How many players should civ3 support?

[Mo]

I don't think there will be such a problem in diplomacy and trade with a large number of civs since you are bordered only by a handful, and as the game progresses there will end up being a managable number of larger civs. I think the game should start out with a rather large number 32-100 and then as the game progress they will unite, be conquered until there is a managable numebr. In the begining you usually don't explore much more than just your little section of the world so you won't have contact with a lot of the civs till later in the game.

[korn469]

personally i think that between 10-16 major civs would be perfect...seven major civ is just too small but i think that in terms of play balance, fun, system requirments and practicality is less than 20 major civs i'm not sure how minor civs will work but i am thinking that the upper limits of total civs (major civs, minor civs, and barbarians) should be no more than 32

all of this talk of 100 civs is immpractical to me...for one thing playing a multiplayer game of civ with 20 people would be hard (lag, finding the time, etc.) but i would say that under normal cirumctances that playing a multiplayer game of civ would be impossible with 100 players

also with higher numbers of civs wonders become even more of a problem and i think that bigger is always better really gets to be problematic

so keep it at about 16 major civs

korn469

[jrhughes98]

You know I've said it many times and I'll say it again just to settle the argument. Civ3 should support well over 100 civs on the map during any singe game (for those that think that Civ3 should have more than 100 civs on the map at once). And for those who don't you can just limit the maximum number of civs that you want on the map at once yourself; you can do this with Civ2, and you should be able to do it with Civ3 as well, right? This settles the argument and keeps both sides happy! Now all WE have to do is tell Firaxis what WE want!!!

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JRH
[This message has been edited by jrhughes98 (edited October 25, 2000).]

[Ralf]

Lets say we have one human player against 31 AI-players simultaneously on the map. About halfway through the game it would look like something like this:

- Human player; most likely the strongest empire.
- About 2-3 really (lets hope) strong and potent AI-empires.
- Another 4-5 not quite as strong AI-empires.

- Another 23-25 totally passive 1-3 AI-city miniature "empires" dotted all over the place. These Lichtenstein-empires would be "sitting ducks" - too small and too far behind in each and every area to be anything else.

Sound like fun, doesnt it.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 25, 2000).]

[S. Kroeze]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 10-25-2000 06:06 PM Lets say we have one human player against 31 AI-players simultaneously on the map. About halfway through the game it would look like something like this: - Human player; most likely the strongest empire. - About 2-3 really (lets hope) strong and potent AI-empires. - Another 4-5 not quite as strong AI-empires. - Another 23-25 totally passive 1-3 AI-city miniature "empires" dotted all over the place. These Lichtenstein-empires would be "sitting ducks" - too small and too far behind in each and every area to be anything else. Sound like fun, doesnt it. [This message has been edited by Ralf (edited October 25, 2000).]

Dear Ralf,

I think I understand your concern, but at the same time I think you are reasoning in a rather 'dogmatic' way. Is it absolutely necessary that in the game a Civilization is identical with a Great Power? In my opinion it isn't; when Firaxis would try to develop a truly interesting political/diplomatic structure and would use the 'Rise and Fall' idea, a game with both minor and major powers could be very interesting, certainly when a rather small civilization can be technically advanced.
About a year ago the Joker and I had some discussion on the subject of ways to make the game more challenging. I argued:

