OTHER ver 2.0 - hosted by Ecce Homo

[NotLikeTea]

Been thinking of population growth, something seriously out of whack in CivI and II.

In Civ, opoulation growth is a factor of food production. Great! Looking at our world today, the US and Europe must have the highest populations, and China quite low.

What? It's not like that? How odd...

Population grows independantly of food, though it is a factor. In the developed world, people consume far more food than is needed to survive. In the Civ model, we have a low growth rate. In the third world, the population grows despite a lack of food.

Another point: In Civ, population is not a bad thing. In Civ, China would be winning. It would be nice to see the problems of population, as well as the benefits.

Abnd, yet another point: Growth in Civ is more or less linear from the start of the game till the end. In history, population was more or less stable till tech took over, and is now doubling every 30 years or so (I think)

[Flavor Dave]

I think that pop. growth early should be highly dependent on food, less so as time goes on. But I disagree that pop. is always good in civ. Happiness and pollution make it a mixed blessing.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Flavor Dave (edited July 09, 1999).]</font>

[Giant Squid]

I'm bored, so I thought this thread would be a good place to ramble on and on...

CITY GROWTH: There should be 7 city picture sizes (right now there are 4) They should represent factors of ten. For example a newly founded community has 100 population.

P100=Picture 1
P1000=Picture 2
P10000=Picture 3
P100000=Picture 4
P1000000=Picture 5
P10000000=Picture 6
Larger= Picture 7

However, there should NOT be little numbers representing each one. For example, a population 100 city should not be called "1".
It should just be there, with the picture denoting its approximate size. Then, it should tell you the real population (for example, maybe 30,000) when you enter the city screen. Thus, there will be no sudden growth spurt as there is now (when a size 1 city doubles in size overnight ) Each turn, it will increase a small amount.

Then, you can use this for armies. For example, you can set the city to produce phalanxes. If the city has 100 people and your empire has a 5% draft rate, then you should get five phalanx-men a turn from it. If you have a a few million phalanx-men, you're probably going to defeat ten cavalry-men, however superior they are. My model of combat is this: All units still have their attack and defense and hit points and firepower values. For example, the phalanx would be 1-2-1-1-1 However, Hit Points and Firepower would be an assigned value multiplied by the number of men in the unit. For example, a 10000-man phalanx would be 1-2-1-10000-10000. So, while each "round" of combat it wold probably be beaten by a single 8-3-2 Cavalry, it would still end out defeating the cavalry. If it were to defend against a 10000 man 1-1-1 unit, it would still probably win, because it has the higher value (comparing attack to defense) It would be equal to a 2-1-1-10000-10000 unit, and surpassed by a 2-1-1-15000-15000 unit. Therefore, the number of people would be just as important as the type of unit.

Units would each have a "dominant element" For example, the dominant element of a frigate would be wood, and the dominant element of a swordsman would be iron. The special resources will match the possilbe dominant elements. If a city has a special resource in its radius (and it's not already taken), then the city will be counted as a producer of the dominant element. A city in the forest which has access to lots of wood could produce units whose element is wood much more quickly than normal. You can still produce a unit even if you don't have the element, it'll just take longer.

Improvements and Wonders will also have elements, perhaps even multiple ones. A city near Marble or Gold could produce temples quickly, and one with both could even make a Wonder like the Oracle in very little time. Perhaps having a dominant element of something would halve the shield cost to produce it there.

This would lead to a more realistic change in the balance of power through the years. For example, most Stone Age units will have Stone as a dominant element, and cities near it will flourish and become military powers. Once the Bronze Age, occurs though, and most units need bronze, it could very well fall behind to civilizations with more bronze and copper in their territories.

