OTHER ver 2.0 - hosted by Ecce Homo

[Ecce Homo]

the SUMMARY OF OTHER THREAD VERSION 1.0

At last, it is here.

As the first OTHER thread was active, many new threads were created. Therefore, many ideas posted here would fit better in other threads. I will post them in the responding threads and mention them in the OTHER summary, but I might exclude them as they are mentioned in responding summaries.

BOLD CAPITALS mark topics belonging to existing threads.
Bold lower case letters mark sub-topics.
Italics after the posts mark the authors’ signatures.
Bold italics mark my personal comments.


GENERAL IDEAS WHICH WILL REMAIN IN THE OTHER SUMMARY

Population growth
Change the terms of population growth. Many aspects directly relate to Social Engineering.
Factors for population growth:
1) Education - High Education will actually lower population growth.
2) Prosperity- will modify immigration/emigration but not growth
3) Marriage - a social engineering choice
4) Contraception
5) Environmental Awareness
6) Status of women in society
7) State programs - breeding programs and population control. Trachmyr

Food should not be used to "make" new population. Instead, population should grow whenever there is enough food, health and happiness. Captain Action

Time range
The game should cover the period from the first appearance of Homo until about 2020. anachron

The game should go farther-maybe to the year 3000? JT3

You should be able to select what era to start in. NotLikeTea
I would like this issue to be discussed in the General forum. I emailed MarkG to make polls about it.

"Interesting" things
The game should recognise "interesting" things. For example, if a particular unit is very successful, it's home city should throw a "we love our troops" parade. the Octopus

Rural population
Some squares on the world map should be inhabited. The populations will slowly grow and expand to neighbouring squares. If the population in a square grows large enough, a city, and therefore a new civ, is created.

The populated "countryside" squares will belong to the closest city and produce food and resources. People in the city will produce gold and science. Later, people working in factories in the cities would increase production at a linear rate.

Now you can also take move people to empty squares outside of a city radius but still within your empire's borders. These people working the empty land would behave like neutral inhabitants, but you can still chose which direction they expand in. You could also move people to other cities, but moving people should cost you some money.

You should also be able to build a road to a square to utilise the resources being produced there.

You can then decide where the production will go, to any city it is connected to by roads.

City sizes in the first parts of the game would remain relatively small, ant they would have to rely on these squares outside of a city for more food and resources.

You would also want to move people to outside squares when your city can not grow any further, when all of the food is being used up and none is left over for growth. You could then move people to empty squares to allow your empire to still grow. Move enough people into a region and you could tell them to make a city (this would most likely cost some gold or something). The countryside is where most of the people in the world live up until the 20th century.

When you destroy a city, you don’t necessarily kill all the inhabitants of the city, mainly you would just kill the citizens working in the city square. You would have to pillage the land surrounding the city square to kill the people working that square, and eventual later in the game, doing that kind of an action would be an atrocity. In the real world (the past) when cities were attacked, most of the inhabitants in the city were killed or sold into slavery. Combat should reflect this by usually wiping out the whole city when you take it. But the people that were working in the city, not in the city square, would survive.

When a city or civilization is destroyed there should be the chance that the civ’s civs techs will be distributed around the world or to any other civs in a certain radius.

As for civs rising and falling, and rising again, when you destroy enemy civs, and DON’T commit genocide on the remaining people still working the land, they return to a neutral status unless they are inside the borders of another civ.

These now newly formed neutrals will continue to grow and expand and will eventual form cities again and thus NEW empires, so that new civilizations are constantly popping up.

Civs should be able to grow quickly compared to already established civs. I would balance it so that a city's growth was limited by the amount of food it could produce, not whether it had an aqueduct or not. Possibility

Nomadic Population
Before cities were constructed, people were more or less nomadic. This needs to be represented in Civ 3. Treat a nomadic population as a mobile city, but not "improvable".

Workforce
Your workforce is handled on a city or regional basis, depending on your "National Government Level" (Independent/Regional/Federal).

Workforce determines not only what you produce/build but how your cities develop as well (A city with Level 8 Industry due to a lot of factory workers is much different than a city with Level 8 religion.)

All other projects utilise PW, from mines to roads to Wonders (which appear on the map)
Other concepts will be included, and I’ll expand on them later (Government, Stockpiles (National vs. Regional) and army production to name a few).

The result will be a highly graphical representation of you NATION, not just cities. Also Micromanagement of city improvement is eased, to allow for more detailed workforce, supply and economy.

One final note, tiles should be reduced in size to allow this to be effective. I suggest 1/4 size at maximum.

Random Event: Charismatic Leader.
Political: if he's in the government, for instance an advisor or Ruler and the government for X turns you get extra Happiness, Growth, or Economics or all of the above. If not in the Government - Government Reform or Revolt
Religious: increased Happiness, but you might also get the Church unhappy.
He can be a Prophet creating a new religion. You then have got the choice of trying to suppress it or accept it.
Scientist: you get an Advance.
Military: Pick one army/stack of units which can do Great Things for X turns. The General might take the government away from you!
Explorer: a part of the map or a Special resourceis revealed. Diodorus Sicilus
[b]What about a Capitalist?

