GAME ATMOSPHERE (ver 1.1) hosted by Dominique

[Flavor Dave]

This is the smartest thread, by far, I've read so far. Great, great suggestions.

[EnochF]

Don't get me started on a comparison between English and American humour. Humor. Whatever. I might just have to visit the Off-Topic section for the first time... (England seems to have cornered the market on humourous novels thanks to Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, but America has always had the best stand-up comics. Steven Wright and Dennis Miller are amazing to listen to sometimes...)

(Hey, let's argue about Civilization outside the parentheses while simultaneously arguing about humour inside them, all right?)

Anyway, moving along, by "commentaries," I presume we're talking about the Civilopedia and/or Great Library and/or Datalinks, yes? Datalinks, incidentally, was woefully lacking, I happen to think, in any worthwhile description of exactly what one had just discovered.

It's been a while since I've flipped through Call to Power's "Great Library," so I don't recall whether there was an American slant to the writing or not. I don't particularly recall one. The description of the Cyber Ninja read like the dust jacket of a William Gibson novel, but certainly not like an actual William Gibson novel, so there you are. I never got the impression the text was "sprinkled with Americanisms." What is an Americanism, anyway? "Don't piss on my back and tell me it's rainin'," perhaps?

As long as everything spelled correctly... as I certainly hope I've managed to do in this post... I don't mind either way. I don't much care how they decide to spell "colour," as long as they know the difference between "breath" and "breathe," unlike 90 percent of the Internet population...

[Guest]

I would like to see Civ-III become a "ruling over an Empire type game" rather than a collection of cities. For example, I find it tedious to build a University in every city, If I choose to do so, I should have the option of making a huge University in one City, A Huge set of Factories in another city, and so on..., with the impact on production, education being the same for my Empire.

CTP making the UNITS drain production from the Empire, rather than from individual cities, was a Huge positive step in this direction.

[Cartagia the Great]

I completely agree with the idea of it being a "rule the Empire, not hundres of cities". Perhapse, to do this, you'd be able to set up providences inside your nation, which could only be so big, and so small, and it would be these providences that would be affected by bulding such things as univercities, and the likes. Maybe even have the ability to build a provincial capital for one reason or another?

AS for the comedy. I like both American and British humor, and can understand both pretty well, depending on my mood at the time. I like David Lettermen, and yet love Faulty Towers, Monty Python and Dred dwarf, an strange one I am

[Eggman]

BTW, a "History Text" Replay should include major points by other civilizations as well. You know, Civ X wipes out Civ Y. Also, the key techs should be reflected:

1620AD The Chinese develop Gunpowder
1722AD The Industrial Revolution begins in England
1500BC The Golden Age of Philosophy begins in Athens, Greece.

Not all the techs should be reflected, just the big ones.

[wheathin]

For lack of a better place to put it:

Difficult gamestarts?
In addition to the usual game-start options, such as map configuring, level, number of players, etc, there should be an option to start as a latter-day civ. And not just like the Quickstart in Civ2. You would actually be starting up your empire while the computer civs have already founded several cities, and would then have to play a really hard game of catch up from the begining.

The computers would have advantages, but they wouldn't depend so heavily on just getting crushing cheat bonuses in shields and science.

wheathin

[SnowFire]

Eh... I disagree, wheathin. The problem in many games right now is that the degree of cheating stays constant thoroughout the game. The result is an extremely tough early game, followed by an easy endgame as you march to victory. What we need is not-quite-so-overpowering cheating at the beginning (better AI would help a lot here), and then the level of cheating ramped up as things look worse and worse for the computer.

[Cartagia the Great]

I think that one thing which would be intersting is if the Computer 'spices' things up a bit more. Instead of saying "Carthage and Rome make peace" the message could say "Treaty of Lughdunum: Cartahe and Rome end the Eternal War" or "30 years war" or "Ceaser's War" or something along those lines.

I would also like to see better historical accuracy in names. Instead of building the city of 'Rome' I'd like to Build 'Roma' or not 'Athens' but 'Athenae'. For that matter, perhapse there could be an option to sue the correct names for a nation, isntead of the European names. Instead of playing as the Greeks, one would play as the Hellens, or one could play as the Deutch instead of the Germans.

That would, of course, be an option, but would really add to the experience in my opinion.

For the music selection I'd like to see music the depends on the civilization, and the age. In the earlier part of the game, after going to war, I'd love to hear some Seltic War music, or any type of war music. This would change as the game went on. The music selection would be a mix of national themes, and musics to fit the mood. I DID love the Music to Civ:CTP, of course

[NotLikeTea]

I really like the idea of historically accurate names, but how do we handle Japanese names? Or Chinese? Or Russian?

Or even Mongols, who didn't have a written script till Ghengis came around.

Speaking of accuracy, I have read that Ghengis should be more accurately spelled Chinggis, Mao Testung is better spelled Mao Zedong, and I'm sure there are others.

And accurate titles! Kahn was a title for the mongols, not just a name. Chinggis was the "Great Kahn" of the mongols, not the "King."

[Icedan]

Are you saying they should be spelt the way they are said?

I hope not!

[NotLikeTea]

Well, just for those whos names were not written in our alphabet. If it can be spelled using our keyboards, do so. If not (Japanese, Mongol, Chinese, etc) they should try to get the most accurate spelling possible. Dunno if this is always how it is pronounced (though I imagine it would be), but the history folks out there would know what to do.

While doing a project on Mao, I came across 5 different spellings of his given name (In China, the order of names are reversed. I am not on a first name basis with dead communists. Yet. )

[EnochF]

Except the Chinese actually pronounce Mao's name "Mao Tse-tung." That's what any Westerner would hear, anyway. It's only when the linguists start getting involved that problems start cropping up. You know the people I'm talking about. "My name is Jacques." "Jacques?" "No, Jacques." "Jacques?" "No, no, no! Jacques!" "That's what I said. Jacques." "Jacques, you stupid English pig-dog!" And all of a sudden "Dung Zhaoping" is spelled "Deng Qaopeng" but pronounced exactly the same. And poor Mao is reduced to a "Zedong" to make sure nobody can find him in the encyclopedia. Fortunately, the linguists haven't convinced anybody to change Genghis Khan's name to "Chinggis." Unfortunately, though, the linguists have had a field day with Russia. Thanks to the dedication of linguists who wildly disagree with each other, no two maps of Russia have the same name for everything. Kiev becomes Kyyiv or Kyiev or Kyyv or Kashyyyk. Don't expect Belarus to keep that spelling, either; it'll be Byelarus or Byelorussia or Bielaruss any day now. And don't even get me started on the five thousand spellings of Muomar Gaddafi...

[Cartagia the Great]

Well, I believe that it would be best to go for the answer that is most widly thought to be cotrrect with such things. I also agree that the titles should be accurate. I don't want to be the King of the Persians, I want to be the Shahenshah or King of Kings. Or, perhapse, instead of being Emperor of Rome you'd prefer to be called Ceaser or Augustus(all titles for Roman Emperors). Possibly even being called the Kiaser of Germany. See what I'm saying? There would be SOME difficulty, of course, but I believe that it would be worth it, it would DEFFIANLTY contribute to the atmosphere of the game

[Ecce Homo]

Cartagia the Great, Civ 2 has already got specific titles for different civs. I haven't played CtP.

The list is incomplete, however. In my rules.txt file, I have added titles like Pope, Guru and Lama for Roman, Indian and Mongol Fundamentalist leaders.

[NotLikeTea]

OK ok ok! I'll give in on the name thing, as long as it's editable, so MY Mao IS named Zedong