What the hell is up with the historical researchers at firaxis?

[Martinus]

I think the traits are the mostly for game balance (and suitable peacefull GA trigger - that's why Chinese are militaristic - so that Great Wall can trigger their GA).

As for Spanish being commercial - well, the Commercial trait does two things - it allows you to have big-area spanning empires and gives you more gold. That's what Spain achieved actually - the exact name of the trait is irrelevant - the Commercial effect suits Spanish civ quite well.

[bigvic]

Originally posted by cyclotron7



lol, none taken. Actually, I'd be saying this about any computer game company. The value (or lack thereof) I place in realism has nothing to do with the company producing the game; I'm not so much defending Firaxis as that.

If I could get a job at Firaxis, I wouldn't be posting here.

well, despite our differences in game philosophy, i think we can agree on one thing - these pop ups at this site NEVER get LESS irritating! oh well, if it pays the bills for mark g., more power to him......

[bigvic]

Originally posted by Martinus
I think the traits are the mostly for game balance (and suitable peacefull GA trigger - that's why Chinese are militaristic - so that Great Wall can trigger their GA).

As for Spanish being commercial - well, the Commercial trait does two things - it allows you to have big-area spanning empires and gives you more gold. That's what Spain achieved actually - the exact name of the trait is irrelevant - the Commercial effect suits Spanish civ quite well.

I base my criticism of Spain's "commercial" tendencies on several things....
1. Spanish wealth in the 16th century was based not on mercantile acumen, but simply on the military conquest of 2-3 less technologically advanced (generally)empires - very similar to what happens when you take down quickly a wealthy, weak, ai - you know, "we have "liberated" 178 gold from their vaults" or something like that per city. again, this is not "commercial".
2. evidence of spain's inability to sustain economic growth without constant infusions of conquered or mined hard currency abound. basically the gold they gained from their new world conquests ironically enough ended up in the coffers of their true commercial enemies to the north as they spent it all to finance their impressive war machine.
3. while britain, france, and holland were developping joint stock companies and dropping opposition to usury, spain was still basing their economy on monopolistic guilds. for example, the only authorized trade to/from the new world (authorized being the key word here) took place once a year when a big galleon fleet sailed over loaded down with shoddy, overpriced spanish goods. there were only 3 accepted ports to which residents of the new world could come to trade - santo domingo in hispaniola (dominican republic now), veracruz mexico, and colon panama. so, if you lived in argentina, for example, and wante to trade, legally you had to travel , what, 1000 - 2000 miles north to trade your goods. in fact, at the hight of english pirating, often the citizens of the "victimized" town would look forward to the english "attack", since these guys in actuality always carried a bunch of cheap, high quality english manufactured goods they would "force at cannon point" the locals to purchase.
4. in fact, after the mined and looted gold ran out, spain was one of the poorest nations of europe, and, in fact, was in capable of generating money in any apresciable "commercial" way until some years after the death of franco and their reintigration into europe in the EU.

Portugal, now? yes definately commercial. but spain? again, money does not mean comercial.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by Beren
China is indeed a country of science (I didn't hear anyone argue that.) They are certainly not religious or expansionistic. Commercial could go, but not really defendable if you see how isolationistic they were. Concerning militaristic, I don't see why they should be. Industrious...... ok, well I that is the best option. It doesn't really reflect the Confucianism, but it is the best deal we can make here.

How about a perfectionist/isolationist trait?

Originally posted by Martinus
I think the traits are the mostly for game balance (and suitable peacefull GA trigger - that's why Chinese are militaristic - so that Great Wall can trigger their GA).

That would fit an "isolationist" trait. A militaristic civ would have gone out there and subjugated all the barbarians. China did send campaigns out, but they were more for the "display of imperial power", rarely conquest. Instead, China walled itself in. It fits.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by Beren
China is indeed a country of science (I didn't hear anyone argue that.) They are certainly not religious or expansionistic. Commercial could go, but not really defendable if you see how isolationistic they were. Concerning militaristic, I don't see why they should be. Industrious...... ok, well I that is the best option. It doesn't really reflect the Confucianism, but it is the best deal we can make here.

China WAS a country of science. I would argue that the Civ traits are supposed to match the era of the Civ being represented. I wouldn't say China was a scientific powerhouse in Mao's day. Heck, it's actually been ages since you could even associate the word science with them. They have 4 times the population of America and are 30 years behind in military technology (that they haven't stolen, that is).

