Am I the only one who doesn't kill kill kill?

[Sparky]

What I'm hearing from CGW sounds promising. The elements they're putting in might correspond to the level of "civilization" we want. They have trade monopolies and culture points, as well as racial assimilation. Bravo.

[Zeevico]

Here, here! I played an expansionist-pacifist game once and do you know what happened? They signed treaties against me! I was forced to crush them after one of their units actually attacked (but lost) one of my cities. Every single last civ in the world was reduced to 1 or no cities. In 5 turns. And at that time they probably had more military units then i did. It ruined the game. As did when the 1 city Roman 'civilization' declared war on me after i defended myself from the small Zulu civ. Neither had a chance. The only loyal civ was the mongols, and thats because they had lost the nerve (I did sort of buy every single city they have, even when i was allied to them) to do anything. I pressed cheat to see myself on the powergraph. I was at the very top and thanks to their own stupidity, the other civs were as powerful as they were when they started the game. They had one, size 12 city each, all of them makinghuge losses both in science (-8 turn discoveries), money (broke) and military (one fanatic)

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by Sparky on 03-27-2001 07:35 PM What I'm hearing from CGW sounds promising. The elements they're putting in might correspond to the level of "civilization" we want. They have trade monopolies and culture points, as well as racial assimilation. Bravo.

Yes, I'm also encouraged by this. I hope they do allow for conquered cities to revolt spontaneously if they are not properly assimilated (i.e., if the conquering civ doesn't have enough culture points). This will really put the pressure on to militarists to pursue peaceful technologies -- if for no other reason than simply to prevent their growing empires from falling apart!

(By the way, I seem to remember that there has been a discussion somewhere in these forums of how the mechanics of such 'breakaway' cities would be handled. Can anyone direct me to it? Would they automatically always return to their parent civ, would they become barbarian cities, or could they actually start a brand-new AI civ?)



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Ilkuul

Every time you win, remember: "The first shall be last".
Every time you lose, remember: "The last shall be first".

[Vitmore The Great]

quote: Originally posted by Chris1111 on 03-25-2001 04:40 PM Anyone play master of orion 2? In that game it was possible to never be at war and never kill another ship and still win by being voted in "leader" of the galaxy. Alliances actually meant something as your allies would vote for you. They were unfortunately annoying though and constantly demanded you attack their neighbors unless you put them on ignore :P.

MOO2 in my opinion is the greatest strategy game ever made, when speaking of actual diplomacy, trade, and combat models (simple, yet concise). Civ II is still my favourite of the two because it is grounded in history, and I am a history buff. If Civ III borrowed some of the elements of diplomacy and trade from MOO2 and expanded upon them, Civ III will be amazing.


Vitmore

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"We should not go out and conquer the people, but give them no other choice in their minds but to be conquered." - Me

[Lawrence of Arabia]

I am the biggest perfectionist ever. Whenever i play world map, i play with the sioux and aztec. In the first few turns, i kill them and take their knowlege. Thats about the only action i ever do. From then on, i have all of the americas for myself. I always have a scientific city (Boston) a tax city (new York) and the rest of the cities are good at everything. I build roads, but not in the ai fashion. Just one road between cities. i take care of the geography and hardly ever change terrains. Then, i fly to Apha centauri in like the 1600s and i win the scientific victory. In civ 3, tho, i think that they are going to incorporate a cultural/economic victory where u accumulate culter and trade points to win. i would definatly follow this path. I just hate when i go to war and capture all of these crap cities and all i build r military units and my cities have no improvements, or tile improvements

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Its okay to smile; you're in America now

[garciamed]

quote: Originally posted by Sparky on 03-25-2001 01:54 PM YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!! I ALWAYS PLAY PEACEFUL AND I ONLY ATTACK IF I REALLY HAVE TO, I LOVE PLAYING A CIV GAME, AND I AM ALSO WORRIED IF CIV3 BECAMES WARCRAFT. I WANT MORE TRADE, MORE POLITICS, RELIGION, CULTURE, THAT WOULD BE A CIV GAME. IF I WANTED TO ONLY DO WAR, I WOULD PLAY AGE OF EMPIRES; WHICH SUCKS. GERMAN GARCIA, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA.

[MBloomIII]

I have never enjoyed a military approach and have always seeked AC since the Civ I days. One way of making war more meaningful would be to deduct a population point for all military units sd they are built. The only exception would be for warriors which you could build to your hearts content. Also, instead of warriors being replaced by military advances, they could turn into explorers or trackers or something along these lines. This would make the price for military build-up steep however the downside may be that you could build military units in the early stage to keep cities in line. (I'm thinking as I type here). What could be done is that if your military unit loses a battle then a population point is deducted from the home city. Disbanding of a military unit should also add a population point to a city since these people could contribute to the overall economy rather than strictly peacekeeping. I don't know if this idea has been bandied about elsewhere.

[Sparky]

Zeevico, I do the same thing. My favorite style (perhaps not the most efficient on deity) to to be nice to everyone, spread my cities, build efficiet roads and infrastructure, and try to make a huge population. I rarely declare war. Woe to my enemies, though; anyone who sneak attacks shall taste my steel. If any civ ever attacks me, I will never sign peace until I have annihilated their empire.

My second favorite style is single-city. I liked this best in Civ 1 Real Earth, where there was the perfect city spot in Manchuria (lots of trees and grasslands, two sides protected by water). Once I won on king with 12 wonders.

