About caravans

FrantzX · July 15, 2000, 18:35

I think they should be removed from Civ3. In Civ2 and SMAC, they gave the player too big of an advantage of the AI. Trading should be done like CTP and you should be able, in the city screen, to move resources from one city to another.
So if City A is building a wonder, City B and City C could divert half or all of their shield production to City A to help. If this is implimented, wonders would have to be made much more expensive because they would be built by the whole civ, not just one city. Now wonders will feel like the grand undertaking they should be.
Doing this will simplify the game, making it harder the players and easier of the AI. And isn't that what we all want?

July 16, 2000, 03:56

I agree completly: when I play I usually forget caravans, curse myself reeatedly and build a large number of them. Get rid of them! Automatic trade for all.

Also, wonders being built by the whole civ is realistic, the apollo program was not built by the people of Florida, but by the whole USA.
[This message has been edited by Michael Dnes (edited July 16, 2000).]

MidKnight Lament · July 16, 2000, 04:18

Sid said that they'd do something new for the trade system. I think we can rest assured that it won't be the same.

- MKL

UltraSonix · July 16, 2000, 06:49

I think there'll be an espionage and a trade screen in the game (ie they'll be done civ-level). So caravans and spies are probably dead. RIP.

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Hasdrubal · July 16, 2000, 10:27

I don't quite agree. Yes, the trade/wonder building system should be changed. But not via seperate screens or models. I think that Civ should stay true to its boardgame legacy. All action should take place at the same board, and if there is some trade to be made, it ought to take place in some form or another on the board. Graphically as well as strategically. That's why I'm also opposed to separate battle screens. The more aspects take place on the same board, the easier it is to have them all intertwined and influence each other.

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Az · July 16, 2000, 15:48

Hadstrubal : oh , now I am not sure again .

FrantzX spoke so correctly but your words about the board game completely upturned me !

Par4 · July 16, 2000, 16:11

Kill the camels I want a compooter game not a board game! Just my opinion.

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Tiberius · July 17, 2000, 03:10

Kill the camel, kill the settlers/engineers, kill the spies, KILL'EM ALL and sooner than you think we will have a boring game, without any personality, with flat, boring screens for everything. So, if the trading system is obsolate we need to remove the caravans? The combat system isn't obsolate? Let's make some screens for battles also, without units, of course. Oh yeah, don't forget to remove the City View also.

I can see it already: a bored, tired player, exausted after hours of clicking on thousands of buttons in hundreds of screens will suddenly stop and ask himself: "What the hell am I playing here? Is this a game, anyway?"

I'm not saying that the trading system shouldn't be changed, but keep the caravans. Maybe automate them, I don't know, but find another sollution. If you forget about the caravans when playing (it happened to me, too) doesn't mean that they are not needed. After all, you never forget the phalanx, right? The problem is that you can ignore the caravans in Civ2. The trade must be far more important in Civ3, so you won't forget the caravans anymore.

MidKnight Lament · July 17, 2000, 08:38

There is absolutely no reason why Civ 3 would lose personality if we lost caravans.

- MKL

Napoleon I · July 17, 2000, 15:25

I would have to agree with Tiberius. Civ has always had a certain feel to it and breaking it up by introducing too many new features wouldn't feel right to me. I don't agree with the board game idea, but let us be reasonable.

Yes, the wonder caravan system will have to be changed. However, why would that mean killing the caravans altogether. In the end I would propose having a system that would merge the caravans with the auto-trading system that people talk about. So here it is:

1. The resourse system of Civ2 will be kept. These resources would change as the game progresses, i.e. salt and hyde will be replaced by iron and spices which will be replaced by oil and uranium, for example.

2. Each city will have a certain number of these resources.

3. Trade will exist between each city that does not have identical resources and the amount of trade will depend on the number of different resources that each city has. For example, if two cities have two resources that are the same and one that is different, they will each have two additional trade arrows, while if two cities each has three different resources they would each get six additional trade arrows. This trade will be handled automatically.

4. Trade will also exist with any other civilization that you have established diplomatic relations with. This trade will be conducted on a civ to civ basis, and will also contain a certain scientific bonus that will depend on the size of the civ. This trade would also be handled automatically.

5. Caravans will be able to enhance the automatic trade described above. If a caravan from one of your cities establishes a trade route to one of your cities trade between these cities would be increased. If you send a caravan to another civ you will get a one-time bonus and trade between your two civs will increase.

Sorry, if I stole anybody's ideas here, I really don't mean to

. Anyways, I would appreciate some feedback, so write up whatever other ideas you may have.

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Hasdrubal · July 17, 2000, 18:11

Civilization a board game?

Calling Civ a boardgame is not introducing a new idea, it is merely stating what it really has always been. Unlike for example SimCity, let alone Quacke and the likes, Civ really is a board game transferred to the computer age. If you would want to, you could literally play the game without the aid of computers. Think about it, everything could be done on a table, with a board, fiches, dices and lots of paperwork. But it's a so much revved up boardgame that it really would become too time-consuming to perform all the actions and calculations manually. Hence it could only be designed for the computer age. (Anybody remember that little legal quarrel Microprose got in with the owners of the actual boardgame 'Civilization'?)
Personally, I don't frown upon the fact that it is in essence a boardgame. On the contrary, I believe it is the reason behind it's succes. It enables all of the individual submodels in the game (military, economic, territorial) to get together on a single board, forcing lots of interaction between them. And it eases a more graphical approach to things, avoiding endless screens with slide-bars and numbers to set, making it a more intuitive rather than number-crunching experience.
If I get called by a foreign ambassador, who wants to discuss war and peace, I'd rather base my answer on seeing that my caravans are in that enemies territory, nearly arrived on their destination cities and surrounded by enemy units, than on a separate cost and profit trade screen where I have to calculate what the exact costs of entering a war would be. The former is just more fun!
The trade system must be enhanced, but it should fit within the limits of the concept of Civ, or else the game might loose that Civvin' feeling.

Napoleon, I'm quite charmed by your third point.

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tonic · July 17, 2000, 20:52

Reading between the lines, it's apparent there is a polarisation of views on Civ3, those who want the feel to be close to Civ2, basically a version 2.5 and those who want a more radical departure meriting the number 3. I'll throw in my 2.2 cents worth (10% GST recently included) and say I'm with the 3ers.

With Civ2's modelling based on some semblence of the real world, the caravans seem realistic. There were such things as caravans in the past and they did make their long, mostly perilous journeys to reach their destinations. What is less realistic is the modern version, the freight. These days the commodity cargo goes by every kind of transport and there is even an abstraction of their movement in the stock exchanges not to mention trading done through the Internet. Now it would be nice to have these contemporary forms of commodity trading incorporated into Civ3. I have as yet not gone past the theory to think of the practicalities of implementation.

ElmoTheElk · July 18, 2000, 00:55

OK, that's right, but he want's a computer game, not a board game: is there any connection between this and not having camels/caravans in it?

Don't Think so.

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MidKnight Lament · July 18, 2000, 08:59

quote:

Originally posted by tonic on 07-17-2000 08:52 PM
Reading between the lines, it's apparent there is a polarisation of views on Civ3,

Dead right, and that's why CtP never had a chance of not being flamed. Civ 3 is going to be up against the same wall. It's easy to say it doesn't do this and that, but it's another thing to have to come up with the goods yourself, and more importantly, balance everything.

- MKL