CIVILIZATIONS (ver1.1): hosted by LordStone1

[CormacMacArt]

I like the minor tech idea; if I read it right, it is sort of like being able to discover improovments on known technologies.
Note to LordStone1: Civ II does not give civs abilities related to where they are. I usually play Ireland (big suprise there), start out on the island without mapmaking and wonder how I got there in the first place!

[monolith94]

1. The difference in civs should only extend as to what their cities and inhabitants look like. Their are too many civs in the world to have unigue abilities for all of them.
2. Include the Tibetans. Alright, I know they aren't of the standard conquering fare, but they are an immenseley cultured race. Hell, they're better than Jamaicans!

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"Love your enemy, for he teaches you patience!"
-Dalai Lama
Read "The Third Eye" - T. Lobsang Rampa

[Aharon Ben Rav]

Think Paul summarizes things nicely, so I'll riff off of his comments...

1) How many civilizations should be in the game?
As many as the players want. If I wanted to play with 100 or 200 civilizations I should be able to do that.

Unrealistic, if the Firaxis designers want to include distinct graphics for a Civ's diplomats, let alone some of the other things people are asking for like cities, units, flags, etc. I think 36 is more realistic.

2) Which civilizations?
Whichever they can think of and some more. If you want to play with lots of AI players you will need them. But some civilizations should have higher chances of being selected. I would certainly be disappointed if I had a three civ game with Luxemburg, Andorra and Liechtenstein, so civs like the Chinese, Spanish or Aztecs should have a bigger chance of being selected when you start a game.

If more than 40 or nations are included, this is a good point. I like the idea of having more historically important nations show up more often.

Civ had a better selection of nations than CTP as far as picking empires which actually had empires, but for the 47th time let's make sure we include the Arabs, okay? They did rule a good deal of the world and were the most advanced nation on earth for a couple hundred years. For selfish reasons, of course, I'd also like to see the Hebrews included as in CTP.

And let's not have one of the major American cities be "Newport Beach." Thank you.

3)Should the civilizations have special abilities?
4) Should each civilization have a personality?

I am in favor of the second, not the first, but either way this should be able to be turned off at the start of the game (as in SMAC where faction profiles can be randomized).

Aharon Ben Rav

[Harel]

I had a post in the technology thread: that techs should give a bonus, a small bonus to the empire. A food making tech, like farming or irrigation, would give a +5% to all food growth in the empire.
This represent that techs have bigger effects of the civilazation then just more units and buildings.
But techs don't just enhance us, they mold us. Every tech has some cost, but a changing bonus will be added to the MOST ADVANCED ABILIIES. If you have the biggest bonus for food making, you will get an extra +25% to that. The second one will get +10%, the rest nothing. The lowest section would get an extra -10%.
Those effects will slowly change when the order will be replaced.
Let's say that you had food for first, and consturction for second...
suddenly culture is first... before that it had +0%. to the trasfer is 5% per turn...
turn 1:
Food: +20%
Culture: +5%
turn 2:
Food: +15%
culture: +10%
Etc.
Those effects would come IN ADDIDATION to all the other tech effects.

[CormacMacArt]

Personally, 14 civs would be fine for me, but we have yet to deal with the real limiting factor: personality traits. The present formulation in Civ II permits 27 distinct variations. How do we go higher? Another personality facet? Increase the depth of the characteristics?

[Mo]

I think there should be events in the game which can change a civs personality. A semi war like civ can become pacifist if they lose a big war. A civ can become warlike if there homeland is threatend, and so on.

[St Leo]

I prefer pre-set personalities, if the AI is competitive in all of them. Remember, we can always have duplicate personalities.

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St. Leo
www.sidgames.com/imperialism/

[Shining1]

True. Whose to say the goths were any better or worse than the mongols - they both seemed to have pretty much the same idea.

