How to make civ3 more epic?

[raingoon]

quote: what about having faces and pictures with your cities' governors?

WHOA!! Diplomat, this is one of those seemingly no big deal little suggestions that is in fact a GREAT IDEA!

Dan? Is Firaxis listening??

[Akron]

I have to agree that the city screen, more demographics, and more personal messages would really help make the game more epic. But how about adding a timeline for each civ that you can look at at the end of the game. It would give certain important things from the game, such as the moving of capitals, building of wonders, completion of great feats, important military conquests (such as the conquest of an enemy capital, top 10 city of the world, city with a wonder, religious capital...), new ages, periods of great growth (50%+ increase in population, economy, military power, etc. over say 5 turns after the first 50 turns... well something like that), and I'm sure there are many other things that could be put into a timeline. That could go along with the replay at the end of the game.

Another possibility that may make the game more interesting is the naming of regions of land. For example, if a civ ran into a large desert, they may name it something. Or if there was an important moutain chain nearby, they would name that. Seas and oceans could also be named. When a civ comes across a major land feature, they would be able to name it, with suggested names depending on the civ. For example, if the Americans came across a large lake, they would name it lake Superior. Or if the Russians came across a large area of tundra and glaciers, they would call it "Siberia." This would be part of a civ's features, similar to the naming of cities. Exploring units would give a message like "Our men have reached a large chain of forbidding mountains. The natives of the area call it the 'Andes.'" Then next to the message, there would be a button allowing you to erase the name completely or rename it. It would also be possible to name any area anything.

Well, that is all I can think of for now. I have rambled enough.

[The diplomat]

I just thought of another idea:
what about having faces and pictures with your cities' governors? This would make the game a little more personal. When you get a mesage about that city, instead of just a generic message, it could be a little message from the governor, like:
"Mr. President, my city of Milano is experiencing a famine. I request some help immediately!
signed Gov. Sanchez."

Also, if a city rebels, instead of a generic message, you would get a message from the governor. For example:
"The people of Thebes are tired of your policies. You care nothing for our city. I am their new leader. We are no longer part of your empire. If you attack us, we will defend ourselves. So, leave us in peace!
signed Gov. Ross."

The player would feel like "Aargh, the traitor! I can't believe that Ross is betraying me!"

This would make the game more personal and get the player more involved emotional, thus contributing to a more epic game!

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[GaryGuanine]

Damn Akron, another great idea. Be able to put signs down on areas of the map, like in SMAC. On the earth map, we can have already there signs, like "Himalayan Mountains" and "Gobi Desert" and stuff. While I actually never used it in SMAC, I think I would be more likely to in Civ3, since it's more personal. Always count on a New Jerseyan to get the good ideas.

Gary

[Cyclotron]

I'm all for it. Each Civ world should be, if not your creation, up to your interpretation.

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"Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
- Marsil, called the Pretender

[Urban Ranger]

Akron,

You mean each civ should have its own history? That's great! Epic is always linked to history.

[Youngsun]

Firaxis shouldn't miss this thread! So many good stuffs here.

[Adm.Naismith]

IMO epic means that our Civ must left some relevant sign on world history.
How we remember and celebrate that events? By legends, songs, monuments, paintings, national holidays...

Where can we fit these? We already had palace/throne room for our ego, the monolith of achievements on SMAC (uninspiring to say the best ).
We had the replay at the end of game, too.

I suggested (and reiterate here ) to replace the ego palace/throne room with a long list of age-related Civ celebrations, from gardens to castles, from statues to paintings, from city or province renamed to your leader name (e.g. Stalingrad for Stalin, Virginia for Queen Elisabeth the iron virgin ) to special buildings (highest tower of the world, longest bridge, new modern hospital or university, etc.).

And Music! Music is under used in Civ, while it had a very relevant place to keep historical memory, as in popular ballade.
Folk tradition was (and is) most relevant when literacy skills where not widely diffused. Do you realize how ANY epic movie has epic music too?

