Beyond the civ's borders

[roquijad]

This is a topic I have great interest in and I guess it's not solved yet.

In this project we are of course focusing our attention in civs and what happens inside them. I want to know what there will be in the "empty" space between civs. Beyond a civ's borders there's not necessaryly another civ and there could be land without any civ's control. So what's in there?

Just to stress the importance I see in this and to encourage discussion, let me say a couple of things:

1) IRL in many ages, civs (understood as empires) only ruled small parts of the land mass leaving huge territories in between them. This "wild" territories were usually ruled by literally hundreds of local warlords each controlling a small piece of land. So they were not empty.

2) In wild territories it was possible for local leaders to arise and form civs (empires).

3) Trade was sometimes possible with wild territories. It was very common, tho, that trade was more dangerous in these places. Passing-through trade usually ended with very high costs, because local lords wanted to tax any passing trade and having a lot of lords, well, it's simple arithmetics.

4) Wild territories were usually the target for growing empires. As opposed to Civ2 where whether you have to build cities or conquer other civ's cities, IRL it was way more attractive to conquer these badly ordanized territories.

5) Feudalism (not only in Europe, but everywhere) consisted of a very weak organization of local lords in these wild territories. Warlords acknowledged the leadership of one of the lords and named him king, but giving him no power over each lord's territories. The king was almost only a figure of unity against foreign threats.

6) Ancient empires such as Babylon and Assyria never had the sort of imperial control later empires had. Those empires were based simply in taxing local lords (after defeating their local armies), so even though they had control over wild territories, they never really ruled them in the sense of controlling their admisnitration, law, economy, etc.

7) Nomadic tribes initiated their "barbaric" invasions from these wild territories.

So, what will we have beyond civ's borders?
[This message has been edited by roquijad (edited August 14, 2000).]

[Lord God Jinnai]

Hey I'm all for them.

Few things though, because of the possible thousands of wild territories, none should be shown. Usually 1 wild terrioty would have atleast 2 rulers within that area claiming territory, if its only one then we could say its actually now a civ or culture. But hey, i'm for the idea of wild areas becoming empires. Hey look what those mogolian barbarians did, created the largest empire until British Empire.

Another thing...early on many of these wild terriotories weren't even ruled by anyone, well anyone beyond a small band of tribes who occuipied maybe 1-10% of that square and fought with each other and other squares.

Also not all area will be wild per say, but be represented by cultures instead of civs.

Finally in these terriotries units might be attacked every turn, just by marching through the area, just like merchants.

One thing about conquering and ruling...If you 'conquered it' but still just tax it, it should still show you as ruling that place, but probably a province with little control over it.

[F_Smith]

I absolutely agree with making small 'tribes' of people count. I like all ya'lls ideas along those lines.

But:
There will have to be mapsquares with no popluation possible, for at least two reasons --

[*]The early game, when people had not spread far and wide yet.[*]hostile climates like the deepest Sahara, the highest Himilayas, big parts of Siberia and Canada, nuclear wastelands, etc.[/list=a]

But this won't be a problem, I should think. A simple test for 'isPopulated()' should suffice.

[roquijad]

I'm not sure about the "little civs" approach. Depends on how little you're talking about. Assume you look at the nowadays french territory. Right after roman fall it was ruled by, say, 20 local warlords. Would you place 20 little civs in that territory? I think that leads to a huge number of civs in the game worldwide. If, in the other side, you say, "I'd place one civ there", then there isn't much difference with France being "barbaric" and being civilized (in terms of politics, not techs).

My concern is the lack of centralized govt in "wild territories" and the consequences of it. I'm not sure this can be well modeled with "little civs" unless we decide to have tons of civs...

[Richard Bruns]

The native provinces are not given the computational resources of the full civilizations. Rather, they act like little civs in that it is possible to interact with them like you would interact with another civ: trade, make alliances, etc.

They would need some computer time no matter how they are organized. Dealing with them as provinces rather than individual squares would actually use less processing time.

The assumption is that there are many tribes, and that you are dealing with the most powerful tribal leaders. So there might be 20 tribes in a province, but you are creating one policy for dealing with all of them. It is assumed that the tribes in the province are organized in a loose confederation or that there is a distinct pecking order.

