GAME ATMOSPHERE (ver 1.1) hosted by Dominique

[NotLikeTea]

This is a wonderful idea...

War is a bad thing, afterall.. players should feel some remorse at seeing their people being killed. At the very least the people should be angry at the player if things are going poorly. Even a winning war with a lot of losses is not ikely to be popular, nless the people see a good reason for it.

I always play defensive games... I like to have a nice society before I fght wars. I actually think SMAC did a good job at this.. after uniting in alliance with many factions, I, as the PeaceKeepers used planetbustres, nerve gas, and wiped out colonies against the hive. I won, but it felt like a hollow victory, since Id gone against my ideals. THIS is what a good game needs...

[Alexander's Horse]

Thank Enoch and NotLike, I'm glad the idea has some support.

Another idea, would be to work in an association between war and disease which tended to decimate both fighting and civilian populations, even in the modern period (VD hospitals alone on the Western Front in WWI had up to 500,000 patients on just the allied side and this was before anti-biotics). I don't know how the link could be worked in though - may be just graphically showing the population suffering in the city screen when besieged etc.

We don't want to make the game too gloomy but war is hell and the game might even be slightly educational on this point if it had things in it like war graves and smoking ruins - at least it would make people think a bit - who needs more Bosnia's and Kosovo's? On the other hand I can't quite believe I just wrote that because as a player I'm the greatest warmonger out and always end the game by subjugation - leaving one city whilst I build my score- but perhaps this is just because building the spaceship is so lame and there is little real incentive in Civ I or II to go for world peace.

It can be rather hollow feeling when the last city falls under the sword. Legend has it that Alexander the Great died of a broken heart because there were no worlds left to conquer.

[Eggman]

I like the idea of marking recently conquered cities with smoke and destroyed cities with ruins. Not only does it show war is hell, it must be a huge ego boost for those that like conquering the world. SEE AS THE WORLD BURNS BEFORE MY MIGHT ARMY! MUHAHAHAHA!

[yin26]

I guess this would go in the newspaper, but it would be really fun if the game could keep track of all your battles, improvements, diplomacy, etc. (keeping track of the other Civs would be nice, too):

Yin's 3rd Regiment consisting of 2 light-armored tanks, a Stealth bomber, and 4 infantry engaged China's 53rd Elite Patrol Division, consisting of some rock throwers and a random guy with a small caliber handgun. The battle, which took place near Death Valley Ridge, lasted 3 days. Yin's 3rd Regiment lost its bomber when the random guy with a gun got a lucky shot, but the 53rd Elite Patrol is no more.

In other news, Yin's Empire forces a heavy trading embargo on the Greeks, rendering the Greek war machine virtually powerless.

The stock market continued to fall today at the news that Yin and China seem prepared for war.

Now, most attempts at this kind of thing have been half-hearted at best. In that case, just leave it out. However, done well, this could add immeasurable fun to the game.

[Eggman]

What is the capital of Yin? ;-)

[yin26]

-=*MOVING THREAD UP*=-

[NotLikeTea]

Hehehe.. I like the paper

On an unrelated note, I'd love to see the name changing present in Smac.

Afterall, Istanbul was Constantinople. (Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. Why is it Istanbul, not Constantinople? I don't know. Even old New York was once New Amsterdam. Why'd they have to change their name? Maybe they like it better that way...)

Great.. now I got that song in my head... Better than if I were discussing Waterloo, I suppose

[Icedan]

I don't think the look of the city should change to your own when a city is taken over.

Also when a city has been nuked, shouldnt it LOOK nuked?

[Diodorus Sicilus]

To add some footnotes to a bunch of Great Posts...
The first regularly scheduled newspapers didn't come along until the 18th century (first in Saxony and Strasbourg, if you must know), so let's have 'news' appropriate to the period: in ancient times you'd get an image of a marble column in the forum/agora/market with inscriptions chiseled on it telling you what happened, or a Herodotus type sitting in the square declaiming news to the people while his assistant passed the hat. In Medieval times it would be the Town Crier declaring that "the War is Over!" etc. In early modern times you'd get a posted Broadside (newssheet) with early print, Modern would be the multi-point type screaming headlines (or a "National Tattler" sort of sensationalist news for certain events). The Present and Near Future might have a web-site effect.
Since I don't remember seeing an Explorations thread lately, how about giving us Terrain Features to name as we discover them? This could be done several ways:
1. Each map is generated with certain namable features: highest mountain, longest river, Great Falls, deserts, great bays or deltas, jungles, long nountain ranges, etc.
2. You can pick (borrowed from the new Star Trek BotF game) whether to have none, some, or all of the nameable features on the map.
3. Only the longest, highest, biggest of each type of feature would be nameable, OR all features above a certain size (X tiles of contiguous mountains, a river at least X tiles long, etc) would be nameable.

