CIVILIZATIONS (ver2.0): hosted by LordStone1

[BigBarbarian]

Play as the Barbarians! This feature HAS to be implmented!! To facillitate this you start out with one base city and a bunch of attack units. All the huts that make units for you are marked. To incite uprisings you use a leader(Diplomat/spy) and pay a certain amount of gold. This will create 6 or so of your best attackers (according to your tech level). Limitations on research make it slow, so the primary way of advances are demanding them from other civs(stealing or otherwise) or taking them as booty when a city is conquered. Barbarians shouldn't be able to build new cities, but are allowed to irrigate and etc. The advantages of barbarians would be more gold, more leverage in diplomatic negotiations if lots of units are outside a city, fast unit production and better spies/diplomats.

[Eggman]

Another note on minor civs. They have to be strong enough that they cannot be conquered easily (at least at the beginning). You shouldn't get free cities because you intentionally leave territory open. This doesn't mean that all minor civs should be modern - I have no problem of having isolated minor civs easily conquered when they are discovered because they are technologically backwards. This is realistic. Minor civs should be relatively well armed for defense and, if they are conquered, have a much greater chance of revolt.

Minor civs should also have that ability to go into some sort of defensive pact with major powers. This could be in the form of a true alliance (they go to war with you) or as a protectorate (if anyone attacks them, you automatically go to war against the aggressor but not vice-versa). This allows them to remain independent as any attack will result in a war. The result is the ability to woo minor powers diplomatically without having to worry about major powers squashing them and ruining all your work.

As an additional bonus, trade with independent minor nations should be greater than internal trade. Gives another reason not to squash them immediately.

And I really like the barbarian idea. Adds a bit of silliness and a whole new angle of gameplay. Instead of building up, see how much you can break.

[Andy B]

Barbarians are not a Civilization. But yes that would be fun to play them.

And why do we have to have major\minor civs. I think that every civ should start on equal conditions.

[Cartagia the Great]

Well my cousin went out and bought the Star Trek:BOF game, and I must say that it is an excelent game. I'm enjoying playing it much more than CTP, and that is rather sad, isn't it? After playing it, I have to say that minor civilizations are a MUST HAVE.

Anyway, here are my ideas for how minor civilizations would be used in this game. Most of this has been said before, I'm sure, but I don't care

Minor/major change- Every Civilization would have a chance to be either minor or major civilization. this chance would be set in the rules.txt or it's equivlent. For instance the Romans would ahve a 80 percent chance of being a major civ, but the Belgians would have, perhapse, a 30 percent chance of being a major civ.

This would allow us to get all of the civilizations we want into this game, because there would be a need for many civs.

joining-as in BOF Minor civilizations could join your nation either through conquest or through joining. If you conquer them you msut KEEP them under your controll, and they might stage rebellions to get out of your control. When conquered they'd act like any other conquered civilization, most likly.

If they choice to becoem one with you, they become like any other city. However, any settlers built from those cities would carry some of their ethnitiicty with them, so that if they decide to break free they'd try to take those cities with them. If they join you, you msut make sure to treat thme very nice, you cna't expell their population or the like.

It would be possible to liberate a minor civ, or any other civ for that matter, if you take that city from the enemy.


Minor powers would start with one or two cities, but couldn't build any more.. They could, however, irrigate and the like.

They would pop up in unclaimedl and all throughout the game, until most territory is taken by someone. This would represent how we have many differany nations on Earth, liek the Greeks, Irish, French, Germans and the like, we don't just have 7.


So, basicly, jsut liek in BOF, onyl with a few rules to make it fit better into civilization.

[Imran Siddiqui]

A question: If I have 32 Civs in my game, where could there possibly be room for Minor Civs?!

[SnowFire]

Imran: Because only 6-8 of them are major, and the rest are minor.

Cartagia: I actually mentioned the "probablity of becoming major/minor" in another thread, except I added a different twist- not only would it affect how big a chance that it would be a major civ, it would also affect the chance of it simply being included. For instance, the British and the Chinese would be included in most games, while the Sioux might only show up as a minor tribe rather rarely, except on large maps with a lot of minor civs. It involved a certain number of points for being a major civ, and for being a minor civ. The general idae is you stick all the major civ stones in a bag, and pick out 6-8: Since Britain has 6 stones in the bag and Belgium 1, the drawing is rigged. And then, with all the civs not selected to be majors initially, they get their minor civ stones thrown in the bag. So it would be like:
Britain: 6,6 (high chance of being included)
Belgium: 1,5 (small chance of being major, okay chance of being minor)

My view on minor civ advancement: Yes, they get most of their techs from Tech bleed. The result is (and perhaps this can be programmed in) that an isolated minor civ or group of minor civs (like in America) will still have bows and arrows when the Europeans come across. On the other hand, Belgium, a protectorate of England and France, survives in the middle of a major nation minefield because it has strong friends and all the technology of its many friends. Which reminds me, in the modern era, the era of de-imperializing, Germany would be quite annoyed if it became part of England after WWI. Instead, you have to decide a policy with what to do with the defeated nation- spend lots of money occupying it? Give it back to the nation, with a Versailles-like clause? Or just give it back?

