Simple way to make CIV more "real"

[Master Zen]

Communists trying to rule the world? Very True. Just as true as the US is trying these days to do it also.

As for N.Korea, who is who to decide who is a "civilized" nation and who is not? One cannot judge others solely by Western values and assume that they are universal. I for one think that the 2nd Amendment is a load of BS yet it is part of US culture and "values" (if one could consider owning assault guns as a "value"). Would you like other CIVILIZED countries to start pressuring the US to repeal the amendment? I don't think so. As a foreigner, I don't really give a damn if you all start shooting the hell out of each other, just as I don't care if the irresponsable N.Korean government starves its own people. It's their business, let them take care of it.

I think its not just the fact that N. Korea has nukes or not. The issue goes much further than that is basically the old case of double standards that the US applies whenever it feels like it. For example, Israel has nukes, never signed the NPT yet the US says nothing about it, instead pours billions of dollars in military aid. Has an embargo on communist Cuba yet trades freely with communist China with as dismal a human rights record as the former. Placed sanctions on newly nuclear Pakistan and India but shelves the idea now that it needs both their help with the war on "terror". See what I mean?

In the end, there is nothing wrong with being a patriot, or a nationalist, and feeling a deep pride with one's country. There are many things about the US to feel proud of, just as most people will find many things to be proud of of their own countries. However, being so arrogant as to proclaim one's country as the "greatest in history" is as subjective as saying that Coke is better than Pepsi.

Cuba more prosperous before Castro?? Yes, a few rich land-owners dependent on US investments were more prosperous, FAR more prosperous under Batista. The millions of other regular Cubans were mired in poverty. Most cubans' standard of living increased with Castro, only to later decrease with the end of Soviet aid. And trust me, I've actually been there, before AND after the wall came down. And BTW, I happen to hate Castro, but I do admire his willingness to step up to the US, something that most other Third World leaders should learn a little.

The US-backed Contras in Nicaragua actually LOST, so I don't see why the Sandinistas only allowed elections because of US pressure.

Finally, you should be wise to read this:

"More than one million Iraqis have died - 567,000 of them children - as a direct consequence of economic sanctions... As many as 12 percent of the children surveyed in Baghdad are wasted, 28 percent stunted, and 29 percent underweight."
United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), December 1995

So is the UN on Saddam's side too???

CIV3:

I like the idea of "small neutral powers" since it would more realisticaly portray the world. With 16 civs this was posible, with 24 in PTW its even better. I usually play on a 240x192 custom-made map which I based on a Civ1 map where I played a really great game. There were of course only 7 civs and 8 major continents and about 5 smaller ones. I had fun tweaking the map for Civ3 since I placed two of every resource on the continents of 6 civs (my original enemies from the Civ1 game), Since one of the major continents was uninhabited, I put about 6 civs and the others in the smaller islands. Many of these civs were without certain resources and many ended up rather backwards technologically and militarily. In the end, there were 6 major powers, 4 medium powers, with the rest being smaller weaker states.

[Master Zen]

Colonies:

The ability to conquer foreign cities yet loosely administer them (i.e. they could act as if with a governor to save you the trouble). As the "mother country" you would get preferential treatment in trade.

Also, if you colonized a far away continent with sufficient cities and sufficient prosperity, the citizens could revolt and withdraw from your empire, just like the revolutions in American countries or the South revolting from the North in the US Civil War.

[TomCB]

Here is the problem with being the only remaining super power.
If stability is going to be maintained, we have to do it.
If N Korea decided to pass a few nukes around, it could mean millions of dead.
Other nations, with the possible exception of Pakistan will not.
What the world does not need is a "loose cannon" selling nukes to every nut case with enough money.

That is why the number of nations who have these weapons needs to be kept as is or lowered.

As far as you points about the double standards
You are very correct, and the US will regret the collection of money grubing leaders we have had to chose from.
Actually, because Isreal is pretty much a theocracy, US aid to it is Unconstitutional.
The whole problem is that we do not follw our own laws, mainly the 10th amendment.

As far as UN claims goes, follow this link http://www.fao.org/News/2000/000904-e.htm

According to this source, the area of Iraq that are having the least problems are the areas that happen not to be under Saddams control.

Using this logic, an attack on Iraq to remove him would save lives.
Furthermore, the worlds (less the US) reluctance to attack and remove Saddam is causing further health issues.

I still don't buy the numbers, if they were accurate, Arab nations in the area if no one else, would not comply with them in mass.
Also, if things were really so bad, why don't the natives do something about it.
What not one marytr for his people, not one woman so saddened by the death of her child that she won't die to take him out?

Further reading try here

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html#People

It is the CIA fact book on Iraq.
Lets not forget that the only reason Iraq has sactions against it is because they did not comply with the cease fire terms of the Gulf War.
All Saddam has to do is comply with the almightly UN's orders.