The Demo
Firaxis should think about how a demo should work up front, instead of taking a game engine, crippling it, and forcing us to wait for a huge download. The crippled nature of the SMAC demo was infuriating. If thought about ahead of time, maybe they could give us a better demo. the Octopus

Including X-factors
Epidemics, earthquakes, hurricanes, famines, volcanic activity, cults, alien visitation or artificial intelligence revolt. anachron

Bureaucrats
Large cities should require one or more ”bureaucrat” citizens. Sieve Too


<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ecce Homo (edited July 13, 1999).]</font>

[Ecce Homo]

INTERFACE
alarm clock option
An internal timer. meowser

MOVEMENT
Speed up sea transport:
Shipping - Allow sea transport TI:s that scale with technology (sailing ships, modern cargo, and some future hydrofoil-style-thing, for examples). A player builds a ferry/trade route which allows for fast-faster-instant transport from a city/port across the ocean. Then, you just "drive" your units across the ocean, although they could not attack and would have a defensive value of 0 if it got caught there.

Just like a road or RR, they can be pillaged/pirated and destroyed. Sea power units are still needed to protect the routes and power project, as are transports to land equipment in other locations not served by regular trade routes, or if a player is cautious and wants the extra protection that Galleons/Transports provide. Different players could have their routes cross, but I imagine they would be rapidly cut in a war.
My idea is to have some kind of City improvement that allows Sealifts (like Airlifts, but not instant).

Bridges/Tunnels
One-square distances could be bridged or tunnelled. More advanced future-techs allow for longer bridges or under-sea tunnels.

Supply Crawlers like in SMAC are a bad idea. Too much micromanagement, and too little relevance to Civ3/human history. wheathin

Aside on Huge Cities in general: I'd rather see a more developed economic system that could mimic some of these effects, but at least the game should recognise that availability of food hasn't been a determinant of city size for over a thousand years. Cities create demand for food which is almost always met. Food can be interrupted to be sure, resulting in short-term famine and decline, but long-term city growth (even over the "mere" decades of a medieval-period Civ turn) depends more heavily on other factors like employment, social policy, war, disease, peace, and immigration. The demand for food that large cities or burgeoning rural populations create drives agricultural innovations, money economies, and cash-cropping, not vice versa.

UNITS
sell military
It would be nice to be able to sell military units like in the real world. Thue

CIVILIZATIONS
revolts
Revolts should be more common in the early game, under certain governments. When several cities revolt, a new civ will be formed. JamesJKirk

A better Civ seeding algorithm
Drop the first major civ randomly. An invisible circle extends around it. Next civ is randomly dropped, except it can't land inside that circle. Continue process until out of major civs, or all land is taken up by the circles. In that case, reduce the size of the circles until an area pops up. When dropping minor civilizations, reduce the size of the circles even further, and keep dropping till you run out of space.

Don't make it so that starting next to a river and not starting next to a river makes the difference between a civilization's life and death. SnowFire

GAME ATMOSPHERE
Bring back the High Council!
Here are EnochF’s character suggestions for the Ancient, Renaissance, Industrial, Genetic and Diamond ages:
War
A Conan-like man of few words
R Sir Gawain
I Patton-like general who quotes the George C. Scott movie
G Colin Powell like general
D on-the-edge, constantly frustrated sort of Susan Ivanova character
Science
A stereotypical picture of Archimedes
R egoistical Italian reasoner
I Albert Einstein clone, but not an over-the-top impression
G Dana Scully-like geneticist
D super-wired scientist (like Professor Zakharov from SMAC)/supercomputer like HAL
Trade
A shady, vague Arabic trader
R soft-spoken Italian banker
I like the millionaire from Monopoly, but talks like Boss Tweed
G Bill Gates character who urges you to "keep in the fast lane"
D old and weird business guy based on S.R. Hadden from Contact
Diplomacy
A Delphic oracle who gives mildly cryptic advice
R Machiavellian character who urges betrayal, stealing technology, etc.
I optimistic Neville Chamberlain sort of chap
G elderly woman, sort of a mix of Madeline Albright, Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Thatcher
D Comes full circle, a kind of parapsychic, super-wired Delphic oracle
Entertainment
A overweight Nero-looking chap who speaks in ill-rhyming poetry
R court jester who strums on a lute and sings insulting songs
I Elvis!
G cynical pollster like somebody from Clinton's legal team
D sinister Cigarette-Smoking Man

JT3 reminds that profanity should be kept out.

A High Council or something equivalent is a must. It could be combined with some sort of Throne Room.


CITY IMPROVEMENTS AND CITY CONCEPTS

More than one worker on each square. Unknown
Maybe that should be made possible with a certain Wonder, like the Millennium Tower.

Base Support Structures
include ALL of the critical structures of past ages. This structure will AUTO upgrade when you enter a new AGE if you have built all included structures of the previous age. You will be able to found and develop a thriving city, without the need for that city to have been there from the beginning. Trachmyr

[b]Growing cities[/i]
A City should spill out from the middle square of its radius to fill in the other squares. You should lose access to minerals on these squares. UCK

Removing the emphasis on cities
The position of CIV,CtP,SMAC, and other games of this genere, is that the CITY is the center of society, and the primary focus.
Instead, I counter, that it is the network of all human populaces, all structures (mines. roads, barracks, factories, ect.), and how they interact that decide if a nation is to succede or fail. Trachmyr

City improvements which allow certain Tile Improvements
and vice versa. I.e. you could not build fisheries until you had built a harbor. wheathin
Like the Farmlands and the Supermarket, if I got it right.

