CIVILIZATIONS (ver1.0): hosted by LordStone1

[Eggman]

1) The more civilizatons at the same time, the better. If they can increase it to 16, 32, 64, or whatever number of civilizations and make it possible to finish a turn in a timely fashion, I say go for it. However, there should be an option to play with less for those with slower machines. Unless there is a real problem with the AI in this matter, this is a no brainer. To not have the option to play with at least 32 civs is clearly a step BACKWARDS from CTP.

2) This really shouldn't be a problem. With a competent programmer, it should be possible and easy to choose from hundreds of different civilizations to play with. I say include all civilizations that either (1) deserve it or (2) are fun that we can get a list of 30 city unique cities and some leaders. Personally, as an American, fighting against the Canadians is a real kick. Just make sure the Arabs are in there this time. This has been a glaring omission in every edition of Civ.

3 & 4) Sure. Why not. Just make sure that there is an option to turn it off. And make sure it play balances. Having the Romans or the Chinese or whoever have a major advantage over the others isn't any fun.

I would also like to see the colored-coded shield replaced with a custom flag. The English get the Union Jack, the American gets the Stars and Stripes, etc. It would be a nice touch.

And I really dig the thought of minor civs...

[LordStone1]

Guys, anything with the word "civilization" is relevant to this discussion!

But I'm really intrigued by the idea of minor civilizations. As I recall, "Birth of the Federation", MP's newest game which is coming out in two days, is like a Star Trek Civilization game. But there's also minor civilizations in the game like the Gorn, Breen, Pak'leds, etc (you get the idea).

I think I am going to play that game when it comes out, and we can see how the minor civilizations work out in that game. Personally, I think it's a viable idea although it requires a lot more thinking. This idea deserves more discussion.

As for the special abilities, it may be difficult to come up with a different one for each of the 48 civilizations or whatever. It was easy with just 7 in SMAC, but would it be a good idea on Earth?

A couple ideas in other forums involve "unique individuals" from a civilization (for example, in the Technology thread, someone suggested having famous scientists pop up as random events, giving you small bonuses, e.g. "Pasteur establishes lab in Paris, Paris science output increases for x turns").

That is a very good idea, but why make it specific to a civilization? In your own version of Earth, could Pasteur have lived in China? It seems to me that this kind of event could be turned into a 'random event' like in CivI. Hmm?

I'm all in favor for keeping architectural styles, and I think the addition of flags is a nice idea. But are you suggesting that each unit carry a flag, instead of just being a plain color? It sounds like this should be kept in the Graphics thread. But it's okay if threads overlap!

Oh, and I don't think the issue of how many civilizations are included in the game is really important - it's how many we should play with. But I think we all agree more flexibility in the number of civilizations that can play at one time is needed. We should be able to easily make the number up to 32, if we want to. However, I'd like to put up a warning message if you exceed 10, saying, "Warning: Increasing the number of civilizations could seriously increase the time needed to process...etc"

Oh, and the idea about civilizations merging into one and splitting into two is worthy of discussion. Should we make a list of civilizations and what civilizations can split off from them, to make it more realistic, like "Welsh, Celtic, Irish can split off English" instead of the weird scenario where the Spanish splits off from the Japanese? Or leave it entirely up to randomness?

Let's keep this going! Oh, and suggestions for new civilizations and getting rid of some are welcome. I, for one, think that the Nigerians and Nicaraguans should be deleted in favor of the Mali and the Mayans!

[the Octopus]

"That is a very good idea, but why make it specific to a civilization? In your own version of Earth, could Pasteur have lived in China? It seems to me that this kind of event could be turned into a 'random event' like in CivI."

I think the idea was to have it linked to the civilization you were playing, to draw you into the feeling of really being the "French", or whatever. Having a Chinese Pasteur would sort of ruin the whole thing for me, because I know Pasteur was French. The Chinese should have their own individuals, drawn from Chinese history. Why not kill civ-specific city names while you are at it? If all of the civs become too similar, it sort of ruins the effect, at least that's the way I see it (I can't speak for anybody else). If nothing is civ-specific anymore, you might as well be the Emperor of "Purple", fighting off the "Orange" invaders.


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"


[This message has been edited by the Octopus (edited May 23, 1999).]

[Trachmyr]

I originally posted the Idea of Major/Minor civs.

REASON: By reducing what these civs do, you reduce the # of algorithims the computer must process, thus allowing a lager CIV count w/o serious degredation to the computer.
The Fact that many CIV played minor roles in history or part of history is just an added plus.

[evil conquerer]

I think that the civilizations should be very different from each other (as in the +1 research, -2 economy, etc.). If all the civilizations are the same, there is no point in choosing one or the other. The fact is that the Babylonians were pacifist and the Mongols were war-like. It's not racist because it doesn't imply that all the people in that civilization are that way. There probably were war-like Babylonians, too. But their foreign policy, overall, was pacifist. If all the civ's are the same, then the names become meaningless and the game loses interest. Nobody called SMAC racist for giving +2 planet to the Gaians or +25% attack to the Believers (ok, that may have offended some ).

[LordStone1]

Okay, so how about lumping together "categories" of civilizations, like one category would be Warlike, begin with Bronze Working, while another, Peaceful, would begin with Alphabet? You see, there's probably going to be 36+ civilizations in the game and it would probably be too time-consuming to assign each a different personality and special ability. This was how personalities worked in CivI/II - the Warlike ones were lumped under "white" and "purple" and so on...