quote: "In my opinion the beginning of CivII, which on Deity level can be quite hard, is really exciting. Barbarians are sometimes a real threat; the other civilizations are quite agressive (often against their own interest) and research can be alarmingly slow. Normally after the Middle Ages it becomes clear who is dominant; after a short Republican period of trade and peacefull coexistence the enemies become increasingly warlike but without avail. As soon as I think that the game is over, I lose interest. (Often I change sides at this point or just quit; I cherish the remembrance of the start of my civilization when danger lurked in every corner; only by large-scale cheating can the computer keep up the semblance of competition during the end-game) So why not creating a new problem for the player: the peasants, the ruling elite and rivals for power within the state? War with other nations could become less ferocious. Part of the problem could be the over-importance of the military aspects in the game. You just control a city or your enemies do. In real life things are more complicated. The Assyrians conquered the Babylonians roughly every twenty years: they killed some leaders of the revolt, the Babylonians were forced to pay a large yearly tribute and undoubtedly suffered much. But the Assyrians didn't dare to burn down the city; I think with good reason, not because of tenderheartedness. So in the end Ninive and Assur, the Assyrian capitals were totally burned down by the Medes and would never recover; and this was all done in alliance with those effiminate Babylonians, who prospered for another five hundred years. So a military victory isn't the end of a story and political control can be very tight, but was during most of history very superficial. An empire doesn't necessarily grow stronger as it expands, it could possibly mean the opposite: enfeeblement. After the defeat of Napoleon did the British truly rule the waves: their commercial network enclosed the whole globe, though it was an informal empire. During the nineteenth century the maps showed more and more pink and the empire grew at an enormous speed. But British power decreased. Even they couldn't take the whole cake; some parts were taken by other powers: the French, the Germans, the Americans, the Japanese, even the Dutch. So I would suggest to introduce a sort of gradual increasing scale of political and/or religious/economic control. Each power has a centre where power, manpower and money, are "payed" to a government; but the control of outlying provinces actually costs money and "power points"(these could be represented by political agents/satraps). Compare the decline of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the empire of the Spanish Habsburg in Italy and the Netherlands, and also the decline of the Roman Empire. In the end the centre couldn't or wouldn't bear the ever increasing costs of keeping down subjects in the periphery, who skilfully and systematically evaded the burden of empire. In the boardgame Pax Brittannica (quite a good game, set in the nineteenth century representing the colonization of the world by the Europeans, the USA and Japan) there are four levels of political influence in a region: interest, influence, protectorate and possession. Only the last two options involve military occupation. Using such a political model in Civilization would add realism without being overcomplicated. Unrest or feudal rebellion wouldn't necessarily cause the creation of barbarians or a new independent civilization. The level of political control could drop, possibly resulting in expulsion of the occupying military forces, loss of control over decisions like what improvements to build in a city (these could be made by a local lord functioning like the governor in SMAC) and reduction or even suspension of tax payment. There should remain the possibility of a reversal of fortune without use of military force: loyalty to the political centre could grow again. This could be influenced by growing trade relations and mutual economic interdependence, conversion by your priests of the locals and actions of your diplomats. One nice consequence of the system of Pax Brittannica is the possibility of two or three powers all having influence or interest in a certain region. This doesn't necessarily cause political tension. Only if one of the powers upgrades his power in the region- for instance making a protectorate out of a region where it had before only influence- trouble arises. A protectorate automatically entails military occupation, so the other great powers have to downgrade their influence in the region, because the rules forbid two powers certain combinations of control in a region. This is a possible and realistic casus belli: the other powers either have to backdown or declare war. The greater political control of protectorate and possession (perhaps the names should be changed) can only be estalished as a result of certain specified advances. So the enormous expanded empires of antiquity are still a possibility but your actual influence over the periphery would be restricted. Now players would have the choice of either a vast sprawling empire or a close-knit well organized polis-like state (or anything between those extremes), but without the second choice meaning to be a second-class power. Though the explanation of Kennedy's theory on the rise and fall of great powers by the Joker is a bit simplified, essentially he is quite right. Kennedy explains the rise of a great power as a result of economic expansion. The sphere of political influence of such a power will grow, which will often cause an empire to expand and dominate its neighbours. And to defend its interests the tendency will almost inevitably be to spend an ever increasing part of its resources on defence, just to feel sure. So instead of further developing the economy which was the source of its power, the military will devour the lion's part of the budget. (The former Soviet-Union spending about 60 % of its economy on the military is a case in point; its no wonder the empire disintegrated) Other powers who are investing in their economy will surpass the original Great Power. A concept constantly reiterated by Kennedy is that of "strategic overstretch". America should consider itself warned! I would applaud a further reduction of the military factor. In the long term China is still a great power; the vast empire of Chenggis Chan was first partitioned among his sons: the successor states all were culturally reintegrated by the conquered civilizations within two centuries. As the discerning reader -thank for his patience and interest- will have noticed, I am much in favour of a game with about 20 civilizations, major and minor; I also would recommend the concept of neutral cities/regions. Expansion by settlers (new colonies) should be the exception. Perhaps not on another continent without a strong indigenous civilization. But in the end colonization will often defeat its purpose; I consider the American civilization, though clearly an offshoot of Western Chistianity, to be almost a civilization in its own right. I'm very enthousiastic about your sketch of a protectorate; its almost exactly the structure as I meant it. I think that the lowest forms of influence in a region wouldn't give you a lot of taxes, and probably no research at all. Its only the beginning of spreading your culture to a mostly less advanced part of the world, establishing trade relations, converting part of the population (let's hope the elite) to the dominant religion of your civilization, building an infrastructure etc. The true beauty of such a system of centres of power and periphery is the immense diplomatic possibilities it would create. In the classical game the only way of creating a revolt is by sending a spy or diplomat and actually bribing a city to revolt. But if you pay those staggering costs you can be sure of its success. Neither is realistic nor thrilling. In reality money does hardly ever triggger a revolt: general discontent, famine and political/economic/religious/cultural alignments do! And as there exists the random possibility of your empire splitting apart, the other civilizations should know the same danger. In addition I think you should have the possibility (certainly in an overstretched, heterogeneous empire with an impetuous aristocracy or peasant/nomadic population) of toppling a government."

