Tweet
Plague! Disease! Pestilence!
With regard to realism, I see no reason why gameplay can't mirror history... in effect at least.
The problem with earlier civilization games is that they all fail to realize actual events which cause actual problems. In Civ and Civ2 both by Microprose, there aren't any plagues. In real life, however, the Bubonic Plague swept through Europe killing over 50 million people. Smallpox swept through the americas after being introduced by Cortez's men leaving only 10% of the population alive. Even as recently as WWI over a quarter of the world's people were infected by a pandemic of influenza. Malaria, AIDS, and a whole plethora of others buth new and ancient have been a boon of civilizations throughout history. This absolutely MUST be a factor in game design, especially in that it provides a totally new and different enemy for players to deal with. This would provide an ultimate solution to a host of problems. First, ICS would become suicide (by facilitating the rapid spread of infection). Also, military oriented civs would be caught offguard with an inability to deal with the new terrors.
Here is a proposed plan just off the top of my head:
Each map square will have a series of toggles, indicating a positive or negative variable. These could be as follows "Disease A:+, Disease B:-,Disease C:-" etc., whereas in gameplay "Disease A" might be named "Smallpox". Any undected diseases would have an X% chance of spreading to an adjacent square depending on infastructure, that chance would be reduced by half if that square is quarrentined the same turn it is detected and reduced by half again each turn after (after it's already too late, of course =). Cities connected with active trades routes would have a 99% chance of spreading the disease.
Aqueducts will reduce the chance of an outbreak occuring on that square by 50%, but will facilitate a spread by doubling the chance if an outbreak does occur.
Any infected units (unmarked during gameplay) automatically spread the disease to everything it touches. Imagine the terror in a player when he recieves the message "You Legion has been erradicated by the Plague" when that player realizes that same legion has been through the heart of his empire. Consequently, there needs to be a time lapse between infection and detection.
This new concept would give great value to technology advances like "Penecilin" and "immunization," while providing some more aggresive players to pursue "Anthrax." And perhaps it will cause great striving towards wonders like CTP's Immunity Chip.
The introduction of disease would provide a whole new dimmension of gameplay, way beyond a mere military threat. I believe it would thoroughly stimulate a new challenge to empirebuilders worldwide, and provide an alternative way for the computer to eliminate the weak.
Please consider this.
The problem with earlier civilization games is that they all fail to realize actual events which cause actual problems. In Civ and Civ2 both by Microprose, there aren't any plagues. In real life, however, the Bubonic Plague swept through Europe killing over 50 million people. Smallpox swept through the americas after being introduced by Cortez's men leaving only 10% of the population alive. Even as recently as WWI over a quarter of the world's people were infected by a pandemic of influenza. Malaria, AIDS, and a whole plethora of others buth new and ancient have been a boon of civilizations throughout history. This absolutely MUST be a factor in game design, especially in that it provides a totally new and different enemy for players to deal with. This would provide an ultimate solution to a host of problems. First, ICS would become suicide (by facilitating the rapid spread of infection). Also, military oriented civs would be caught offguard with an inability to deal with the new terrors.
Here is a proposed plan just off the top of my head:
Each map square will have a series of toggles, indicating a positive or negative variable. These could be as follows "Disease A:+, Disease B:-,Disease C:-" etc., whereas in gameplay "Disease A" might be named "Smallpox". Any undected diseases would have an X% chance of spreading to an adjacent square depending on infastructure, that chance would be reduced by half if that square is quarrentined the same turn it is detected and reduced by half again each turn after (after it's already too late, of course =). Cities connected with active trades routes would have a 99% chance of spreading the disease.
Aqueducts will reduce the chance of an outbreak occuring on that square by 50%, but will facilitate a spread by doubling the chance if an outbreak does occur.
Any infected units (unmarked during gameplay) automatically spread the disease to everything it touches. Imagine the terror in a player when he recieves the message "You Legion has been erradicated by the Plague" when that player realizes that same legion has been through the heart of his empire. Consequently, there needs to be a time lapse between infection and detection.
This new concept would give great value to technology advances like "Penecilin" and "immunization," while providing some more aggresive players to pursue "Anthrax." And perhaps it will cause great striving towards wonders like CTP's Immunity Chip.
The introduction of disease would provide a whole new dimmension of gameplay, way beyond a mere military threat. I believe it would thoroughly stimulate a new challenge to empirebuilders worldwide, and provide an alternative way for the computer to eliminate the weak.
Please consider this.
Comment