As far as Cuba goes, all your boy Castro did was replace one set of land owners with his set of land owners.
I have scene the tape, he lives in splendor while his people starve.
Please stop suggesting that any prosperity in Cuba was a result of Soviet aid.
That is not prosperity, it was welfare.
As far as stepping up against the US.
Yea, that is working out real well, and for what?
So he can ............
Does everyone in the world actually feel that the US is ready to land troops on their shores?
If that is the case, they are deluded.

Hate to break it to you, but the Contras won.
They disbanded as a requirement of the free elections.

AND, everyone know that Pepsi is better than coke.
LOL

As far as small neutral countries go, I don't see how that would really work, since as we all know, they would just get gobbled up anyway.
Any ideas on that?

[Mr. President]

They have small independent factions in Medieval Total War. They're not always neutral, of course. I think the secret is that they only have about one or two provinces and a couple of armies, so they require much less processing.

P.S. Since the institution of America's economic and governmental system a little over two hundred years ago, it has risen to become the supreme technological nation on the globe, the richest economy in history. Its rate of progression is exponential. If no-one's caught up by now, no-one will. America is not successful because it rides roughshod over its rivals. America is not successful because of its amber waves of grain, abundant land area, and mountains of cash. America is successful because its people had the attitude for success from the very beginning. And that's something you can't learn, not in a million years of instruction by the scientists of Atlantis.

[dannubis]

Despite of what you are saying, the day Okinawa fell, Japan was finished. They had lost Mantsoeria (Northern China) to the Chinese by then and all of the supply lines coming from New Guinee went past Okinawa. So waiting for another three to six months would have resulted in the entire Japanese economy comming to a grinding halt... et voila, game over for Japan. Your governement knew this. But they had invested millions of dollars in the Manhattan Project. So, why not use the bomb now that we have it, eh ?

I really can't understand why a souvereign country is forced to make its nuclear weapons program public by a country that used nuclear weapons before on CIVILIAN targets and that defies every treaty that is signed during the past three decades (START anyone ?)

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely dislike the idea that every moron on this planet has the ability to whipe out a million people whenever he feels like it. But it's just that i don't see how a country that still has the largest nuclear and biochemical arsenal in the world has the nerve to dictate to other people what they can and can not do ...

[Panag]

Originally posted by Coracle


On the contrary. Far too many Civ 3 players are NOT demanding at all, and that is why they tolerated a rushed beta product, Civ 3, with many inherent flaws, and PTW was worse and even more overpriced.

hi ,

we know that , now stop to put it in our noses each day , .......

this is a thread where people try to make the best from it , hoping that some changes shall be made , this thread is full with positive ideas , not negative , .....

write the darn things in your SIG , it worked before , ....

have a nice CIV day

[TomCB]

Dear dannubis
The statements you made about the US knowledge of Japan is popular myth. In the war, no one KNEW anything.
Today, we DO KNOW from Japanese people alive then, that they were still prepared to fight to the end, regardless of losses.
Sure, they could have been carpet bombed into starvation, but that would have caused even more dead than the two atomic bombs caused.
The atomic bombs had a net saving of lives by 10 fold, and it was the best thing that could have been done at the time.
Talk about lousy options if you want to save lives and end the war quickly.
Remember, several raids on Germany caused more dead than either atomic bomb.
Also, the Japanese did not surrender after 1, only the second made them give up, that ruins the whole "perhaps a warning blast off shore would make them give in" arguement.
And we even agreed to a non-unconditional surrender in order to end the war, we let them keep the emperor, who was guilty of a VAST number of war crimes.
As far as not allowing rogue nations to have these weapons goes.
Since the US is the only country that will be forced to deal with these minor counties, it falls to the US to make sure they do not get such weapons.
They can not be trusted.
I don't understand why so many people, who hate the idea of a neighbor having a handgun, can be so trusting as to allow a nation that has invaded it's neighbor to have such weapons.
And Iraq has demonstrated the willingness to use such weapons on it's own population.
N Korea has shown a willingness to allow mass starvation rather then change.
You really want these nuts to get A-Bombs?

As far as treaties goes, START was never ratified by the US senate, which would have made it law in the US.
It was a bad treaty and even our Senate knew it.
So it was never broken, because it never was ratified.
NOW, you may bring up the various MAD (Mutual assured destruction) treaties that the US is withdrawing from.
Lets not forget that there is a provision in them to allow a party to withdraw after a 6 month notice.
So, NO, the US has not violated any treaties that were ratified, and only those ratified are real.
Any not ratified are only ideas written down.
OK, by withdrawing, we will be able to start building defenses against rogue nations like Korea.

The world does not like the US to be proactive, and now does not it when the US tries to defend itself from attack.

We really don't get any of you.....................

[dannubis]

Being proactive is one thing. Actively trying to impose your view onto other SOUVEREIGN governements is something completely different. And I am not only talking about the countries you have attacked or are about to attack. "You are either with us or against us" is a statement which leaves little or no room for neutrality, no ?

And as for the willingness to test the effect of nuclear weapons on a civilian population, your own governement detonated in the early 50's some A-bombs suspiciously close to one of your own vilages (don't remeber which one - national geographic documentary), resulting in a rise of cancer of about 25 %.

