New solution to game tedium? Micro-civs.

[Trifna]

I think I have an idea to limit tedium. It is called "there isn't only 16 civs". Okay, there may be 16 (or more) GREAT civs (great beeing defined as very organized, etc.), but this doesn't mean that some other civs do not exist, that simply build a few cities or even only one, like these independant cities that existed throughout History. Which wouldn't stop these cities to have links between each others or treaties with many. They wouldn't be as advanced as huge developed civs, but stil they could have some interractions and asked to be protected or help you. To what are they useful? Well they would slow crazy expansion that we see at the beginning for quite a while. You wouldn't be able to just pass over them easily, or some would league eachother or wth some great civ and, allied together or with another civ, could cause you some serious problems.

What are these "micro-civs"? Well they are some human gathered together that have some important differences with other civs, even if they may well be very close to other civs by having similar cultural roots. As all those countries that are part of a same great civilization but where in fact all a bunch are more some kind of part of a more greater cultural entity. Many of what we presently call barbarian could be regrouped as such. Of course, this doesn't exclude hordes of pillaging barbarians...

Consequences:
Civs considered as "great" (the ones you can play) would not be as big. Or it would take more time for so. So some adjustments on shields/city would be required to have productions that make some sense and that would be logical for a great empire. Expansion would be more gradual, wouldn't be only at beginning and would take more time. A more developed civ would be needed to really expansionate because that some micro-civ would take some place.

About consequences of slower expansion, I wont repeat what was already said. Look at what Korn wrote here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39808

[Barnacle Bill]

I think this is a great idea. Now, where I've seen this before it tends to be implimented wrong, where it is just too easy to conquer these little powers because they are too weak. So, I would propose some additional things to help prevent this:

1) Although it is controversial even in EU, the idea that you don't own it just because you captured it from EU helps keep little states alive. In Civ terms, this would mean that if you capture a city then it peferms for you like under Despotism no matter what government you have, and only becomes "yours" if you agree to a peace treaty with the pre-war owner in which they agree to give it to you. The logic for whether they agree or not needs to be reasonable, of course.

2) The minor civs should have something that works like the Great Library, but only with respect to major civs with whom they are in contact and would not get a bunch of techs at once because they came in contact with someone new (maybe one every 10 turns until the catch up). To prevent abuse, minor civs would never under any circumstances give away or trade techs.

3) There should be a process similar to that in Imperialism whereby you could peacefully make a minor civ your colony. However, unlike Imperialism this would not make them indistinguishable from your own cities - more like you control them and their units but units built in their cities retain their colors, etc... and they would be prone to rebel.

[ACooper]

They had minor Civs in Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. The civs had the planetary systems and did not expand, but you could negotiate with them and set up treaties and trades. You could also conquer them. Klingons love to conquer.

Anyway, this type of system would be great for Civ 3 (or 4). The only down side might be a tightening of resources and a possible significant increase in turn time calculating the minor civs trade routes, etc. I'd take a minor Civ improvement over stacks or many of the other things complained about so often.

[GePap]

Decrease, increase

I have to completely agree with the idea of minor nations, but ****gyRA makes the important point of the A.I. having to churn through all these minor groups. I say that if this idea is implemented, the number of large civs should be capped. I mean that we could have at most 10 large civs but have as many as 20 small. To have that many, of course, certain limits would be imposed on the minor civs: never grow to more than 5 cities, and keep them contigious (no small, far off city somewhere). Build mainly defensive garrisons and a few offensive units only, basically everything so that the A.I. would be able to figure out what to do with these little civs and where to stop.
Unfortinitelly, the current diplomatic interface, which is difficualt enough if you have more than 8 civs, would need to go, or be changed.

[Trifna]

Sometimes Libertarian is the windshield. Sometimes he's the bug.

lol

I have to completely agree with the idea of minor nations, but ****gyRA makes the important point of the A.I. having to churn through all these minor groups. I say that if this idea is implemented, the number of large civs should be capped. I mean that we could have at most 10 large civs but have as many as 20 small. To have that many, of course, certain limits would be imposed on the minor civs: never grow to more than 5 cities, and keep them contigious (no small, far off city somewhere). Build mainly defensive garrisons and a few offensive units only, basically everything so that the A.I. would be able to figure out what to do with these little civs and where to stop.

Well not all civs are taking expansion alot. This is a factor that changes from a civ to annother. Same for how they react and act.

[hexagonian]

...another one of those concepts that is being thrown around for civ3 that has already been implimented in the CTP2 Mod community.

[Manstein3]

on your ideas of lower expansion:

have a look at 'sth against AI's annoying city founding' in general forum, page two now.

there we discuss increasing food consumption to 4 and increasing food production related to land type.
for example 0 food in desert, mountains, coast, ice which reduces city number and growth

in the beginning only special resources and flood plains are excellent in food production. with irrigation grass and plains are ok. with aqueduct, which must be at river, city can grow over 8 (which stops non-river cities for a while, hehe) and with aqueduct, sea/ocean squares give more food: which means: only a city at a river with sea/ocean squares can get really metropolis: like Alexandria, London, Hamburg, New York, St. Petersburg

by this in the earlier stage of the game there will be much empty space where no civs spread. and the development of cities will vary very much according to their food basis.

And a technological lead will allow to settle more land without war. In later stages there will be still some quarrels about new land...

And fortresses and colonies will get some use, even the AI has to use them if she wants that salpeter resource in the desert where she cannot build a city...

[wervdon]

I actually kind of doubt it'd have a huge impact on turn time. The factor seems to be # of cities & units not # of players.

The minor civs would theoretically pull from the available resources to build (land space, etc) as everyone else, and the overall # of cities & units wouldn't change that much.

At least thats what I would think would happen It certianely shouldn't be hard for Firaxis if they want to test it to pseudo implement it and test for that, basically just add a minor_civ flag and up the # of players from 16 to about 50 and flag 40 or so as minor_civs, that flag just limiting the # of cities (and units maybe) they can build to about 3 or 4 cities max. (note Im not saying it should be released like that, but testing for what it does to system req's should be easy)