My thoughts on Clash

[bmb]

Religion: I beg you to read this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism for example - there is should be no difference between world and ethnic religions in spreading (many neo-pagan religions exist today) unless religion is marked as such, so that division between religion and ethnicity is blurred as in Judaism. For e. roman paganism is rooted in greek paganism, just like anglicanism in christianity. religious model should be more complex, and should allow crtain diplopatic actions in era of kings, protecting religious minority in another empire for example as basis for war. Alliances should be made and broken easily, maybe lasting for one war so that something like war of spanish succession can be modeled and could appear in real game, with all dynastic clashes and so on. Annexation of enemy teritory 9or so much of it) should regularly trigger alliances of scared naighbours ready for landgrabbing (they e. support valid dynasty in Persia as an excuse for attack, or may we say defence also).
Every military unit up to modern times should be provisioned with food either on home soil or abroad (if in war) and it costs population. they should be upgradeable always with modern weaponry if such exists, or their training level improved. If you don't have enough military naval vessels to transport overseas, you should be able to pay mechants or even another nation to transport them (Crusades and Venetians), BTW combat must be different than in civ. There should be cities, but also every other square in city radius should automatically make villages and towns, now why? Up to geneva convention it was normal for an army to rob, rape enslave and kill, commit atrocities among enemy population. raiding parties could be built on purpose only for that, to harass enemy border lands (and you should be able, just like Ai, to blame such action on brigands). Speaking of them, up to modern times they should be able to appear, pacts made with them (for money or office for example) etc. Also,during start you must be surrounded with hostile barbarian tribes and either expand or negotiate with their leaders, just like AI. that means several "civs" or advanced tribes with organized state, and many more who, if isolated, may never research enough and remain tribes up to modern times, if left alone. they could become new civs by researching 'hereditary rule" or something like that, but very slowly. They may know some techs even "civ" has not e. iron working, archery, horseback riding. technology "trading" is silly. technology should spread with commerce unless "classified" by player or AI (iron Working, Gunpowder, Nuclear Fission). All 3 were historically 9or are today) classified, e. Iron working was reserved for upper castes in Assyrian Empire. research on classified techs could be slower, or for techs depending on them (as only minority of loyal sciencists know actual know-how). Civ 3 and Civ 4 are total crap, are are not modeling neither states nor combat nor diplomacy correctly. Combat is rarely focused on cities, but on land and resources that are nearby, and since WWII on destruction of enemy army. Siege combat is nonexistent (and history teaches us that defenders in a siege could win even against army fivefold their number).

Well maybe I want utopia I want historical accuracy, Civ with Caesar, Lords of the realm and Europa Universalis.

[bmb]

I have more thoughts on it, combat.Morale of units doesnot matter,and it is crucial in warfare. In order to fight soldier must be willing to sacrifice his most valuable possession,his own life. If your unit was in trench for two days under bombardment, and without food, morale will be low. Such unit is not likely to fight good. It's more likely it will flee or even surrender. Combat in Civ does not reflect this. Also, indoctrination of people for war is very important, no matter whether your enemies are filthy barbarians, heathens or is ruthless dictator - it is the same thing. Soldier can't kill someone if he can think of enemy's chindren and wife, enemy has to be something like an animal in soldier's mind.
Why? imagine your platoon is under fire, surely you'll think some animal is shooting at you and trying to kill you, but there are leaflets, radio broadcasts by the enemy, that you should surrender and not support "flawed views of your government", it is combat inside every man on the battlefield. You must hate enemy enough to fight.

[LDiCesare]

Tahnks for posting. I'll try to give a few answers on my own:

there should be no difference between world and ethnic religions in spreading unless religion is marked as such

Well, the 'marked as such' means it's an ethnic religion. I don't think Hinduism spread much beyonf India while Buddhism did.

[/quote]For e. roman paganism is rooted in greek paganism[/quote]
I beg to disagree. Romans named all foreign gods after their own. So the celt Lug was Mercury for instance, and so was Wotan. The thing is Romans didn't have myths about their gods (except maybe Romulus-Quirinus), only a 'history' (read G. Dumézil for instance to see how much this history relates to myths in other nations, f.e. there are many parallels with India). So when they conquered Greece, they borrowed the Greek myths, but the gods were preexisting, and the Roman religion was very different from the Greek one on many accounts. In particular, all rituals, priest castes (vestals for instance) dated from before the Greek cultural import.

Alliances should be made and broken easily

Yes. But in order for the game to be fair and the ai to cope with, a penalty should be paid if alliances are broken.

Every military unit up to modern times should be provisioned with food either on home soil or abroad (if in war) and it costs population

Units do need food in Demo 8. If they lack supplies, they only lose a part of their fighting power, but the effect is there. As for population, building units removes population already too.

There should be cities(...)

The city in civ maps to a province in Clash, with several squares inside, each with its infrastructure.

Also,during start you must be surrounded with hostile barbarian tribes and either expand or negotiate with their leaders, just like AI. that means several "civs" or advanced tribes with organized state, and many more who, if isolated, may never research enough and remain tribes up to modern times, if left alone

We've had a few debates about this already. Search for threads with native in the title. I can't really summarize all here as I don't remmeber if we finally agreed on something.

Morale of units doesnot matter

In Clash (still talking demo 8 but at least since d5), morale is included and does matter. I know the feedback is not very good on that, and the current system can be improved.

[bmb]

"Well, the 'marked as such' means it's an ethnic religion. I don't think Hinduism spread much beyonf India while Buddhism did."

But it did spread. It spreads today in form of various Hindu cults. How much it needs to spread that to be acknowledged?

"I beg to disagree. Romans named all foreign gods after their own. So the celt Lug was Mercury for instance, and so was Wotan. The thing is Romans didn't have myths about their gods (except maybe Romulus-Quirinus), only a 'history' (read G. Dumézil for instance to see how much this history relates to myths in other nations, f.e. there are many parallels with India). So when they conquered Greece, they borrowed the Greek myths, but the gods were preexisting, and the Roman religion was very different from the Greek one on many accounts."

Wotan was germanic god. BTW Romans borrowed religion from Greeks even during the Kingdom (before 510 BC). Conquest of Greece started in 200 BC with war with Macedonia. You can't be more wrong. Even Judaism is not ethnic religion. Look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel black Ethyopian jews? Are they ethnic jews? You can become Juew, you needn't be born as Jew (and you will be accepted as both member of nation and religion, because Jews aver very traditionalistic and there is no border between nation and religion). Many other religions were such in the past descended from tribal religions

You just need to go to sinagogue to become Jew.

BTW fundamental flaw in all Civ games is that unit and improvement production is way too slow. Maybe not for wonders too, but units and improvements, yes. You need 500 years to train one unit, and glorious wars on ancient era simply can't happen. You may construct your city's market in 1200 AD, that is pathetic. When i played Civ2 i was editing the rules and increasing production speed ten times, with good effect, You and computer can really make an army that can trample something like a ancient persian empire in time, and Pyramids were not built in 400 AD. Sid wanted to make your civ as pathetic and with as low production capability as long as possible. Divine right may be researched faster than metal casting. No more Firaxis games for me.

[Ben Kenobi]

Production isn't that limiting, you just have to know how to play.