While I'm at it, I second the notion of renaming cities, adding graphics for War Damage, and especially the idea that doing well or poorly in a war should affect the Happiness/Contenment levels of your citizens. This is especially important in Republics and Democracies, where major defeats can lead the people to demand peace, or vote to hang the generals responsible (happened several times in ancient Athens) and a Tyrant or Monarch that lost a war could find his seat/throne very shakey indeed. Conversely, Democracies or Republics that are consistantly winning would be much less likely to be upset that the boys are away from home: support for a 'good war' is always higher...

[EnochF]

Hey, NotLikeTea, that's nobody's business but the Turks'!

I wouldn't mind seeing the "paper," but I'd much rather see "encyclopedia" entries after a battle, personally. Maybe encyclopedia entries for ancient and renaissance battles, and newspapers for industrial and modern battles...? Or maybe not encyclopedia entries, but maybe "inscriptions" on a monument for ancient battles and "town cryers" for the renaissance...

Oh, I don't know... see, I've always wanted each game of Civ I play to construct a "history" file which includes all the piddly little details of every game. It's like providing the backstory for a novel, a historical context for some unwritten epic... it inspires ideas, y'know?

[NotLikeTea]

I'd also like to see city renaming after revolutions.

St. Petersburg became Leningrad, then Stalingrad, then St. Petersburg again. Interestingly enough, they change their name back to Stalingrad for 4 days every year, to honour the people who defended it in the second world war.

All clear?

[yin26]

-=*MOVING THREAD UP*=-

[NotLikeTea]

Me again

Another idea came to mind: Empire names.

Instead of "The Chinese have built the Great Wall" let's have "The Chinese Empire has built the Great Wall".

Instead of "Spies report that the Freach and the Greeks have formed a pact", let's have "Spies report that the People's Republic of France, and the Kingdom of Greece have signed a pact."

These should be customizable by the player in the .txt files, just as the leader titles are. For example, instead of the default "Democratic Republic of America" we'd have the "United States of America" (Though the D.R.P sounds better, really ) Similarly, we wouldn't have "The People Republic of Russia" but "The U.S.S.R." There should be defaults, though. What do we call a communist america? Hard to tell, since there has never been one (yet ), but "the People's Republic of America" is a good guess. Sounds cool, too. Hrm... "Comrade Al?" "Chairman Bill?" I think that the US should have a revolution, just on the basis of sounding cooler.

Problems would be in researching all the info needed for accuracy. Also, have all civilizations had names for themselves? The mongols have Mongolia, the Germans Germany, but what about the Aztecs? The Sioux?

Also, how linquistically accurate should the names be? The Germans have Germany, but they call it Deutchland (and call themselves Deutch). Hrm... this is a bigger point than I thought. The French have France, but they call themselves Les Francais. The U.S.S.R. had a different acronym in Russian, obviously. In this case, the english version is probably best, to avoid confusion.

[Eggman]

As I recently proposed in the Wonders thread, having Olympic Games would be a nice addition to the atmosphere. Once the Wonder is built, there would be games every X turns in a different city. Whoever "wins" the games gets one free I Love the Leader days in every city they own. Plus the host civ and the civ that built the wonder would get bonuses of some sort.

Just seems cool to me. It would be a lot of fun.

(NOTE: This idea was probably inspired by something I read sometime. Perhaps something in a SMAC forum somewhere).

[Icedan]

IT WAS MEEEE!!!!!! I CAME UP WITH THE OLYMPICS IDEA!!! AND YES IT SHOULD BE IN THE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I want something ELSE, something DIFFERENT to keep me occupied!! Not only that!!! But it is something that isn't really repetitive!!
Its like a gamble almost! ))