When such ideas would be introduced in an intelligent way, the 'minor' powers wouldn't be useless 'sitting ducks', but would be the spoils which the 'Great Powers' for the time being would try to win over. And a minor power in one epoch could be the hegemon of the next. Having more variety in size could instead offer new diplomatic possibilities!

Sincere regards!

[Paulypav]

I definitely think that 32 civs would be the optimal level of civs for decent gameplay. It just seems that many more would prove difficult to manage and would bog down the game in diplomatic micromanagement. A number of these 32 civs should probably be minor civs.

I think it would be interesting if minor civs had the opportunity to make extraordinary jumps in development and/or combine with other minor civs to create a true power. Extraordinary jumps would require a "cheat" on behalf of the AI, but would make it interesting when your small, benign neighbor suddenly has the capacity to make life miserable. I think this would be possible by giving the civ bonus advances, bonus units, and bonus city improvements to boost its development. This would have to be totally random and rather rare or it could be frustrating, perhaps make it as likely as the chance of a civ splintering when you capture its capital.

and, of course you have to have larger maps

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"In war, there is no substitute for victory."
- Douglas MacArthur

[Crustacian]

Congrats on Queen recognition Empress :-)

quote: Originally posted by Empress on 10-22-2000 12:37 AM hmmm.. for multiplayer capacity I would suggest no more than 8 multiplayers at at time b/c the game can get pretty laggy with 7 as it is now...

In addition to this problem with too many players, there is the never ending saga of trying to get all the scheduals to match up.

If it is potential civs being asked about, have however many premade civs like there are...

**and then the capability to custom make your own with "remembered city names, and custom titles too so you don't have to name stuff each time. That gives the most flexability, rather than trying to do too much ahead of time in the game.

[Ralf]

For those of you who suggests support for 100 AI-civs at the same time:

A big-sized Civ-2 map has 75-120 tiles. Any city landarea is 5x5 tiles. This means that on an 100% land-map with grasslands only, you could squeese 15 city-areas latitude, and 24 city-areas longitude.
15x24 = 360 city-areas. This means a maximum of 360 pathetic one-city only "empires".
And we havent yet added ocean- and undisarable land-tiles yet. And we havent added that most casual players wants to play on a medium-sized 50x80 map AND have 15-20+ city empires. They also *want* to be surronded with mostly strong and potent AI-empires as well. See what i mean?

I suggest you guys do the math for the 32 civ alternative as well. Remember that ICS have been implemented. Finally, the non-negotiable overstretched AI-workload then handle so many indevidual AI-civs.