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In the "From CIV3 to Clash" thread I said:
LDiCesare replied:
I think LDiCesare's idea is very good to reduce the extension of wars, but in this thread I invite you all to concentrate on the length of the game turn in general, not constrained to war stuff only.
Mark said:
I believe once you give the control to the player, he can freely choose how long his game is gonna be. If he wants to play just one very long game, so be it. Other players will choose differently.
In the military thread LDiCesare added:
and Mark said:
I think LDiCesare is right when he says is hard to implement for multiplayer. In that case the best is maybe to let players decide together if they want to change the turn length. If no agreement, game continues with its current scheme.
But I believe, even if we don't implement the "change time scale button", that all models should consider explicitly the length of turns. That'd give us a lot of freedom to determine the way the time scale automaticaly changes along the game and freedom to define scenarios with whatever time scale we want, w/o worrying about the relation between game progress and time. It would make models and the game consistent and very solid regarding time. And gives players a lot more flexibility. FE, I'm the type of player who doesn't enjoy much the 20th century. I get bored playing one year at a time. If the game is able to consistently change the time scale to, say 5 years for each turn, then I'd be happier.
What others think?
Warfare and Economy
In Civ, wars last hundreds or thousands of years. That's absurd. In part the failure comes from ignoring you need men to fight wars, which are subtracted from your productive population. As far as I know, Clash will take that into consideration, so it'll be in fact impossible to be in war for such long periods w/o seriously destroying your productive capacities. But even with this, I think the relation between economy and war can't be in Clash like it is in Civ.
In Civ there's a factory-like production of units. When in war, you put all or most of your cities to build units and send them to the front, all in a continuous fashion. You actually create a constant flow of units. That wasn't the case IRL. Not at least prior to the 20th century. That incorrect treatment of units production is the one that creates the endless wars when the two adversaries have similar production rates.
Certainly this is very related to the length of the game turn and the conflict between the "civil turn" and the "military turn". If the game turn lasts 25 years, then it's quite realistic that your cities produce units as a flow, even if you're not in the industrial era. What isn't realistic is troops from either side being unable to defeat the other side within the first 25 years.
The discussion about the military turn vs. the civil turn was long. What was concluded was that we can't have a realistic game without playing with very short game turns (like a month). That'd make the game too long. On the other side, we can have a shorter game, reasonable in terms of real time, but as long as some bizarre effects are accepted. I don't want to bring back to life that discussion and I beg you all not to do it because if you do Mark's gonna kill me. All I want to say is the player should be able to control the "bizarre level" (or the realism level).
What I propose is to adjust units' movement points according to the length of the game turn, so units move more as the time involved is longer. Of course, with some limit to avoid too much bizarreness in mobility. And at the same time, allow the player to change the length of the game turn whenever he wants. With this, people who care a lot about realism, like me, can set the turn length to something like a few months when at war and enjoy a realistic war in terms of the relation between production and movement, while at the same time players with other priorities can sacrifice realism at will. And you can switch back and forth whenever you want, choosing when you want high realism and when it isn't of much importance.
(I proposed something very similar a long time ago, but to my knowledge there was never a decision about it)
In Civ, wars last hundreds or thousands of years. That's absurd. In part the failure comes from ignoring you need men to fight wars, which are subtracted from your productive population. As far as I know, Clash will take that into consideration, so it'll be in fact impossible to be in war for such long periods w/o seriously destroying your productive capacities. But even with this, I think the relation between economy and war can't be in Clash like it is in Civ.
In Civ there's a factory-like production of units. When in war, you put all or most of your cities to build units and send them to the front, all in a continuous fashion. You actually create a constant flow of units. That wasn't the case IRL. Not at least prior to the 20th century. That incorrect treatment of units production is the one that creates the endless wars when the two adversaries have similar production rates.
