Unique civilizations

[Windborne]

One of the most important, and most often neglected, aspects of civilization is the part dealing with taking on the role of a unique civilization at the dawn of time. Roleplaying at it's grandest!

It's fun to think your playing as the bloodthirsty man sacrificing aztecs, southern slave owners, imperial romans, free thinking americans, or a host of others. But in civilization I and II the only real changes you could make to "customize" your civilizations were your city style and your name.

The player should have options from the start to customize his people, aiming them along different paths to glory from the very first turn.

One option I'd like would be the ability to choose from one of several weak starting governments. In civilization I and II we were stuck with just depotism, and the ancient world was much more varied then that. Give me governments! Priestly beauracracies, god kings, warlords, trade alliances, etc . . . . Let the world be varried.

Also each civilization should have its OWN unique building style, not limited to just three. At least let the human player have his own style slot, different from all the AI'S!

I'd also like some way to pick a few starting technologies and beginning units from the list, this should be done on a point scale to keep all civilizations equal, you can buy different technologies and units, perhaps including access to some later units not generally available, but it will cost you so many "culture points" to get the stuff. THose culture points might translate into the game as starting money.

What does everyone think?


[This message has been edited by Windborne (edited January 08, 2001).]

[hHydro]

I'll answer that by reposting one of my favorite comments from the new official FAQ;

"In Civilization III you'll find ... unique benefits depending on the Civilization you choose..."

We don't know if they're going to handle this similar to how they did in SMAC, or whether the benifits will be more along the lines of Age of Empires (+25% city defense, -25% cost for siege units.. etc.) but either way, this will indeed help add some flavor to how you steer your civ though history.

If they DO achieve this by recreating something similar to SMAC's social engineering, then they will almost surely include an easy way to make a customer civilization like they did in SMAC.

[Sabre2th]

quote: Originally posted by Windborne on 01-08-2001 10:28 AM the bloodthirsty man sacrificing aztecs [This message has been edited by Windborne (edited January 08, 2001).]

um...... the aztecs weren't bloodthirsty. they were very peaceful until the spanish invaded.

well, although i really like the aztecs (see my username), i have to say: they set new dimensions in sacrificing humans. there was no other people that sacrificed so many men to the gods. it is said that montezuma had 20000 prisoners sacrificed in one occasion. they even were to war perpetualy just for the reason to get prisoners they could sacrificed. those wars were called "flower wars".

[Brent]

I thought he meant the Aztecs were the foes you were warring against.

You should be able to customise your civ before playing, but the game should also be able to randomly make you unique and surprise you.

[Windborne]

The aztecs were the most bloodthirsty warrior people meso-america had known up to that point, they began their rise to prominence by treachery and betrayal. Historically they started out as no more then mercenaries given a bad peice of land and used by higher powers in their wars. They broke from this state by sacrificing a woman sent to marry their king to the gods, spitting on the seal of a peace treaty in the most horrible way.

After that they conquered their former employers and most everyone else, taking more captives in each victory to sacrifice to the gods then anyone before them, before the aztecs only a few people a year were sacrificed, voluntarilly, and on special accaisions, also before them the mayan idea's of sacrifice such as wire through the tongue or needles through ones own genetals was more common then any sacrifice of lives.

They were a terrible military power, similiar in technology and political advancement to the hated assyrians of eurasia's past.

What I meant though by the statement was that if I wanted to play a civilization that kept slaves, sacrificed men to the gods, built nazi style concentration camps, salted the farmlands of conquered cities, and basically did every dispicable thing known to man I should be able to.

Also if I wanted to be an angelic civiliziation of art, literature, philosophy, and the universal rights of all mankind, I should be able to do that too.

Or any type of civilization between those extremes. No shirking to the sidelines! Give me options right from the start and pile them on, let me customize my civilization the way I want, and give me premade civs in case I don't want to bother.