GRAPHICS

National flags for units
instead of colored shields. And when you create a new game you should be able to customize your flag and edit it throughout the game. What do people think of it? I think it would go a long way towards individualizing each game experience. kmj
The cities should have such flags, instead of one-coloured ones. The units could also have coat-of-arms - different for army, navy and air force.

CtP’s system for roads/rail is ugly. The representation of the transit type from the centre of one square to the centre of another should be uniform, not change abruptly at the square boundary.
wheathin

MANUAL

The Civ III manual should be the same size as the CivII one, with nice and big-font words and easy to read, not like the encyclopedia-like with columns and size 8 font SMAC manual, nor the anorexic CTP forum. Lots of pictures, too! LordStone1

TERRAIN

Altitude
for the terrain. JT

Naming terrain features
The human (or the computer) should name geographical locations. Widowmaker

Take the starting positions of the Civ's into account, so we're likely to get a Nile River in Egypt, or the Andes Mountains near the Incas. the Octopus

Who is the first to discover a region should be the one to name it. [b]kmj[/i]

More emphasis on rivers
*Increase trade depending on the number of cities upstream
*Increase aqueduct, sewage system and power plant effect
*Travel bonus only when entering the river from a city. Crossing the river should take time.
*Armies should be vulnerable when crossing rivers.
*borders should conform to the rivers. russellw

Better resource seed
Something more random, where resources are not evenly ”lined up”. Rathenn

Natural events
What to do about real earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, land creation/destruction, and even continental drift? NotLikeTea

Natural conditions like earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, hurricanes/monsoons and tornados could be incorporated into the game. Floods cause food losses, volcanoes cause population and, perhaps, other losses, earthquakes cause improvement and/or productivity losses.

Volcanoes and flood prone rivers could provide extraordinary production bonuses. Fault lines could be especially rich in super oil/gas fields. Technology and/or improvements could help to get these bonuses or reduce the danger of bad occurences. [i]Bird

alternative reward
Instead of rewards like the Throne Room, a special resource could be found outside a city. Sieve Too


TERRAIN IMPROVEMENT

Terraforming requires micromanagement and is too much sci-fi. At the very least, provide us with some sort of convincing explanation: a "Weather Control" technology would be a nice start. If terraforming is possible it must be appropriately scaled. Changing a swamp into mountain requires more technology and efforts than clearing forests. wheathin

Variety is necessary. In CivII, there are railroads everywhere. A TI should only be useful in certain locations - not in any tile. NotLikeTea

Public works
Many, many posters agree that the Public Works system in CtP is good.

Public works should only be able to build improvments inside the region/city radius.
Settlers would have to do the things outside of the city radius. Mo

Don't link Transport TI to special energy/trade/etc. bonuses. It just provides an incentive to cover every square with railroads/maglevs/whatever. wheathin

You should be able to build PW anywhere inside your borders. In unclaimed territory, maybe use CTP's system of building only next to an established PW. And you shouldn't be able to build in hostile territory. Bell

Walls
One should be able to build Walls across the map. They can be used as roads. They would completely prohibit vehicles/cavalry from crossing unless destroyed... but that may take some time with primitive weapons. Trachmyr
Walls could be both a City and a Terrain Improvement. The same for Fortresses.

Regions
Put a size/population limit on the size of a region, which depends on the government type. In Despotism the largest region possible is one city; as your government gets more effective, the possible size of a region goes up. JT3

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ecce Homo (edited June 24, 1999).]</font>

[EnochF]

...not that there's anything wrong with that...

[Ecce Homo]

Hey, doesn't this thing "bump" when you edit a message?

[Ove]

Sort of a crossover, I am posting this in AI and diplomacy as well.

AI ministers/governors
The ministers in CIV2 were an amusing interruption of the usual chores (micromanaging cities, micromanaging units, etc.). They didn't really give any useful information, they just complained if you were not doing what they thought should be done. Who is the ruler here?

It would be better if they were able to act upon directives from you (or each other, depending on how much power you grant them) as an extra (micromanagement-reducing) layer between you and the city/regional menus. After they have been given tasks or general directives, they present you with their suggested solution(s) which you may accept/modify/decline.

example:
You have given your diplomacy minister a directive to improve relations with your neighbour.
Diplomacy informs you that your neighbours insist on a special trade relation in which they will buy weapons for food.
The ministers of trade, production and military tries to dissuade you from that course of action, because; you will lose money, your production facilities are already engaged with other orders and it is dangerous to arm your neighbour.
You instruct diplomacy and trade to make the deal anyway, but to delay the weapon shipments. Production are ordered to commence the weapon production and turn them over to military who will use them to make an attack army that can crush this insolent neighbour.

