CIVILIZATIONS (ver2.1): hosted by LordStone1

[mindlace]

Shining1- see my comments in CUSTOMIZATION about city icons.

Nomad Units
A nomad unit should be descrete from a nomad civ's military units, and vulnerable to attack, so that a military escort is necessary/desirable.

Nomad Plunder
Nomad units should get a mineral/food bonus when they plunder a tile improvement. They should also be able to plunder city improvements and get bonuses.

Nomad Reproduction
I think the 'new nomad with food overflow' is better than produce new nomad. I don't think it should scale up- The incentive for claiming territory with settled cities will come from strategic/tactical considerations.
I also want to be able to make nomad units from a city- so if I'm nomadic, I can take the population of a city I've conquored, put them on horses, and strip their city to the ground for everything it's worth.

I love nomads! I must say that if nomads become reality, I will try very hard to be an almost-totally-nomadic Civ, with a few border cities for defence, an internal research or production city, then swarms of nomads over the rest of your turf. I'd want to take it all the way up to the trip to AC.

~mindlace

[Cartagia the Great]

Stefu, Notliketea? All Soc.history.what-if people!? well, smeg I am to. I lurk more than post, but am plannign a good one soon I'm Mono aka Crooooow BTW. Nice to see some fellow What-if'ers out there.

This does, of course, mean we're all going to ahve to work together on soem Harry Turtledove scenerios, and I'd like to do one on that wonderful Manzikert what-if by Rhazib

[mhistbuff]

Nomads. There should not be "nomad warriors" and "nomad archers". Just 1 simple nomad unit. This unit, with the proper technology, becomes a "nomad archer" or a "nomad warrior,' etc. It is a settler/warrior/caravan, being able to settle(but not improve), attack, and trade with cities (w/out being lost). There is no production of shields, food, or trade (excepting from caravan action). Each time it trades with a city, it increases the chance of gaining a technological advance, as does wondering through a poplated area. I like the nomad concept, but you shouldn't be allowed to build a nomad unit, it would be a little unbalencing to game play. Barbarians could be like this and perhaps your first unit. Goodie huts could result in a nomad unit as could a particularly bad random natural disaster (resulting in the loss of the city).

[jof]

Mindlace:
>weak nomad unit & discrete military units...
Exactly, you choose to explore quicker by separating a nomad unit from its supported military units (& risk the loss of all!) or protect the nomad unit (possibly stacked with a defender, if stack-movement is implemented in general).
>nomad plunder tiles & cities...
Do you think getting the (higher!) yield from an improved tile & preventing at the same time a foreign city to use its own tile isn't bonus enough? Ok, maybe the yield should be computed in this case with the "We love _plundering_ day"-rule .
How shall the weak nomad unit plunder city improvements (which nearly all military units can't damage)? I think nomad units shouldn't have sabotage qualities.
>nomad reproduction...
You're right, the incentive for nomads to settle down will come from the strategical/tactical advantages of cities. But on the other hand, if you start with 1 lonely nomad unit and reproduce it after 5-10 turns (which I think would be good in the beginning) you have to limit/slow down somehow the exponential growth later (64 nomad units after 50 turns, 8192 after 100 turns...) to give city-based civs a chance at all!
A balance between nomad-based civs (advantage in the beginning) and city-based civs (advantage in the end) can be done by scaling up the foodbox-size. Or maybe it's better to use unhappiness as limiting factor? -> Own rioting (redhead nomads turn into barbarian (redflag nomads after a couple of turns???

Mhistbuff:
I propose every player starts with 1 single nomad unit without the knowledge of <settling> (allows founding cities), possibly without <irrigation>, <mining> and <roadbuilding>, certainly without <currency> or <trade>. If the nomad unit can't gather food&shield&arrows (only from the tile it's currently upon), how shall any player gain any technological advance (on its own)? How shall the nomad units be reproduced (i.e. grow larger than just the starting unit)? I don't think we should have cities first & more nomads later.

I like your idea of gaining chances for advances(*) from nomad unit's contact with cities or peaceful "wandering through populated area". How can this be modelled in more detail and terms of game effect?

Yes, nomad units also should be in goodie huts (instead of settlers?).


