Design Agenda for Openciv3, to be decided on in the meeting!

[amjayee]

Basic Openciv3 Agenda

Here is a list of things that we should base our game system on. I wish, that we could agree on these things quickly, and then start discussing the details of the system.

We had one IRC meeting on Sunday, June 25th. You can find the log in its own thread. We should soon have another one with more people. Suggest times - next Sunday (June 2nd) is the first day that suits me.

Read these thoughts, and comment them here if you wish to change something. Please suggest changes only, if you have some fundamental ideas about changing the system, and don't go to too much detail in your suggestions. This is intended to be only a rough synopsis of the game system.

I tried to add most of the ideas presented in the forums, but I know it's not complete. Hopefully at least the most important features are added.

First of all, I have divided the game into sections, each containing a clearly defined part of the game system. The sections are: Geography, Population, Religion, Culture, Government, Military, Diplomacy, Economy, Construction and Development. Next, I will describe shortly each section and list the key points in them.

Geography

Hexagon tiles would be used. Map would be larger than earlier - 250000 to 400000 would be the number of tiles in a medium map, but smaller ones could be used, if low on memory.

The size of the tiles (in "real world" should be decided, and included in the game rules. This way, we clearly define the geographic scope of the game. It also makes it easier to simulate realistic unit movement, and "real-world-looking" geography. The possible tile sizes might go from 50 kilometers (~30 miles) to 70 kilometers (~45 miles). The respective tile amounts, when creating an Earth map, would be ~190000 and ~390000.

The tiles would have several properties, each with quite large range of values that decide the appearance of the tile, and its characteristics. Compared to the old “terrain type” system, this gives more variety to the terrain.

The tile properties would be tile type, elevation, terrain, temperature, precipitation, rivers, vegetation and fertility. Guildmaster described his ingenious system in the Terrain and Map thread - check it out for details.

There would be a large set of resources that can be produced in the tiles. This is needed for the better economic system. The basic resources, like food, wood, and stone, can be produced nearly anywhere, and the terrain properties decide how much of that resource can be produced in that tile. For mined raw materials, like iron, copper, uranium, and oil, the placement and amount would be decided more randomly, but with some rules involved. For the grown and gathered trade goods, like cotton, silk, wine, and ivory, the terrain determines what can be produced and how much. Some things could be produced only in factories or such.

The map would also feature diseases and natural disasters. Those would follow some simple rules, making them work much like their real-world counterparts. For example in some areas the risk for earthquakes would be much larger than elsewhere. Diseases would spawn in suitable spots on the map and spread worldwide, if conditions are good. Biological weapons would be modeled in the same way.

Population

The people need to have ethnical, religious and national affiliations. Ethnicity is the original home civ of the people; nationality is the current home civ. Each combination of ethnical and religious affiliations is a “group”; people belonging to the same group tend to work similarly in different circumstances, and try to stay together.

Population works independently, and would have some will and needs of their own.

Population is group of people with some properties, deciding how the people in that group react to player’s actions, and how they interact with the world. The properties would be: population amount, reproduction, happiness, age structure, profession structure (what things the people do for living), what things the people are discontented with, the percentages of people belonging to each group, and perhaps some others.

Population produces workhours, that are needed for all production. They also produce "creative energy" that is used for cultural, scientific and religious work.

People need to live in the countryside also; instead of having a population for every tile as I proposed earlier, I thought of having a population for cities, and another population for every region (region idea belongs to government section), that includes all the people living outside cities in that region. Then, each tile without a city would have only the number of people living in that tile.

Religion

Religions would be independent entities in the game, acting somewhat like the civilizations, but they would have different goals, and different means of achieving them. Religions could take part to politics, build and own structures, employ people, and control civilizations. They would not obey geographical or ethnical borders.

The religions could be "born" realistically for example in some city, and start to spread. Each religion could have some characteristics, like monotheism/polytheism, strictness of moral teachings, relation to science, etc.

There could also be some religious "science", theology, dogmatics, etc.

Culture

The goal with this section is to simulate the cultural differences and uniqueness of each nation.

Each civilization has influences from other civilizations. National culture would be divided to sections, like literature and architecture. One part of the culture would be keeping track of how unique the national culture of each civilization is.

Culture has also another part, working quite like science; each civilization has a skill of poetry or drama, for example.