Octopus, I believe it's important to get the feel of the "civ", not just the color. So, do you suggest that some kind of historian be on the team and research and pop in a scientist from each and every civilization in the game? "Let's see who's the brilliant Aztec scientist..." Or how about just plain "A brilliant Scientist has discovered Toilet-Making - now science has been boosted in Teochitchilan for 10 turns" and so on? What do you think?

[Rong]

I think Civ3 should incorporate some of the new research results. One example would be the ideas presented in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393317552/002-0596442-3237655">Guns, Germs, and Steel : The Fates of Human Societies</a>.

[Freddz]

1. As many as they can squeeze in, even though this that not a goal in itself.

2. The classic old ones as a first priority; preferebly have Arabs, and both Sweden(with Karl XII as leader ) and the Vikings in too(I wonder if that's possible in the same game though).

3. No, I don't want them to have special abilities. The people should form and grow special abilities from your government choices instead(if you war a long time your people may grow advantages in war).

4.Personally I would say no, but I would suggest an option for random/nonrandom personalities as in SMAC.

[the Octopus]

LordStone1: "So, do you suggest that some kind of historian be on the team and research and pop in a scientist from each and every civilization in the game?"

Hey, I identified the problem, it's only fair that you have to identify the solution .

Seriously, I don't know what the solution is, that's why I thought it could be discussed in this thread: "Some civilizations don't have easily identifiable historical figures, how do we reconcile that with a desire by some to feature historical figures in random events?".


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CIV3-THE MASTER LIST-TECHNOLOGY "THREAD MASTER"

[LordStone1]

Actually, I do not think it would be a bad idea to have some kind of unpaid historian to be a de facto member of the CivIII team, to research up on some stuff. I know plenty of people around here who would be good at that. Let's put that on the suggestion list! A historian on the team! Unpaid historian! (yes, I'm serious. You'd get your name pinned to the greatest game of all time, plus talk with BR)

OR (I pulled this off the Radical Ideas thread and changed it a bit) we have world-known historical leaders pop up? Like, Einstein. Surely his reputation transcends his nationality, right? How about Columbus? Confucius? Buddha? Ya know? Just general historial leaders that are more well-known for what they did than their nationality....

[This message has been edited by LordStone1 (edited May 23, 1999).]

[Mo]

Minor civilizations:
1. They shouldn't be able to participate in the united nations or have their powers limited. In the united nations today the important countries are in the security council and have more power in the united nationa than the other one do.
2. They should be able to merge together with another minor civ to form a major civ.
3. They can be integrated into a major civ. The minor one would have some autonomous control over itself. This could last the whole game or could end after 10-20 years.
4. A minor civ shouldn't try and attack a major civ alone unless the major civ is very weak and close to becoming a minor civ.
5. I think that any civilization with nukes should be considered a major civ even if they are geographicaly small or have a low population. This would be realistic since anyone with a nuke can posse a threat to any country no matter what size.

[Ecce Homo]

I still dislike the major/minor civ concept. Trachmyr, it is true that we have to reduce the amount agree that civs' strategies of AI algorithms, but - if there are a lot of civs, most of them will remain small and primitive.

LordStone1, I agree that civs' strategies should differ a lot. Now we have got alternatives aggressive-rational, expansionist-perfectionist and civilized-militaristic.

We could also have liberal-totalitarian, treacherous-faithful and isolationistic-cooperative.

Civs should have no individual properties. The SMAC colonists came from different cultural backgrounds on Earth - I suppose they had got different skills.

About Vikings - a Viking isn't a member of a tribe, but a Scandinavian sailor. Instead of Vikings we should have Swedes, Norwegians, Danes and Finns.

[Travathian]

I'd like to put my vote in for unique civs as far as special abilties, unless some vast improvement is made over the current AI.

[Shining1]

Personally, I like the civII set of civilisations - they give the main races around the world, and give them the name they had at the time they were great. Some I would like to add, however, because they were either forgotten or didn't qualify as 'great nations'.

Dutch
Polynesian
Mexican (as distinct from aztec or incan)

As well, there are two things to add character to Civs that I would like to suggest.

1) Minor techs
This idea would add a bunch of minor technologies, each with a single prereq. They each have a small chance of popping up between the time the main tech is discovered and the next one is found.

If each civilisation has a few of these which ALWAYS occur, it would add character and historical realism to the race. For instance, the english and the longbow, the chinese and 'china' type pottery, the greeks and their rowing cusions (which gave them a technique advantage at sea - info), the japanese and laminated armour, and the polynesians and early nagivation.

This is not to say other races never receive these discoveries, but that each race gets given

2) Historical names.
With the SMAC design workshop likely to be included in CivIII, each race has an oppotunity to receive specific names for certain designs - which should also always appear for that race. For instance, the english had knights, the americans have marines, the greeks had hoplite - adding these names or delving even further into historical information about them would add another level of character to each race - while doing nothing at all to the game balance.

Shining1

[Mo]

I would let the game start out with a lot of civilizations. The smaller ones would either be conquered or would merge with other civs so that after a while the would be less civs but larger ones like in Civ I&II. The idea of allowing two smaller civs to merge has been discussed in the diplomacy thread. I would like that the civs have their own personality, but this personality can change during the game. An event which would cause this would be surrendering in a war( this again was discussed in Diplomacy).