36 civs sounds reasonable, provided this doesn't start repeating races more than twice (e.g Vikings, Swedes, and Nordic civs - I think that's a bit much - if you like scandiavia that much, you should create your own civs.)

So long as there is a means to include your own civs - I'll be bitterly dissapointed if there isn't a polynesian civ in CivIII. On the other hand, most of europe and america probably couldn't care less. So long as I can include my own civs, I'll be relatively happy.

[Cartagia the Great]

I have a few intersting ideas for the new Game. For the first I would like to say that I do enjoy the way that ,in Civ:CTP, you cna create new governments, not jsut customize the ones given to you. I feel that this is something which needs to be kept in Civ3.

Likewise, for the governments, I believe that it woudl bei nterstign to, isntead of jsut startign out in the Tyranny gov, if gave you an option. You could start as either a City State gov, or a Tribal gov. Each would have a few advantages and disadvantage,s and might control lthe way your tech tree goes from that point on.

I also feel that it would be a good idea to be able to build colonies, or convert conquered cities into colonies. these colnies would produce mroe trade, and more money, but would cost slightly more to defend, and would have a better chance of rebelling than other cities. When they did rebell they would take colonies near by and form a new government. In the case of conquered lands like India, a new Indian Nation would be created. In the case on non-conquered colonies they would form a brand new government, of a new name.

For personality, perhapse it woudl be intersting for each Male and Female leader to ahve slightly differant persoanlities. lets take the case of...Russia. If the male leader is Stalin, his persoanlity would be far diffreant than the female leader Cathrine the Great, and this should be shown, I believe.

Boarders are another thing that needs to be adressed. I think it makes sence that their purpose, and such, would be modified over time. In the early stages of the game if under, the hypothetical, Tribal government, you would have few, if any, boarders due to the tribal state. Now, if they developed into a Monarchy, and this was still in the beginning of the game, they boarders would be lose, and forts kept along them would be needed to a greater extent. However crossing one would cause diplomatic relations to go into affect. later in the game it would be even mroe extreme once things such governments and Fascism went into affect, or so.

For the civlizations actually represented in the game, I think that we need to stray as far from the Civ:CTP way of having Haiti and Rome standing next to one another. Now, I do nto midn the inclusion of the Scots and Irish in the game, however, but only if the Celts are not done proporly, as they were done in Civ2, with the Celtic Capital beign the Capital of Wales, created in the later part of this millenium. I bleieve that a proper list of civilizations MUST include:

Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Persians, Aztecs(or Mexicans), Inca, Russian, Polish, German, Chinese, Germans, English, Irish, Scotish, Celts, Turks(Ottoman), Norse, Hellens, Indians, Egyptians, French, Americans, Canadians, Australians, Etheopians, Zulu, Hungarians(or Austo-Hungarians), and others.

For thatm atter I bleive that civilization names should change through the differant ages. When you enter a certian year you should be able to change the name of your civilization to, eithe,r one that was pre-chossen, or give you theo pinion of taking an ew one. In such a way the Franks, after reaching the proper age, could becoem the French, the Magyars could becoem Hungarian, and the Slavs could become the Serbs, Bulgarians, Russians and so forth. Or, if you prefer, the Franks could become, if in your mind they had a lot of contact with the English, the Franklanders or something.

What do you all feel about those ideas/ i DO ahve more, of course

[Shining1]

Monolith: Man, you are so right. Make that 2 votes for tibet!

[CormacMacArt]

I also think that the personalities should be preset; only those of us with multiple personalities are actually going to change attitudes in the middle of the game. One thing though, the "rational" AI players need to be a bit more defencive minded. I would also like it if more Oceanic civs were included; I put Australia (and Inca) in my rules.txt, because it is so unbalanced.

