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**Tim White** · October 22, 2000, 23:51

Whats, "THE CAMEL"??

**Ralf** · October 23, 2000, 00:25

Why start 3 (almost 4) new threads about the exact same topic? Try to keep your concerns about that camel under one roof, please!

I have copy-and-paste all your concerns under this thread. Please, if anyone have something camel-related to say about it - answer this thread alone, and ignore the other ones.

I be back later with some viewpoints on the subject!

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Matthew/ Why same the camel: A game perspective.

In SMAC trade pretty much works like this. You build your cities, improve terrain for energy(the equivalent of trade arrows in civ), and make peace with other factions. Your cities are each paired with a city from the other faction, and trade between the pairs is determined automatically, depending mostly on size or trade output I guess. I'm not sure which, and I really don't care, cause there's not much you can do about it anyway.This is continued until one of you has no more cities. The process is repeated for each faction you are at peace with, and a single city can be trading with all other factions. Trade is doubled if you are allied (pact brother).
In CtP it is a bit more involved. you do build caravan like units, but there's no moving it. The route is automatically established, and I'm not even sure you can decide who with. I think you can improve routes by cornering a market, but there is no initial bonus, or no need for infrastructure to move these commodities around. No one even needs to build a boat.

The reason I prefer the way it is done in civ 2 is because it can be a much more integral part of a strategy, gives you the option of going for a quick, near by route or a big bonus, and gives a peaceful reason for boats, airports, and railroads to exist late in the game.

Granted, the micromanagement involved can be immense. As one who often builds more caravans than anything else, then tries to move them all over the map, I know. But this can certainly be remedied.

Camels, as they are now, provide an entirely new aspect to a game. They provide an entirely different strategy focus, for example. Instead of focusing on happy wonders, Super Science City wonders, or military wonders, one can focus instead on wonders that make trade routes better and easier to establish. Lighthouse can allow one to take advantage of the early trade route bonus to distant places, and Magellans later on allows you to get the product to a distant land much faster, before the commodity changes or someone closer by fills the demand. A civ without the happy wonders, and therefore unable to celebrate to greatness much, can still compete with civs that were able to get their cities much larger by simply sending caravans to those big cities. In short, it adds an area of focus that allows other ways to win. And this is always a good thing. In the CtP style anyone can take utmost advantage of a caravan with little risk simply by building it, with no additional resources getting it to the target. The bigger civs again will always win.
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Matthew/ Historical reasons to save the camel:

Rather than discussing ways of wiping Camels out of existence, let's talk about how to make the Camel a better, happier Camel.
But first, a bit of History. The Golden Age of Rome, economically anyway, began not under the Republic, but under the Emperpr Octavian, otherwise known as Augustus. The Republic of course applied only to Rome itself, and then to Italy once Rome was forced to give citizenship to her Italian allies. The Senatore used their position to obtain governorships in the provinces, and would milk them dry. This of course was hard on economies, and in the long run reduced the economic resources availible for tribute in the future. The emperors, generally even the worst of them during the first 200 years or so, were far wiser in management. The 250 years or so of peace under the Empire from Augustus on, except for the civil wars in 68 A.D., allowed economic prosperity, as did the wise management of the emperors.

This was to come to an end. Around 500 A.D. Rome itself was sacked, and the western half of the Empire was lost. but before this time the Empire had become only a shadow of it's former self anyway. Here are the causes.

1. The imperial Government got too big. to support itself it was necessary to raise taxes too much. People fled their farms because they couldn't produce enough to pay the taxes and feed themselves. The Imperial government responded by instituting what became known as Serfdom, which is not a great economic model.

2. Decades of Civil war in the third Century, and others as well. A better method of succession would have prevented many of these.

3. Barbarian onslaught in the third century. This ravaged much of the Empire, and wasn't great for the population.

4. The army,though large, had become a border force, and it was difficult to mobilize a large enough mobile force to repel barbarian invaders before a lot of damage had been done. This was accompanied by much reduced dicipline. Without these factors, #3 would have likely been much reduced.

5.Disease, caused largely by war. See # 4

6. Stagnation in trade. In the early years of the Empire there was a lot of trade between less civilized regions of the Empire and more civilized areas. This was because people in the less civilized areas didn't know how to make a lot of the nifty things they had in more civilized areas, so there was a demand. But eventually the less civilized regions learned how to make the things from the more civilized region, so they just made them themselves rather than importing.

7. Technological stagnation. No new products to trade afar. See 6.

Economics, including trade, played an important part in the Roman Empire, and the decline of trade helped lead to the decline of the Empire.

Carthage is another example. Carthagenian power was based entirely on trade, which allowed them to build a large Navy and pay mercinaries to fight for them. This great trade power could have, but for twists of fate, defeated Rome in either of the first two Punic wars, altering history more than just a little.

Athens also had to become an economic power before it became a military power. Someone, (I don't remember the name: perhaps some historian can enlighten us) realized that it was a bad idea to try to grow wheat on the hills around Athens. So they grew olives instead, which grow quite well on the hills of Athens. They of course didn't keep this oil to themselves. Thety would have starved. They traded it so they could get money for food, and other things, like slaves and warships. They became the center of a powerful naval alliance. Then they got Stupid and decided that they could conquer the entire mediterranian. But that's beside the point.

So trade is an important part of ancient history, is even more important now, and should not be relegated to a minor roll in the game. If you want to conquer a city you can't just build the military units. you need to take them to the city you want to attack. Trade should be likewise. Or at least there should be a lucrative option to do it that way.

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The camel is not a part of civ.

THE CAMEL IS CIV !!!!

SAVE THE CAMEL !!!!!!
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[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 23, 2000).]

Announcement

Save the camel !!!!

Save the camel !!!!

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