We've talked about unit wishes, additional civs, ADM mods.

I'm curious, what other things would you alter in Civ 3 once you get the ability?


The aggression levels and culture types are a couple... for instance, there are times when I thing the aggression level for the Indians is way off... or I think to myself "Religious? Nah, those folks were more industrious than religious!"

As I've mentioned in past threads there have been a few scenarios I've created where I made things fit in more with how I understand them... for instance allowing irrigation on hills (hillside/terraced gardening, which had been around B.C.), or actually gave explorers attack capabilities, changed the ADMs of some units based upon things I've either read, or experienced first hand while in the Navy. I've even made adjustments to some of the resource requirements and wonders

Someone in another thread commented that "historically accurate" was not a term that could be applied to Civ. I've noticed that with the editor, that actually can apply, just depends on how much time and effort you want to put into it.

I'm just curious to see what everyone else has planned.

Hmmm,.....

(1) Special Forces Unit (6/8/2) w/ the ability to retreat to pillage more enemy improvements. It'd be nice to have a cloaked capability.

(2) Intelligence Agency small wonder allows one to steal a tech after capturing an enemy civ. This is probably not capable within the games coding.

(3) United Nations great wonder acts as a third palace re: corruption. To be useful, it'll need to be built strategically within your empire, meaning a Great Leader may be needed to rush it, due to the city's corruption rate.

(4) Unique-unit mod for every civ; no more identical units w/ different colors.

Hmmm..

from what I've seen with the editor on my kids' windows machine #1 and #2 might not be and are not (in order) possible (Brad, is that correct?)

#3, yup, can be done. in fact that's something I did on one of my mods. However, I think that certain government types shouldn't get the corruption loss if their civ has the UN.. just my skewed view of the way things are, I suupose.

#4 very possible.. just bloody tedious in doing!

I look forward to other players' scenarios, but if I screw around with the editor, it will be to create some killer civs. Apart from adjusting aggression ratios (4 is probably most dangerous), I would also stress offensive units over defensive ones, and marketplaces as soon as possible. I'll be more specific when I actually have an editor, and can see what changes are possible.

Not sure whether to post this here or in one of the corruption threads, but here goes. Here are some things I've thought about as options for dealing with what I (and apparently some others as well) perceive as excessive corruption.

1) City Improvement - Prison. Must have courthouse to build, advance req. is Democracy. Cost 100 sh. Reduces corruption by a percentage OR reduces corruption to a max level (40 or 50%) making it an unnecessary improvement for cities that are not terribly corrupted. Also prevents anarchy and destruction of city improvements during civil disorder (still no production in disorder, just nothing gets destroyed and you can't be thrown into anarchy.)

2) Quasi-military unit "policeman" or "city auditor." Costs same as swordsman or pikeman. No A/D/M, but reduces corruption & waste by 10% when garrisoned in city. No effect during anarchy, max of 1 effective under despotism & communism, 2 under monarchy, 3 under republic & democracy.

3) Small wonder (called Capitalism, or maybe Labor Unions? ;) ) that cuts shield loss due to corruption (I think that's right, or is it waste?) in half in all cities.

4) Small wonder called the IRS that turns 40% of waste in all cities into tax revenue, but makes 10% of populace unhappy. (i.e. in cities pop 10 or more 1 unhappy citizen, cities of 20+ 2 unhappy citizens, cities of 30+ 3 unhappy citizens.) So you could get more gold from those far-flung cities but you'd have to work a little harder at keeping your happiness levels up .. ew, maybe that's a liittle too close to reality for CivIII! :mischief: (taxation without representation, anyone?)

5) Ability to build one FP for each 12 cities. IE if your civ gets to 24 cities you could build a second FP, and a third if you get more than 36 cities, etc.

Just some ideas that have been taking up space in my head. I feel better now that they're out! :D

Don't think the multiple FPs is doable with the editor... However, I do like the idea about the IRS... Just one question about prison. why would Democracy be a requirement? Prisons, in one form or another exist or existed in almost every culture regardless of government type. I do agree that a courthouse should be required.. but democracy? Tower of London existed under a monarchy, the Bastille as well... not to mention all those prisoners under the roman empire that became gladiators.

say, that brings up another city improvement

(Sorry, got the Buccaneers on the brain. T minus 4 days and counting!!!!!!!)

SPORTS FRANCHISE!!!!!

Hmm.. wonder if we should come up with a laundry list for Sid and the folks at Firaxis for Civ IV? like sort of a "side quest" a-la Square Soft's Final Fantasy series... Happiness in your cities not only grows shrinks depending on your improvements, but on how much you invest in them... you can build a stadium, sure.. but if you're not throwing enough entertainment resources into your town, or something like that, your sports franchise will pack up and move elsewhere... Kinda like the Colts skulking out of Maryland, or the Oilers leaving Texas, the Browns going to B'more... The Cardinals leaving St. Louis for Arizona, etc.

eh.. maybe it'll be too much to juggle.

Defecting scientists from other civ's would be rather interesting... an effective propaganda campaign could cause scientists to defect... bringing their up to date research on a technology with them!... or in the case of a war, capturing their scientists and taking their resarch up to date and adding it to your own (Rocketry from the Germans post WWII, for example)

Gonna have to crack open the editor tonight and see what I can get away with, and what I can't.