Without AI it's just FRXS

(*) reminds me of Jimi H. talking about _applause in the pause_

[jof]

Mhistbuff:
I propose every player starts with 1 single nomad unit without the knowledge of {settling} (allows founding cities), possibly without {irrigation}, {mining} and {roadbuilding}, certainly without {currency} or {trade}. If the nomad unit can't gather food&shield&arrows (only from the tile it's currently upon), how shall any player gain any technological advance (on its own)? How shall the nomad units be reproduced (i.e. grow larger than just the starting unit)? Shall the nomad unit defenceless open goodie huts, hoping for a settler unit or the {settling} advance? I don't think we should have cities first & (more) nomads later.

jof, sorry for the html trouble post

[ember]

it seems to me that nomads, as they are now are going to be a huge ICS problem, unless you are severly limited in number.

Could nomads not just replace early settlers?

------------------
"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[mindlace]

Jof:
Nomad reproduction
The thing is, nomads won't ever be producing more then their square. As the nomad moves, there will be many times when it's in a square that produces 1 or 0 food, in which case they only maintain themselves or have to feed off their stores.
A city's foodbox gets bigger as the population grows. What triggers the growth in the foodbox? reproduction, I suppose. Does a new nomad unit inherit it's parent's foodbox or does it start with a new one?

Plundering city improvements- it would only happen if all the military units in the city were destroyed but you had not conquored(sp?) the city. For every improvement you plundered, you would get 25% of the improvement shield cost in gold, and the improvement would be destroyed.

If you can't do this, how can you be the barbarians sacking rome?

plundering tile improvements
Taking the food/minerals from a tile improvement is just 'living off the land'. If you destroy the improvement (stripping everything of value) you get a one-time bonus depending on the improvement- one time mineral, one time food.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by mindlace (edited August 15, 1999).]</font>

[jof]

ember:
>a huge ICS problem,
"ICS"? Can't decode this abbreviation.
(not nativly english speaking)
>unless you are severly limited in number.
sounds interesting!

>Could nomads not just replace early settlers?
Well, both can found cities and "somehow" are nomads like early settlers.
But nomads can't improve tiles (and should cost less shields, if producable in a city). Settlers can't reproduce themselves and can't produce & maintain military units directly. I want both functionalities and not merged in one "super-unit".
What would be the benefit of replacing?

mindlace:
>plundering tile improvements
>Taking the food/minerals from a tile improvement is just 'living off the land'.
yes, "plundering"
>If you destroy the improvement ...
ok, "pillaging" (p-key)
>you get a one-time bonus depending on the improvement - one time mineral, one time food.
How big should this bonus be?

>Plundering city improvements
>it would only happen if all the military units in the city were destroyed ...
Ah, I see, you're right!
>For every improvement you plundered, you would get 25% of the improvement shield cost in gold, and the improvement would be destroyed.
I would rather discuss this as an option (sacking instead of conquering an empty city) for all units, not special to nomads.

>Nomad reproduction
Nomads need _never_ food or shield support. I think, they would avoid desert, glacier & mountain (i.e. seldom move unto such terrain) and prefer grassland (special ressources & irrigated tiles), mainly mixed with forest & plains, and so gaining approx. 1.5 food per turn (net).
When its food box becomes full, 1 nomad unit splits in 2 new, independend nomad units
with their own, empty (and scaled up) food boxes, dividing evenly the content of the old unit's production box into their own, independend production boxes as well as dividing supported units of the old nomad unit between the 2 new units. The food box is enlarged on every split (e.g. 10, 20, 30, 50 etc. food).

[Stefu]

Cartagia: NO, actually we should start working about "How West Was WEird" scenario. Come on, the earlier parts, I just had idea how well it would fit into Civ scenario! Navoo Legion, Sherman's Dragoons, Rancheros...

BTW, I'm posting a thread for soc.hist.what-iffers there.

[itokugawa]

My opinion for nomads:

1)You start with nomads instead of settlers.

2)It is not reliable to let them producing units by 2 ways (a)As population grows in cities, b)As cities produce units.

3)Probably the most reliable is to produce other units with production but they also have a (not limitless) granary for hard times (i.e to cross a desert).

4)common points with settlers: Can found cities and when produced the population of the city is reduced by 1.

5)Differences with settlers: a)Have military power, b)required shields: 20+the required number of shields for the relative non nomadic unit (i.e. 30 for nomad warrior and 60 for nomad knight), c)Can pilage but not improve.