[gsmoove23]

Talk about historical inaccuracy, I started a game last night as China and I was placed on a little bitty island. What the hell is that?!?! Its not like I chose the Taiwanese civ.

The game is re-writing history, c'mon. The idea of putting millenia of chinese cultural development up against a few centuries of american existence and clalling them both a civ is ridiculous enough, but its fun. For cryin' out loud if I wanted to relive history I'll read a book. I'm not saying that the people who want complete historical accuracy are wrong but, to say Firaxis failed by not putting it in the game IMO is ridiculous.

And for the person who mentioned militaristic-religious as traits for the American civ I think thats a little unfairly based on the present day. America has a long history of non-interventionism, much to the dismay of France and England. I don't know what the current traits are but expansionist would be preferrable to militaristic. As for religious, unfortunately I can't argue. "One nation, under God..."

[Traelin]

Each Civ's traits should be representative of the era in which they are included in Civ III. That is key to remember. IMHO, here's how I would break them down:

America -- A combination of two from: Expansionist/Industrious/Militaristic. I would say leave them alone.

Iroquois -- Expansionist/Religious.

Aztecs -- Militaristic/Religious.

English -- Expansionist and either Commercial or Militaristic. A good case could be made for Militaristic.

French -- Militaristic/Religious. Duh, the Hundred Years War, and Joan of Arc's devotion to God.

Germans -- Militaristic and perhaps Expansionist, although I'm not too sure on this one.

Greeks -- Scientific/Commercial.

Romans -- Militaristic and either Expansionist (a very good argument can be made here), Commercial, or Religious.

Chinese -- Militaristic/Expansionist.

OK I'm getting tired of writing all these. These are my humble opinions for the Civs I've listed.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
Talk about historical inaccuracy, I started a game last night as China and I was placed on a little bitty island. What the hell is that?!?! Its not like I chose the Taiwanese civ.

That's funny hehe.

Originally posted by gsmoove23
As for religious, unfortunately I can't argue. "One nation, under God..."

Sure you can. Just because the word God is mentioned in the Pledge doesn't mean we are a "religious" Civ. We have a diverse population with many different religions. Usually when a Civ is listed as religious, you are likely to find a theocratic type of government, or a Civ whose people followed the same religion, or something like that.

[KaiserIsak]

Not being liberal does´nt mean that you are not commercial. I guess that is not your meaning, but it could look like it.

My opinion is that it is a little ignorant to speak about "civ attributes" as it is the individual who may or may not have these abilities. I dont really think you can say that spain was not commercial. My opinion is that all the civ traits fits all the civs.

[gsmoove23]

Traelin, we're in danger of going off-topic again. Should start a whole new thread, America, religious civ or no. I so want to write a long response.

You've almost listed every civ as militaristic! There would be no reason to include the trait, just take it for a given. To reduce thousands of years of chinese development to militaristic expansionist is hard to bear. I don't see why the coice of leaderhead should limit the definition of the civ.

[Zero]

Originally posted by aahz_capone
Russia beintg scientific actually makes sence, the dude who invented the periodic table was russian, and lets not forget getting the first man in space, and the first satellite.

Our physicists at one point found learning Russian as second language so valuable because of vast amount of knowledge exchange that was taking place in the mid 20th century. So Sci for Russia isn't that bad

[Random Passerby]

It's all well and good to go about saying "This civ should be this and this, and this other one should get that and that", but how would you propose divvying things up historically and still ending up with the same distribution (i.e., using all 15 unique combinations)?

Granted, Firaxis seems to have dropped all pretense of spreading traits out evenly with PTW, so go ahead and complain about that.

[ranskaldan]

An idea would be dumping the predefined categories and having AOE-like lists of custom-made traits for each civ.

There should be an option to either use historically accurate traits or assign your own points, like Empire Earth.

In fact, we can have an option where Egypt always starts in the desert, Aztecs in the jungles, etc etc.

So, wait for civ4.