Culture is used mainly for the “look and feel” of the game; it could also affect politics and diplomacy, and be a fond of national pride. Also culture/religion interaction might be interesting.

Government

The goal is to give the player tools to control his empire, and his people.

The people of the country can take part to making decisions. Government in the game is mainly about deciding, who holds the power, and how the country is ruled.

The form of government decides, what the player can do. But; it should not restrict too much the players actions, but also the government types need to be different from each other. This will need some balancing.

For example, in a democratic nation, the player could not do anything he wants. Instead of simply forbidding that action, it might cause unhappiness. That could be fought with PROPAGANDA.

Local government; each country needs to be divided into regions. Each region can have some level of independency. Using regions should be strongly encouraged in the game system, by giving severe penalties when the distance to the region/national capital is long. There could be many kinds of regions - provinces, states, colonies, protectorates etc.

Military

The goal of the military system is to simulate warfare in all eras of world’s history, and in strategic scale. This gives the player the tools to control area and people, and a more aggressive method for diplomacy.

The key difference to the earlier civ games is the use of armies. The player still builds individual units; a unit is defined as a group of men, each carrying same kind of equipment, and their commanders.

But, the player is strongly encouraged to combine different kinds of units into armies. This gives large bonuses for the units for the better coordination, including the fact that different unit types can support each other in the battle.

Even larger bonus is gained by using commanders, special units that are got by a) training them in military academies b) randomly promoting especially skillful soldiers from veteran units c) randomly from ordinary folk, that have proven to be good leaders. Commander includes a general and his staff. If the commander is killed, the army could experience a short-time (one turn) morale drop, and naturally the commander bonus is lost.

Occasionally, the commanders could experience a short-time large bonus, simulating the ingenious generals of world's history - like Julius Caesar and Napoleon. Usually these commanders are very ambitious, and want to conquer the world, also causing revolution in your country. You could choose to support the general - and he might conquer large land areas for you before dying - or not, when you need to fight him.

There should be a large amount of pre-set unit types, that could not be modified very much. But instead of the unit workshop, there could be an "army workshop" where you could tailor the army to suit your needs. For example, when you create an army, you assign a commander to it, create the supply troops for it, and perhaps add some special abilities for it. Then you could station it in a military base, and assign units to it.

Armies could be split and combined.

There would be four domains for the armies: land, sea, air, and space. There would be special rules for battle between each one of these domains: land-land, air-land etc. Depending on the primary domain of the army, there would be armies (operating on land), fleets (sea), air fleets (air), and space fleets (space).

Units require men, equipment, tactics and training. The men need to be taken from the existing population; so, the larger army, the less men working. Damage to the army means, that men die, and need to be replaced from the population.

Another difference to former games would be, that instead of moving the armies tile by tile, they are deployed. Each army would need to be stationed in a military base. The armies would have a deployment range; inside it, they could be placed freely, but they would move there along a route; the enemy could notice them moving, and intercept them. If deployed outside the deployment range, several turns are used. The route of the units is shown on the map; the player can change the route the units will use, if he wants.

Armies also would have an operating range, inside which they could carry out operations the player wants, like scouting, patrolling, attacking, intercepting the enemy etc.

This works as an advanced "go-to" system, and fixes the unrealistic movement in civ2 - moving units across a continent takes centuries, for example.

This system has had some opposition. Some people would like to move their units tile by tile, as earlier. To counter-argument that I have said, that since the map will be larger, it will kill you if you need to move the units around tile-by-tile. I'd like to emphasize, that the player _will_ still move the units, they would just have some advanced auto-moving options, and longer movement range per turn.

The supplying of the units needs to be taken care of. This would work like the trade routes, and the routes would be visible on the map. The routes could be attacked by enemy, trying to cut the flow of supplies. The armies have special supply troops, that take care of the supplying for the whole army. For individual units, you would need separate supply units, and order them to supply that unit.

Diplomacy

The diplomacy should work as conversation between nations; you could make demands, propositions, questions etc. to another country, or just boast with your successes. The other country would then respond.

There should be a wider range of tools for the diplomacy.

Economy

The key point in economy is a more complex system of raw materials and products; economy means producing and exchanging those materials and products.