Which reminds me, it's silly that there isn't more map-sharing between trade partners- I remember trading with cities in SMAC I couldn't see. Apperantly my traders forgot the locations of the bases they were going and didn't tell the government.

[Ecce Homo]

I am not sure about the major/minor civ concept. This is not just to be politically correct, but I would rather see that the civs' AI should differ. The English AI would be likely to result in a strong, expanding, advancing civ, while the Sioux AI would not have the right parameters for being successful. Then it would be a greater challenge for the player to play against the "better" AI:s.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ecce Homo (edited June 22, 1999).]</font>

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ok, I don't like the Major/Minor civ idea at all!

[Ekmek]

The minor and major civ thing is great, if it doesn't impede on waiting for my turn. It would be nice though to see several tribes at the beginning and only some develop into civilizations and some become/remain nomadic tribes, barbarians up until modern times had a big impact on civilization (rome and china especially) and there should be more emphasis on that instead of random attacks.

Also it maybe way to difficult but it would be nice to have not only geographic position affect development but certain resources and climate dictates expansion too. (i.e. horses and elephant weren't prerdominant everywhere and the romans could settle in the northeast because they didn't know how to farm in the wooded areas of germany and russia because all they new were olive trees and fishing etc.) It would add to the history and kep some "shape" to empire development.

[EnochF]

I'm still on the fence about the Minor Civ idea. I'll tell you what, though. I'll probably buy this Birth of the Federation game, and after I've played for a while, I'll offer up an opinion on whether minor civs add or detract to things.

I would like to hear reasons from the naysayers. The two probable objections I see are, (1) it will decrease the amount of real competition in the game because minor civs cannot compete with major civs, and (2) I don't want my civilization to be called "minor." There are probably variations on #2, like I don't want the civilization of my ancestors called "minor," or I don't want my friend's civilization called "minor," or it's not politically correct to call this civilization "minor."

[Imran Siddiqui]

I wonder; why have minor nations? Why not 32 Major nations that can compete equally with each other. We don't need minor nations!

[The Ellimist]

My list:

Aborigines
American
Akkadian
Anatolian
(Anglo-)Saxon
Argentines
Assyrian
Australian
Austro-Hungarian
Aztec
Babylonian
Berbers
Belgian
Brazilians
Byzantine
Canadian
Canaanites
Carthaginian
Celts
Cherokee
Chinese
Cossacks
Danes
Dutch
Egyptian
English
French
Ethiopian
Finns
Gauls
German
Ghana
Greek
Hawaiian (Really. There was a Hawaiian empire at some point.)
Hellenic
Hebrew
Hittites
Huns
Incas
Indian
Irish
Israeli
Japanese
Korean
Khmer
Khitan
Luxembourg
Lithuanian
Macedonian
Mayans
Mesopotamian
Mexican
Minoan
Mongol
Moors
Mycenean
Native American
Nigerian
Norman
Norse
Norwegians
Nubian
Ottoman
Persian
Phoenican
Polynesian
Portuguese
Polish
Prussian
Pueblo
Roman
Russian
Scottish
Siamese
Sioux
Spanish
Sumerian
Swedes
Tibetans
Thai
Turk
(Visi)Goths
Vikings
Zulu

[DaBods]

There should definitely be minor tribes. This brings many new aspects to the game. Do you crush them, make them a province, where you get trade and taxes but lose control of micromanagement. if you took over a minor tribe they will always be more likely to revolt, but if you make them a province they will be happier. maybe there should be something like if a city revolts so many times in a certain amount of turns it could become a minor tribe. maybe you could also influence minor tribes to do your dirty work to major civilizations. or you could agree to protect them in exchange for money of food. the possibilites are endless.

[DaBods]

i'm not to thrilled about the dynasy issue. i would like to see different leaders, but you still make all the decisions. maybe if you get one type of ruler you get a bonus in something, be it trade, production, science, morale, etc,. and something is taken away. maybe you could have spies try to assassinate a ruler, and the assassination of a well-liked ruler would trigger a period of anarchy. a despotic ruler would have people declare war on him, and be more likely to be assassinated. you could also try to bribe the nation in anarchy if you were at war to put in a peaceful leader, and have morale points taken away.

[Eggman]

A comment on the minor civ issue.

The concept of minor civs reflects:
(1) some civilizations never became more than bystanders (or pawns, depending on the situation) in history
(2) some, if not most, land not settled by one of the major powers eventually will have some sort of developed civilization on it that our heroes will eventually have to interact with. At the moment, this land is treated as if it is either uninhabited or populated with people still firmly in the Stone Age.

However, there are complications with implementing this concept within the Civilization mold. Should minor civs be obvious or should it take investigation to figure out who is a major power and who isn't? Should major and minor powers be treated differently or the same in diplomaticly (I would say the same - however, I doubt major powers would agree to become protectorates unless they really are in big trouble)? Can all but defeated major civs be relegated to minor status and a minor power rise (fairly quickly - cheating would not bother me here) to take its place? Really, the only thing that would seem obvious is that minor civs shouldn't try to win the game and major civs should.

Personally, if they only go with eight civs again, they should have minor powers. Even with 32 civs, on large maps, minor civs are still a real possibility. Of course, you should have the option to turn them off as well.