Diplomacy's directives could be shaped like this:
MISSION (to Persians):
x Improve Relations o Provoke War
Get
o Territory o Bases o Passage rights o Technology o Money o Goods o Trade agreement o Prohibition against Slavery/Ethnic/Pollution/Drug/Religion/... o Acceptance of Slavery/Ethnic/Pollution/Drug/Religion/...
Give
o Territory o Bases o Passage rights o Technology x Money (200 gold) o Goods x Trade agreement o Prohibition against Slavery/Ethnic/Pollution/Drug/Religion/... o Acceptance of Slavery/Ethnic/Pollution/Drug/Religion/...
Willingness to achieve mission goal(s) (1-10): 7
Willingness to offer gift(s) (1-10): 5
Who can sign agreement? o Agent x Emperor
Duration of mission? o Immediate o Fixed # of turns x Until an agreement is reached


<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ove (edited June 21, 1999).]</font>

[Ecce Homo]

-=* MOVING TO TOP *=-

[EnochF]

Theben managed to dig up an old thread of mine from the old, old Suggestions for Civ3 forum. I don't know where else to put it except here.

"Civ2 measures a lot of variables, some of which don't have any apparent effect on gameplay. Literacy, for example. Or life expectancy. Disease, on the other hand, should have immediate effects.

"I sense doubt.

"Well, the way I was thinking about it was this: Imagine how much different the world would be today if the Europeans, in their colonization of the Americas, had not brought with them a host of organisms against which the natives had no natural defense?

"In other words, disease, used effectively in Civ III, could influence the course of empire.

"I sense other people have suggested this before and been properly criticized.

"Okay, then, I'll lay out some guidelines:

"(1) Let's measure disease as a new variable affecting cities in your empire as does corruption, except that distance from the capitol is irrelevant.

"(1a) Base disease is modified by the surrounding terrain. Jungles and swamps would boost base disease. Hills, mountains, plains and oceans would be neutral. Let's say grass and forests give a tiny boost thanks to naturally occurring herbs.

"(2) Upon contact with another civilization, the computer makes a disease comparison. The base number being compared is the percentage of each civilization diseased, averaged out in all cities. If one civ has a substantially lower disease rate than another, they will incur disease penalties from contact with the new civ.

"In the early stages of the game, this won't make much difference (at least not if everything balances out). There's always the chance that you might end up meeting a swamp-ridden foreign civilization early on and catch malaria, but all in all, the big effects will show up when two civilizations come into contact *late* in the game.

"(3) Disease cannot be transmitted by diplomats or by wonders such as Marco Polo or United Nations. (Only mildly unrealistic.)

"(3a) It can, however, be transmitted by caravans. And most *certainly* by military units attacking the cities.

"(3b) There's a tiny, tiny chance that a new plague may emerge from a goodie hut along with whatever gold, technology or helpful natives are there. (That'll make you think twice before disturbing their idyllic, primitive existence.)

"(4) If disease reaches a certain percentage of the population in a city, that city will go into Quarantine. This will immediately sever any trade routes the city may have and decrease the population by 1 per turn until the situation is rectified. Needless to say, any "We Love the Consul" days will be cancelled, and civilization-wide happiness will drop moderately, increasing the chance of Revolt. Quarantined cities left to themselves will eventually become un-quarantined simply because the percentage will drop along with the population.

"(5) Base disease will drop substantially upon the discovery of Medicine, Sanitation, Genetic Engineering and any other medicine-related advances (such as Pharmaceuticals from Call to Power).

"(6) New city improvements can battle disease, but not until roughly the modern age. Thus, Call to Power's hospitals and drug stores can actually have an effect on public health.

"(7) Pollution would, of course, also have a direct bearing on disease. Every square of pollution might boost disease in the city three points, for example. (Potential pollution, or the number of crossbones the city is producing, would have smaller effects.)

"This would eliminate the odd tendency of certain cities to celebrate after the detonation of a nuclear device downtown. Any city nuked would almost inevitably be thrown into Quarantine due to massive pollution and destruction of hospitals.

"If done incorrectly, this system would make the game much less playable. If done correctly, though, with proper balance, one would have to plan against new contingencies: the onset of plagues such as the Black Death, the diseases carried by foreign invaders from far-off lands, even diseases caused by prolonged sieges where cities are cut off from outside supplies.

"Imagine spending three thousand years developing a mighty island civilization in splendid isolation, developing as far as the Industrial Revolution, and then suddenly having half your cities thrown into Quarantine by an enemy invasion from the diseased lands from the war-torn continent to the east. D'oh! And you thought factories were more important than hospitals! Massive pollution already plagued your cities, and the invaders pushed public health over the edge.

"I think this would inspire new strategies and make other strategies obsolete.

"(On the other hand, then there's the new breed of player who builds up his disease as high as possible before going to war...)"

There. At least now it'll be in the official Wish List.

Thanks for taking over, Ecce.

[croxis]

Unshure of wheer to post this idea, I will post it here. Some guy is making a Civ type game somewhere. He came up with the idea that the AI files are seperat files, i.e. not intergrated into anyother files. This allows easy updates to the AI only, without affecting the rest of the game. I think Civ3 should have this concept. It will allow Firaxis to relace "AI updates" to update the AI without needing to chage the other game files.

------------------
"A human imprisons one of us? Intolerable!"
-Ulkesh

[Theben]

The modern entertainer councilman/woman should look like Sid Vicious/Siouxie Sioux (in her youth)!

[Theben]

STRUCTURE DAMAGE
This supercedes my post on the "suggestions" page.