The ideas presented by Cylon in the Economy thread will be used in the economy model. I will soon refine this section to fit those ideas

Another key point is the private ownership; this is done with companies that would be individual entities of the game, like religions. They could build structures, produce things, trade with other companies and nations and employ people. The companies would also take care of some needs of the people.

There would be one company per civilization that represents the whole private sector of that country. The economic system of that country decides who can own the company.

Some economic phenomena, like supply and demand, inflation etc. should be modeled in the game, keeping in mind the scope of the game.

It would be possible to tax a) your people b) your company c) the countries you are trading with and d) some specific trading good(s)

Trade routes need to be more important. They would go along a visible route on the map. They would not be built by moving caravans as in earlier games. Instead, when you wish to trade, you could make a trade pact with some nation. Then, goods start to move along an existing trade route, or a new one is created. You would need to spend some resources to upkeep the trading capabilities of your nation. This would be done automatically, but you could adjust it if you need to.

Also your people and companies could trade. The trade routes usually don’t go straightly from point a to point b, but they also pass through points c, d, and e, that also benefit from the trading. Usually there very soon appears routes of varying importance on the map automatically. Trade routes increase the importance of the land they pass through. Usually new cities spawn along important trade routes, especially where trade routes cross.
Players could set tolls for the trade routes passing through their territory.

Tourism should play some kind of role in the game. You could build tourist-attraction buildings, exploit your colorful history, or the natural wonders of your country.

Construction

Cities would have infrastructure you need to build when building cities. Cities could also be built automatically under some circumstances.

Also there would be facilities/improvements/structures in the cities - buildings that are used for some specific purpose.

There could be more than one structure of each kind per city.

Most structures could also be built outside cities; often new city is gradually formed if the structure is important. Also farms and mines would be structures.

Structures would be built by starting building projects. Each project needs resources, workforce, and money. The projects could be started anywhere. The needed workmen would come from the nearby region, or you could transport slaves to the site. Usually when large projects are built, the builders remain in the tile, and eventually build a new city.

The wonder system would be refined. Some wonders would be buildings, that can be built only once per game. Some others would be national projects, that each nation could build once.

Companies and religions could build structures, or fund building them.
Perhaps in some cases you wouldn’t build “buildings” but “abilities” for your city; for example in the case of factories etc. You would only fund the building of the production capabilities of your city. Similarly with health care, sewers, water supply etc… Each city would have a “level” in each one of these. Only the largest structures would be buildings, like large temples, seaports, etc.

Some buildings could be customized, by combining some components; for example the military bases.

Development

Development means producing new information and knowledge.

Information is divided to sections: like, academic, applied, military, economic, cultural, religion, social, construction.

We should make a difference between small breakthrough ideas, that most of the civ2 technologies were, like automobile and railroad, and the larger “areas” of information that have very much information to learn, and that are developed gradually over time, like mathematics and physics.

We should use “levels” of knowledge on the larger fields of knowledge; the level would slowly rise over time, depending on several factors. Some areas could for example require some practical work; shipbuilding skill would increase when ships are built. The level could also decrease under some circumstances.

Certain development on certain field could demand certain development on some other field.

There would be some level of randomness involved; in certain circumstances, there would be a possibility x that certain development occurs, or that certain breakthrough idea is made.

The science system needs to take into account more factors. The scientific work is only one part of it. Also some social things etc. would affect it.

The achieved knowledge level can also lower, if enough scientific work is not being made, if ships are not built for a long time for example, or in case of large wars. The loss of science could be partly prevented by building libraries etc.

The technology spreads among civilizations connected with each other. Breakthrough ideas spread more easily. The first one to find certain breakthrough idea could get a bonus.

Some information could be classified to make the information leakage and stealing the tech more difficult.

Using spies to steal technology should be made more realistic; you rarely could steal all of some technology, but you could use spies to increase your knowledge on that area. Breakthrough ideas could be stolen more easily, but in most cases all of the tech could not be stolen.

Also, to steal a technology, you need to have all the prerequisites for it.

That's it. Please don't go too specific in your comments, this is intentionally made rough. Before the specific features can be decided, we have to decide on the principles.

The intention is to start from a civ2-style game, by adding some key enhancements, and by designing the code so, that it's easy to add more functionality later. Please keep this in mind. This is, after all, going to be much like civ2, but of course a lot better and with more depth.