6)Use only the square they occupy. Everything as despotism except food: 1/2 of this of monarchy (round up) but they require only 1 food unit per turn. If 2 or more nomads in the same square they take all the food of the square and 2 of them divide it between each other.

7)When produced (from city or other nomad) you can give them from the granary of the city or other nomad. Similarly exchange of food is possible when 2 nomads or nomads and city are at the same square.

8)They have no home city and they can capture other cities.

9)Barbarians are nomads and there should be many barbarian tribes.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

I posted on nomadic civs a looong time ago, so I guess I'd better jump into the nomaderie again.
My concept was that the Nomad unit would represent a Tribal Group with many of the characteristics of a city plus the ability to move. As stated in earlier posts, they couldn't improve tiles, but they could exploit them for food/shields. A Tribe would keep expanding until it hit its sustainable Population limit, then either move or split off into two groups - no separate 'settler' required.
Tribes automatically form a military unit for each point of population, and those units are higher Morale/Experience than ordinary units (depending on the Morale Grades decided on: if 5 or 6 grades, Nomads would be about 2nd or 3rd highest). Other units can be built in excess of this number, but if units are lost in combat in excess of the population, population is also lost - there's not a lot of excess in a nomad group. Nomad units would be same as other military types, except nomad Light Horse (Horseman) or Horse Archers would have slightly better mobility (I proposed 6 move instead of 5, but it depends on mobility algorithms finalized in the game). They could not build units requiring beyond a certain Production cost, which would be a quick way to prohibit them from building things they never built, like Musketeers, Catapults, Cannon, etc.
Tribal units could get some equivalents t City Improvements. The ones I proposed are:
Bazaar -equivalent to Market
Shaman's Hut - equivalent to Library
Wagon Burgh - equivalent to City Walls, but not as strong
Sacred Grove - equivalent to Temple
Nomad Civs would get bonuses in diffusing Tech and in Trade, because they tend to contact a lot of Civilizations informally in their wandering.
All of which, I think, would make the Nomad option viable for about the first 5 - 6000 years of the game. Once your settled opponents get gunpowder, as historically, the nomads start to seriously hurt. By then. though, most of them will (to survive) have conquered a few enemy cities and settled down, as the Mongols, Vandals, Goths, Scythians, Huns, Pechenegs, Parthians, etc did historically.

[Maniac]

Hi, I was thinking yesterday about migration of peoples. After a while, I came up with this. I posted it in more than one thread –sorry if it annoys you- cause it covers a lot of areas.

Colonization/Migration

“How to simulate the migration of the ‘barbarian’ people at the end of the Roman Empire?” I asked myself. Cause they were in Civ2 terms some kind of settlers with a big attack and defense.
There should be a unit that represents some migrating people. Good, simply 4-2-1, settlers, one could say. But that would be an expensive unit. But the fact is that migration was unorganized and didn’t require 40 shields. It was instantaneous. In fact, there was never an organized migration of 10000 people, or just 10000 people saying “let’s found another city”.
So I began thinking about something else…

In Civ3 the Terrain Improver/Former could be deleted, well, now I suggest the City Founder unit would also loose much of it’s use until late in the game when planned colonization exists.
I am against automatic city building by the AI as some people suggest. What I suggest is you can point a tile where people may found a city. It may be any square 1) on a continent where there is already a city of yours and 2) not next to another city. All the rest is automatic with a migration system. People will move to that spot gradually if conditions are good.

