Immortal: However, I do stand by my opinion that enslaving or displacing innocent civilians (real or electronic) is morally reprehensable.

I agree with the above point. There is a very grey area about that actions in Civ3 correspond to in real life which I would like to bring out into the open in this thread.

1. Whipping

a) Literally whipping citizens to increase productivity. Some citizens die due to excessing flogging. ie. blood for shields. IMO WRONG! :die!:

b) Citizens leave Pheonatica. "Whipping" is just metaphorical. No physical whipping is done. Citizens just emigrate because they hate the extra work. Maybe condonable?

2. Buying Improvements

I think we are paying contractors to rush the job here, don't think there is anything wrong with this. The manual says this causes some unhappiness, but I don't see that in my games.

3. Razing Cities

Does everybody agree that this is genocide?

4. Disbanding Cities

a) "Move or we'll send our bulldozers in!" A very debatable point and I would be against this except in very special cases.

b) "Sure we'll accept your offer of moving into a new apartment. No problem." No harm done.

So what are we really doing here? Are we doing what we choose it to be? Who decides? And does it really matter? Does anybody care?

Whipping is whipping, and whipping is bad. No matter how you look at it. Just because it's an easy build doesn't mean you're not killing your citizens. And YES it goes down in your history as a nation, so deal with it because it will never go away. You will always have the blood of your own people on your hands.

Buying improvements - Hey, everyone likes overtime. (I think). Minor, if any unhappiness.

Razing cities is not genocide. It is the destruction of history and culture. If you didn't like genocide, you wouldn't have eliminated the Americans. Genocide is not a viable topic here.

Disbanding cities is polite razing. :D We raze with a smile and wish them luck in their new location. Doesn't work for me, but others like to relocate the Capital with this method. I'd like to see the results of one of these relocations, so I'm pliable on this point.

what is the procedure for disbanding a city? Am I correct in the assumption that we reduce the city to size 2 and then build a settler?

Pretty much, that's it in a nutshell.

ahh alright, yes then my opinion still stands, starvation is just as wrong as razing.

Rather then bothering to bulldoze the peoples homes, we simply hide the grain? Im shocked at how easily people would be willing to do this!

I realize we refer to it as whipping, but where is this term from? If it's not from the manual, then I submit that the argument "whipping is whipping" is invalid. IIRC, the manual states that for the first scenario, 'b' is the 'reality' of the situation.

when you decide to "pop-rush" it gives you a pop up

"Rushing this improvement will cost the lives of "x" citizens, should we continue?

-Yes, give me my whip (or something like that)

-No maybe we should reconsider

So it comes from the game itself, and because the manual is plagued by inaccuracies, I go by what the game says, and thats what it says. So the term is in fact valid :)

Originally posted by Immortal
when you decide to "pop-rush" it gives you a pop up

"Rushing this improvement will cost the lives of "x" citizens, should we continue?

-Yes, give me my whip (or something like that)

-No maybe we should reconsider

So it comes from the game itself, and because the manual is plagued by inaccuracies, I go by what the game says, and thats what it says. So the term is in fact valid :)

Fair enough, though I still suggest that we are not killing any citizens. I believe that they flee as a result of the whip, however.

I know we have had a similar discussion in other threads, but I think that it comes down to a couple of basic points. Are we:
- Playing a game?
- Conducting an historical simulation?
- Role-playing a moral dilemna?

I guess I can't answer that for anyone else, it comes down to what you believe and how you see the game. But if you are going to assign moral consequences to in-game actions, make sure you think through all the possibilities.

Is it moral to destroy a city? Is it moral to even bombard a city? After all, some of your catapult/cannon hits "reduce the city's population?" Is that because they decided to move to a quieter neighborhood, or becuase a 2 ton boulder just landed on their house, smashing them? Even those "bombardment failed" messages mean the destruction of property, after all what goes up must come down, and a city is hard to miss.

