Longer Civ

The Andy-Man · February 24, 2002, 14:37

would people pbject to civ being MUCH longer? ie, 1000turns MINIMUM.

the first yrs of the game being bi-yearly (1 turn = 2yrs) around 1500 1turn = 1yr, and late 19thC 1month = 1turn.

this would then allow for more units in each era, a much slower progression of the game and giving every unit a point to it. i mean, there was more then one kind of tank, so if the game was lengthened you could go through more of the phases of the tank ie, 1stWW tank, 2nd WW2 modern armour (just an example).

also, the maps should be MASSIVE, so big that Huge in Civ3 would be tiny in Civ2. This way room for more cities, plus there will more likely be undiscovered continets to colonize. and with an increased game length, colonization of the new world would be a true era.

so, MANY more turns, more units, more techs, bigger maps. I personaly think this would add alot to the game, now the way it is (and ha been in civs before) you sometimes just pass an age, like you never build knights cos you have discovered cavalry 2 turns later.

and, it may seem like alot of turns, but think how many games of civ you play, and then htink if it had just been one BIG game....

Scooby_Doo · February 24, 2002, 15:37

A good idea i suppose, but wouldn't it take about a decade to finish each game? Think how long the AI turns would take...

MonsterMan · February 24, 2002, 15:45

No matter how large they make the maps, they will always feel too small.

I also yearn for a much longer game, well, so do most people as long as the ride stays fun. But until I have that control over the editor I'm not gonna debate it.

Dom Pedro II · February 24, 2002, 15:47

Well, I could certainly go for that. It seems like the middle game goes too fast. It would be nice to have a longer period in the classical through medieval into early industrial period. It all just seems to go too quickly at that point I think.

The Andy-Man · February 24, 2002, 16:48

it would also eliminate the problem where, by the time you have built and loaded a decent atack force onto a ship, it is obsolete.

DrFell · February 24, 2002, 17:19

I've never had that problem before. On deity level my swordsmen/immortals/war chariots will often be useful to take out 2 civs, and viable as attack units right through the ancient era and up to halfway through the middle ages (where the chariots get upgraded, and the swordsmen/immortals are replaced).

Sean · February 24, 2002, 17:26

I like the idea. But I would also want the number of unit types and improvements too increase expotentially to the number of turns increased. This would allow a deepened game.

The Andy-Man · February 24, 2002, 17:34

that was the whole point really sean. So that each era would have LOADS of units, so many you dont know what to pick.
For example, navy. Civ games have seriously mistreated naval units, there has not only been 4 modern ones, and 4 industrial ones, and 2 ancient ones that have to make do in medievil times.

If the game was lengthened as above, you could have imense fleets for each period (the frigate was the flagship of its time, so could be the equivilent of a battleship, so why are they so east to build?), you could have wooden carriers (as used in WW2) until upgrades etc. More aircraft. and so on...

Septura X · February 24, 2002, 17:48

I could go for longer games with more units and such. Good idea.

ACooper · February 24, 2002, 20:35

It's a good idea, but it could lead to a lot of break-ups and divorces.

GePap · February 24, 2002, 20:55

The more units and more choices, the more strain on any A.I., or if an A.I. good enough was made, huge demands on Computing power. This would make such a game feasible or acceptable to a very small number of people, and thus be economically unfeasible. I think there are many projects by gamers going on to try to create better civ-type games, and since they are doing it out of 'love', if they finish, we can expect some good things, but I don't see this dream becoming true from a large gaming company.

Jaguar · February 25, 2002, 04:27

Quote:

Originally posted by ACooper

It's a good idea, but it could lead to a lot of break-ups and divorces.

I wouldn't mind it, although it would be kinda tedious to play your first game on chieftan level, then realize that you're too far ahead and its too easy... then you move up to warlord, and you've played 554 hours when you realize that's too easy, etc. you get the idea. It would take forever to get to the modern age.

Lancer · February 25, 2002, 07:15

AM, great idea, I'd certainly buy it. It reminds me of the monster board wargames of the 70s.