This brings me to another very important point. Trade in Civ2 was pretty bad. I suggest trade in dominant elements. For example, you can right-click on any city you have contact with to open a negotiation totally seperate from normal diplomacy. You can then ask to trade a few of the dominant elements. If the leader agrees (which he probably will, unless he REALLY hates you) both cities will then be counted as producing both dominant elements. Either side can cancel the trade route at any time, and third parties can have as a negotiation option "We wish you to cancel your trade route with the ____" The trade will be represented by little icons that move across the map and don't belong to either civilization. You can attack one of these icons, but it will be a declaration of war on both civs involved. The icon's appearence and rate of movement will change after you discover certain techs.

That's all for now (phew)

Giant Squid

[ember]

A couple questions:
How do you decide how many squares a city draws resources from?
How do you tell how big a unit is?
Mabye make a max unit size of 10K and have units come in incriments of 100. Their health bar would show how far they are from the max size. Tanks might cout as 100 each, and planes as 400. a ship could be 1000 - 2000.
I don't think pop should be reduced by building units, only by a unit taking casualties. (every soldier would be replaced several times over in a single ancient turn)
Cities could only support a total unit manpower of 1/4 with fundamentalism and 1/20 with democracy of their city size.

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

[John D Ward]

I have two suggestions which seem to belong in this forum.

1. Effects of starvation: Something which I found most unrealistic in
Civ I and Civ II, is that the consequence of starving your people to
death is to increase the happiness of the city concerned. When a city is
starving, the population should become very unhappy, causing civil
disorder, leading to the collapse of the government in a Democracy.

2. Elections: A realistic, and very effective trade-off for all the
advantages of a Republic or Democracy, is that elections should be held
periodically. Should the player lose the election, he is removed from
office, thus losing the game.

Any comments?

------------------

[Icedan]

Well you are talking about disasters really, and yes disasters are a major part of Civilizations and should be included, but losing the entire game because of losing one election? no no...the game would be very hard and fustrating.

[ember]

Divorcing growth from food.
Growth should depend on happiness, government, tech, infrastructure and location.

Food has a strong influence on happiness.
All food is pooled and distributed to a nuetral happiness level automatically. (losses to to bad transport can happen)

The happiness neutral level of food corresponds to current slow groth, maybe 2.2 food / person.
Having more than this much food slightly increases happines and hence growth.
having less decreases happines. At a certain level (~1.5 food/ person) starvation begins. Happiness penalties are SEVERE and pop losses are inevitable.

Inventions like contraception will slow growth rate slightly, but they will also allow you to slow it dramatically where popultion has started to outstrip food supply.

This idea allows the modern phenomina of overcrowding. The population will grow well past the point of sustinablility and then begin to collapse, but with riots and probably revolts in long term starving cities.

Aquatducts/ hospitals increase growth
Cities near oceans and on rivers have bosted growth.
cities by mountains and desserts are reduced.

Other ideas:

Surplus food (over 2 / person) is stored in the grannary. The number of turns of spare food gives the happines bonus (and the minimum time for a full siege) Food decays at a rate of 10-20% a turn, to prevent near infanite stores. Modern refrigiration techs/ canning might slow this.