If a small city is captured, it is autorazed. Does that mean we can't attack a city because it is too small? "Um sorry, have some more children before we invade and take over your city." Large cities usually have so much unhappiness that we have to put 3-4 entertainers, meaning that they don't generate enough food, and they starve themselves. Is this some kind of hunger strike? To protest the evil cruelty of the previous rulers (since the unhappiness comes from the original civ's rushing).

What about foreign workers? We capture them, we don't pay them, does that make them slaves? The manual even states that they will gladly pay to return home. Or do the survivors of our American war really yearn to build roads into Egypt?

As mentioned before, tactical decisions in combat can also have moral implications. How moral is it to order swordsmen to charge men with firearms? Or how about the legendary spearman that stands his ground against the tank? Could you morally order someone with a 6 foot pole to climb a hill and wait for the sound of the tracks?

To take it from another angle, is it moral to research Polytheism? Or to build the Oracle if you do not believe in fortune-telling? I am a Christian, but does that mean I can't build temples?

My point is that there are many decisions we make every turn that would have moral consequences if this were real life. Fortunately, it is not. It is a game, which is somewhat based on history. Unfortunately, throughout history nations have done things that were not moral, and the game reflects those as well. It does include penalties for some actions that reflect public opinion, such as unhappiness penalties and reputation hits for treachery. But it is still a game, and we are playing within those parameters. That is my perspective, anyway. I think we should generally play as an honorable civ, but I don't think we should feel moral condemnation for decisions we make in a game that doesn't affect any real people.

BTW: As for the razing/disbanding a city, if we raze it, or use the new "Disband" command, I think you could argue you have destroyed the city, killing off the (digital) population. However, building a settler in a size-2 city is basically just relocating them, there is no unhappiness, and the settler is the same race as the city was, so I don't think they were killed.

Actually, now that I think about it, every time you buid a settler, you kill off a population point, as it takes 2 away, to found a city of size 1. They must die on the voyage? Does that mean we should not build settlers? Sounds like a lot of One-City Challenges ahead.

Also, taking over the american cities was not Genocide, because most of the population is still americans, we didn't kill them, we just subjugated them by force (much more moral?). Genocide would be to raze all their cities and disband all their workers, so there are no Americans left in the game. (Not that I am recommending that either, just trying to clarify).

Originally posted by Justus II
If a small city is captured, it is autorazed. Does that mean we can't attack a city because it is too small? "Um sorry, have some more children before we invade and take over your city." Large cities usually have so much unhappiness that we have to put 3-4 entertainers, meaning that they don't generate enough food, and they starve themselves. Is this some kind of hunger strike? To protest the evil cruelty of the previous rulers (since the unhappiness comes from the original civ's rushing).

What about foreign workers? We capture them, we don't pay them, does that make them slaves? The manual even states that they will gladly pay to return home. Or do the survivors of our American war really yearn to build roads into Egypt?

As mentioned before, tactical decisions in combat can also have moral implications. How moral is it to order swordsmen to charge men with firearms? Or how about the legendary spearman that stands his ground against the tank? Could you morally order someone with a 6 foot pole to climb a hill and wait for the sound of the tracks?

I believe I was misunderstood, at no point did I say that the unavoidable is wrong, my position applies only to what we can avoid. It is a shame that size 1 cities are auto-razed, if I could change it, I would, but it is unavoidable, therefore it is folly to discuss it. And the foreign workers do become slaves, better to be slaves then butchered or worked to death (they don't die in the game, ever). Even still, we cannot avoid the fact that we will capture workers, there is nothing we can do about it, thus, it was not included in my statement. Bombarding is unfortunately, exactly as you stated, a large piece of artillery exploding in a city street, as with bombing runs, unfortunate, but may be necessary. We aren't bombing the city specifically to kill the civilians though, in that lies my point, by razing a city, we INTEND to remove it from digital existence, by pop-rushing, we made a conscious decision to sacrifice lives for city improvements.