I will be fine-tuning this text later.
[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited June 26, 2000).]

[amjayee]

I just updated the text. It is still quite messy, but I changed some things according to the discussion. Please make comments for it here.

[The Joker]

Although I agree with virtually all of these ideas, I must ask you all (and myself) one thing: How much new is here?

When we first decided to make this game didn't we make a rough draw, that was almost completely like this one?

I think that we, as we are making a game and not just posting ideas for professional designers to use, must be really, REALLY specific in our ideas. We can not just say that we want to have a map with tiles, in which many things can be produced. We have to SPECIFICALLY decide, how the map will look like, what ressources and properties we want the tiles to have, and EVERYTHING ELSE!

All the ideas we have made so far have been vague ones. Of cause this is needed, as we must develop this game via discussion, and as we can not start out with a fully developed game.

But in order to "feed" the programmers with stuff they can actually use we must begin making concepts for the game that are totally ready to implement.

As the map is the basic thing in the game we should begin deciding excactly how we want the map to work. This could be done simultaneusly with all the other and (to be honest) much more interesting discussions we have. But we need to decide on some things, and we need to do it soon.

Either way everybody have to see this. It is important.
[This message has been edited by The Joker (edited June 26, 2000).]

[amjayee]

Hmm. Still some confusement.

I tried to explain, that the text was _intentionally_ made vague. The idea in it is, that before we can go to specifics, we must know the basics. Everyone needs to be sure, what the game system will be able to do, and what the fundamental framework of the system is. If people are not sure, they will keep making suggestions for a real-time click&hassle around game. Well, perhaps not.

But; if we can now agree on the basic features we want for the game, we can much more comfortably start putting the flesh around the ideas, since we know, that the fundamentals will not be changed. So, put now some effort in reviewing the ideas, and making further suggestions; the rule is, that when these are decided, they will be changed only very reluctantly.

One more reason to do this; the programmers will make the final game also starting from the basic architectural framework, so this serves also their purposes better.

So, some contributions are needed!

[The Joker]

Comments on these concepts:

Geography:

Are we gonna remove the subhexes that Amjayee suggested some time ago? I think we could do so. The subhexes are just cosmetic, and take a lot of memory.

Earthquakes: How are we gonna make the map? If we are using a somewhat realistic map generator which includes tectonic plates and mountain ranges where they meet (although I don't really now if this could be done without a lot of effort which could be used better on the game itself) we would not only have a better looking map, we would also have earthquakes and volcanoes where two plates meet. Just a suggestion.

Otherwise it's ok.


Population:

I am not sure whether having age structures and such in the game wouldn't be overdoing things. We need to stay somewhat simple in most areas, to make sure that the player can overview the situation, even if he doesn't need to control everything himself.


Religion:

I think a religion should be formed every time a civ discovers ceremonial burial (an animalistic religion), polytheism (a polytheistic religion), monotheism (a monotheistic religion) and new age (some new religion). Of cause this will mean that there will be loads of religions in the game. But as religions should have properties showing how good they are at converting other people to them, and how good they are at keeping people believing in them most of these religions would never survive more than a few turns.

I have an almost complete religion model somewhere (based on the religion ideas for Civ3), but as I don't think we should be worrying about religion just yet I have not posted it.


Culture:

I am not sure I want this to have a huge role in the game. It would be pretty nice to have, but it needs to have some game effect, and still it needs to be fairly simple.


Government:

I think we can all agree on this, right?

I also agree with provinces. When a civ gets more than 6-8 cities it should begin being better to divide it into provinces.


Military:

I like this. We will have to work on the commander system. I am not sure how it would work if we just picked out people from the pop to become commanders... Anyway it sounds good.

I agree on not EVER having a unit workshop. A unit should be a unit, and could never be changed. An army, however, could be tailored to some extend to meet your needs. And of cause it should always be possible to see what units is in an army, and to divide the army back into units.

Military bases: Wouldn't these most often simply be cities? I agree that most of the time an army would simply be stationed somewhere, but in wartime it should be moved around. But again never tile by tile. And enough of that ridiculous slow movement. Unit movement should be realistic, meaning that a modern ship would be able to sail around the world in only one or two turns.

And supply of units is essential. I think a supply unit would be good for the job. But of cause you wouldn't have to move it around every turn. In stead the supply would be via a traderoute type thing.


