Size of civs

[TVA22]

In this new screenshot of the week (Oct5) we see two players, each with dozens of cities (as seen by the mini-map). I'd just like to say, that in CivIII, and I know I'm rare here, I was hoping to see more civs playable at the same time, with altogether fewer cities for every civ.

Now, I know the other civs had probably been conquered, but still, I hate managing an empire that size... On the other side, I don't want annoying city limit rules for governments in civ3 as in ctp.

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but did anyone else ever have a problem with the fact that nations in civ games are always so linear with their relationship to empire size and strength? I always hated it when playing on a real world map-my favorite mode of play, it was always impossible to recreate actual historical events (well, some of them), because the most profitable cities in civ games are ones surrounded by irrigated grassland, and those are typically (on average) the most productive too. Consider Japan, Tokyo is the largest city in the world, with 25 million people as of 1991. Japan and similarly sized European countries historically have had high GDP's and some still are powerful economic forces today--aka japan and Great Britian.

I'm thinking of my favorite period in world history --WW2. In a civ game, it's impossible to play a normal game, and have something like that happen, because Europe must be conquered early on, by one civ, and then, and only then, may Europe be a powerful force in world affairs. Too often, Japan is easily overrun by China in the early game, then Russia, and Persia become dominant empires, and you never have a chance to accurately reflect a kind of real-world development, which is very fun for me, as a player.

Has anyone heard anything on this matter, will you be able to build multiple harbors or factories in cities or something like that, to make certain cities better than others, because of what you as the player do, or will it still be so strictly regimented to terrain values? Not that I want to be able to make cities unbeatable in siberia or anything, I'd just like to be able to see small states take on larger ones, have a comparable tech tree, and have a chance of winning militarily. I think this is a major flaw in civ2, that for you to prosper, you must have many cities.

Personally, I hope the game ships with a real world map, with all 16 civs playable at the same time, and have it be possible for me to play as Japan, or GB, or France, or Germany, and keep to myself, until the industrial age, then try to take over surrounding civs. It was never possible in civ2, b/c, you'd get outdistanced scientifically, and eventually, you'd just be overwhelmed unless you steadily built more and more cities, until you had 15 or 20 or so, by then I was always pretty much set to go.

Again, I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I think its a valid point, and would like to see the gameplay improved, so its how you conduct diplomacy, and build cities, and improve terrain, that influences your strength as a civ, not the landmass you occupy.

[Akron]

Originally posted by TVA22
In this new screenshot of the week (Oct5) we see two players, each with dozens of cities (as seen by the mini-map). I'd just like to say, that in CivIII, and I know I'm rare here, I was hoping to see more civs playable at the same time, with altogether fewer cities for every civ.

Now, I know the other civs had probably been conquered, but still, I hate managing an empire that size... On the other side, I don't want annoying city limit rules for governments in civ3 as in ctp.

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but did anyone else ever have a problem with the fact that nations in civ games are always so linear with their relationship to empire size and strength? I always hated it when playing on a real world map-my favorite mode of play, it was always impossible to recreate actual historical events (well, some of them), because the most profitable cities in civ games are ones surrounded by irrigated grassland, and those are typically (on average) the most productive too. Consider Japan, Tokyo is the largest city in the world, with 25 million people as of 1991. Japan and similarly sized European countries historically have had high GDP's and some still are powerful economic forces today--aka japan and Great Britian.

I totally agree with you. Its a great thing that it will be possible to play with all 16 civs at once, though I hope that all the screens work properly with this setup and the game runs smoothly. Some people complain about the time it may take, but I wouldn't even mind waiting 10 minutes for the next turn if it was with 16 civs. You're also right that smaller civs should have more power. Culture may help that, but the new resource system will not, as bigger civs will be able to exploit and thus acquire more resources.

[TVA22]

I too would be willing to wait for longer turns, though I might get a bit frustrated with ten minutes, I might as well play multiplayer. (not that I have anything against civ multiplayer, its great, I just like single player for a fast game) I dunno, I'm not a programmer, but maybe the long turns are a result of the ai's tendency to build lots of units and worthless things, then just move them back and fourth. Maybe that eats up memory or something. So maybe with smaller civs, and an ai that uses things intelligently--to some mean, turns would be more efficient.

And I totally agree that larger civs will be able to exploit the resources... Which may negate the colony idea, and instead actually encourage ICS, and thus BIGGER CIVS=BETTER CIVS, just like in civ2.

If the games play essentially just like civ2 games, I might get bored with these new features really fast... I'm looking not so much for lace and frills ontop of civ2 to make civ3, I'm looking for concrete improvement of gameplay, which will make the game EVEN MORE ADDICTIVE!!!

[Akron]

Yeah, it was the hordes of useless units that the ai built in civ 2 that really slowed the game down. They'd just cheap units such as fanatics in the interior of their contintent, they'd mass troops in interior cities, they'd aimlessly build sea units, I could go on for a long time with all the stupid things the ai would do. But if the ai uses genetic algorithms and thus "learns" (which may actually make it somewhat intelligent ), the computer will learn against a peaceful player not to waste resources like this. But I guess this is just wishful thinking. Only time will tell, of course.

Ok, so maybe 10 minutes is a little long , but if the ai is actually good it may be worth it.

Oh, another thing that will favor ICS in this game is the 1 army per 4 cities. Hopefully, this will somehow be balanced too.

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by Akron
...they'd aimlessly build sea units...