Every time you Civ do well (or very badly) you have some "sign in history" to celebrate and remember it: "The great Victory of Land of Elks" (e.g. a battle monument) or the Bloody defence (and defeat) of the city of Berlin (e.g. a MP3 very short sad ballade).

You can see it right on the city view (statue, fountain, bridge) and/or as lot of icons (easy to customize) or short movies (in standard format, so Firaxis and dedicated fan can upload some new on Web sites) in a interactive part of civilopedia that show them as our Civ progress, with a bit of descriptive text.

It will be "The Great Book of your leader name here Dinasty" or better "The Great Book of your civilization name here Civilization".

Until the game end, you can see the Book as you like (starting by default every time you reload a game, just to bother that lousy cheating reloader players -just kidding-), but only related to your Civ (to mitigate cheat as stopping game and see the replay to discover others civ position ).

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Hasdrubal]

Uh, let's just say that I agree with all the above. Make it epic, make it grand! Suspend our disbelief and make us emotionally attached to our empires.

[raingoon]

Epic means Narrative, it means "this is the history of our people." When I look at these posts it seems they are all saying the same thing to Firaxis -- put in anything that gives the player a rich sense of their Civ's epic story.

[Adm.Naismith]

I forgot to mention another current limit to Civ epic: Civilization vanishing.

In Civ/Civ II and SMAC any city/base destroyed disappeared into nothing.
Great battles are fighted with some sound effects and that's all.
City facilities destroyed and even Wonders disappear into nothing, not after some centuries (as you can understand) but in a single turn!

I know Colossus doesn't survived till now, but Rome Colosseum do, and so do Pyramid, the Great Wall of China and so on, with some damages.

Where are the Great Ruins?

Why the map can't show some city ruin for some centuries? Just for example, I propose every cities left a ruin for as many centuries as its max population reached (a city once pop 4, if reduced ro ruins will completely disappear after 4 centuries).
It can give some small benefit, too, i.e. give a shield bonus if you build a new town in radius of ruins (reuse of stones and metals).

Something similar can happen about destroyed Wonders: think about showing half demolished Oracle for some dozen of turns.

Main battlefields must be specially displayed for a while, too.
I know bones and blades will disappear quite quickly, but the special tile display should reproduce the persistence of legendary battles into people memories.
I don't want to clug the screen with lot of unnecessary memories of every battle, but I suggest to show the "battlefield tile" of every fighting that will see more (let's say) than five units involved or see the same square attacked for more than two turns in a row.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Nenad]

Both ideas about Army Leaders and City Governors are great, but it take time to make a great general/mayor. Entire game should last much longer, so that your soldiers, for example, can win more than one battle (war) in normal human lifetime. But what gives the most of epic feeling is the history. I believe that's the main thing to do.

[Zanzin]

Good idea, Admiral. I especially like the idea about city ruins. :ets just hope Firaxis are listening!!

[Lung]

I see many wonderful suggestions for Civ3 to make it more epic, but let me add just one more

I would like to see small/short movies for individual science advances, but to make it truly epic, they should only be played when your civ is the first to discover or invent it. That way, you get a true sense of achievement, like you already do when completing a wonder. The opposite of this is what appeared in CTP, which was a generic screen merely stating the name of the science, with even a crappy cheer only added in a later patch.

To further add to the effect, the movie should be in the theme of a revelation or discovery, as befitting the event. They don't need to be long ov overly elaborate, just enough to whet the apetite

[Lancer]

Great ideas here, glad to see them.

I'd like to add one thing, slow the passage of time through each era. This would mean slowing the arrival of tech, which would allow the development of game play using each tech. The time of Napoleon might actually last long enough to use those musketeers. WW1 and the dominance of artilery...

As I mentioned in a thread here once before, time moves so fast now that by the time your cutting edge ship arives at it's destination it's obsolete. That needs to be fixed, because it's not epic, it's silly.