Diplomacy:

This is very tricky. There need to be loads of diplomacy options. The very difficult thing to do here is to have the AI's work realistically with them. The AI's have to be aware of their own strength and such.

This will propably turn out to be a huge problem.


Economy:

Well, I think there could be more than one company per civ in the game.

Besides this we need to come up with a complex and workable model for economy. I think that perhabs most of the things you yourself built in Civ2 (like factories) should now be built by the people themselves. This is more realistic. You would of cause be able to buy stuff from the people, and could propably also pay the people to build a factory if you wanted to. But everything need to run much more independantly from you.

But we really don't need inflation in the game.

I think that most of the trade if not all of it should be handled by the people themselves. You would only decide the overall guidelines like tariffs, embargoes (maybe just for one good) and such. Of cause when you build a thing you would demand some ressources. You would (via a trade screen) decide whether to buy from the cheapest source or from a home producer. When buying from the cheapest source you would - of cause - get the ressource cheaper, but if you bought from a home producer you would give your economy a boost. It should also be possible for you to buy units or unit equipment from a source outside your civ. Of cause this would boost the economy of that civ, and if the civ had an embargo against you it would not allow you to buy anything from it.

Generally you would not control as much as you did in previous civ games. In stead you would have more options in a more general sence, and you would work more autonomously from the people as they would from you.


Construction:

Building a city where you want it to be built should cost money. Ususally cities would be built automatically by the people, along trade routes and such.

Again I think several structures in cities should be built by the people in stead of you.

Wonders: I think that some wonders should not be buildings, but rather "concepts". An internet wonder wouldn't be a building, but would be made when a certain percentage of your cities had a computer improvement.


Development:

Sounds great!


Ok, that's all. I wonder why more people don't post here...

[amjayee]

I would like to make eventually a map generator, that creates the world much the same way as our world has been formed. But I might start with a simpler system. About subhexes, I will start without them, and possibly add them later. It is possible though to have some simple features from that system already from the beginning.

Age structure is needed for determining the amount of workforce, so we cannot go without it. But, it doesn't need to be complex - perhaps it could simply be replaced with the percentage of the workforce. Also some features could be completely hidden from the player, and just used for calculations. Not only with population, but in other places also, where needed.

Your ideas of religion spawning were great. Something like that could be used. Well, perhaps not always when civ discovers x, a new religion would be spawned, and perhaps not immediately after the discover, but naturally scientific, social etc. progress should control the religions to some extent. I agree that religions are not the most important thing right now, but they will be added.

I agree about culture. It is needed, it needs to affect the game a little, but not decisively, and it will be mostly look&feel. Also it will not be added right in the beginning, but eventually, yes.

Government; good to hear.

Military: If we make large enough set of unit types, there is no need for a unit workshop. In some cases, the player could be given some options to customize them. For the modern war machines, we might later want to make a simple workshop to customize the ships, planes and tanks, but it must be very much simpler than SMAC workshop. But in the beginning, we will use generic unit types. The advances in weapon technology could be simulated by giving a "weapon bonus" for the units, that depends on the level of weapon technologies you have.

About commanders, they would not always rise from ordinary folk, but sometimes.

Yes, military bases are usually in a city, but they still need to be built. Usually when large bases are built, a new city is found quite quickly to the location. Armies have their own supply capabilities, separate supply units are needed to supply individual units. Supply units are not moved; they can be ordered to supply certain units, and then they start transfering supplies along a route, that can be intercepted.

I agree that ai and diplomacy are very difficult things. But they need to be emphasized, since this kind of game lives or falls with those features. We will start with simple ai or with a multiplayer game, so we can finish the game system.

I agree with economy things. Except that I think one company is enough - when done properly, it will work like a huge number of companies. In government settings, you could set the ownership between public - private. It would be a percentage. If the setting is 10% public, 90% private, the government could own 10% of the production/trade facilities etc., or less.

I agree with construction. In a capitalist state, you could only fund building city infrastructure, and certain structures. Clearly "government owned" structures you could build, like military installations. The wonder system needs to be more varied. Only the wonders, that are clearly buildings, would be buildings in the game. Other wonders would be considered case-by-case.

Development: nice to hear.

Ok folks, please give more comments.
[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited June 30, 2000).]