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Old June 6, 2003, 01:02   #1
johncmcleod
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My New System for Civilization 3
There are several major changes that need to be made to the economy and government in Civ3. I believe I have a good idea for a better Civ3.

First off, shipping is something that needs to be added is something to make trade more realistic. The resources could be loaded on to ships (that the computer would mostly control). The navy isn't nearly powerful as it should be in Civ3 mainly because in real life if you control the seas you control major trade routes. If you were at war, you could have a Battle of the Atlantic again-submarines all over the seas on the prowl for merchant ships.

The trade routes could be like CTP2. A line would connect the two civs where the trade route was. In time of peace this would be a straight line. If you wanted to pirate it you could send ships to be on this line and click pirate and it would steal the goods from the ships and you would get them. This would hurt worldwide rep. When you're the trader you could set the trade route to zigzag and the ships would have a less chance of being pirated. The more pirating ships out there the greater the chance of the merchant ship getting sunk.

The next thing would be cities would no longer be self-sufficient. Once the Industrial age comes, cities should no longer be self sufficient. Farmers would produce food and shields and these could be purchased by anyone in the country. And the citizens would have control over where they live. Certain terrain types could control how desirable it is to live there. Lots of people would move to the coast and buy food that the farmers are making. This would be possible because of new techs could make big bonuses for farming.

This brings up another issue needed for civ3: emigration. As I said before, the citzens could move to whatever city they want, including cities of neighboring countries. It'd be the alternative to culture flipping. Instead of losing a city when a neighboring city's culture is much greater, people would immigrate to that city. You then could set up emigration laws. You could choose how many people could leave and come in. You could also set up racial biases, such as English would be able to get in easier than Chinese could.

The next thing is a completely revamped economy. Forgive me for copying but here's an idea altF18 thought of.

Quote:
- the Resource model would be upgraded completely
they would follow Spiffor’s per turn concept (in civ 4 sugg.) and yield designated amounts. For example, one silk resource would give your city 4 silks. (on the display, you would see the silk icon and beneath it, the amount your city is receiving – SILK (4) )
Luxury goods would be based upon a new system called Supply and Demand.
With this system, every luxury good you know of will be demanded by your citizens, in varying quantities.
So your city might be demanding 3 silk. If provided. these would in turn make 3 citizens happy (or content) and also generate you, say, 30 gold per turn. Excess silk (not demanded) would have no effect and bring in only 1 gold each. So if you had one silk good and were collecting four silks in the city, 3 of these would be benefiting you. One would be unnecessary and therefore ideal for, either sending to one of your cities that demand silk, or, a new concept, putting it up on the international market (similar to Call to Power’s) for other civs to consider buying.
Trade would be its own thing and not an aspect of diplomacy.
So, after putting the good up on the market, its value would be 20 gold, or any other automatically determined price. You have the choice of taxing, or putting a tariff on it of any amount up to an extra 5 gold.
If you had multiple of the same good on the market, its value would decrease. So where one silk was worth 20 gold (plus your taxes), having two available would bring the price down to 18, and every other would also decrease the value in a set amount. For my example, the price drops by two, so 5 silks on the market would make their value 12 gold. Though this makes it less valuable to you, the AI would usually go after cheaper prices. So having a wide range of product would give you a higher advantage of being bought. And also, you could cover multiple markets and thus have multiple income. So selling two silks for 18 gold would bring you 36 gold, but four for 14 would allocate 56. And there’s always taxes to jack up the price.
The force behind the market is that there will hardly be enough resources in your own territory to supply your civ with all the required luxuries (emphasized more so with Demand) strategic, and energy resources.
So as an alternative to forcefully acquiring these goods by war, you could conduct trade on the international market. Of course, strengthening your own market capacity is a necessity to succeed in having a trade empire, since you’ll need a broad supply of goods. This can be achieved through Imperialism – setting up colonial empires all over the world by conquering Minor Tribes and rival civs and directly controlling resources – or by re-trade, you buy mass quantities from suppliers and in turn sell them, at a higher price, to demanders. Another option, which motivates the title of the victory, is Globalization. Coming with the modern era and the so-named Tech, you gain the ability to invest in resources around the world. (if you want to look at it through a Realistic POV, instead of thinking CEO, rather assume you simply appoint the investment, and Corporations and contractors set up their branches there. You collect the taxes )
This means you have the ability to ‘own’ goods in foreign territory without ruling the area. You’ll need a connected network since the goods would be sent to your own city.
Investments could only be made in free market states – Communist and strict despotic governments disallow foreign investment. (and maybe limit purchases of foreign luxuries?)
To invest in a region, you would need a stronger economic influence – a nation like France would not be able to invest in America, to use a RW example. (hmm, could anyone invest in American territory?)
Since you’ll be depriving the owner civ of a potentially valuable commodity, there would have to be at least a semi-fair price. Lump sums or per turn payments would be negotiated. Since its free enterprise, the host civ would be obliged to accept an investment. (as long as it thinks the price is right)
This would be a major peaceful benefiting factor for the Economically minded. A strong transnational income would be a plus for your market – and you could in turn sell these goods on the market.
To achieve the Globalization victory, you would need to control at least 60% of the Globalized market – resources from foreign investments, and have a dominant standing on the International market so that all nations would be on the life-support of your monopolies. Instead of just having a strong economy, you’d need a strong economic hold on your rivals. Instead of conquering their cities, you would have to control 60% of their imports, making them dependent on your economy. And that’s to every civ on the map. You need to establish your market presence worldwide. (make sure every country has its golden arches )
Your dominant market presence.
And thus I call it a Globalization victory instead of simply an Economic one.
An alternative to bloodlust, a solution for small civs (establish investments) and an emphasis on an important, but always left out factor.
For those who prefer war and don’t want to bother with trade or economy, you don’t necessarily have to. Afterall, conquering your neighbors brings about relatively the same thing.
So there’s no new level of needed micromanagement, and you wont be forced to build a dominant, or even strong, market presence.
The next thing that needs to be added is a new government interface. You have a slider that chooses the government. To the left would be democracy, one notch to the right would be republic, then monarchy, then to the very right would be totalitarianism. I didn't include communism because it's not a type of government, it's an economic system. But I'll get to that.