[-proletarian-]

Originally posted by bigvic


i'm sorry, dude, but people in the non electronic games industry have been comin up with historically accurate, playable, fun strategy games for over 30 years now. a little historical reaserch/knowledge coupled with a good sense of game balance does not take a rocket scientist. in fact, you cannot seperate historical context from civ 3 - its a game about history.......

if a good strategy game is all you want, good for you, but i'm shocked at the laziness and ignorance of the designers that have dropped this misinformation on people. seriously, one competant historical expert/consultant could have been hired. what i find utterly amazing is that the folks who can put together as complex a package as this cannot do a little homework on the context. i mean, if your ok with this, good for you, but for me, if i want to playy a simple ahistorical strategy game i could get risk. civ should be more than that.

and balance would have been maintained.

as far as that goes, i have serious issues with a few other things i've heard about ptw design choices. for one, the choice of sipahi as ottoman UU. janisary would have been best. sipahi?

ah......if i were only ignorant.............

Ha. I like the way that you try to equate b***ching about "historical accuracy" with somehow being more enlightened than the rest of us. You're nothing special.

The crux of your argument is basically this: "waaaaa, this isn't a true-blue history sim, I'm too intelligent for this game!"

Civ isn't a history sim, and doesn't even strive to be one. It's a fantasy game that centres around being at the helm of one of the greatest civilizations ever to have graced the face of the Earth. Once in the game, the aim is to create your own history, not just re-create the past 6000 years of human history on a monitor. That's where you go wrong in your assumptions.....

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by -proletarian-
Civ isn't a history sim, and doesn't even strive to be one. It's a fantasy game that centres around being at the helm of one of the greatest civilizations ever to have graced the face of the Earth. Once in the game, the aim is to create your own history, not just re-create the past 6000 years of human history on a monitor.

Well said, -proletarian-, well said.

[-proletarian-]

Originally posted by WarpStorm


Well said, -proletarian-, well said.

-nods-

[bigvic]

ok, let me try with this rate every civ thing...........

romans - fine as they are, except i think industrious would have been close. all those aqueducts and roads.....but then they were notoriously greedy, taxing the crap out of everyone they conquered, and one of the 2 powerful, influential classes was the "equestrian" class - descendents of plebes who had made enough money to buy their own horses to fight with. in time rivaled the patricians in power, then basically fused with thhem.....of course all those roads could easily have been built by those hordes of captured workers they had........

greeks - yeah, commercial/scientific works great

french - commercial/industrious? yeah, after being reminded of those kick @$$ engineers and all, industrious does make sense. they also had the corvee, an obligatory work detail all peasants participated in. commercial? sure, sounds good, they had early joint stock companies and all. besides, i can't think of any alternatives that would fit........

english - hard to argue with expansionist. commercial is as good as any, too, closely followed by industrious, but i think they got it right....

germans - militaristic is a must. the scientific part though..........again, industrious is awfully tempting, but - yes i do think of game balance, should stay as is

you know, i'm just going to skip all the ones i have no problem with that no one has seriously commented on.....

america - gee, i think its good as is. hard to not think expansionist - look at the manifest destiny thing. religious? hmmm.... well, i guess the way we have been able to switch to what scholars call "war socialism" during big conflicts and back to republic or democracy so easily might warrant this classification, but i like it as is

russia is a case where even if you don't agree with scientific, what alternative do you have?

here are the only 2 i would change in the original game...

china - industrious and scientific - for all the reasons mentioned above

japan should be militaristic/industrious - look at that work ethic! besides, despite the whole emperor/god thing (not terribly uncommon in many societies, just not so late in history - but perfectly explainable by japan's historical peculiarities without applying "religious" as a trait) plus, japan has never had really smooth government changes, you know.... this would also help game balance, in that the duplicate trait civs would now be china and persia, with japan filling the slot of china

ok, now for the new ones

spain - expansionist/religious - nough said on that

celts - mil/exp? sure, i guess so.... they sure loved fighting (usually to their detriment, with each other!) and did spread all over europe and even into turkey (galatia) ok, sure

vikings - what are they in ptw? i forget... mil/commercial/scientific are good, defendable choices, as well as expansionist..... i'll rule out mil/sci to avoid duplicating their german cousins, so lets try.....mil/commercial, though sci commercial is tempting i just can't leave out mil, though, in light of the viking reputation, but also the swedish "lion of the north" period as well......for commercial, the vikings traded a much as they raided, and look at sweden, again birthplace of 2 major outo companies and such a relatively small country....