Several raids on Germany and also the raid on Tokio did indeed cause more fatalities than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. But I hardly see this to be a reason to trust the american governement with these kind of weapons.

I never said that i liked that those nutcases have nuclear weapons.

All I am saying is that when you look at the american foreign policy from the other side of the border, the USA tries to protect its own interests, and in doing so it often shamelessly rapes the principles it claims to stand for. And that is called plain hypocracy (spelling?).

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by raguil_79


In Civ2 if you tried to move a damaged unit into an allied civ's city, the unit would be partially healed, it would say something like "our Allies have repaired our damaged unit!".

Wow, I can't believe I missed that. I played Civ2 for years!!!

I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO GO BACK AND RE-INSTALL CIV2!!!! AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEE.....

[Panag]

hi ,

indeed there should be something like a dockyard to heal ships faster , including the ones from your allies

, maybe a drydock as wonder to heal ships in one turn or build a special battleship or so , ......

canals should be included (!)

have a nice day

[Master Zen]

I still can't believe that you believe the US must maintain stability since it is actually the country which is starting the conflicts! It is bullying Iraq, N.Korea, calling Iran also a part of an "axis of evil". It has the power to end the palestinian crisis but does nothing to stop Israeli aggressiveness and impunity.

Second, the reason most Westerners believe "rouge" states from getting nukes is TOTALLY WRONG. Westerners believe these countries get nukes to use them against someone, yet the REAL reason is to get others from attacking them. No leader, no matter how crazy or disrespectful of human life would ever drop a nuke and risk outright annihilation by the US nuclear response. The reason they want nukes is for the major powers to think twice before attacking them. Remember that these countries are not aggressive as they are paranoid. No nuclear power has ever dared attack another nuclear power, and even having just a few nukes is a better deterrent than a huge land army.

No one forces the US to "deal" with rouge states, the US does it on its own initiative. The doctrine of pre-emption can hardly be justified because if so, every nation then has the right to beat the crap out of its neighbor if it suspects its neighbor to threaten them. Russia could pre-empt Georgia and Chechnia, India and Pakistan could pre-empt each other, Israel could pre-empt the entire middle east, China could pre-empt Taiwan, etc etc etc. What kind of a world would that be?

Finally, to Mr. President, catching up does not take months or years, it takes decades, even centuries. Many countries have cought up with and surpassed the US in many industries in which the US was a total world leader which does not make me doubt at any moment that one day, not far away, a country or group of countries will catch up and surpass the US as a world power. That is a fact of history that has never been proved wrong no matter how powerful the nation on top has ever been. Conformists in those top nations have simply been foolish to believe that the conditions that exists today will somehow be maintained forever and ever, but as any serious reader of history knows, history is everything but static.

CIV3

Don't harbors repair units in one turn? I would like the ideas of "dockyards" or docks or whatever to serve as ports for colonies (i.e. the road from a colony could lead to a dock instead of making a far-away city). These docks could also hold ships so they could be used in foreign territory, like airbases.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Wow! Good god!

I leave Apolyton for 2 days and there's enough teenage-level political ranting to fuel an entirely new Israeli-Palestinian conflict!

In fact, let's get Sharon and Arafat memberships here! They could still vent hatred and no one would die! The solution has been found at last!

Now, for CIV:

Religious movements should DEFINITELY be represented in Civ. It's one of the game's largest flaws, although I suppose nationality does an OK job representing such things.

Also, I was thinking last night, what if Barbarians, instead of just pillaging your cities and dissappearing, take over your cities and form RULING FAMILIES (if you're a Monarchy)? That's what happens in real life: armed forces take power, become the ruling class, and "get soft". It could be represented in Civ by a sidebar that would say "Ruling Class" and then the appropriate term (Seljuk, Hsung-Nu, etc.)... a certain % of your gold could be siphoned off to them! In other words, LUXURIES FOR A SELECT GROUP. I know corruption nominally represents this, but I'd like to see it in greater detail.

I wouldn't go knocking those programmers though... history is pretty dang complex and there's a lot to put in there!

[Master Zen]

Chat rooms instead of battlegrounds. Now THAT would be a solution for the ages. We probably wouldn't even need the UN!

Oh and by the way, THE CONTRAS LOST. That is an irrefutable fact. If they had won they would have knocked the Sandinistas out of power something that didn't happen until they lost the 1989 (?) elections.

Then again maybe you were referring to the Nintendo game which with the 30 lives trick was rather easy to beat.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by raguil_79
Chat rooms instead of battlegrounds. Now THAT would be a solution for the ages. We probably wouldn't even need the UN!

Oh and by the way, THE CONTRAS LOST. That is an irrefutable fact. If they had won they would have knocked the Sandinistas out of power something that didn't happen until they lost the 1989 (?) elections.

Then again maybe you were referring to the Nintendo game which with the 30 lives trick was rather easy to beat.

BTW, has anyone considered a "School of the Americas" small wonder, that would allow you to built privateer-style guerrilla units, that you could use to terrorise sovereign states? (à la the Contras)

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by panag

canals should be included (!)

Yes, where are the canals?