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

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Nomadic Civilizations:
I posted a bit on this some time ago, now it's time to elaborate (okay, it's 'way past time to elaborate...)
If you start with Domestication but not Agriculture (possible Starting Advances/Techs), or if you start with Agriculture but in terrain that isn't suitable (desert without Irrigation Tech), or if you just feel snarkey, you can choose to start by forming a Tribal Unit and becoming Nomadic instead of starting a City and becoming a Settled Civilization (Note: cities should not be formable without agriculture: in game terms, with 10,000 a base figure, even Jericho the first 'city' was about 90% too small for the game!).
Characteristics of a Nomadic Civ:
Population growth will be very low, because they produce less food from herding and hunting than farmers can from farming. Their 'user' icon (if a CtP type is used) would not be a farmer, but perhaps a shepherd with a sheep or a herdsman on foot with a cow, and food production/tile would be about 2/3 to 1/2 (just above subsistance) of the farmers'.
On the other hand, the nomadic civ receives bonuses in Military (the entire population has a lifestyle related to war), Nationalism or Patriotism (whichever term you want to use) because they tend to be a very cohesive group and suspicious/contemptuous of outsiders, and Trade. They will not have a bonus, and possibly a minus, in research, but they can act as Middlemen diffusing or spreading advances from one civilization to another, just as they can act as middlemen trading goods between civilizations they contact.
The Tribal Unit is the nomadic 'city'. It can move, but very slowly (1 tile/turn maximum, with at least a 1 turn stop between to get more food). The Tribal Unit automatically generates a defending military unit when it is formed, since all members of the tribe can fight and their life style gives them some base military skill.The unit will be the basic Warrior at first, later the best Foot Unit the Nomads can build. The Tribal Unit can be 'improved' with the following equivalents to City Improvements:
City Wall
Tribal: Wagon Burgh - has about 1/2 the effect of the city wall, but moves with the Tribe
Market
Tribal: Bazaar - has 50% more effect than Market, because traders from all over meet and do business there.
Library
Tribal: Shaman's Hut - has about 25% less effect than the Library
Barracks
Tribal: Unneeded - all Nomad units are Veterans, or, if a SMAC-system is used, one or two steps higher in Morale than the usual 'green' city folk.
Granary
Tribal: Storage Pits - same effect as Granary, but also moves with the Tribe

Nomadic Units not only start at higher morale, they have a Reconnaissance ability, represented by a 2-tile vision range. In addition, nomadic horse mounted units have more speed than regular civ mounted units. Assuming a light horseman/horse archer for a regular civilization has a speed of 5, the nomad speed would be 6 (this would also be true of Barbarian cavalry). Nomadic units could be hired by regular civs. The hired units would become the hiring civ's color, retain their nomadic characteristics, and could be used by the hiring civ for any purpose EXCEPT attacking the originating nomads! After X (actual number would vary) turns in foreign service, the nomadic unit would lose its nomad characteristics: the vision range, the extra speed. The cost of hiring the units would be subject to negotiation between players/civs, but would nromally be a per turn fee paid to the nomadic or hiree civ directly every turn. Any turn the fee is not paid the hired unit either reverts to nomad colors or possibly revolts and turns Barbarian.
In addition, there is one Advance peculiar to the Nomads: the Composite Recurved Bow, made from glued sinew, horn, and bone. If ordinary bowmen or horse archers have a Range Factor of 1 and Short Range, the Composite Bowmen (foot or mounted) would have a Range Factor of 2 and Medium Range (Long Range is strictly modern Artillery and Rockets).Only by hiring Nomad (or Barbarian) units with Composite Bows can a 'civilized' state get their benefit.
If a Nomadic civ conquers a city, it can incorporate the city into its civ: the ancient Scythians had several 'settled' cities in the Crimea to produce crops they couldn't raise while roaming. The nomads can also move a Tribal Unit into a city or a suitable city location and 'settle down', turning it into a city (or a bigger city) and becoming a regular civ. Regular Cities that are part of a Nomadic Civ are treated as regular cities in all respects: they can build city-type Improvements and lose their 'automatic' tribal defender unit. Tribal Improvements convert as follows when a Tribe settled down:
Wagon Burgh: is lost
Bazaar: becomes a Market
Shaman's Hut: is lost
Storage Pits: becomes a Granary
The civ as a whole can still form 'nomad' units with nomad characteristics in its Tribal Units, but only regular civ units in its Cities.

All of this means that the Nomadic Civ is a viable alternative play for gamers in the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the game. They get less and less viable as Gunpowder and advanced Improvements appear in other civs, but in the ancient and medieval time periods or eras they are a real contender both militarily and economically for the gamer who likes to play conquest or trading games. It also provides a chance for the gamer who's starting position sucks: if your starting terrain has a lot of desert, no rivers, no good terrain resource icons, etc, just start as a Tribe of Nomads and start moving to the good terrain, occasionally trading with or whacking other civs along the way!

[Jimmy]

I like your idea: it's based on History and would make the early game more interesting. You do give the nomad unit a lot of advantages, of course it wouldhave one main disadvantage that they can't win the game: a civ with cities would completely outdo a nomadic tribe in everything (research, industry, money, WoW etc...)

