boredom, and even war is boring.

I think the real key here is to find some way of making the decisions in the late game a case of impending doom vs glorious achievement, as it is in the earlier game. make the wrong move and set yourself back a century.

the protectorate idea is good, but how advancing that to something more. civ is too internally stable. the big threats of today's leaders aren't just external, in fact, they're mostly internal! in the late game, we should really be fighting for popularity too!

or how about a great goal to achieve - not just a wonder or world conquest - but something "good"!
- you know like today, the great achievements aren't just buildings or conquering, it's also making peace accords amongst blood enemies. maybe there could be some thrill in seeing if you can "persuade/negotiate/enforce" world peace for say fifty years?

Or to achieve X points in humanitarianism!

Say the Japanese are massacring a Chinese city or the Zulus are commiting genocide (both have happened in the past), you can intervene to prevent this and place it under your protection - if you succede in preventing the atrocity - you get Y points. (this will involve delicate diplomatic manoeuvring and a financial and military cost, it's a tradeoff for the Y humanitarian points - maybe you will also get bonus culture points)

Or say, that a natural disaster strikes - you can send help for Y points. Or you can use your advanced tech and your money to help a foreign nation develop - right now it benefits you nothing, but with this, you could get Y points (eg. if the nation's average education goes up 25%, it's GNP increase 25%, and it's productivity goes up 50%, all in a certain time frame - you'd get credit, though no direct benefit and it actually cost you your hard-earned cash and maybe some of your workers).
This is a hard choice, since though a strong neighbour is a better trading partner, it may not remember your help and may even resent it. They could have a revolution, and a hostile government in place. So your help could boost a future threat. You have to decide if helping them is worthwhile - especially if you can barely afford your own stuff or if someone else is attacking you on the other border!

If you get so many humanitarian points, you are elected supreme world ruler because everyone sees you as the BEST one for the job, you are the one who looks out for everyone else.
OR, if you don't want to be supreme ruler, you can still win by maintaining your efforts for X number of turns (but events will take place making it tough to do so).

The world recognizes you as a World Hero and awards you the People's Medal of Honour for Lifelong Achievement in Bringing Peace and Hope to the People of the World.

(of course, you must not have commited any atrocities during the game such as nuking or razing cities, well... maybe with some exceptions. Or atrocities just give you negative humanitarian points.)

If you go the world ruler route, if your culture is not high enough either, some rival jealous leader may refuse to submit and will declare war on you, thus you must play the benevolent leader and crush him/her while avoiding petty squabbling amongst your allies. Though you don't have to take enemy cities - you could give them to the collective authority of the UN - thus no corruption for your civ, or split them amongst your allies, or you could take them as your own since you're pretty much world ruler anyways)

the real challenges for today's leader do include external threats (i.e. war on terrorism thing) but also things like education, global peace, cure for diseases, social justice, eradicating racism, building affordable housing, taking care of the environment, and so on... if there was some way of coding these things...

those that don't find these things exciting enough should just go conquer the world i guess.

dang! 4 am... I'm so addicted to these forums...