I think there isn’t a migration system yet, except one based on happiness. I would let it play a much larger part in the game.
The automatic migration system would try to find a balance between labor and resources in a city.
This is to represent unemployment. If there is more labor(people) than resources(work) there is unemployment. And no work means that people migrate to parts where there is more work to do.
If there are more resources(work) than labor(people) there is work available and people migrate to other already existing cities with more resources or they will move to a spot you chose as a new city.
So cities built in large grasslands tracks will not be big cities since there would be large emigration out of the agricultural area without work.
Small cities will always have more resources than labor since they always have N+1 worked squares, where N is the size of the city. But to both solve the ICS problem AND the possible problem that large cities would not be possible since ALL the people would go to new cities, I came up with this.
The city square normally produces the amount of food if the square is irrigated, the amount of minerals with a limit of at least one and one trade if a road would normally produce trade.
I would add the following. If a city reaches two population, it gets for free 20 labor and 20 trade (don’t forget I use the x10 system). If a city reaches size 3, it produces an extra 30 labor and 30 trade in the city square. And so on… The extra bonuses are because in Civ2 a city with size 1 had 10000 people, a city with size 2 30000 and 3 60000… So of course the second population ‘unit’ produces double as much as the first, the thirth triple… or otherwise told the second pop unit produces 20 labor, the thirth 30. And of course a large city means more trade for the same reason; there are more people.
This would solve the ICS problem, since large cities are MUCH bigger production and trade centers as many small ones. I hope I have persuaded guys who would want to reduce the city square production to 0 food, shields and trade. I think my solution solves the ICS problem better since 0-0-0 city square production makes small cities produce too less trade and resources in the beginning and therefore seriously reduces migration to the newly built city.
And because the extra labor is balanced with the extra trade, automatic migration out of a city because there is a large population (much labor in my system) and too less resources compared with the population is impossible. So migration would be totally dependent of the resources of the surrounding terrain, as in reality.
This will represent more accurately the flow of people and the growth of cities in history. In CivX that was represented totally wrong with excess food since most big cities now and in the old days were mostly the big trade cities and some/most of them are were in half desert like terrain.
That would mean a lot more trade, so the game economical system could need some rebalancing. But don’t forget that people have suggested much more uses for gold eg troop support, religion, and if you read on, I suggest gold I also needed for colonization/migration.
So, let me define resources. Although in the Economy/Trade thread it is usually referred to as the replacement of shields, for this case I also count trade as resources.
So the biggest cities will be as in reality the economical cities.
But if you would some trade cities on a Civ2 map, they would have a lack of food eg Palmyra, Petra, Bokhara… So there is need for a general ‘food box’ for the entire empire. I don’t know sure, but I thought it existed in CTP. After all the food is ‘collected’, it becomes distributed over the empire as needed. Perhaps the efficiency of food transport (your SE Corruption/Bureaucracy rate)would also have to do something with how well food is distributed.
For example in a Federal structure with a Bureaucracy bonus food transport would be better than in the Confederate structure. Or if the above isn’t accepted, I insist that food trade routes are automatic and unlimited, so you don’t have to build a 50 shield caravan.

But of course the state has to say something too in migration. However before people are willing to move, they have to be paid a lot. So if you would want to speed up the growth of new cities or if you would want to move people to a food producing area with no other resources (eg a large Grassland track) you would have to pay them. I suggest per population unit 400 (x10!) gold (the price of a settlers in shields).

Population also x10?

I have a suggestion. It isn’t necessary for my migration model to work, but it would make it more precise since migration per 10000 is kinda rude and sudden. If population is also multiplied by 10, the migration model could be more precise. Migration could be more slowly, which is better.
Then you would have to pay only 40 gold for one pop unit.
Popx10 would make it impossible to have a population box as in all civlike games.
I suggest a simple box with the following information.
Happy : 20
Content : 70 + -
Unhappy : 10
Taxmen : 0 + -
Scientists : 0 +-
Entertainers : 0 + -
Rest : 0
So you would have a simple box showing the amount of people that have which happiness level or job.
The +’s and –’s are to switch eg a normal content citizen to an entertainer. For example if you would want to switch a content citizen (you can only make content citizens a special citizen (= taxmen, scientists, entertainers) and only happy citizens special if there aren’t any content ones. Unhappy people you could never makes special) to an entertainer, you click the minus of content. Then there appears automatically 1 (or perhaps 10?) in the Rest. Then click the +.of entertainer.

Recuitment

Doing pop x10 would also make a recruitment system possible, since if you keep the normal pop system, the mobilization of even one pop unit would mean a lot of Riflemen units = unbalancing and unrealistic. If it’s used, then you should not build Musketeers or Riflemen, but Muskets, Spears, Bows or Rifles. They could be stored and don’t require support. Then, in times of war, people could be mobilized, = one population unit disappears from the cities. You could mobilize people as far as you have guns, spears or any weapon in stock. Of course, if the units are killed, they can’t return to the normal city population after the war. This would simulate the loss of population in wars. However conscripted units would have the worst possible morale/experience. If you have Draft or Civil Duty as your SE Army choice, the experience could be a bit higher.