Structures have hit points= to the cost of building them. Certain units (spies/saboteurs, catapults, cannons, sappers, bombers) and random disasters(floods, fires), riots/rebellion, nukes, and actual conquest thru military action would inflict damage upon the structures. You would pay gold or you may allocate a portion of your city's shield production for repairs. Any number of structures can be repaired per turn. Effects would be:

0-49% damage=no effect on structure, 1 gold repairs 2 damage or 1 shield repairs 4

50-99% damage=structure disabled. Gives no benefits to city, x2 repair as above

100%=structure destroyed. Must be rebuilt.

A disabled structure will start functioning again once it has been repaired to the 0-49% range, but cost of repair will stay as 50-99% until completely repaired.

How I see it function in the game:
Spies/saboteurs/sappers: These would inflict random amounts of small damage to one structure at a time, based on the total hp's of the particular building. Sappers would be
limited to city walls. However the successful act of sabotage would prevent the structure from working for, say, 1-3 turns, or 1 turn after the minor damage is repaired.

Catapults/cannons/artillery/howitzer + bombers: Inflict minor amounts of damage to a few structures during bombardment. They may specifically target city walls to do medium amounts of damage, to that structure only. Bombers may specifically target any city building, but may be repulsed by AA fire, fighters, bad weather, etc. Prior to laser targeting their chances of success will be low.

Floods, fires, riots, cause low/medium/high damage to some/many structures depending on the city's preparedness. Fires would be limited by aqueducts, wells, etc.; riots by
police station &/or barracks. You get the idea. This would also be based on each building's total hp's.

Nukes: Depends on power of nuke. All structures take damage, most in the high range, some will be destroyed. The rest would take medium.

Conquest would inflict low/medium damage on most/all structures when the city fell, but rarely will a structure be destroyed when the city is conquered.

low=about 10% damage or 4-7 hp's
medium=about 20-25% damage or 12-17 hp's
high=50-60% damage. Only happens to cities hit with random disaster's that are unprepared, or nuked.

DonDon
Questioned cost (later I halved repair costs), suggested:

· A "free repair" rate, something like 1 shield × city size each turn.
· Add 1 or more to "free repair" for: Con, Bri, Exp, RR, & Aut. (Each effects construction technology)
· Repairing w/o interrupting current construction by setting % rate.
· Pop-up menu (click on improvement) for selling, setting priority for "free" and shield repairs, and buying repairs (set rate in $/turn).
· Allow settlers & engineers in city to repair improvements, 2 & 4 shields/turn added to "free repair" rate.
· Add another special citizen type: construction crew, adds 2 shields to "free repair," 4 after Exp, sorta like a temporary settler or engineer.

David James
Questioned incentives to repair much past 49%, why not be % reductions, liked donDon's ideas.

itokugawa
Liked the idea of structural damage, suggested pay extra $ to lower spy success.
Suggested that some buildings should have more hits based on importance, such as city walls and SDIs.

Theben
I envision a number next to each built structure in the city screen representing the total damage, color-coded like units. Green=0 damage, yellow=1-49%, red=50-99%. You would click on the number and a pop-up window would let you repair the items, w/o limit of how many and how often you can repair. Gold is subtracted from your treasury, shields are counted similar to supported units for that turn.
Replied to David James % reductions don't work for each building type, and you should repair or you risk building's destruction later.
Disagreed with Itokugawa, repairs should be based on cost of building to keep player happy.

donDon
Since most improvements are structures easily damaged by fire perhaps they should not be
made too resistant to destruction. Then you could have aqueduct improve the resistance, representing better fire fighting capability. There could also be an improvement with sewer representing an incremental advance in water control structures. Modern water infrastructure would follow…

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Theben (edited June 30, 1999).]</font>

[EnochF]

Yeah, back in her "Cities in Dust" and "Dear Prudence" days...

Actually, "Cities in Dust" would be a good track to play during Civilization...

[Jimmy]

I would like to see several ways to win the game:
- build spaceship
- conquest
- diplomatic victory
- economic victory
- achieving a specific goal ( controlling all special landmarks, controlling all wonders, controlling 70% of map, having 60% of world pop...)

[mzilikazi]

Absolutely agree with the last post... it should be possible to win by other ways than world conquest or a science based win that really depends on manufacturing resources (i.e. Spaceship or Alien Life Project)...
What about victory conditions based on demographic factors, such as the eradication of disease, pollution, inequality and unhappiness... I usually play Civ2 with sprawling empires and high production, but it would be great to win just occasionally by building a rural idyll or a scientific, egalitarian utopia.

Think about it: which Civ in the real world now is 'winning'? The US? China? Arguably - it depends on the measure you use: is happiness of population more important than number of tanks? Is environmental responsibility more important than the number of dollars in the government coffers? I don't know, and I would certainly not presume to make a judgment on others' views on the subject. The 'leading Civ' could equally be Sweden, Singapore or Australia, or any number of places... it depends what turns you on, and this should be reflected in the game through a far wider range of victory conditions. Am I alone in thinking this...?

[Dr Strangelove]

I guess this suggestion belongs here. How about bringing back the end of game replay that was included in Civ I?

[Theben]

They brought it back in SMAC, but it doesn't work as well. The civI version was much better.

[NotLikeTea]

Been thinking of population growth, something seriously out of whack in CivI and II.

