RADICAL IDEAS (ver 2.0): Hosted by korn469

[FinnishGuy]

Will,

No, world conquest wouldn't be ruled out "until really late" in the game. Like I tried to point out, it would still be possible although challenging to build or conquer a large empire in ancient times. For example, player might simply get lucky and not experience any of the items 4, 6 and 7. Nationalism wouldn't be the only advance that reduces the penalties, but the last. There would be other things earlier like adoption of a religion with higher moral code, or some Wonders to build. And the reduction very much depends on your tech advances, so the quicker you research the sooner you get rid of the penalties. Hey, have Nationalism by 2000BC, go conquer.

But really, world conquest shouldn't be an issue without proper development first. How CAN the world be conquered with primitive technologies and as leader of people who about remind cavemen in their thinking and moral? World conquest requires global logistics, communication networks, means of transportation, etc., resources that didn't exist in ancient times.

A tribal chief doesn't know how to run an empire, even such pretty advanced people like the Romans failed. A lot of technological, intellectual and spiritual evolution is needed for succesfully ruling an empire. This is what my proposal tries to address.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by FinnishGuy (edited August 12, 1999).]</font>

[Gordon the Whale]

By changing the radius so bluntly for cities of different sizes, you completely destroy any chance of planning a civilization... When you are starting, you will have villages 3 squares apart, with 8 squares in each city radius. Then, by the time they're all metropolises, they are overlapping horribly. With villages, you control where the city radius goes, and with regionalized goods, overlap is unimportant. Speaking of regionalized goods:

The village system, as I believe has already been mentioned, depends upon a difference between industry and resources. How many resources belongs in different threads, but assume for all discussions of villages that there are two things, industry and resources. The villages produce resources. The simplest division is between two resources: food and "shields." The food from the village (minus its own requirements) is distributed throughout the region, as a regional surplus in food. There have been ample discussions in varied places about the effects of food, I think we don't need to go into that. The food is divided first by need, then the surplus is divided by population. Shields (or more distinct resources) are used for production, but cannot be used alone. They require the workers in the city. Each city "produces" industry. Industry is produced by workers. Industry represents the amount of work that can be done in the city, and industry is where production comes from. If your Phalanx costs 20 shields, you need 20 shields (from villages) to build a Phalanx. However, the city you are building the Phalanx in can only build it so fast... If it's industry is 2, it takes 10 turns. If industry is 20, it takes one turn. If industry is 60, three in one turn. However, the villages must be producing enough "shields." Shields are divided up like food, equally within each region. Basically, this means that if you have a shield defacit, all cities in the region begin to get a % drop in production. If you have a surplus, it can be stored for later, with some percentage decay rate.

On village placement: I agree with Theben's limitations. Count rivers and coastlines as roads for these purposes, though.

On villages becoming cities: Like Ember said, a settler can turn a village into a city (this ends up with a slightly bigger city than if you'd just built it with the settler in the middle of nowhere, but also ends up with a city in the same region the village was) Also, a village can build a "town hall." I like this idea, but here is a question: What does the village use to build? By definition, it has no industry. Maybe only allow the settler route.

Not up to my usual long-winded standards, but that was a LOT to reply to, and I've been gone quite a while.

[Theben]

double trouble
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited August 12, 1999).]</font>

[Theben]

Another idea, this one keeps the village as a TI but kills the other ideas thrown around.

Cities still have their 2 radius. In order to extend them you must build a "village" TI, outside the city radius only. It sends the resources of the tile to the city, -1 food, with the above distance limits. If there is no food it subtracts -1 from the city's other sources. The limiting factor is simply to allow but 1 village per 2 population of the city. It acts in all other regards as a "supply crawler" from SMAC (except it can't move), with no support costs other than the 1 food. This differs from a "supply depot" as they only extend supply lines.
Very simplistic I know. But it could work.

[ember]

Theben, that's actually how the whole village idea came up in the first place.

I suggested to make supply units a TI instead, then the issue of maint. came up, and when the maint. was a pop point, 'inhabited squares' the need to differentiate between within city radius and farther away evaporated...

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

[will I]

Finnish Guy:
I think your proposal would effectively rule out global conquest as an option until really late in the game, which strikes me as a bad thing.

Ember:

It seems like your village concept is a clever concept that is basically unnecessary. Theben's proposal of allowing only the second population unit to go out into the field would eliminate ICS much more easily.