[Blaupanzer]

Sparky,

Agree with thinking. More war should bring on disease, refugees fleeing the war area, loss of irrigation systems, decreases in the population of the nation losing units, and so on. The four horsemen ride together; war brings pestilence, famine, and death. Civ doesn't reflect this. Long-term oppression leads to many of the same problems: inefficiencies, waste, refugees, guerilla warfare, brain drain, and so forth. Civ doesn't reflect this either. However, Civ III is doing away with Fundamentalism as a government choice and adding cultural effects. Hope springs.

[Cyclotron]

Just remember, don't kill off war altogether... many minor wars have occured quite quickly and ended the same, so you shouldn't completely discourage people from fighting in the first place!

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- Cyclotron7, "that supplementary resource fanatic"

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by cyclotron7 on 04-05-2001 11:33 PM Just remember, don't kill off war altogether... many minor wars have occured quite quickly and ended the same, so you shouldn't completely discourage people from fighting in the first place!

Yes -- although I said in an earlier post in this thread that I would like to see more peaceful routes to victory in Civ3, war must still be a viable option when backed up with parallel economic and cultural development.

To me, Civ3 will have achieved the right balance if, when the most expert aggessive expansionist comes up against the most expert rational perfectionist, it's like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. Each should be just as strong as the other, with neither able to conquer merely by virtue of military or economic power -- though in a real game, of course, there will always be random factors and other players that will tip the balance one way or the other.

[Gammaray fan]

This is a bit long, but please bear with me...
I also have been a AC pursuer since the Civ1 days. In fact, civ1 had a really great idea which was dropped in Civ2 in which if one of your cities was ultra prosperous with great infrastructure etc. there was a small chance that city's in other poor but expansionist civs would 'admire the prosperity of Rome' for example, and defect to your civ!
Anyway, I think the main thing Firaxis should concentrate on is not to discourage war completely, but to discourage continuous war. It would be fun to send out say 3 great stacks and battle it out for 10 turns or so (retreating, counterattacking, fortifying to the military strategists content), but placing severe penalties for having longer wars. (unhappiness?) I believe the main reason why war was so boring in previous civ games was because you had 100 billion troops constantly roaming the map. And people are saying settlers are bad! Units should be encouraged to stay in cities. Perhaps assigning units to 'border patrol' will determine if you detect enemy incursions across your borders, eliminating the need to place troops all around your borders, and encouraging them to stay in fortresses or cities.

[Sparky]

Yeah, I miss that city-defect event, too. In all my games of Civ, though, I only saw it happen maybe three times.

Have any of you been getting gamestats to come up as a Spanish FIFA site? For days I've been getting that.

[SerapisIV]

Well in the Ask the Team where they mentioned cities revolting, Firaxis was a little nebulous (big surprise) on the topic, but it sounds as if city-defects (or some kind of revolting) will occur
http://www.firaxis.com/civ3/asktheteam_011901.cfm

[Maccabee2]

[quote]Originally posted by Sparky on 03-25-2001 04:44 PM

It's not realistic that well-defended city can technically lose a hundred defensive units, and yet not take one point of population loss. Losing men at that rate should hugely inpact the total population (like WWI), as well as be very financially costly.

Sparky, Zanzin, and MBloom are really onto a great idea here! I was thinking the same thing (subtract one population unit for each military unit built). This would require every empire to grow before it "goes forth and conquers." Also, I like the idea that one of the above made that when you disband a unit, it adds one back into your population. This also adds another dimension -- what to do with your soldiers when they come home! Sometimes its a double-edged sword, hence the need for improvements that prevent unhappiness caused by overcrowding (like hospitals, entertainment, etc.)
Remember that many empires that had the technological and industrial potential to conquer the world, were slowed or defeated by the inability to draw enough loyal troops from their own population. They simply didn't have enough people.
Several examples come to mind. (1)Rome's legions began to recruit its soldiers from the outlying provinces like Gaul, Spain, Illyricum, Dacia, and Syria, because there simply weren't enough able-bodied men in the Italian peninsula to meet the demand. This eventually led to less devoted and disciplined troops who violated the rights of Roman citizens, eroded the "cultural value" of being part of the Roman Empire, and contributed to its downfall. (2) Throughout the Early and Mid- Middle Ages, the infantry of any European army was composed almost soley of "levies", basically armed peasants. This especially argues for a population cost to build any unit. (If we wish to compromise with the "Hawks" among us, we could concede that those military units that were solely made up of nobility or aristocracy, like knights or any pre-19th century cavalry, would not cost one population unit. The nobility didn't really work anyways, so their traipsing off to war like merry school boys towards a holiday, wouldn't really affect the cities production .)
(3) Napoleon was often frustrated trying to raise armies and had to resort to supplementing his French troops with those from conquered nations like Italy. (4) The Nazis were desperate for more men on the eastern front and had several S.S. corps made up of Italians, Romanians, Bulgarians, and other nationalities. Towards the end, they drafted young boys to defend Berlin, and the lack of manpower contributed to their defeat. (I remember a teacher, a WW2 vet, whom I pressed to tell me about the war. He cried when he told me the hardest thing he ever had to do was kill a 12 year old German boy who was shooting at him.)
While this is primarily a game, for me it is also a teaching tool. My daughter plays Civ2, AOE, and CTP, and occasionally we discuss the events and problems she runs into and how it applies to the real world.
War costs, and I think this game should reflect that.