There seems to be a few civs that I don't know, seem a bit different than their civtraights suggest. Take the Mongols for example. Unless they were united as the horde, they were pretty much Nomads.

So rather than Expanisionistic, what about Nomadic as a civ traight

What would Nomadic do however and is it different enough from Expansionistic to warrent the separation?

Another idea is Isolationistic. For hundreds of years China did not care much for the outside world, and existed in total secrecy. Same with Burma today. What would Isolationist grant as a civtraight?

aren't they hard-coded features?

aren't they hard-coded features?
I think so.

@SOG- it was Japan that was Isolationistic, China has always been a trader. Otherwise nice ideas :)

Um, China was kinda forced to trade, French, English, and US ships (yes Portugal, yadi, yadi, yada, I`m not gonna list them all) had cannons, while Chinese ships were mainly coastal and river vessels, poorly armed, and the foreign ships could have sailed as far as the capital via river, and did I mention they had cannons? ... they used to hate their neighbours, and have as less buisiness with them possible, not to mention the western civs...

hundreds of years China was also isolationistic though.

you can add civ traights, i've seen them, they are unamed and called "flavers."

flavors aren't civ traits. instead, they are assigned to certain improvements and wonders and are used, though very unpredicatably i may add, to sort of coax the AI into building certain city imp's. they're completely useless imo...at least as far as my experiences with them are concerned.

That's right, flavours are meant as a way of controlling the AI. And traits are hard-coded. The only moddable element of traits is that you can choose which buildings will be half-price to civs with certain traits - this is done by ticking the boxes next to trait names in the improvements window.

Now, you can make sort of ersatz traits. For example, have a bonus starting tech (that's untradeable) that allows certain units or improvements, and give it to certain civs, and say they have a new trait. In other words, you can simulate new traits, but they're not exactly traits.

By the way, China wasn't isolationist for most of its history, it just thought it was better than everyone else. China traded with Rome - where do you think emperors got their silk...?

I`ve noticed that about every 2nd post has some kind of variation of mrtn`s legendary sentence - "no, its hardcoded" :mad:

Firaxis! Give us the source code, pleeeaseeeeeerrrghgghhghhhhh.... :cry::(

hundreds of years China was also isolationistic though.

you can add civ traights, i've seen them, they are unamed and called "flavers."
Under the Manchu dynasty (Qing) certainly, but that's just the last Imperial line, at a time when China is in decline, and after "long-nosed" Europeans are starting to compete and influnce Chinese trade and politics. You are right in that there was a time when China was indeed closing its borders to foreigners, yet isolationism would not rightly reflect 4 millenia of Chinese cultural traits. Even Chinese leaders of today have realised that it was to a certain extent due to this rather historicaly atypical isolationism that China had fallen behind other civilizations.

When the first Europeans arrived in China they were treated as partners in trade, some became advisors (which certainly gave "modern" European competitors an edge over the traditionalist Chinese). Most astronomers at court were Europeans. In Japan, however the first Europeans were slaughtered, beheaded as "pirate" scum. And even today the approach of the land of the morning sun is far more protectionistic over its own home economy- for non-Japanese companies there is no market that is harder to get into, mostly due to laws that prevent foreing companies to acquire estates on their own: Everything has to be done in joint venture with a Japanese partner. China, on the other hand invites in foreign investors like crazy, trying to get as much profit and and expertise as it can. I'd say Japan ought to be isolationistic while China would be "Konfuzian-Productive" (or something :D)

On the other side I never undestood how to add those flavour things- call me dumb but I just don't see how it works...

percentage, i believe. say
1:1 = 100%
1:2 =20%
2:2 =100%
2:1 =20%
3:3 =100%
1:3 =70%
3:2 =75%
2:3 =75%
3:1 =70%
and so on. but it can be set so 1:2 could be 50% but 2:1 could be 80% or something...

I know this isn't possible, but it would be cool if the "nomadic" trait allowed a civ to uproot a city to make a new settler. so if, say, you build a city in one position, then later, when new resources appear and are just out of your city radius, you can choose to uproot your city and move the new settler a few squares so you can have access to the resource in your city radius.

I'm not sure how "Nomadic" or "Isolationist" would work. I think those two concepts won't exactly translate that well in Civ3, given the limitations of the editor. Even if a civ is under the "Isolationist" flavor, it still will conduct trade and diplomacy with other civs.

And by the way, China as "isolationist" and excessively traditionalist is a common myth among both Westerners and Asians (we even perpetuate this myth ourselves, making all sorts of peculiar assumptions on our own history). China began turning away from trade and scrapped its highly advanced cannon-armed fleet due to shifts in internal politics (the bane of any empire, East or West), not due to the "nature" of the Chinese civilization (whatever that may be) itself, as trends change and flux over time. True, they did not focus so much on trade, but they established trade routes with Rome as Plotinus mentioned as well as with India, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, Vietnam, the Khmer Empire, Siam, Java, and so on.



On the other side I never undestood how to add those flavour things- call me dumb but I just don't see how it works...

Flavors just cause the AI to be more inclined to build a certain improvement or research a certain tech. You just have to set certain things under certain "flavors" for it to work. However, that does not mean that they will focus on them exclusively; they might build certain things or research certain things even if it is not their "flavor."

But if you want to make civs more unique, I think the best way to go is to give them non-tradable unique techs that enable them to build unique improvements. "Flavors" may work out at first, but eventually, AI civs will research and build non-flavor things as well.

It'd be nice if it wasn't so hard-coded. Here's to hoping that they might release the source code someday...in this lifetime, of course. ;)