In Civ, opoulation growth is a factor of food production. Great! Looking at our world today, the US and Europe must have the highest populations, and China quite low.

What? It's not like that? How odd...

Population grows independantly of food, though it is a factor. In the developed world, people consume far more food than is needed to survive. In the Civ model, we have a low growth rate. In the third world, the population grows despite a lack of food.

Another point: In Civ, population is not a bad thing. In Civ, China would be winning. It would be nice to see the problems of population, as well as the benefits.

Abnd, yet another point: Growth in Civ is more or less linear from the start of the game till the end. In history, population was more or less stable till tech took over, and is now doubling every 30 years or so (I think)

[Flavor Dave]

I think that pop. growth early should be highly dependent on food, less so as time goes on. But I disagree that pop. is always good in civ. Happiness and pollution make it a mixed blessing.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Flavor Dave (edited July 09, 1999).]</font>

I'm bored, so I thought this thread would be a good place to ramble on and on...

CITY GROWTH: There should be 7 city picture sizes (right now there are 4) They should represent factors of ten. For example a newly founded community has 100 population.

P100=Picture 1
P1000=Picture 2
P10000=Picture 3
P100000=Picture 4
P1000000=Picture 5
P10000000=Picture 6
Larger= Picture 7

However, there should NOT be little numbers representing each one. For example, a population 100 city should not be called "1".
It should just be there, with the picture denoting its approximate size. Then, it should tell you the real population (for example, maybe 30,000) when you enter the city screen. Thus, there will be no sudden growth spurt as there is now (when a size 1 city doubles in size overnight ) Each turn, it will increase a small amount.

Then, you can use this for armies. For example, you can set the city to produce phalanxes. If the city has 100 people and your empire has a 5% draft rate, then you should get five phalanx-men a turn from it. If you have a a few million phalanx-men, you're probably going to defeat ten cavalry-men, however superior they are. My model of combat is this: All units still have their attack and defense and hit points and firepower values. For example, the phalanx would be 1-2-1-1-1 However, Hit Points and Firepower would be an assigned value multiplied by the number of men in the unit. For example, a 10000-man phalanx would be 1-2-1-10000-10000. So, while each "round" of combat it wold probably be beaten by a single 8-3-2 Cavalry, it would still end out defeating the cavalry. If it were to defend against a 10000 man 1-1-1 unit, it would still probably win, because it has the higher value (comparing attack to defense) It would be equal to a 2-1-1-10000-10000 unit, and surpassed by a 2-1-1-15000-15000 unit. Therefore, the number of people would be just as important as the type of unit.

Units would each have a "dominant element" For example, the dominant element of a frigate would be wood, and the dominant element of a swordsman would be iron. The special resources will match the possilbe dominant elements. If a city has a special resource in its radius (and it's not already taken), then the city will be counted as a producer of the dominant element. A city in the forest which has access to lots of wood could produce units whose element is wood much more quickly than normal. You can still produce a unit even if you don't have the element, it'll just take longer.

Improvements and Wonders will also have elements, perhaps even multiple ones. A city near Marble or Gold could produce temples quickly, and one with both could even make a Wonder like the Oracle in very little time. Perhaps having a dominant element of something would halve the shield cost to produce it there.

This would lead to a more realistic change in the balance of power through the years. For example, most Stone Age units will have Stone as a dominant element, and cities near it will flourish and become military powers. Once the Bronze Age, occurs though, and most units need bronze, it could very well fall behind to civilizations with more bronze and copper in their territories.

This brings me to another very important point. Trade in Civ2 was pretty bad. I suggest trade in dominant elements. For example, you can right-click on any city you have contact with to open a negotiation totally seperate from normal diplomacy. You can then ask to trade a few of the dominant elements. If the leader agrees (which he probably will, unless he REALLY hates you) both cities will then be counted as producing both dominant elements. Either side can cancel the trade route at any time, and third parties can have as a negotiation option "We wish you to cancel your trade route with the ____" The trade will be represented by little icons that move across the map and don't belong to either civilization. You can attack one of these icons, but it will be a declaration of war on both civs involved. The icon's appearence and rate of movement will change after you discover certain techs.

That's all for now (phew)

Giant Squid

[ember]

A couple questions:
How do you decide how many squares a city draws resources from?
How do you tell how big a unit is?
Mabye make a max unit size of 10K and have units come in incriments of 100. Their health bar would show how far they are from the max size. Tanks might cout as 100 each, and planes as 400. a ship could be 1000 - 2000.
I don't think pop should be reduced by building units, only by a unit taking casualties. (every soldier would be replaced several times over in a single ancient turn)
Cities could only support a total unit manpower of 1/4 with fundamentalism and 1/20 with democracy of their city size.

------------------
"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[John D Ward]

I have two suggestions which seem to belong in this forum.

1. Effects of starvation: Something which I found most unrealistic in
Civ I and Civ II, is that the consequence of starving your people to
death is to increase the happiness of the city concerned. When a city is
starving, the population should become very unhappy, causing civil
disorder, leading to the collapse of the government in a Democracy.

2. Elections: A realistic, and very effective trade-off for all the
advantages of a Republic or Democracy, is that elections should be held
periodically. Should the player lose the election, he is removed from
office, thus losing the game.