carthage - i'd have to fo with commercial/industrious - isn't that what they are? makes sense - shrewd semitic businessmen, and though i can't justify industrious, i can't justify any other trait and this combination sort of compliments commercial nicely and goes along with their rep for being businessmen.....

arabs - ok, how can they NOT be considered scientific/religious? islam? islamic universities? saviors of classical learning?too bad it duplicates their semitic cousins and antecedants, the babs.....perhaps rel/expansionist would be better - boy did they expand! yeah, i think that is better, in terms of game balance religious/expansionist

ottomans (why not turks?) big booboo here in considering them scientific. 3 traits i see are militarist, expansionist and religious tough call here, as any choice duplicates others, but i'll go with mil/expansionist again - their identity to early modern europe as islamic stems more from the fact that they were the only islamic power the europeans dealt with regularly. they too expanded prodigiously and did so on the strength of their arms....

koreans - what are they? scientific/industrious? sounds good to me.....

mongols - definately militaristic and, gee, i guess expansionist, though i hate to duplicat this combo again. gues this means i have to say the turks were mil/religious to balance things again, since i can think of absolutely no other trait for the mongols......

ok, time for bed

[Traelin]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
Traelin, we're in danger of going off-topic again. Should start a whole new thread, America, religious civ or no. I so want to write a long response.

You've almost listed every civ as militaristic! There would be no reason to include the trait, just take it for a given. To reduce thousands of years of chinese development to militaristic expansionist is hard to bear. I don't see why the coice of leaderhead should limit the definition of the civ.

HAHA gsmoove, sometimes I just have fun waiting to see your reaction! Seriously though, I'd love to start a new thread about America, but let me try to stay on topic. I see your point about listing many Civs as Militaristic, but let me remind you that I didn't choose the Era in which each Civ was represented. Firaxis has chosen to display certain leaders for each Civ, ergo I react to them in the manner in which I feel is "correct". If you look at the leaders of the Civs that I listed, you have to admit I'm correct in my reactions.

[sun_tzu_159]

Would it be a good idea to list all the traits then assign a percentage to each one.

So China could be 30% Military, 5% expansion, 10% religion, 30% industrious, 15% science, 10% commercial. All adds up to 100%.

This would give flexibility to those who want to include two traits who just set 50% for each. And those who want more detail can set up further traits with %>0.

With so many civs now in the game I dont think that just two traits is enough to make each civ 'unique and historically accurate'.

A further refinement would be to change the traits through the ages.

Regards
Sun_Tzu

[SanPellegrino]

Originally posted by Martinus
I think the traits are the mostly for game balance (and suitable peacefull GA trigger - that's why Chinese are militaristic - so that Great Wall can trigger their GA).

As for Spanish being commercial - well, the Commercial trait does two things - it allows you to have big-area spanning empires and gives you more gold. That's what Spain achieved actually - the exact name of the trait is irrelevant - the Commercial effect suits Spanish civ quite well.

Excellent, but overlooked points. Bigvic, as Martinus wrote, the exact name is irrelevant, it's what it does.

IMHO Firaxis did a pretty good job assigning the civs their (although cliché-)personalities.

you can always argue about this and that but understand that not only civ 3 but the idea of nations as one "body" itself is an abstract idea.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by sun_tzu_159
Would it be a good idea to list all the traits then assign a percentage to each one.

So China could be 30% Military, 5% expansion, 10% religion, 30% industrious, 15% science, 10% commercial. All adds up to 100%.

This would give flexibility to those who want to include two traits who just set 50% for each. And those who want more detail can set up further traits with %>0.

With so many civs now in the game I dont think that just two traits is enough to make each civ 'unique and historically accurate'.

A further refinement would be to change the traits through the ages.

Regards
Sun_Tzu

That's a really cool idea. I don't know how they'd implement the special abilities though.

[ranskaldan]

why don't we have 20 civpoints for each civ, and assign each civ with a tailor-made list of abilities??

e.g. Chinese:

workers work faster - 6 points
extra production at city center - 5 points
battlefield promotions more likely - 4 points
reduced science improvement costs - 5 points
adds to: 20 points

[sun_tzu_159]

This is good stuff ranskaldan - if we use linked minimum and maximum numbers of points cross-referenced to the national traits on the special abilities table there will be maximum flexibility.