Tactical decisions mean nothing to me, I have no problem destroying military units that are significantly weaker, they are military personnel, I'm sure the electronic barracks they were trained in reinforced the idea that they are soldiers, they live by the sword, they die by the sword. This is really getting off topic, because now it is doing into my personal beliefs about current events, so Ill leave it at that.

But to make my point clear, I do not necessarily disagree that most things in the game can be interpreted as immoral, but to take your example about religion, I am Roman Catholic, I believe in a higher authority, but I don't consider Polytheism to be immoral. It is developing religious freedoms after all, people can believe what they want to believe. My grievence lies with the direct destruction of cities and civilians for the purposes of completing a building or replacing the city. We decide to destroy a city and kill its citizens, (we hold polls for it, that is a decision) which makes it, at least in my opinion, a crime. To capture a city and then have it starve down, is beyond our capibilities to stop, so we can do nothing about it, so I cannot say whether it is immoral or not, because I have no direct way of preventing it.

And thats my point, if we directly decide to kill civilians, we are war criminals.

building a settler in a size-2 city is basically just relocating them, there is no unhappiness, and the settler is the same race as the city was, so I don't think they were killed.

You raise an excellent point, one I personally agree with, if the city is already size 2 and we build the settler, great, fine by me, nobody gets hurt. But when we STARVE the city down to size 2 THEN build the city, we have consciously decided to regard our people as simple statistics, and little else.

Actually, now that I think about it, every time you buid a settler, you kill off a population point, as it takes 2 away, to found a city of size 1. They must die on the voyage? Does that mean we should not build settlers? Sounds like a lot of One-City Challenges ahead.

I would think they died on the voyage, but never was there a pop-up that said "Would you like to have a size 2 city with more corruption or a size 1 city with less?" So we can't do anything about this, so I have a mixed opinion about that. Sure the people died, but we did not willingly kill them.

2 hours and 8 replys??! I AM impressed :goodjob: !

ahh alright, yes then my opinion still stands, starvation is just as wrong as razing.

Ah, but we're not actually starving them are we? We need to bring food to zero surplus before building a worker (for pop=1) or settler (for pop=2). No one dies (well statistically at least) of hunger since population does not actually decrease in doing this. We could use non-starvation methods to reduce pop to 1 or 2, like building workers/settlers. The act of disbanding the city itself does not kill people by hunger.

If you didn't like genocide, you wouldn't have eliminated the Americans. Genocide is not a viable topic here.

U got me thinking there. They did attack us first. We defended. But then we finished them off. Other than saying "it's only a game and duh we want to be like more powerful", I see no other excuse for the acts of GENOCIDE we have committed and are committing right now. :eek: How does this make whipping any worse though? (and don't say those are Pheonetician citizens).

"Rushing this improvement will cost the **lives** of "x" citizens, should we continue?

You are right. This does indicate that it is not metaphorical.

Actually, now that I think about it, every time you build a settler, you kill off a population point,

May not necessarily be true since 1 pop point may not necessarily represent the same no. of people in 2 cities of different sizes.

Also, taking over the american cities was not Genocide, because most of the population is still americans, we didn't kill them, we just subjugated them by force

Taking the city reduces the pop size by 1 at least, so genocide is definitely committed. Subjugating by force is at least debatable since who is to know where their loyalty lie?

and disband all their workers,

Maybe this simply dissolves the unit (eg. insufficient $ to maintain tools) and Americans still exist but not in sufficiently large communities to represent a town.

but does that mean I can't build temples?

I'm agnostic. I have no problems with this. ;)

The manual even states that they will gladly pay to return home.

Sigh. Can make the assumption that they can't afford it. Or a minority of them could afford it such that the unit would still exist is probably more realistic.

we should generally play as an honorable civ, but I don't think we should feel moral condemnation for decisions we make in a game that doesn't affect any real people.

If we do not feel any moral repercussions for these decisions, I see no reason why we should want to play as an honorable civ. (Not that I'm saying we shouldn't.)
If we are solely treating this as a game, then people must also know this. Then decisions we make in the game will not have any impact on the real world (which is a shame in a way). And we are able to separate gaming from reality.
A route out would be to treat some parts as a game and others not. Your point could then be valid taken in this context.