[PhotonMan]

) How many civilizations should be in the game?
I think 7 is too few, I'd say as many as 32. Much more and the game would probably be too slow. I also think if you are allies, like in Alpha Centauri, you should be able to occupy the same square, and fight together. (Imagining a whopper of a WWII scenario, with 32 countries.)
2) Which civilizations?
I like most of the Civs listed in CTP, although overall I don't like CivCTP (5 on a 1to10 scale)

3)Should the civilizations have special abilities?
I would like to see a civilizations abilities customizable to an extend the same way you can customize Social Engineering settings Alpha Centauri. Have a few major areas, like Seafaring, Agriculture, Industry
etc. and maybe a few minor specific areas, like Archery, Horsemanship, Gunnery, Naval Gunnery, Naval Construction, and you'd have a value you can put for each... like POOR,GOOD,AVE,EXCELL, and you'd only have so many "points" to put in total for all areas.

4) Should each civilization have a personality?
Maybe... I think there should be an option to play with random or historical personalities. For example, you could play against the British, and they'd have excellent NavalGunnery. (British naval gunners were better trained and had a greater rate of fire than Spanish or French.)
Assyrians,Scythians,Mongols could have good HorseArchery.

[LordStone1]

Okay, here's some more input on this minor civilization idea.

I asked people at the BOTF (Birth of the Federation) forum @ Sidgames.com about how the minor civ thing worked out in the game. Here's fluffy's response.

Minor races are probably the best new feature in BOTF - really the only major new idea.

In general, a minor race has one "special" building that it can contribute. The special building does something like improve research in a particular area, increase morale, improve that planet's industry, or something.

The minor races, when independent, function basically as miniature empires. They never colonize or invade other planets, but they can maintain their own military forces. Each minor race has its own technology level - some of the technology levels are extremely high and better than anything you might build your own for most of the game, and some are barely out of the stone age.

You can either conquer a minor race, or convince them to join you, or leave them independent and trade with them, etc. You can even ally with them. Different minor races react differently to the various major empires. Some like everybody (there's one that immediately joins you the minute you encounter them) whereas some are picky about who their friends are.

If you end up owning a minor race (either by them voluntarily becoming a member of your empire, or by military conquest) you get whatever's on their planet when they join, and then their planet acts like a member of your empire. If they are low tech you can upgrade them, and if they are high tech they will soon be a rather important member of your empire. :}

Minor races that voluntarily became members can voluntarily become un-members again, but that doesn't happen too often. If you conquer them, on the other hand, they will riot and sabotage things and generally carry on; but this is controllable. Empires have different abilities with respect to minor races- the Federation has a great advantage in persuasion, allowing minor races to more easily join, whereas the Cardassians are very efficient at keeping the slaves under control. Klingons aren't particularly good at either of those, but they fight so well that taking over minor races is much easier. And the Ferengi can make so much money trading with them that letting them be independent is almost as good as getting them to join.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

