RADICAL IDEAS (ver 2.0): Hosted by korn469

[Ecce Homo]

New radical idea:

One year turns throughout the game

Advantages[*]Generally sensible - time has not exactly slowed down during the last centuries[*]More emphasis on ancient history (which is under-represented, in my opinion)[*]In Civ 1/2, turns in the ancient era are at average a few seconds, in the last century several minutes.[*]More sensible movement chronology - a unit does no longer need many centuries to cross a continent.

Problem[*]Extremely long games, with very little action each turn. The game length would increase from 600 to 6000 turns.

Solution[*]The player should just have a few things to take care of each turn. A bit of this could be done by using CtP's systems for trade and terraforming. Unit movement could be made easier with improved GoTo functions.

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The best ideas are those that can be improved.
Ecce Homo

[korn469]

everyone look at Ecce Homo's post. from reading Brian Reynold's post about the LIST, (if you haven't read it yet, please do) it seems that naming your idea, linking it to the past then setting out what problems it solves and what advantages it offers is an excellent way of helping us to debate the merits of ideas. It also in the form that Brian Reynolds said sparked discussion amongst the members of firaxis. Ecce Homo post is an excellent archetype to follow!

korn469

[FinnishGuy]

More points on my idea about per turn scoring (see above):

- It would be a better measure of your success throughout the game.
- In the CIV2 style end-of-game scoring you can "artificially" increase your points by allocating a big portion of your income to luxuries just before the score is recorded. Now OK there's nothing wrong with that, but the situation thus created is not very representative of your civilization's normal state of affairs. Turn by turn scoring would eliminate the need for this trick.

[Fugi the Great]

Fixing the problem of unit becoming obsolete before they are built.

I could never really figure out why it always took so blasted long to "build" a unit, usually several years if not decades, and even centuries in the early years. And why is the "city" building the military unit anyway?
Have a company something like Rockwell, Boeing, Northrup ..., build the hardware. The nation buys the completed hardware and then takes delivery of the new hardware at a fort, base, or port someplace to meet up with the conscripted or volunteer human part. Then have them train a while with the new hardware. I'm thinking something like the nation putting in an order to Acme Armaments for 3,000 tanks, where we would get a certain number of them per year at $1,234,567 each or whatever (depends on how many they can make a year and any incentives you may provide to make them faster), say maybe 500, so in six years we would get all our tanks. Then raise a human army to use those tanks, 5 people per tank plus support and maintenance personnel for each so say 10 people for each, so raise an extra 5,000 people per year for those tanks. Of course the only reason we had a defense contract with Acme was because Rugen International Armaments cost $200,000 more each, though they could have made 1,000 tanks per year, but since we currently are not at war and are trying to pinch every dollar we can, there is no hurry. Of course we could have bought them from a different country even cheaper, but that would mean unemployment at home, and putting money in a rival nations pockets to be used against us in the future. And you probably won't be needing to buy new hardware every year, just pay for the upkeep, and save up for the next batch of new "toys".

Just because your country has 20,000 tanks doesn't mean a blasted thing if you don't have the personnel to use them, and taking 200,000 people out of the civilian world to run the tanks will definitely have a effect on your economy. Ask the leader of Libya, Colonel Gaddafi (any misspelling is not intended as an insult) why he has 4,000 plus tanks in his arsenal but couldn't use a third of them if he tried due to insufficient tank troops in his army.

Flavor Dave - I play on large maps, and I play to win by military conquest. Usually ends up being very long games. 100+ citys may have been a slight exaggeration, but not by much.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Fugi the Great (edited July 16, 1999).]</font>

[Ecce Homo]

Thank you, Korn469! I got the idea from the Firaxis forum, where the ideas are rather few, but well written.

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The best ideas are those that can be improved.
Ecce Homo

[Rusty Nail]

The Princess Factor! A radical suggestion. Historically many civÃlizations united against their foes by intermarriage - prince weds princess. My suggestion for civ3 is a new, rather expensive unit that first appears in mid-to-late game - the "princess". The princess unit can be used to force a merger of your civilization with any other with which you have an embassy, with you as leader, of course. A condition is that the combined population is less than the largest civ on the map at the time( Otherwise it is too powerful). And you also have to get her to their capital without being killed off. This may not be easy if your opponents ( or your target for that matter) get wind of your plans. This strategy can only be used once for each player, and only for absorbing AI's, not human civ's. The idea is to introduce some interesting new strategies which are consistent with historical events, and to make it a little more difficult for the civ with a big lead that thinks it has won the game already. A merger is roughly equivalent to buying all the AI's cities for the cost of the princess. Therefore the princess is a very dear unit - like your own daughter. The designers may want to make this optional. It might be too powerful, but maybe not. It gives the civs that are behind a chance to recover. It could be a wonder, but I have a feeling that everyone should have a shot at getting a princess. Perhaps the AI's should also be allowed to merge,rather than just be allies against the leading civ.
Comments anyone?

[korn469]

rusty nail

i'm saying this as a poster not a thread manager...i think that the princess unit is a good idea, but i think the way you have your idea set up it would be too powerful. for one thing a princess unit should only work on a monarchy and maybe despotism...definatly not on a republic, and maybe make it something to do in the diplomacy screen...i like the idea of having princesses in the game i just don't think you should be able to buy an entire civ out with one

korn469

[Fugi the Great]

Princess idea - cool.

I'm assuming that the AI players get to do the same thing? Might have to tone it down to a forced non-aggression pact or alliance though, otherwise the player may end up becoming part of an AI country almost instantaneously if he is near the bottom of the totem pole (especially in the beginning). Why only one daughter, why not lots of them (while in the ages of despotism and monarchy), but just not all at the same time? Probably should also slow time down a bit to make this truly usable and semi-realistic.