Btw, check out the site of The Australian Design Group, or adg. Try a search. Look under the computer game section for World In Flames. There is both a board game and computer game. The comp game has the largest map ever, period.

Andemagne · February 25, 2002, 11:31

Good Idea.

Yodasplat · February 25, 2002, 11:50

Longer Civ is good! Great idea.

I like to play massive games with all the civs, giant maps and if the games could last longer, stretch for thousands of turns that would be awesome!

I like the epic feel of the game. The bigger and longer it is the more epic it gets IMHO.

Adagio · February 25, 2002, 12:11

I'd sure like that, BUT you know how long time the AI takes to finnish a turn at present time on a huge map with 16 players. Then go figure how long times the turns are going to take if the map was just doubled in size. And since this will make the units be built quicker, which means there will be more units on the map at the same and thereby make the AI take even longer per turn. The only way to stop the turns from taking ages you need to set a limit of units to be moved per turn (Just like in Battle Isle and History Line)

Yodasplat · February 25, 2002, 12:29

Hey ADG, standard giant maps and 16 civs the way they come in the game are good enough in size. More than that would be... exaggerated and difficult to handle, I agree.

The turns should be increased, that's all. That shouldn't have any effect on the actual time it takes to your PC to process each turn, right?

In any case I love my 1.2 GHZ AMD

Even on a giant map and 16 civs, turns never take more than 10 seconds and 5 seconds is the norm.

Adagio · February 25, 2002, 14:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Yodasplat
In any case I love my 1.2 GHZ AMD

Even on a giant map and 16 civs, turns never take more than 10 seconds and 5 seconds is the norm.

Gimme

ACooper · February 25, 2002, 14:03

I think this would be great if you could have the option of choosing starting and ending eras (ala Empire Earth) for shorter games.

Captain · February 25, 2002, 17:45

I'm told CtP2 has something like that already.

there is the possibility of upwards of 1000 turns (maybe 1600 limit?) but you can lengthen or shorten that according to how you want to play (I think it goes from 7000 BC to 2000 AD but you can pick your start and end dates). Long game for sure but not impossibly long.

I don't have CtP2 yet though, but maybe someone who does could comment.

There was a thread about this kind of thing ages ago (before civ 3 released, about having linear time, i.e. 1 turn=1 year, and each "ruler's lifespan" would be like a mini-game. they all would add up to form a mega-game. it's kind of how each Starcraft level took 30 min-3 hrs to complete, but there were 45 missions in total. Or you could think of it as a really long succession game. I thought it would be cool but I think I was in the minority.)

Hagbart · February 25, 2002, 17:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Yodasplat
Hey ADG, standard giant maps and 16 civs the way they come in the game are good enough in size. More than that would be... exaggerated and difficult to handle, I agree.

The turns should be increased, that's all. That shouldn't have any effect on the actual time it takes to your PC to process each turn, right?

In any case I love my 1.2 GHZ AMD

Even on a giant map and 16 civs, turns never take more than 10 seconds and 5 seconds is the norm.

bragging yoda!

The Andy-Man · February 25, 2002, 17:52

i have 256 ram and 4ghz....

anywho, the more i here of ctp2 the better it sounds.......

volcanohead · February 25, 2002, 17:54

4GHz? Have I just been in a timewarp for 12 months and missed these being developed, or was that a typo?

The Andy-Man · February 25, 2002, 17:57

prolly a typos, maybe tis 2ghz. cant remember.

maybe i ment Pentium4.

Salvor · February 25, 2002, 23:58

What I'd like to see is not a super-humongous single game, but a quality scenario editor. I wouldn't want to sit down and play 1000 or more turns of a single game of Civ3. What's I'd really like to see, though, is a larger variety of units, more specialization, and shorter year-spans on turns in earlier eras for individual scenarios.

With a quality scenario editor, you could set the starting and ending dates, set the number of years per turn, and specialize each unit and civ advance to one that was available in the era you're interested in. You don't have to increase the total, making for hundreds of tech advances and thousands of units, you'd just customize the ones you'd use in each scenario, with the net total number about the same as the original game, and game length sometimes shorter or sometimes nearly the same as a regular game.