- First Post in this Thread-

Some of what I'm going to say will repeat things I've posted in other threads, but since this seems to be the place to bring them all together, here goes...
There are several major problems with having a mass of civilizations playing at the same time in a single game:
1. Telling them apart. My computer doesn't always differentiate enough between "barbarian red" and "civ maroon" in CtP; what's going to happen when there are so many civs that they have to use chartreuse, puce, and vermillion?
2. One of the major features of the game is Exploration (the others being Advance, Build, and Conquer). If the map is stuffed with civs, no goodie hut/monolith/ancient ruin will survive the first few turns undiscovered, takng a lot of the fun out of "wandering the map" later in the game. Also, everywhere you wander you'll hit a civ border very quickly. The only way to keep the relationship between civs and map we have in the games now would be a massive increase in the size of the map. This is not an intrinsically bad thing, but now we're looking at huge Sav. files, increased loading times, and a general slow-down of processing. Can we afford that?
3. Historically, very few Civs had cities in 4000 BC, or anywhere near that time. Now, some have suggested moving the starting date back to 6000BC or earlier, but I have't heard any suggestions for moving the date forward, truncating the early part of the game so that everyone starts with a chance to build a city.
I think the answer to the Multiple Civs question is more Variety of civs. Right now, everyone follows pretty much the same pattern: build cities, go for the Major Wonders and Advances, get ahead of the opponents in Tech, build Spaceship/Wormhole, whatever, Win. Let's mix it up a little:
1. Nomadic Civs
I posted this elsewhere, but here's a summary. You start with a Tribe, not a Settler. Tribes have a radius lke a city, but they can move (slowly). They exploit the terrain differently: no agriculture, but hunters in the woods, herders on the grasslands and plains. They automatically generate Warriors or other military units from their population (military skills are part of survival for everybody). Certain Improvements (permanent structures) would be impossible, but they could have alternatives, for example if they have enough food surplus they can put some of it into Increased Production (folks don't have to work for food, they can sit around fabricating things like weapons, trade goods, etc).
They would be major traders, and should have an advantage in "borrowing" Tech from setled Civs they contact - and possibly spreading them to other Civs in trade routes.
Eventually, the Nomad civ would have to settle down, because Gunpowder, for example, pretty much requires fixed installations to manufacture. But they could do this either by starting their own cities (which the Scythians did in the Crimea) or by conquering other cities (which durn near all of the nomadic civs did!). This would give a valid alternate starting civ for a lot of the early players.
2. Vary Civ's starting Tech level based on where they sart. Terrain influence has always been hugely underestimated in the Civ games (and some other games I could mention, like MicroSwamp/ESs AoE). The characteristics that made a Phoenician or Egyptian civ were based largely on the surroundings they had to work with. Egypt had a large river and a requirement to irrigate, the Phoenicians had a lot of seacoast and unfriendly interior terrain.
We can either start Civs in terrain appropriate to their historical beginnings, or vary their starting Tech based on the terrain they start in. The first leads to somewhat stereotyped Start Positions, but historical development (no Seafaring Mongols, or Jungle-dwelling Romans for instance), the second to more randomness in how you play (I picked Vikings and ended up in the middle of the desert with Chariots, oops!)
One compromise would be to allow the player to choose which he wants to play from the beginning: select Historical Civs, and startng positions would be based on the historical terrain and conditions. Select Random Civs, and your civilization, regardless of the starting name, would develop according to the random terrain it starts in.
Examples of varied starting tech/conditions:
1. Egyptians
start in 4000BC with Irrigation, Agriculture, and possibly with a city already built. They have the government type Divine Monarchy and Organized Religion. They start on a navigable river, surrounded by desert and/or mountains. In other words, their farmable land is limited without irrigation, abd they are relatively isolated from neighbors.
2. Celts
Start in 4000BC with Metal Working (copper, no Bronze yet) as nomads with a Elected Chieftain in a forested, hilly terrain. Their Warriors will have better Morale (SMAC-type multiple level system is a MUST) than Egyptian farmers, and there are more resources readily available without having to "terraform" the terrain around them.
The Egyptians would have pluses when attempting to research things like Masonry or Construction (they built some of the first large stone buildings in the Near East), while the Celts and other Nomads would have an advantage in developing Trade and certain weapons (advanced bows, swords, etc).
Along the same lines, Barbarians must be much more versatile than they are now: you should be able to trade with them more, and a Barbarian-captured city if not recaptured should develop into a new hybrid civ: use shields divided into two colors: one the original Civ color, and Barbarian Red. This would solve the problem of including Civs in 4000BC that didn't exist until millenia later, like French or Americans.
Even with a relatively small number of civilizations, perhaps between 7 - 10 starting civs, by increasing the variety of starting positions and development paths we can get the equivalent of a far larger number without having to monstrously increase the size of the game to keep the goodies in exploration and contact.

[Eggman]

You can avoid the similar color shield confusion caused by large numbers of civs at the same time by implementing shields with multiple color designs. The UK's Union Jack is hard to confuse with anything. And I am sure that there will be an option to play with as many or few civs as you would like so that it really not an issue.