Originally posted by Zur
[B]
Ah, but we're not actually starving them are we? We need to bring food to zero surplus before building a worker (for pop=1) or settler (for pop=2). No one dies (well statistically at least) of hunger since population does not actually decrease in doing this. We could use non-starvation methods to reduce pop to 1 or 2, like building workers/settlers. The act of disbanding the city itself does not kill people by hunger.

If this method were implemented, I see no problem in the disband. In fact, I completely forgot about this method, Im glad you brought it up !!!! :goodjob:

If this method were implemented, I see no problem in the disband. In fact, I completely forgot about this method, Im glad you brought it up !!!!

This was what I did in my last game, so that I would have more slave workers! ;))) LOL!

I would say you are all absolutely correct.

If we're using v1.21f now, there should be an "abandon city" option in the right-click menu. Not entirely sure what the precise results of using it are though (ie: does it convert the city into workers/settlers?).

oh my god, I just tried it and the city just vanishes!! An inter-dimensional portal opens up & swallows the city. You can even use this on arbitrarily large cities!

Originally posted by Zur
oh my god, I just tried it and the city just vanishes!! An inter-dimensional portal opens up & swallows the city. You can even use this on arbitrarily large cities!
It doesn't even give you a single worker?!? :eek:

Originally posted by Immortal


I believe I was misunderstood, at no point did I say that the unavoidable is wrong, my position applies only to what we can avoid. It is a shame that size 1 cities are auto-razed, if I could change it, I would, but it is unavoidable, therefore it is folly to discuss it. And the foreign workers do become slaves, better to be slaves then butchered or worked to death (they don't die in the game, ever). Even still, we cannot avoid the fact that we will capture workers, there is nothing we can do about it, thus, it was not included in my statement. Bombarding is unfortunately, exactly as you stated, a large piece of artillery exploding in a city street, as with bombing runs, unfortunate, but may be necessary. We aren't bombing the city specifically to kill the civilians though, in that lies my point, by razing a city, we INTEND to remove it from digital existence, by pop-rushing, we made a conscious decision to sacrifice lives for city improvements.

So because we don't INTEND to hurt them, it's ok? I could see this if we had no reasonable means of knowing that someone would get hurt. But we know there is a chance, and a pretty good one at that. I believe your argument would be analogous to firing a gun randomly in a public place and then claiming that you didn't INTEND to hurt anyone.

Originally posted by Eklektikos

It doesn't even give you a single worker?!? :eek:


Huh, Interesting.

Originally posted by Eklektikos
If we're using v1.21f now, there should be an "abandon city" option in the right-click menu. Not entirely sure what the precise results of using it are though (ie: does it convert the city into workers/settlers?).

It's more like mass-razing. There should be a disband that automatically gives you units. That disband sounds misleading.

What a stupid option??:p

Do we turn all the people into fertilizer or something:eek:

You ought to get at least a settler, maybe something akin to an evacuation:confused:

could you imagine how the despot rush would explode if you disbanded your largest city and moved all the workers to the capital to rush a wonder?

Make views:

Whipping is killing citizens. Someone pointed out that when an improvement is rushed in despotism the advisor pops up and says this will cost such and such number of citizens lives.

Rushing with gold - well, that's what gold is for, isn't it? Citizens are getting paid to work harder. Didn't know it caused unhapiness. heck, bigger paychecks should make the people happy.

Abandoning cities. To me this isn't so bad. It's like an eminent domain kind of thing. The city is turned into a settler that goes and lives somewhere else. I should stipulate though that I would only do this with a small city. I would not starve the city down. That would be wrong. Could build workers to reduce the size though.:)

Razing cities. Depends. If they're evil and picked a fight then I might not mind that. I can also live with keeping foreign cities, too - BUT the game sucks in that you usually have to turn all the foreigners into entertainers anyway and then they starve. I don't like it but what can one do? Too bad we can ship food in like in Civ 2.