CT´s Project: Questions and Comments

[Comrade Tribune]

This is the Comments thread. Please post anything related HERE. Questions, suggestions and ideas are welcome.

[pg]

hehe

ok lets see what you have got for us. i am waiting to see....

[Comrade Tribune]

Eh, this thread is for YOU (Polys) to post questions etc.

My 'official' threads on the game have not yet been opened (but will soon).
But if you have any questions/comments/critique to what I said in the 'Disenchanted' thread, THIS is the place to post them.

[Darkknight]

errr OK first question:
What are you talking about and what are we supposed to ask questions or comment on?

Maybe you're the God of confusion and bewilderment sent here to err... well confuse and bewilder us?

[Comrade Tribune]

Sorry! (I assume you are not reading the CivIII section alot, are you? )

OK, for all Not-CivIIIers happening to drop by: There is a thread in the CivIII (general) section called 'Disenchanted', where a lengthy discussion has developed about what should have been done differently. I took part in that discussion, and finally decided to start my own 'Alternative Civ' project. If you want to read up on that , the relevant part starts circa p.6.

This is the 'Post-Disenchanted' thread, so to speak.

Edit: Now the official Gold, Guns and Glory thread has been opened in this forum; this should remove most of the confusion.

[RonHiler]

Welcome to the world of the Alt-Civs, CT.

Good luck with your project. If you have problems or questions, don't hesitate to ask those of us here. We are all busy working on our own projects, but I think most of us try to look in on what everyone else is doing from time to time. We often post in each other's boards to offer suggestions, opinions, and such. Sometimes it's easier to tell another project what would be cool when you don't have to program it yourself

You may want to check out the existing projects, FreeCiv, MD, Clash, Civiliza, GG&S, etc. You might see some ideas you'd want to steal And we can always use fresh perspectives on our projects, so your comments on our boards are welcome too.

Best of luck, and keep us updated on how it goes! When you have screenshots, demos, updates, etc, make sure to let us know so we can check them out.

Ron

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Comrade Tribune:

Another welcome to alt civs, and Good Luck with your project!

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
Unprecedented Historicity

In short, no impossible or implausible things should happen. All models should be designed with realism first and foremost in mind.

Well, you're going to have to draw the line somewhere IMO
OTOH if you're only going as far as Clash I must obviously approve...


Ron: Another one the spiel didn't work on, tried it about a week ago

Originally posted by Darkknight
Maybe you're the God of confusion and bewilderment sent here to err... well confuse and bewilder us?

LOL

[Comrade Tribune]

Hi both of you!

Ron: Yeah, I´ll be on the lookout for good ideas to pilfer.

Mark: About drawing the line: My general idea is to draw it between realism and detail. I want to always maximize realism, but add additional layers of detail only where merited.

I like lots of detail, too, but my concept of realism is not quite about that. When I say 'realism', what I mean is a *very* simple idea, which is surprisingly often ignored in game design: Events running counter to commonsense simply shouldn´t happen. A most basic example: A game supposed to be about history should not contain magic (Empire Earth!). Another example: A revolting city, no matter how motivated, should not be able to kill an entire army group (CivIII!). Another example: A-bombs should be very destructive (because they are) (CivIII, again!). When I start to ramble about realism, I do not necessarily mean less abstraction/more detail, I just mean: Avoid nonsense at all cost! So my most important priority with a sim is I do *not* want 10 impossible things to happen before breakfast.

[Dale]

If you're chasing realism, make sure you have MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) when you do nukes.

I've ALWAYS wanted to be a civ superpower and stuck with MAD. Hell, I'd just set it off so the AI didn't win. I wouldn't lose, but the AI definitely wouldn't win.

[Comrade Tribune]

Dale: 2 short comments:

1) A 20th century simulation should definitely make sure that you cannot take out Atomic Weapons via First Strike. So I agree with you that 20th century realism must include MAD.

2) However, the nature of Empire building changed so dramatically between the 19th and 20th century that it is really 'a different game'. The models I am developing are pretty realistic -I think- for all periods from the Ancient to the Industrial Era, but they stop to be convincing in the Atomic Age. Therefore Gold, Guns and Glory will probably end in or around 1900.

[Grumbold]

What you are talking about is a kind of "Civgame Construction Set". This is an interesting idea, and I would like to see someone do it. In all fairness I should admit, however, that customizability is not currently among my top priorities. The reason being that no one has ever seen a game that had both A) highly refined balancing, and B) high customizability, and with this project I lean toward A).

Unprecedented Historicity

In short, no impossible or implausible things should happen. All models should be designed with realism first and foremost in mind.

I admire your ambition CT but I don't think I'm going to be happy with how you resolve these two. When you look at history, there are far too many examples of large empires sitting around dominating their corner of the world until suddenly toppled or imploded. In Civ games this absolutely never happens, but people then sit around complaining that one or two of their fifty tanks got destroyed by a barbarian and somehow its the end of the world.

A game that is "balanced" implies one or more planned regimental routes to success. That is not going to be a game that is historical. Conversely EU is so historical that it has to be played on the real world map because the historical policies and events grew out of their geographical, economic and political situations.

I'd argue that a historical simulation of scientific progress would see you investing in making a stable and relatively well educated empire. Whether Archimedes, Socrates, Galileo or Einstein popped up in your country to revolutionise a particular field of research or one halfway around the globe would be sheer luck. Its not about cities producing lightbulbs to fill a fixed bin to invent the next wonder. Similarly armies are not fixed strength counters.

A Julius Caesar can use three legions to conquer all of Gaul and an incompetent general like Varus can get them all wiped out. For that matter Napoleon himself can fight battles of pure genius and others of barely adequate generalship.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Grumbold
When you look at history, there are far too many examples of large empires sitting around dominating their corner of the world until suddenly toppled or imploded. In Civ games this absolutely never happens, ...

I intend to make this happen. I hope it´s going to work out.

A game that is "balanced" implies one or more planned regimental routes to success. That is not going to be a game that is historical.

That is not quite what I mean with 'balanced'. I´d say 'balanced' is when there is no one 'best' strategy that wins every game.

Conversely EU is so historical that it has to be played on the real world map because the historical policies and events grew out of their geographical, economic and political situations.

Yes, this is true. EU wouldn´t work with a random map. A Civgame is somewhat different, because you have an alternate world, and a non-historical arrangement of starting positions. What should be realistic, however, is the 'Laws of the Environment', the rules and formulas that govern the game. So we have an alternate history, but the world should still be a common sense world, because every possible world is a common sense world; at least this is my assumption.

I'd argue that a historical simulation of scientific progress would see you investing in making a stable and relatively well educated empire.

Exactly. This is my plan.

A Julius Caesar can use three legions to conquer all of Gaul and an incompetent general like Varus can get them all wiped out.

How do you know that Julius Caesar and Napoleon won´t be in the game?