Certainly this is very related to the length of the game turn and the conflict between the "civil turn" and the "military turn". If the game turn lasts 25 years, then it's quite realistic that your cities produce units as a flow, even if you're not in the industrial era. What isn't realistic is troops from either side being unable to defeat the other side within the first 25 years.
The discussion about the military turn vs. the civil turn was long. What was concluded was that we can't have a realistic game without playing with very short game turns (like a month). That'd make the game too long. On the other side, we can have a shorter game, reasonable in terms of real time, but as long as some bizarre effects are accepted. I don't want to bring back to life that discussion and I beg you all not to do it because if you do Mark's gonna kill me. All I want to say is the player should be able to control the "bizarre level" (or the realism level).
What I propose is to adjust units' movement points according to the length of the game turn, so units move more as the time involved is longer. Of course, with some limit to avoid too much bizarreness in mobility. And at the same time, allow the player to change the length of the game turn whenever he wants. With this, people who care a lot about realism, like me, can set the turn length to something like a few months when at war and enjoy a realistic war in terms of the relation between production and movement, while at the same time players with other priorities can sacrifice realism at will. And you can switch back and forth whenever you want, choosing when you want high realism and when it isn't of much importance.
(I proposed something very similar a long time ago, but to my knowledge there was never a decision about it)
We have to maintain troops. A good idea exists in MOO3, which could be useful: TRoops are either active (you can move them) and cost a lot to maintain, or passive (you don't even see them) but cost little to maintain. That can be a good way to tell people it's a good idea to have short wars rather than be at war at all times. This could be better discussed in the military threads I think.
Mark said:
I think FE we can leave the player in control of the time scale as you suggest, so you can have "realistic" wars. But they'd have to be infrequent, or you'd never be able to finish the game!
In the military thread LDiCesare added:
Rodrigo suggests we could change the timescale in order to adjust to small wars. This means tweaking the non-military models by a scale factor. Thus, we should have a parameter used a bit everywhere which is turn-length. However, I see a glitch with this proposal: If AI1 and AI2 want to wage a war, can they switch the turn length down to 1 month for the player? If the player changes the turn length, how does it affect far-away peaceful AIs? Worse, how does it affect other players in multi-player?
It is not that I don't like the idea, I believe it is hardly applicable in multi player, and may be difficult for the AI to handle.
It is not that I don't like the idea, I believe it is hardly applicable in multi player, and may be difficult for the AI to handle.
On the turn-length thing...
I think it could work with the following prohibitions: It works for Single-player only, and only the player is in charge of the change. I *think* it can be made to work under those circumstances. We will need rules for how to handle varying time scales as we go from antiquity (long turns for everything but military) to modern (short turns). So this is the matter of putting in a switch under player control. If it doesn't work, then we can get rid of it, but it seems to me it should work fine. Since some players like Rodrigo may really value the option, and it should be very little work, it seems to me we should provisionally support it, and only ban it if it turns into a quagmire.
I think it could work with the following prohibitions: It works for Single-player only, and only the player is in charge of the change. I *think* it can be made to work under those circumstances. We will need rules for how to handle varying time scales as we go from antiquity (long turns for everything but military) to modern (short turns). So this is the matter of putting in a switch under player control. If it doesn't work, then we can get rid of it, but it seems to me it should work fine. Since some players like Rodrigo may really value the option, and it should be very little work, it seems to me we should provisionally support it, and only ban it if it turns into a quagmire.
But I believe, even if we don't implement the "change time scale button", that all models should consider explicitly the length of turns. That'd give us a lot of freedom to determine the way the time scale automaticaly changes along the game and freedom to define scenarios with whatever time scale we want, w/o worrying about the relation between game progress and time. It would make models and the game consistent and very solid regarding time. And gives players a lot more flexibility. FE, I'm the type of player who doesn't enjoy much the 20th century. I get bored playing one year at a time. If the game is able to consistently change the time scale to, say 5 years for each turn, then I'd be happier.
What others think?
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Just don't confuse our poor players too much, I've already got 'em on the edge with the econ model 
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