So for commercial trait set at 50% (maximum for any single trait), gold production could be set at 1.75 to 2.25 times normal)

For Industrious trait set at 50% workers speed could be set at 1.25 to 1.75 times normal.

and so on with sliding scale down to 0% trait. This would make even the traits with 0% important choices to how you play.

Important thing is though that all special abilities have a maximum of say 3.5 points which are multipliers for each special ability

So in above example you would have to set the workers to 1.25 minimum setting and then could put the gold production
at the maximum setting of 2.25. Good for rushing production of improvements.

But alternatively you could set workers to work at the fastest rate of 1.75, but gold production would have to be lowered to 1.75 so that the total is still 3.5.

There could then be endless tweaks to the relative merits of each special ability for the even as the game is going on. Of course the traits of the nation are fixed at the start but the special abilities can be varied according to your situation.

This idea definetly has mileage and if at the start of the game each AI Civ was to have a default trait set-up which may vary by +/-10% you would have a tricky time figuring what the exact levels are that the AI is using.

Anyway just yet more thoughts.
Thanks for reading

Regards
Sun_Tzu

[ranskaldan]

(not sure I got everything)

So with two variable traits? Yeah, certainly.

However, I think at this level, we should simply have individual customizable traits for each civ. For example, for the Chinese, we would, say, have:

* Workers work 100% faster
* Granaries reduce food storage by 60% instead of 50%
* Science buildings at 75% cost
* -1 war weary citizen in each city
* Anarchies last 50% longer
* Corruption is 20% higher
etc etc

just like Age of Empires.
This way we are free of the restrictions of "traits" and have real characteristics.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by ranskaldan
(not sure I got everything)

So with two variable traits? Yeah, certainly.

However, I think at this level, we should simply have individual customizable traits for each civ. For example, for the Chinese, we would, say, have:

* Workers work 100% faster
* Granaries reduce food storage by 60% instead of 50%
* Science buildings at 75% cost
* -1 war weary citizen in each city
* Anarchies last 50% longer
* Corruption is 20% higher
etc etc

just like Age of Empires.
This way we are free of the restrictions of "traits" and have real characteristics.

Hrm your suggestions and sun_tzu's are really cool IMHO. Kinda like when you allocate your ability points in 3rd Edition D&D. Really nifty idea.

[bigvic]

now if we could just program.............lol

[WarpStorm]

I can.

[bigvic]

Originally posted by -proletarian-



Ha. I like the way that you try to equate b***ching about "historical accuracy" with somehow being more enlightened than the rest of us. You're nothing special.

The crux of your argument is basically this: "waaaaa, this isn't a true-blue history sim, I'm too intelligent for this game!"

Civ isn't a history sim, and doesn't even strive to be one. It's a fantasy game that centres around being at the helm of one of the greatest civilizations ever to have graced the face of the Earth. Once in the game, the aim is to create your own history, not just re-create the past 6000 years of human history on a monitor. That's where you go wrong in your assumptions.....

wow, how did i miss this post?


well, to each his own. in fact i question the "Waahhh", in this case and whether it applies more to my posts/opinions than yours. . i also assert that i am no more intelligent than you, at least in that i am aware, though i am certainly better educated, historically than you or most others who agree with you and therefore am more bothered by blatent historical accuracies.

of course your right, game is game. i just kind of think a little more historical accuracy is merited in this than your typical shoot 'em up arcade game. but then that is the beauty of civ 3, its modability and all.

and by the way - i am not wrong in my assumptions - you are wrong in your negation of my assumptions. why? because just because -

[-proletarian-]

Bigvic, you can discount most of that reply, at the time I wrote it I was in a foul mood.



I still think that your rather anal pursuit of "historical accuracy" is misguided. Sid has stated at every opportunity that fun and gameplay will trump accuracy every time. EU2 is a game that espouses the opposite gaming philosophy. Now, which game would you rather play?

[Cyclotron]

bigvic, the best way to convince people of things is decidedly not to inform them of your superior intelligence and/or educational background. In fact, it's a great way to make otherwise reasonable people hate your guts.

I would venture to say that not wanting historical accuracy has nothing to do with intelligence and education... I for one have an opinion on games that I have voiced above that would not change no matter how many diplomas I racked up on my wall.