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Climate, topography & disease improvements
or what I learned from reading ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ by Jared Diamond
Just some thought’s I’ve had brewing. Most of these are the result of my Latin American studies in college and the fantastic book “Guns, Germs and Steel” -- an absolute must for anyone interested in viewing the evolution of human society since its inception.
Topography
Contrary to gameplay, topography and climate are tougher problems for primitive civilizations to overcome than are neighboring tribes or barbarians. If you’re a settler in a primitive tribe, there simply are going to be some mountains that are impassible. Why these spots should be rare, they should exist. And there should be a significant number of terrain types that, while not entirely impassible, are at least dangerous for primitive people to travel through.
Though terraforming does give some sense of this -- the more advanced a society becomes, the easier (or, rather, the more affordable) it is to manipulate the terrain to make living easy. But Civilization II and CTP both made expansion too easy.
Expansion isn’t easy. Particularly in the early stages of civilization. Perhaps gameplay should allow for settlers to perish in extreme terrain (jungles, desert and mountains) that is not like any terrain squares within the territorial boundary of the settler’s home city (this is presuming that settlers from a town in a mountain range would know their way around craggy peaks). Granted, not every gameplayers wants to spend so much time to build settlers only to see them die. But then again, neither did any king and they had to deal with it, too. Perhaps this could be included as a gameplay option. Suggestions:
- [*]The tallest mountains, regardless of what village the settler hails from, would be impenetrable no matter what. Ideally these would appear infrequently among most mountain chains, but it would be nice to have one mountain range that simply can’t be bested by young civilizations.[*]Jungle terrain squares, for those unfamiliar with them, would be a wonderful opportunity to incorporate random diseases into the game. There could be different percentages of jungle disease resistance for settlers who hail from different terrains.[*]Desert travel, for settlers from non-arid regions, should be limited early in game. How many primitive people could survive for long out there?[/list]
It’s certainly one that I would enjoy. I feel the game makes expansion too easy a task. Some true topographical barriers would be welcome. Plus it would be interesting to see how to civilizations that have unwittingly shared the same continent react when they finally discover a way around impenetrable mountains.
East-West expansion vs. North-South expansion
East-west expansion is far easier than north-south expansion. Moving latitudinally means your tribe remains in the same climate and that the crops from your home city are easier to transfer to new cities. Towns that are founded by settlers who come from cities in roughly the same latitude should be given productivity bonuses -- particularly with food production.
Conversely, cities that are founded by settlers who come from other latitudes should be penalized. After all, if the wheat you brought from your home city doesn’t grow in the new location, you’re going to have a pretty tough time starting out, don’t you think?
Disease
As I touched on briefly when I brought up the issue of jungle terrain, disease should be given a bigger role in shaping civilizations. European cities of wood rather than stone learned all too well how dangerous disease carried by vermin could be during the plague years.
Primitive cities should have to deal with plague if public works isn’t at an acceptable level. Heck, even if public works is at an acceptable level, there should be a risk of plague.
Don’t forget, though, that plague had its benefits. It truly is a case of “that which does not kill me makes me stronger.” Those same Europeans (well, their surviving descendants, at least) reaped the benefits years later when European settlers with heightened immunity encountered the indigenous peoples of Latin and South American and wiped out a significant number of los indigenos with disease.
Conquest is determined as much (actually, more so, I’d say) by biological factors like disease resistance than military strength. Granted, this only applies when two cultures from vastly different climates meet for the first time. The game should reflect this -- first encounters between civilizations from different continents (and, to a lesser degree, climates and terrains) should include for the risk of disease transfer. After initial contact, surviving members of the non-immune civilization would pass along a newfound immunity to future generations.
Newfound immunity’s would gradually circulate through a civilization. But cities connected to immunized cities would develop immunities at a much higher rate. They also, I’d say, risk contracting the disease and suffering population loss.
[This message has been edited by vanishpoint (edited May 08, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by vanishpoint (edited May 09, 2000).]
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