[loinburger]

Harel: I like that idea. How exactly would you determine the relative powers of civs, though? (money? trade? labs? population? variable?)
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by technophile (edited July 21, 1999).]</font>

[Harel]

I will post this both in social changes and radical changes, as it a truely a fundemntal change to civ. However, it relates to the social change screen.

Big civ vs Small civ

And no, I don't mean another post on minor civs. Not at all. I am talking about the power balance in today world.

Now, the USA, for example span 250 million people and a production value of 9 trillion dollars. My own country, for relevence ( Israel ) has 6 million people and and a total GNP 110 billion dollars.
Now, is the US has a 80 times stronger political, militarical, and scientifcal power? Hardly.
Small countries are often stronger then thier size. In civ II, a civ with 30 cities was 10 times stronger then one with 3 cities ( if not more ). If both players play equally well, atleast.
This isn't true in real life, like I alborate. Taking Israel example again, it's the lead country in several technologies ( rocketery, moleculric biology and aeronotics ) and it's army is extreamly well trained.
While there is no doubt that America can win a war with Israel, a total war such as this would create much more casaulties for the US then what Israel apparant size might suggest.

Monaco produce much more money ( due to trade and tourrism ) then thier size.

Switzerland is a rather small country in popultion, but they have the highest GNP per person in the world. And so on.

Even moderete size countries, such as France, England and germany ( moderete in comparsion with russia and the us ) they posses a great political and industrial which exel thier size.

The point is, that smaller civ can compete, somewhat with thier bigger opponenets.
The way this can be addressed in civ III is having a culmative social modificator.

What do I mean? The "power" model will add, for example +10% for the morale in a US size civ, but a +50% bonus for a civ like Israel. Same thing for science, economy, etc.
In the one region the smaller civ choose to excel, it while get a much bigger bonus from the same modifactor then a mighter civ might get even if she choose the same modifactor.
Either "knowldge" will add a fix +research points ( which, ofcourse will effect a small civ much more then a bigger civ ) or the +% they get will depend upon the total resources.
I do belive this will make civ much more intersting, as conquering smaller civ will be much more diffuclt. Opening the road for the much missed diplomacy, trade and scientific learning. The peacful world which lacks in civ II ( atleast, it doesn't have that much appeal as in the real world ).
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Harel (edited July 21, 1999).]</font>

[Jimmy]

Ideology played a major role in History so I would like to see it play a big role in civ3. To accomplish this, I suggest that each citizen be associated with a SE choice to represent the ideology of your population. It could be done by putting the SE choice in parenthesis underneath the citizen icon like the production is in parenthesis under the city in SMAC.
If a majority of citizens in a city have the same SE choice as you have in your screen then you would have a "We love the ... day" (or golden age for SMACers). When drone riots do occur, they would demand that you change your SE choices to match theirs. If sufficient amount of your cities were in a drone riots then you would risk a real "civil war". If you still refused to change SE choices, then those rioting cities would make their own civ. Some of the military units in the city would change sides.
The SE choice of a citizen would influence when it becomes a "drone". For example, citizens with the "power" choice would become drones if you losed a city in battle. "Wealth" citizens would become drones if taxes were too high. "democracy" citizens would become drones if you were a tyranny. "Green" citizens would become drones if there were too much pollution etc...
Your psych rating would slowly influence citizens toward your SE choices. This would work faster under a communist system than a democracy.
You could also influence (to a small degree) the SE choices of other civs, by sending a spy to a foreign city and telling to "convert" existing drones to a specific SE choice. It would only influnce existing drones. So, a city with no drones would have no effect.

The benefits of this system would be IMO:
- a new important concept: ideology as a force in history.
- deeper gameplay: real revolutions and civil wars.
- more strategies: SE choices would not be so easily changed constantly. You could influence other civs ideologically, maybe successfully start a revolution (in History, civs did play big roles in other civ's civil wars or revolutions).

[dinoman2]

I think that the 'princess' idea is waaay to powerful. It should be an automatic alliance, instead of 'merging' the civilizations. it would be more difficult to achieve a conquer victory now, because other civilizations would keep on getting an alliance with you. However, it should definitely be only possible with monarchy.

On a similar note, it would be neat if like every 40 or 50 years, you would 'die' and a new leader would come in. Then eventually he would die, and so on. Each leader would have their one advantages and disadvantages. For example, one would be a millitary genius and would give your units morale advantages, another one would be a brilliant economist and would encourage the growth of economy and trade, etc. It would add a touch of realism to the game, and also you could try to change your society to encourage a particular leader type.

Also, I will be SEVERELY dissapointed if the game doesn't continue in to the future. To not do this would be a step down from ctp, and then your getting pretty low indeed. And the more space colonization and the like that can be fit into the game, the better.

Oh well, just my two cents worth.

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"Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will"
-Mikhail Bakunin

[korn469]

jimmy

instead of writing their social engineering choice under the person (because it'd be impossible to do when you had a large city) you could make a different citizen icon for each of the SE choices...for example, power people could wear camo, wealth could wear tuxedos or something like that, but good idea!

dinoman2

i already have the leader dies every so often in the summary so don't worry they know about it

korn469

[Xin Yu]

Wonders, after expired, may become a tourist attraction and give you a percentage of each civ's annual income, provided that you pay a maintainance cost. Your choice.

There should be some wonder/city impovements which have NEGATIVE effects. For example, a foreign missioner can convert your temple to produce unhappy citizens, the effect will last for a period even if you sell the temple; however if you don't have the temple, you don't have the negative effect. Another example, the marketplace can be converted to black market and eat your income.

[korn469]

Xin Yu

when you say negative effects are you talking about effects like the genejack factory in SMAC or is your idea different? can you please explain it a little more.

korn469