Any comments?

------------------

Well you are talking about disasters really, and yes disasters are a major part of Civilizations and should be included, but losing the entire game because of losing one election? no no...the game would be very hard and fustrating.

[ember]

Divorcing growth from food.
Growth should depend on happiness, government, tech, infrastructure and location.

Food has a strong influence on happiness.
All food is pooled and distributed to a nuetral happiness level automatically. (losses to to bad transport can happen)

The happiness neutral level of food corresponds to current slow groth, maybe 2.2 food / person.
Having more than this much food slightly increases happines and hence growth.
having less decreases happines. At a certain level (~1.5 food/ person) starvation begins. Happiness penalties are SEVERE and pop losses are inevitable.

Inventions like contraception will slow growth rate slightly, but they will also allow you to slow it dramatically where popultion has started to outstrip food supply.

This idea allows the modern phenomina of overcrowding. The population will grow well past the point of sustinablility and then begin to collapse, but with riots and probably revolts in long term starving cities.

Aquatducts/ hospitals increase growth
Cities near oceans and on rivers have bosted growth.
cities by mountains and desserts are reduced.

Other ideas:

Surplus food (over 2 / person) is stored in the grannary. The number of turns of spare food gives the happines bonus (and the minimum time for a full siege) Food decays at a rate of 10-20% a turn, to prevent near infanite stores. Modern refrigiration techs/ canning might slow this.


------------------
"Any technology, sufficiently advanced,
is indistinguishable from magic"
-Arthur C. Clark

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Nomadic Civilizations:
I posted a bit on this some time ago, now it's time to elaborate (okay, it's 'way past time to elaborate...)
If you start with Domestication but not Agriculture (possible Starting Advances/Techs), or if you start with Agriculture but in terrain that isn't suitable (desert without Irrigation Tech), or if you just feel snarkey, you can choose to start by forming a Tribal Unit and becoming Nomadic instead of starting a City and becoming a Settled Civilization (Note: cities should not be formable without agriculture: in game terms, with 10,000 a base figure, even Jericho the first 'city' was about 90% too small for the game!).
Characteristics of a Nomadic Civ:
Population growth will be very low, because they produce less food from herding and hunting than farmers can from farming. Their 'user' icon (if a CtP type is used) would not be a farmer, but perhaps a shepherd with a sheep or a herdsman on foot with a cow, and food production/tile would be about 2/3 to 1/2 (just above subsistance) of the farmers'.
On the other hand, the nomadic civ receives bonuses in Military (the entire population has a lifestyle related to war), Nationalism or Patriotism (whichever term you want to use) because they tend to be a very cohesive group and suspicious/contemptuous of outsiders, and Trade. They will not have a bonus, and possibly a minus, in research, but they can act as Middlemen diffusing or spreading advances from one civilization to another, just as they can act as middlemen trading goods between civilizations they contact.
The Tribal Unit is the nomadic 'city'. It can move, but very slowly (1 tile/turn maximum, with at least a 1 turn stop between to get more food). The Tribal Unit automatically generates a defending military unit when it is formed, since all members of the tribe can fight and their life style gives them some base military skill.The unit will be the basic Warrior at first, later the best Foot Unit the Nomads can build. The Tribal Unit can be 'improved' with the following equivalents to City Improvements:
City Wall
Tribal: Wagon Burgh - has about 1/2 the effect of the city wall, but moves with the Tribe
Market
Tribal: Bazaar - has 50% more effect than Market, because traders from all over meet and do business there.
Library
Tribal: Shaman's Hut - has about 25% less effect than the Library
Barracks
Tribal: Unneeded - all Nomad units are Veterans, or, if a SMAC-system is used, one or two steps higher in Morale than the usual 'green' city folk.
Granary
Tribal: Storage Pits - same effect as Granary, but also moves with the Tribe

Nomadic Units not only start at higher morale, they have a Reconnaissance ability, represented by a 2-tile vision range. In addition, nomadic horse mounted units have more speed than regular civ mounted units. Assuming a light horseman/horse archer for a regular civilization has a speed of 5, the nomad speed would be 6 (this would also be true of Barbarian cavalry). Nomadic units could be hired by regular civs. The hired units would become the hiring civ's color, retain their nomadic characteristics, and could be used by the hiring civ for any purpose EXCEPT attacking the originating nomads! After X (actual number would vary) turns in foreign service, the nomadic unit would lose its nomad characteristics: the vision range, the extra speed. The cost of hiring the units would be subject to negotiation between players/civs, but would nromally be a per turn fee paid to the nomadic or hiree civ directly every turn. Any turn the fee is not paid the hired unit either reverts to nomad colors or possibly revolts and turns Barbarian.
In addition, there is one Advance peculiar to the Nomads: the Composite Recurved Bow, made from glued sinew, horn, and bone. If ordinary bowmen or horse archers have a Range Factor of 1 and Short Range, the Composite Bowmen (foot or mounted) would have a Range Factor of 2 and Medium Range (Long Range is strictly modern Artillery and Rockets).Only by hiring Nomad (or Barbarian) units with Composite Bows can a 'civilized' state get their benefit.
If a Nomadic civ conquers a city, it can incorporate the city into its civ: the ancient Scythians had several 'settled' cities in the Crimea to produce crops they couldn't raise while roaming. The nomads can also move a Tribal Unit into a city or a suitable city location and 'settle down', turning it into a city (or a bigger city) and becoming a regular civ. Regular Cities that are part of a Nomadic Civ are treated as regular cities in all respects: they can build city-type Improvements and lose their 'automatic' tribal defender unit. Tribal Improvements convert as follows when a Tribe settled down:
Wagon Burgh: is lost
Bazaar: becomes a Market
Shaman's Hut: is lost
Storage Pits: becomes a Granary
The civ as a whole can still form 'nomad' units with nomad characteristics in its Tribal Units, but only regular civ units in its Cities.