I've heard it said that the village would represent the fact that rural populations were exposed to attack. But that really doesn't reflect reality for most of our history. The type of scorched earth combat that this view tries to represent didn't really begin until Europe's Thirty Years War, and wasn't prevalent until much later. Prior to that point, barbarians might occasionally raid to steal food or slaves, but they very seldom destroyed whole villages. This tendency is amply represented by allowing barbarians to destroy improvements.

I've also heard it said that villages would reflect a city's resource pool better than the artificial city zone in Civ1/2. I disagree. In ancient times, most cities' resource pools were defined by proximity to the resources or to a river or ocean. Road transport of all but the smallest items was prohibitively expensive. I believe that this would be better reflected by making the city radius one square in the early part of the game, with perhaps an extension to include river tiles two squares away. Perhaps in later parts of the game, we could have something like the SMAC supply pods, which extract resources outside the city radius and ship them to the city.

I think these suggestions would remedy the asserted problems of the city radius without adding the massive complexity and unrealistic vulnerability of the village system.

[JamesJKirk]

Since most of us plan on having games with a large number of tribes, why not have a few tribes belong to each of about 7 or so civilizations. The civs have similar cultures and whatnot, and while they may not always get along, they typically will if they're up against another civilization. It can start out with about seven civs and about 4 or 5 tribers per civ, initially, the player would mainly be concerned with increasing his or her power within their own civ, and growing more powerful than all other civs. Early in the game, there's a very high chance that Barbarians will eventually destroy your tribe and civ, but it doesn't matter so much if you're the leader of your civ, because a new civ will descend from the old one, and it will be centered around your old capital. If you aren't the best tribe in your civ, the game's over. At some point you will have to start concentrating on colonizing the globe and subjecting other tribes from other civs to your power and holding back the progress of other civs. AS for your colonies, you could decide whether you want to transport your people overseas to live in them and push the natives inland, if you want to have the natives live under your complete control (which provides cheap labor), Or have a mix between that. At some point the colonies will probably want to rebel unless they're VERY happy, and you'll probably want to keep close relations with them (selling them goods and offering protection) so that they'll need you over peoples in their own civs. A main objective to win this way would be to unite your civ into a single tribe where your nation is the undisputed leader, and to have a good number of peoples out side your civ choose to follow you rather than the leaders of your own civ. For a better understanding of the civilizational system, I really sugest reading "The Clash of Civilizations and the REmaking of World Order" by Samuel Huntington.

[will I]

Theben has succinctly described my proposal. If that concept was the seed for the more elaborate village proposal, I, for one, would vote strongly to keep it a seed. For all of the reasons I've described in prior posts, I think the more "advanced" village concept adds pointless management activities and increases the scope for annoying and unrealistic AI scorched earth tactics, while not providing any meaningful improvement to the city radius + supply pod approach used in SMAC.

[don Don]

There is some discussion of this village idea in the Terrain Improvement thread, too. I believe that the placement of workers in a tile (on the city screen) is the equivalent of having villages (likely several) in that tile.

I favor the idea of special Village TIs for other uses. For example, an inland city with shore tiles in its radius could use a village on a shore tile to serve as a port. The city could then build ships, but not port improvements (other than Harbor). If some improvements are necessary for ship production, an idea I favor, then building the improvements would confer only the ability to build that type of ship; no other ship effects (vet status, fast repair) would accrue.

I prefer the idea of special TI's rather than Supply Crawlers. A Village TI could be used to assign the resource to a city if connected via road or rail. Road would offer some partial utilization of the resources, and rail the full value. Could coexist with mine, fortress, airbase, etc. Or a Depot improvement could serve the same purpose by a different name (especially after RR).

I would also like to see a Suburb TI only for plains & grasslands. Preq: Automobile. This represents small cities economically tied to the major city (heard of SMSA?) that, in ages past, would have been cities in their own right by population size. Could coexist with irrigation & farms (these tile are 50-100 miles across, ya know). Would allow an extra "worker" in the square producing only trade (2 trade units, perhaps). This allow for much bigger cities, as we have in the real world (Mexico city would be size 49).

These ideas aren't really radical, but they fit in with the general discussion. Of course, I'd really prefer a linear city size model… that's radical!

