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Ok, Last Time....Why We DONT need Specific Civ-Bonuses

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  • Ok, Last Time....Why We DONT need Specific Civ-Bonuses

    Wonders...
    Thats it

    The wonders represent specificc civs becoming specialists at certain things. Seafaring civs have magellen etc.

    In real life, the english would have had the seafaring wonders

    That way civs choose their own specialisation

  • #2
    As many of us said a hundred times before: unique civ benefits are fine . . . as an OPTION.

    I fully agree with you, Zulu. If I am to gain a unique civ benefit, I want to EARN it . . . not get it automatically.

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    • #3
      I concur - Have unique civs - but only as an option.

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      • #4
        quote:

        Originally posted by Chronus on 03-06-2001 08:16 AM
        If I am to gain a unique civ benefit, I want to EARN it . . .



        Well spoken!
        Hasdrubal's Home.
        Ceterum censeo Romam esse delendam.

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        • #5
          Words have never been so true.

          ------------------
          "Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
          - Marsil, called the Pretender
          Lime roots and treachery!
          "Eventually you're left with a bunch of unmemorable posters like Cyclotron, pretending that they actually know anything about who they're debating pointless crap with." - Drake Tungsten

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          • #6
            Agreed. Glad to see people have come around to this idea.

            Peoples aren't inherently different - they're shaped by their environment. Ok, I admit, I just started reading Guns, Germs and Steel. I'll post something about that later though...

            ------------------
            - MKL ... "And a sun that doesn't set but settles" - Augie March
            Shameless Plug: http://www.poetic-license.org ............. All welcome.
            - mkl

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            • #7
              quote:

              Originally posted by Zulu Elephant on 03-06-2001 06:05 AM
              Wonders...
              Thats it

              The wonders represent specificc civs becoming specialists at certain things. Seafaring civs have magellen etc.

              In real life, the english would have had the seafaring wonders

              That way civs choose their own specialisation


              I agree completely, I always thought of wonders as providing the unique civ benefits. Whats the point if you have a civ with good sea units who starts in the middle of a continent? Now if only the AI could be taught to use wonders correctly, i.e. build Lighthouse if your stuck on an island, Sun Tzu's if your a conquerer etc. then we'd be on to something.

              Not that I dont support the idea of unique civ benefits, as long as it's optional, but it would be difficult to implement so that civs did get appropriate advantages (at least on a random map).

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              • #8
                Well... Civ II decides what to research by personality of the civilization, but I don't know about wonders. The AI also takes on wonders it can't use so you won't get them!
                Lime roots and treachery!
                "Eventually you're left with a bunch of unmemorable posters like Cyclotron, pretending that they actually know anything about who they're debating pointless crap with." - Drake Tungsten

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                • #9
                  I disagree completely. The problem isn't giving civ's bonuses (through Wonders or any other way), the problem is getting the right bonuses to the right civs. I've always wondered when the Japanese started builing pyramids...

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                  • #10
                    I'm going to respectfully disagree with you, skywalker.
                    A game of Civ shouldn't be about recreating history. It doesn't matter that the Egyptians built the Pyramids in RL.
                    My whole gripe about civ-specific bonuses is that starting a new game of civ should be like a blank canvas even after you've chosen you civ.

                    Your civ should be shaped by the way that you manage it. The possibilities are open, and if you choose to lead your civ in that direction, then you have the ability to if you play it right.

                    After all, if you make sure the Egyptians get the Pyramids, do you make sure that the English colonise North America? Do you make sure that the Roman empire has to fall?

                    ------------------
                    - MKL ... "And a sun that doesn't set but settles" - Augie March
                    Shameless Plug: http://www.poetic-license.org ............. All welcome.
                    - mkl

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                    • #11
                      Word.

                      The whole idea of Civilization is to recreate history how YOU want it... Civ-specific built in traits would undermine this basic premise of the Civ game.

                      ------------------
                      "Any shred of compassion left in me was snuffed out forever when they cast me into the flames..."
                      - Marsil, called the Pretender
                      Lime roots and treachery!
                      "Eventually you're left with a bunch of unmemorable posters like Cyclotron, pretending that they actually know anything about who they're debating pointless crap with." - Drake Tungsten

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Just wanted to voice my agreement with the "have them, but only as an option" position.

                        For full-scale, epic, historical games, I agree that Civ-specific bonuses make little sense. However, I can see a couple of potential uses for them in scenarios:

                        1) Small-scale scenarios. For example, in an American Civil War scenario, only the Union should be allowed to build, say, Abolitionist units, and only the Confederacy should be allowed to use slave labor (however that may be dealt with in the game/scenario). Note that the Confederacy could be allowed to actually abolish slavery (to gain favor with England, if that were included in the scenario), but I think they'd have had a tough time finding very many strong abolitionists who were also strong Confederate loyalists.