Settlers/Unit Workshop

Settlers should still exist, but they shouldn’t have the same use. First of all, you shouldn’t able to build them for reasons I have already explained. You could only get them if you click the “Migrate” button. Then your city would disband and in that process all buildings in the city would of course also be disbanded. Per 10 population units in the popx10 system, you should get one settlers. You should also be able to give the settlers any weapons you have in stock, eg spears, guns… basically creating something like armed nomads, as Diodorus wants to represents with his Tribe/Nomad ideas he presented several times in the Civilizations thread I think. That Settlers units would follow the same rules as Diodorus presented in his Nomad posts.
So the German population migration can be represented. If horses can also be built on the same way as spears and guns, you could even simulate people like the Huns or Mongols.
What I am suggesting is that in a city every item can be built: shields, chain mail, swords, guns, horses, or in later areas tanks. Then in the unit workshop you could create your army with the available weapons. So in a city you only built equipment, but to form a real army, you have to mobilize a population unit.
That means in peace time you can maintain a small army and in war recruit more units in a short time.
As I said before, mobilized units would have a bad experience/morale level.
To give them better experience, they should stay 3 turns in a city with a Barracks and then they would get 2 experience upgrades. Later in the game there could be a similar building, called Military Academy.

Oversea Colonization

Colonization oversea should require a unit I think. Some Sea Unit looking like a boat of Colombus. It should have a large movement range. And it should be able to move on land. If it moves on land it founds a coastal city. That way you expand oversea. More realistic.

Upgrading units

Upgrading units would be simplier. Just move them in a city, go to the unit workshop and change the item, you would want to change. Upgrading reduces the experience level with one.

Population Growth

As you might have guessed, I totally disagree food production has anything to do with pop growth. Food only is needed to feed the people.
Came up with the following. Not worked out in details, since I am no social historian.
But everybody can guess that population growth is dependent of two factors : the # children a family has and how long people live.
The # of children would be dependent on how many food there are produced since in earlier times children were assumed as working forces(child labor). So the more children a farmer has, the easier for him, the more free working forces he has and the less people he has to employ and pay.
So pop growth still has to do something with food, but indirectly. It should also be affected by your SE Growth or Urbanization factor. The eg Socialism Value would increase the number of children.

With the techology advance of Industrialization also the # of shields/resources would affect your pop growth. Means that suddenly two factors affect pop growth. That could simulate the fast pop growth around the same time of the Industrial Revolution.

The second thing affecting pop growth is how long people live. That should be affected by some techs like Medicine. In general the life expectancy would increase over time if medicine betters. It should also be determined by your SE Environment factor. Living in a polluted country should decrease your life expectancy.

Wow, are you still reading this? As you have read, what I am suggesting solves some problems like ICS plus it also includes some ideas of others like recruitment, nomads, migration…
It could be a real improvement for Civ3.

Goodbye
M@ni@c

[mzilikazi]

Great post, M@ni@c... I too would love to see nomads in the game; I think they have a place in the modern world too as refugees, displaced by war and occupation of enemy cities - i.e. instead of or as well as population loss, a "refugee/nomad" unit would be generated, and could then wander around until it found a new home.

[Maniac]

Mzilikazi :

Glad you liked it. You are the only until now that responded to this post (is it just me or are there less people around here the last few days?). Refugees are OK. In 1000 BC they could walk around with some spears and now with some rifles (or totally nothing if they're real refugees, then they have an attack of 0).
Do you just like the nomads or also the other ideas?

Were you the one that posted the Great Zimbabwe post in the Wonders thread?
Since I seem to have nuked the place, I'll repeat here what I wanted to say to you.
I prefer the Granary use for the Zimbabwe wonder and for Pyramids I like Diodorus' idea of a bonus to Public Works.

[mzilikazi]

You're right - it's a load quieter... I guess everyone's on holiday.

I liked most of your post, not just the nomads... demographic factors (i.e. population inflows/outflows due to migration, and the net effect of birth and death rates) should control population growth. Food is an element of this, but so is happiness, pollution, disease, sanitation, eductaion, contraception, wealth - you name it. We would need a simple model, but just using food is oversimplifying IMHO.

Glad you liked the Zimbabwe wonder... (on the Wonders thread) and I agree that the granary effect is probably the most appropriate, especially if a more appropriate effect is found for the Pyramids. I just hope that African influences are included in Civ3 - or at the very least, that the American bias isn't too strong... (and I mean no disrespect to America by that - so don't flame me).