[Jon Miller]

Hi all

I have a really radical idea (have had it for a while, didn't think this forum was the place to post it but here it is)

my idea is massive multiplayer online civ

what made me post it was sovereign

my idea was that on an earth world that is much larger in size than any civ one (maybe real size with real size cities) you would build cities and civilizations

the management would be such that you can have people under you (and that they can rebel and try to start their own civ)

the game would start as all civ games do at 4000 bc

you would control a bloodline that could marry with others have children ect

if your bloodline dies out you have to restart the game

if another player captures all your blood line you then play under them in the management role they set you too

marrying out your bloodline would than be advantageous and would mean that you too would be allied

each member of your familly would be listed and you would have very complete government

government would be such that you can set different players, if you have completely captured their bloodline, to control a region for you

they would do this under the threat of eradication

you would of course have to watch them to keep them from rebelling against you

in a republic the players in that civ would control different factions in the senate and would have to do actions to get them more popular so that they get more power

early on you can be let men or women rule or both

if you have men only than you are introuble if you have only female members and you lose control of the city

besides the stuff to make this good for massive online most rules could be found in these forums

play could move like in smac simultaneous mode

play would go on over like 3 years to take the world to 2000 ad (turns would of course be less time as would tech learning)

new players would start along the edges of civilization and in historical areas

if there are no more places for cities of a bloodline to start one would start in the freeist, largest nation with the fewest bloodlines in it (a new family moving up in the world) or maybe after a certain time you can choose what to do

governments will be extremely customizable so that you can mske all sorts of ones even like the US or Rome

this is a crazy idea but I had it a while ago and I want it

humans are funner to play against then AI

I think this would be cool

I lied, many things would have to be changed because of the scale change (and many things would/could grow more realistic)

maybe we could even make it real time (but with speeded up time

maybe we could even make it play to two turns and die of old age

time could be linear in it in any case

wouldn't it be fun to launch huge realist campaigns against others, or manage a real looking and acting civ

maybe even we could make squares much much smaller and have it so that cities can spread and become larger

I'm being taken to the asylum now

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

back from the asylum for one last bit of craziness

it could be real time with you being in the group or city where your person is (when you die you go to the heir in your bloodline, people have nonseable stats that give stuff like charisma and other things) and for you to command anything you have to send out messangers, which take time to get there

they games real time aspect would be slow enough that we would not have time management as a major factor

the scale would be such that if the player left with the players troops the player could see them all the way and command them in battle (a reason to keep fallen bloodlines arround)

you could still send messangers in the field

a player in the world would not have to be a civ ruler

in a republic they could have political power

they could be like the pope

they could get rich and have economical power

the cities by the way and land would be real simulaated

they could become generals and governors

and of course they can rebel

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Hi all

I am no longer loony but here is a radical idea

cut out with approximating everything

make everything linear like it really is

techs, cities, units, time (turns)

if you use linear cities, modern cities would produce so much more that of course you could do more (and learn more) in less time than ancient ones

make it so that if nothing happens arround you (nothing that you have a governor set to handle ir anything) it just speeds you by so that you do not have to press enter for so man turns early in the game

wow these forums have been quiet recently (and the smac forums have actually picked up a little)

Jon Miller

[Fugi the Great]

Personal Post #100 - A Century Civer?

Jimmy - Alright, another REAL population guy!

JamesJKirk - You an ancestor of James T. Kirk? Sorry, had to ask. Liked your idea of tribes. It reminded me of the Mongol Hordes, and how they never really amounted to anything until they were united in a common effort by a great leader. The different Mongol tribes took up a lot of area in Asia, but each tribe had their own agendas. With this idea, your tribe would not be able to control the whole of the Mongol empire, until you could get all the other tribes united. How long you are in control depends upon what you did to become the leader, temporary alliances, tribal marriage, largest tribe, voted to be leader... Even if the empire starts fracturing back into tribes after you finally united it, like the Mongol empire did, the individual tribes would still be considered part of the greater CIV, where all parts come together for mutual defense of the CIV, though may not necessarily come together to expand the CIV. The only problem with this may be, how do you get to be the leader if you are stuck with a tribe in a lousy area with no way to make your tribe within the CIV any bigger? If there are 7 CIVs with 5 tribes each, does the AI treat each tribe with in the CIV as a seperate civ thereby making 35 civs, where each set of 5 of those civs just happen to be extremely friendly toward each other and share whatever technologies, benefits, and/or hardships of the other tribes within the CIV?

[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

[JamesJKirk]

Fugi-
I forgive you for the joke, I'm immune to them at this point in my life. Anyway, I was thinking that tribes in the same civ would be more likely to make more meaningful (longer) alliances since they would have more in common culturally, so there would essentially be 35 civs, but each would get along best with those in their own civilization unless circumstance forced them to do otherwise (as in the cold war). The idea of different tribes in each civ allows more depth to the game and realism, since it'd very damned hard to conquer the globe, at least w/o having everyone dependant on you.