[Maniac]

First I thought I had to post this on City/City Improvements, but it has been renamed to City Improvements, so I'll post my idea here.

In all times city growth wasn't determined by food (except in very ancient times), but by jobs and trade. How else would Athens, Palmyra and Petra have become large cities. Palmyra and Petra are in the desert and Athens hasn't real fertile grounds if you compare with the rest of Europe.

My solution is : Shields and Trade you have more then your city size are too placed in the food storage box. To make it more clear I'll give you an example. A city is of size 2 and is producing a food surplus of 3 and has 3 Shields and 4 Trade.
With my idea the amount of Food put in the Food Storage Box wouldn't be 3, but 6. Don't get me wrong. You are still using that shields and trade for production and tax/science/luxuries.

That way the attraction of trade centers and cities where there are lots of jobs( a lot of Shields means Industry) to people would be simulated. Urbanisation through all times from people of the countryside to the city would be simulated too.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by M@ni@c (edited July 20, 1999).]</font>

[Flavor Dave]

"1. Effects of starvation: Something which I found most unrealistic in Civ I and Civ II, is that the consequence of starving your people to death is to increase the happiness of the city concerned. When a city is starving, the population should become very unhappy, causing civil disorder, leading to the collapse of the government in a Democracy."

Great idea. There has been talk of making siege warfare more effective, one idea was to have a redface come up for every occupied tile. Another would be to add a redface for every 2 wheat deficits or something.

"2. Elections: A realistic, and very effective trade-off for all the advantages of a Republic or Democracy, is that elections should be held periodically. Should the player lose the election, he is removed from
office, thus losing the game."

To be honest, my first thought was, what a dumbass idea. But then I thought about how you'd go about having an election "lost." You'd add a political advisor, when in democracy or republic. And he'd let you know how you're doing. The more happy people, the better, the less pollution, the better, the slower the rate of battle losses, the better, and of course, if you lose a city you founded, the people get really upset. He'd let you know how you're doing, and when you get below a certain level for two turns, you lose the election.

Basically, you'd keep an eye on your standing in the polls, and if it looks like you're going to be unpopular two turns in a row, you either revolt and go commie or fundy, or you jack up the luxuries. It could work.

[Old Major]

You should be able to run programs at the same time ... civ3 should be in a resizable window like civ2 and unlike CTP ... so that you could run other programs at the same time, like ICQ, winamp or CD player

[Jon Miller]

they already have something akin to elections in civ, if people riot for two turns they leave and you are forced to impose order personally to keep the nation personally under you, therefore the government goes into anarchy and when the people no longer have government you can envorce rule as you wish, it is basically a time of revolution but you are in place so that you always when and can set up the next government.

Jon Miller

[Flavor Dave]

jonmiller--yeah, I thought of that. Maybe I should have talked about your thoughts, since I had them too. Elections would replace the two-turns-make-revolt rule. It is not only more realistic, but a better reflection of your civ-managing abilities, if your civ-wide happiness determines whether you have a revolt, rather than one city.

Have you ever conquered a really large city while a democrat, and had to deal with just horrendous happiness? you either have to convert half the population into Elvises while you rush build a temple (and maybe even a marketplace the next turn), or hope you have the Statue so that you can go commie the next turn. Not only unrealistic, but also reduces the value of democracy in war, as well as increasing the value of SOL (dramatically) and Mike's and JSB.

Having civ-wide "elections" (actually, as I describe them, it would be votes of confidence) lowers the importance of the Statue. Anything that reduces strategy funnels (Mike's, Statue, We Loves, war, Hoover) is good.

[geofelt]

I would like the game to have the option to keep a log of important events for each human player. The log couuld be kept in memory and spilled to disk when needed. The log could then be viewed or printed out. In tournament games, a log is supposed to be kept, but I tend to get carried away and forget. This should be a relatively easy programming task, and it would help debug the game.