You'd have an economic system slider. To the left would be communism, this would be complete control of the economy, sort of what civ3 is now. In the middle would be socialism, where you have control over resources and service industries (if they're there) but there'd still be a free market. To the right would be absolute capitalism where the government would have zero control over the economy. Of course there'd be notches in between, for example our government would be more to the right than socialism but more to the left than absolute capitalism.

What do you guys think?
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Old June 6, 2003, 03:45   #2
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no offense, but everyone has their own ideas on what they think would make the game better in their eyes...
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Old June 6, 2003, 08:34   #3
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I like the trade idea, from CTPII
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Old June 6, 2003, 11:12   #4
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All the ideas are ok but remember that the current game industry uses predesigned engine the programmers are to damn lazy to create completly new engines nowdays, things are changing now. Still if the current game concept makes money they will us till the end if you want something like that to be created then the next civ has to be boycoted to get a chance. It's all about money. As i said your ideas are great i posted some similar to them somewhere around and other that seems ok to me, but as boboo008 said everyone has their own ideas and most ppl will use those features to cheat the game! whcih is the stupidedst thing someone can do it kills the game
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Old June 6, 2003, 17:32   #5
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Sorry, BulMaster, Civ3 was a new engine. Of course it is similar to the previous Civ games. That's what people wanted.

And, yes, it is about money. Firaxis has millions of dollars of expenses a year. They have to be aware of the monetary issues. They have to make the games that will sell.

If a big name game was totally boycotted (or didn't sell for some reason), you could pretty much guarantee that nobody would make a game in that genre and style for a long, long time (if ever).

Like you said it is about money and those who fund game development are adverse to big risk.
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Old June 6, 2003, 18:28   #6
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Quote:
Still if the current game concept makes money they will us till the end
The perfect example of this is high heat baseball. They release one every year, and it is by a small company so they would need two years to revamp it. They need short term income, so they won't do that. The graphics don't change from year to year. I have high heat 2003 and it looks like the graphics of the 99 or 00 version. And, some of the stadium textures are from games that were made in 1994.

That is odd that they don't completely revamp civ3. Civ4 won't come out for a long time I hear, so wouldn't they have time to revamp it?

Quote:
but as boboo008 said everyone has their own ideas and most ppl will use those features to cheat the game! whcih is the stupidedst thing someone can do it kills the game
I hate it when companies do this. You can't change the game to make it better, and their excuse is either a) if you did this to the game it wouldn't be able to run on some older computers and b) that people would cheat. They are both terrible reasons. If you can choose how the game works and you have a crappy computer all you have to do is change the settings to make it playable on your computer (that's why population limits in Age of Empires games are dumb, you should be able to choose them). And the thing about people cheating, who cares. If they want to make the game dumb for themselves, let them. They're not hurting anyone else.
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Old June 6, 2003, 19:54   #7
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Quote:
Originally posted by johncmcleod
That is odd that they don't completely revamp civ3. Civ4 won't come out for a long time I hear, so wouldn't they have time to revamp it?
Sure they would, if they were willing to work on it for a long time. As it is, they have to balance the cost of working for it for a long time with the profit to be gained for the title. Each worker on the title ends up costing Firaxis lots of money per year in wages and overhead (insurance, taxes, rent, computers, compilers, desks, etc.).

Where's the balance point?

If they put major changes into an expansion it wouldn't be a great return on investment. Why wouldn't it? Historically, expansions even to best selling games only sell about a quarter of the number units as the original title. Combine this with the fact that they typically sell for half the price means that you have to do expansions on a tighter budget than a full blown title to turn a profit. Luckily most expansions use the core code from the original and are mainly content based rather than containing lots of code changes (programmers are generally paid more than level designers and artists). There are exceptions to this, of course.

While the folks at Firaxis (and Breakaway) are all gamers at heart, this is a business for them.

In addition, Firaxis is nearly totally tied up in other projects, so they won't be working on Civ to any great extent for a few years (short of major hiring).
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Old June 6, 2003, 23:58   #8
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too complicated if you ask me.
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