[Mark_Everson]

(simul-post with Richard... But I went to all the trouble of writing it, so I will leave it up here )

F. Smith: yep, there will be some empty squares. Like you say it's easy to tell if the squares empty or not. Right now in the code empty squares are of class MapSquare, whereas populated squares are a class that extends MapSquare called PopSquare. I did this because MapSquares without anybody in them require vastly less memory than those with population.

Rodrigo: It's really not a problem having a bunch of little civs IMO -- there are about 10 civs in the area of modern France in demo 4 anyway. Maybe four of them are full-fledged civs, and the other six or so are barbarian cultures. The barbarians have little central authority, and do a lot less calculations than the civs. Exactly at what level of detail we can model the little guys is TBD. I think what Richard describes is the maximum limit where we could possibly go with the minor civs. But I think we just need to leave for the playtesting phase exactly how realistic interactions with them should be. Certainly having 20 little civs pestering you for diplomacy all the time would not be my idea of a fun game...
[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited August 14, 2000).]

[Richard Bruns]

We have discussed this before. My view is that all wild areas should be defined as provinces. Each province is governed by a tribal leader or association and, in many ways, acts like a little civ. You should be able to trade with them, share technology with them, and negotiate with them using the full capabilities of the diplomatic model. For example, you might recruit them to help you in a war, giving them information about how they can easily attack and plunder your enemy. You can threaten them and collect tribute without governing them. Or if you are feeling bold, you can ally with them and use them as a free border guard while sending the bulk of your forces elsewhere. Of course, your enemies can do the same thing.

This would also make it easier for new empires to be formed. If a tribal province develops a new military technology, they can start to conquer the neighboring tribal provinces and become a new imperial power. Or, they could become a cultural center and gain the respect of their neighbors, possibly starting a new civilization.

Basically, I want the little guys to be treated as something more than a bunch of savages to be conquered. In their own right, they should be an integral part of the game.

[Mark_Everson]

Rodrigo, didn't you ever play demo4? There are people Everywhere... Richard's outline pretty much covers the existing plan. How much attention we can give to them in terms of AI is TBD.

[Lord God Jinnai]

I still think we should leave places where there is no one rule in there, not even a tribal leader to deal with. Many places were like this and players or AI shouldn't always have the luxury of a single person to deal with. I mean you look at the Celtic regions. They were fighting with the Romans as much as themselves. I mean you couldn't try and cooperate with all them. If you wanted to conquer them, you'd haveto do it one square at a time, not in one broad sweep of having the tribal leader consent to your will.
Also i think it might be interesting because you'd see a new culture/civ emerge from the untamed wilds and maybe lead himself to form an empire. Besides not every place you go should have a civ/culture of any worth to worry about.

[Richard Bruns]

LGJ: Sure, we can have some truly wild areas. There were a lot of those. But for most of history, there were small kingdoms and organised tribal structures in most places, so at least half of the non-civ squares should be the little civs.

Mark: One consequence of becoming powerful is that everybody starts to pester you. If you have a big empire, there will be at least a dozen little kingdoms or tribal groups surrounding you. If we have a good diplomacy model, I would have fun with all of the little civs. But if you don't want to deal with them, you could tell them not to bother you.

[roquijad]

If you believe we can have lots of little civs without problems, then it's pretty much solved. I just think it's a waste of resources. What if we have "special" provinces for these territories? Suppose you group Europe after roman fall in like 3 or 4 special provinces. Special provinces would work running only a few of a normal civs' functionalities. FE, only econ model for them, so we can trade with them. Special provinces would have other simple functionalities as checking for a new arising leader, which transforms the province into a civ....

[Richard Bruns]

roquijad: Your description of "special" provinces is close to what I had envisioned. I would add a bit more functionality, but from the beginning the provinces were only meant to have a few of the civ's systems.

[Lord God Jinnai]

I don't think the player should actually be able to see those provinces though. To him they'd just be wild territory. These places would be below what we'd even call cultures.

[roquijad]

So what should I assume as the for-the-monent modeling for wild territories? that it will be full of little civs or that it will be full of special provinces?

What's the "official" answer for that, Mark? Your post above seems to imply we'll have special provinces. That is, little civs with less functionalities... and probably some specific functionalities as checking for the arise of new leaders?

[This message has been edited by roquijad (edited August 20, 2000).]

[Mark_Everson]

Rodrigo:

Wild territory should be as described under Special Provinces IMO. And as you say sometimes they will become full-fledged civs as a result of events of one type or another.

To avoid confusion on the programming end Special Provinces are just a type of Civ with limited AI, actions, etc.