CTP3 etc. (lots of rambling)

[colorme]

One thing that's bothered me about Civilization style games is that they're so linear. i.e. if you begin to win by a substantial margin, then you might as well stop playing, because you know you'll win eventually (especially against the AI).

In the real world, empires come and go, but the only constant is that no country/nation/empire will ever dominate the world for all time to come (non-withstanding the current American domination). The reasons are different in the case of different empires - first agriculture was more important, then industry, then (now) information, then (in the future) something else.
The empire that dominates the need of the times is the dominant empire. Thus we have at various times {Egypt/China/India/Greece} -> Europe -> America dominating the world.

I wonder if this kind of dependency on a changing environment can be built into a Civ-style game. Currently, all games focus on only a few resources that have the same value forever, so if you dominate at time t0, you'll continue dominating at all t > t0.

This can perhaps be one big change over the now standard Civ-playing style (and would reflect the real world better).

Don't know how such a game would end with a "winner" though

(On second thoughts, perhaps I should patent this idea
)

[Mad-Kat]

Hehe. You could call it "Fuzzy Civilization".

[colorme]

Sounds good Mad-Kat.

But seriously, one way to implement this (perhaps straight-forward) would be to change the various resource/requirement coefficients slowly over time.

The change in strategy for the dominant player would be to recognise that you're losing out on a certain resource and then go out and capture it before someone else begins to dominate.

[TheLimey]

Tell me about it.

I and some other people have been discussing this issue comprehensively, and do have definite ideas of how to solve the issue;

One wonder per civ per age
Infinite City Sleaze reduced or eliminated
Better AI; rewards for diplomacy
Help for AI defense (so that their attack is easier)

I fully intend to look to doing a 'balance' mod, when I get the game, provided of course, the tools (like SLIC2) are good enough to work with this...

[colorme]

To TheLimey,

great! I'll be looking forward to your mod. Especially if the AI can be taught to use combined arms and diplomacy effectively ...

[Depp]

Maybe all civilizations should be crushed with time and you must fight to rebuild it over and over, and the winner is the one who have played best over the entire timeline, not just in the end.
I mean, no civ lasted really long, not in full power anyway. In CTP and Civ they all last that long, or get conqured.

This way the game could be seperated with ages and all ages could be played seperatly or in a row. This could make a pretty exiting game. In the ancient times the game focuses on a smaller area of the world etc.
And if you want you empire to survive you must not overreach, as the big empires always collapse, and use diplomacy to keep neighbours at bay at least as much as by force.
Wonder if that game would be any fun ? im not sure....

/Jocke

[Dark Renown]

for the first post that should be Britain, not europe.

This seems like quite a good idea, you could have a random disaster from time to time(like a large revolt or a small race discovering a very good tech)
How about a MUCH larger tech tree so that to win in one area you lose in another and the diffrent ages need diffrent techs to excel in.

[Depp]

Yeah, and culturals differences depending on what part of the world you started in.

A prime example of this game would be china, beaten badly time and time again they where still a leading nation for a very long time.

[TheBirdMan]

Right TheLimey.

And also a lot has been wrote about disasters.

Hope and believe, that "our" best modmakers can and will do something about this, when they have had time to take a closer look on the game.