In Civ II, it's great to create an entirely inland empire, so the A"I" could rule the seas, but it would just be wasting shields. Meanwhile, you stock up on tanks and howies in preparation for war. Then when the computer does something stupid like steal a tech or sneak attack during an alliance, it's toast. I hope the Civ III AI is really I.

[TVA22]

Looks like the general consensus is that we all want better AI...

We can only hope.

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by TVA22
Looks like the general consensus is that we all want better AI...

We can only hope.

Firaxis hasn't done much in advertising the AI. We can only hope it's because you can't easily show that stuff in pictures or they're too embarrassed to admit the stupidities of the Civ II AI while promoting the Civ Legacy.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Akron
Yeah, it was the hordes of useless units that the ai built in civ 2 that really slowed the game down. They'd just cheap units such as fanatics in the interior of their contintent, they'd mass troops in interior cities, they'd aimlessly build sea units,

You mean this is NOT a proper way to play Civ?

I should have known better than cheating and looking at the computer do his stuff in chieftain and copying that...





I actually hope we will be able to have both many civs and that some might be large.

I don't mind at all the bigger is larger phenomena, as long as science and economy get a proper status.

the only reason russia and china are not beating the hell of japan is because they're unorginzed and corrupt. Add to that some bad climatic reasons.

Civ II hardly has efficiency, which is something that should strongly sit in any empire building game.

There's no reason that when I build an empire it will immediatelly crumble like USSR. Naturally, it should do that, but I also should be able to build stuff and become the USA.

The difference isn't in the land size but the policy. If Japanese ruled over russia, they wouldn't have been in such a mess, but an economic giant.

That's one of the reasons I dislike Unique Civs. Then, you have pluses and minuses imprinted in you from the start, while you should learn to DEVELOP them according to YOUR OWN DECISIONS.

While I agree that the AI could have a set of presets, it should also be randomized each time. I don't want to go - oh these are the japanese, well I kow they are militaristic scientific so they'll discover howies fast and use them alot.

That would be = B O R I N G.

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
That's one of the reasons I dislike Unique Civs. Then, you have pluses and minuses imprinted in you from the start, while you should learn to DEVELOP them according to YOUR OWN DECISIONS.

But you can make your own decisions by choosing which civ to be or by editing the bonuses in the editors.

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by JellyDonut


But you can make your own decisions by choosing which civ to be or by editing the bonuses in the editors.

Exactly So, for the 'DOs' and the 'DOnots', there really is no argueing about unique civ attributes- you both can have your way.

And aren't the uniue attributes able to be shut off?

[TVA22]

yes, you can turn off the unique attributes

[El hidalgo]

I expect that due to improvements in the interface it will be easier to manage a large civ in Civ 3. But I too preferred a large landmass with fewer cities (but more civs). I liked maps with a lot of land area but with a lot of unfavorable terrain -- vast deserts like the Sahara and mountain ranges like the Himalayas, Tien Shan.

[Crouchback]

I always prefered large oceans with a few big land masses, a map I could only get with CTP2, as a way of controlling AI spread.

There has to be a more elegant solution to ICS and the proliferation of AI cities/units than the stupid city limits in that game. But unhappiness never seemed to work well in SMAC or civ2.

David

[Skanky Burns]

I believe the Civ 3 solution of settlers costing 2 population points is the elegant solution you were after. Check the ICS Thread for more analysis of why this is the case It makes for some interesting reading, too.

[old dog]

Originally posted by TVA22
I was hoping to see more civs playable at the same time, with altogether fewer cities for every civ.

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but did anyone else ever have a problem with the fact that nations in civ games are always so linear with their relationship to empire size and strength? ... its how you conduct diplomacy, and build cities, and improve terrain, that influences your strength as a civ, not the landmass you occupy.

I agree with you totally on both points.

#1: In Civ 2 I have tried to play the maximum number of Civs on medium-small worlds, in order to achieve this effect, but have had limited success. Too often, in this kind of world, 2-3 opponents are quickly wiped out and you have too few viable civs in the world to keep things interesting... However, sprawling empires really get old, with the emphasis on hundreds of small unimportant decisions.

#2: There was no doubt that the winning strategy was to expand, expand, and then expand some more. Despite the element of corruption, more was really always better. Europa Univeralis did a much better job of keeping this within reason. However, to be fair, I saw a few decent Indian and Egyptian AI civs which were small and competitive.

I'm guardedly hopeful about Civ 3 in these areas. The 16 civs has to help, if the AI is up to the task of dealing with the situation in a medium size world. And it may well be that the new rules on trade, diplomacy, and, especially, culture, will serve to make expansion only one of the possible ways to dominate.

Also, if the city governors are really as good as they say, then the impact could be twofold: First, a larger empire might be less of a detriment to gameplay. Second, if it's true that the city governors are "learning" from you, then the AI opponents may also be reacting better to you -- and I think that would make an enormous difference in how this would play out.

[Akron]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

You mean this is NOT a proper way to play Civ?

I should have known better than cheating and looking at the computer do his stuff in chieftain and copying that...

Actually, many times I set no human player and barbarian map and just held down enter.

Then, every so often, I monitored the ai's progress. It was sorta interesting. At the end, I got a pretty cool scenario sometimes, but usually when I took over even the weakest civ, it had too many units for my liking.

Too bad, there won't be a cool cheat menu like this in civ 3.

Running a large empire in civ 3 will definitely be much less tedious than in civ 2. Having queues and loadable queues also helps this. If there is a decent worker automation function (especially one you can alter to your liking), then it will be a big plus against micromanagement.