                        2) Non-historical scenarios. The obvious example would be a Middle-Earth scenario: The forces of darkness would have access to orc units, dwarves could build cities in mountains without starving, etc. In a not-even-fictionally-historical Star Trek scenario with all the ST races starting on one planet (!), Vulcans might get science bonuses, Ferengi might get trade bonuses, and so on.

                        There might even be some limited justification in full-scale historical games. I've heard it argued that one reason the Japanese samurai fighting style is so different from the European knighthood fighting style was that the steel ore in Japan was of higher quality, which made for better swords, which made armor less effective, which forced them to develop a style based on speed, accuracy, and dodging & parrying, rather than on encasing themselves in armor and going toe-to-toe. I'm not sure that Civ3 will simulate a fighting-style level of detail, but that's just the first example that came to mind. Since (if "true") this is a cultural/technological difference that was dependent on available resources, the only ways to simulate it that I can see would be either a civ-specific tech or bonus (assuming pre-determined starting locations), or tying a tech, unit, or bonus to local natural resources. While that would be WAY cool (Elephants, anyone?), it would also be very hard to balance, especially for random worlds (and would probably require more than one or two resources per terrain type).

                        I view the Civ games as "What If" tools. That may be as simple as "What if I were in charge of Rome?" or "What if the Japanese were pyramid-builders?", but one interesting experiment would be "What if one group of people were inherently better at [something] than all other groups of people?" How would this alternate history have been different from (or similar to) our own?

                        Anyway, in short: Unique civs good for scenarios, probably bad for standard full game.

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                        • #13
                          Well said.
                          Sorry I didn't elaborate more myself, but I've argued this point many times before.

                          ------------------
                          - MKL ... "And a sun that doesn't set but settles" - Augie March
                          Shameless Plug: http://www.poetic-license.org ............. All welcome.
                          - mkl

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            quote:

                            Originally posted by Salvius on 03-17-2001 12:56 AM
                            Just wanted to voice my agreement with the "have them, but only as an option" position.

                            For full-scale, epic, historical games, I agree that Civ-specific bonuses make little sense. However, I can see a couple of potential uses for them in scenarios:

                            1) Small-scale scenarios. For example, in an American Civil War scenario, only the Union should be allowed to build, say, Abolitionist units, and only the Confederacy should be allowed to use slave labor (however that may be dealt with in the game/scenario). Note that the Confederacy could be allowed to actually abolish slavery (to gain favor with England, if that were included in the scenario), but I think they'd have had a tough time finding very many strong abolitionists who were also strong Confederate loyalists.

                            2) Non-historical scenarios. The obvious example would be a Middle-Earth scenario: The forces of darkness would have access to orc units, dwarves could build cities in mountains without starving, etc. In a not-even-fictionally-historical Star Trek scenario with all the ST races starting on one planet (!), Vulcans might get science bonuses, Ferengi might get trade bonuses, and so on.

                            There might even be some limited justification in full-scale historical games. I've heard it argued that one reason the Japanese samurai fighting style is so different from the European knighthood fighting style was that the steel ore in Japan was of higher quality, which made for better swords, which made armor less effective, which forced them to develop a style based on speed, accuracy, and dodging & parrying, rather than on encasing themselves in armor and going toe-to-toe. I'm not sure that Civ3 will simulate a fighting-style level of detail, but that's just the first example that came to mind. Since (if "true") this is a cultural/technological difference that was dependent on available resources, the only ways to simulate it that I can see would be either a civ-specific tech or bonus (assuming pre-determined starting locations), or tying a tech, unit, or bonus to local natural resources. While that would be WAY cool (Elephants, anyone?), it would also be very hard to balance, especially for random worlds (and would probably require more than one or two resources per terrain type).

                            I view the Civ games as "What If" tools. That may be as simple as "What if I were in charge of Rome?" or "What if the Japanese were pyramid-builders?", but one interesting experiment would be "What if one group of people were inherently better at [something] than all other groups of people?" How would this alternate history have been different from (or similar to) our own?

                            Anyway, in short: Unique civs good for scenarios, probably bad for standard full game.



                            I have just started to play scenarios, and my sense is that any addition to the tools available to scenario builders would be welcome, as the existing ones make it difficult to model some historical (and other) situations.

                            I continue to believe that it unique civs (other than earned benefits) should be excluded from the basic, default game.

                            Lord of the Mark
                            "A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.” Martin Buber

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                            • #15
                              true

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