All of this means that the Nomadic Civ is a viable alternative play for gamers in the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the game. They get less and less viable as Gunpowder and advanced Improvements appear in other civs, but in the ancient and medieval time periods or eras they are a real contender both militarily and economically for the gamer who likes to play conquest or trading games. It also provides a chance for the gamer who's starting position sucks: if your starting terrain has a lot of desert, no rivers, no good terrain resource icons, etc, just start as a Tribe of Nomads and start moving to the good terrain, occasionally trading with or whacking other civs along the way!

[Jimmy]

I like your idea: it's based on History and would make the early game more interesting. You do give the nomad unit a lot of advantages, of course it wouldhave one main disadvantage that they can't win the game: a civ with cities would completely outdo a nomadic tribe in everything (research, industry, money, WoW etc...)

[Maniac]

First I thought I had to post this on City/City Improvements, but it has been renamed to City Improvements, so I'll post my idea here.

In all times city growth wasn't determined by food (except in very ancient times), but by jobs and trade. How else would Athens, Palmyra and Petra have become large cities. Palmyra and Petra are in the desert and Athens hasn't real fertile grounds if you compare with the rest of Europe.

My solution is : Shields and Trade you have more then your city size are too placed in the food storage box. To make it more clear I'll give you an example. A city is of size 2 and is producing a food surplus of 3 and has 3 Shields and 4 Trade.
With my idea the amount of Food put in the Food Storage Box wouldn't be 3, but 6. Don't get me wrong. You are still using that shields and trade for production and tax/science/luxuries.

That way the attraction of trade centers and cities where there are lots of jobs( a lot of Shields means Industry) to people would be simulated. Urbanisation through all times from people of the countryside to the city would be simulated too.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by M@ni@c (edited July 20, 1999).]</font>

[Flavor Dave]

"1. Effects of starvation: Something which I found most unrealistic in Civ I and Civ II, is that the consequence of starving your people to death is to increase the happiness of the city concerned. When a city is starving, the population should become very unhappy, causing civil disorder, leading to the collapse of the government in a Democracy."

Great idea. There has been talk of making siege warfare more effective, one idea was to have a redface come up for every occupied tile. Another would be to add a redface for every 2 wheat deficits or something.

"2. Elections: A realistic, and very effective trade-off for all the advantages of a Republic or Democracy, is that elections should be held periodically. Should the player lose the election, he is removed from
office, thus losing the game."

To be honest, my first thought was, what a dumbass idea. But then I thought about how you'd go about having an election "lost." You'd add a political advisor, when in democracy or republic. And he'd let you know how you're doing. The more happy people, the better, the less pollution, the better, the slower the rate of battle losses, the better, and of course, if you lose a city you founded, the people get really upset. He'd let you know how you're doing, and when you get below a certain level for two turns, you lose the election.

Basically, you'd keep an eye on your standing in the polls, and if it looks like you're going to be unpopular two turns in a row, you either revolt and go commie or fundy, or you jack up the luxuries. It could work.

You should be able to run programs at the same time ... civ3 should be in a resizable window like civ2 and unlike CTP ... so that you could run other programs at the same time, like ICQ, winamp or CD player

[Jon Miller]

they already have something akin to elections in civ, if people riot for two turns they leave and you are forced to impose order personally to keep the nation personally under you, therefore the government goes into anarchy and when the people no longer have government you can envorce rule as you wish, it is basically a time of revolution but you are in place so that you always when and can set up the next government.

Jon Miller

[Flavor Dave]

jonmiller--yeah, I thought of that. Maybe I should have talked about your thoughts, since I had them too. Elections would replace the two-turns-make-revolt rule. It is not only more realistic, but a better reflection of your civ-managing abilities, if your civ-wide happiness determines whether you have a revolt, rather than one city.

Have you ever conquered a really large city while a democrat, and had to deal with just horrendous happiness? you either have to convert half the population into Elvises while you rush build a temple (and maybe even a marketplace the next turn), or hope you have the Statue so that you can go commie the next turn. Not only unrealistic, but also reduces the value of democracy in war, as well as increasing the value of SOL (dramatically) and Mike's and JSB.

Having civ-wide "elections" (actually, as I describe them, it would be votes of confidence) lowers the importance of the Statue. Anything that reduces strategy funnels (Mike's, Statue, We Loves, war, Hoover) is good.

[geofelt]

I would like the game to have the option to keep a log of important events for each human player. The log couuld be kept in memory and spilled to disk when needed. The log could then be viewed or printed out. In tournament games, a log is supposed to be kept, but I tend to get carried away and forget. This should be a relatively easy programming task, and it would help debug the game.