Grey Randall asked:
Why would Democracy be a requirement?


Well, I dunno. I was just trying to come up with something at least marginally relevant that didn't come way too early in the game like monarchy or code of laws. It's a prison, not a dungeon!
Think of a better one!
:p
Heike

Originally posted by Grey Randall
Don't think the multiple FPs is doable with the editor...

Oh, it's definately doable. Just make another city improvement, make it a small wonder, and give it the same flags as forbidden palace. Ta da. Give it a creative name, civilopedia entries.... And you're done. Only thing is, it will pop up the same time as the original FP, since that pops up when you have 1/2 OCN.

Since we're tossing stuff around, I'd like to see periodic elections where 2 - 3 political factions form based on how you're running the "country." If you lose, power is shared w/ a coalition, sort of like Civ2's Senate. In many ways, I liked the Senate.

I used to get so bloody frustrated when the senate would overrule me on stuff

I think most of these folks are right on the money on the corruption issue. I mean, really- are we to believe that Honolulu is less productive than Baltimore solely because of where it is?

That second FP idea could work- just set the tech flag to later in the game, which would keep it from popping up at the same time as the first one. This could not be tied to # of cities, but might as well be- who would want to spend the time building more than one too close to each other?

Another thing I liked from CivII was the idea that civs can be fractured- that is, if you capture the capital there is a chance that the whole civ collapses and becomes 2 new ones. This could add an intriguing element, especially on those huge maps.

As far as the prison goes, what about the police station? It seems to me that that improvement serves a similar function -- although I wouldn't be averse to decreasing corruption further by adding it as an additional controlling factor -- it would also be nice to bridge the long gap in time between Code of Laws and Communism.

If it is linked to Democracy that puts it in the intermediate "time frame", although at the end of the Middle Ages, with Communism potentially following rapidly in the early Industrial Ages.

I agree that there should be differences in the corruption rates -- I would think that Democracy would be better over long distances than Communism (just look at those far Eastern provinces in the former Soviet Union -- it is amazing to me that they didn't totally drift back to the stone ages). I think that Democracy should have the same rate of corruption across all cities (like the current Communism setup), but the corruption levels should be significantly lower.

There's my 2 cents, now back to the game!

Originally posted by dcaint
Another thing I liked from CivII was the idea that civs can be fractured- that is, if you capture the capital there is a chance that the whole civ collapses and becomes 2 new ones. This could add an intriguing element, especially on those huge maps.

Ahh, yes, I loved that. I was recently thinking about different ways that cities can break off and form a new civ. One way, of course, is the capture of the capital of a large civ. Another could be sort of like a culture flip, only without the influence of an outside civ. Say you have some far away colonies ( a designated amount of spaces from the capitol), experiencing massive corruption/unhappiness/civil disorder, and have little/no culture. They could, if something provokes them ( war weariness, bribe, barbarians, etc ) just break off, and set up a new civ.

For both of the above ways, they would have the same advances as the previous civ. All the people in the new cities would become citizens of the new civ. They would get a modern defender (as resources/techs permit), so that they can't be reclaimed too easily by the "mother country." And, let's not be silly. China would not be able to split into "China" and "France" ( In civ 2, I believe I once split the Greeks into the Greeks and Iroqouis ).

EDIT: More stuff I remembered: ;)

Expanding a bit more on the "breaking off." If that civ had previously conquered another civ completely, as in totally whiped them off the map, they should be able to somehow stage an "uprising" against the conquering civ, and possible reclaim their former territory. Of course, this might just get more annoying than useful, since you would probably just re-conquer them in the next few turns. But, if implemented properly, I would love to have it.

What I really want to change is the way pollution is handled. the terrain keeps changing on me due to global warming, and Egypt (that's me) is not even producing any pollution yet, except for 2 or 3 units in 2 cities that have factories and hydro plants.

I think it is not fair that I have to suffer for the AI's lack of concern about pollution and there is nothing I can do about it! They should either make pollution a higher priority to the AI or give us something like the Civ II solar plant that we can build to mitigate it.

I'm 3 turns from building United Nations and the building city just went into starvation because 1/3 of it changed to desert!!!:mad:

Are there any threads around here that discuss AI idiosyncracies, idiocies, anecdotes, etc.? I'm not a warmonger but I'm about ready to build me up a military and go after England just to wipe that supercilious smirk off of Elizabeth's face. Yes, I know, it's just a game, but if she tells me "England already knows more about the world than you do" one more time....:saiyan:

Heike

Yes, something really needs to be done about pollution. In a way, it does represent the way pollution is handled in the real world. A couple of the nations of the world are producing most of the pollution, and it affects the whole world. Now, one thing that is not correctly represent is a way to tell nations to cut down on their pollution.

Btw: there ARE solar plants, recycling plants, mass transit, etc, that help to reduce pollution. The AI just doesn't build them... Perhaps if there was a way to force the AI's, through diplomacy, to build them, then maybe I'd be happy.

Has anyone else ever, when trying to win by SR or diplomacy in a long game, gotten an ROP and sent workers the AI civ's territory to clean up the pollution?:blush:

Well, I haven't sent them in to clean up pollution.. but I did send them in and changed all their irrigation to mines and mines to irrigation... :) I usually don't get too much pollution, so it doesn't bother me too much. A maximum of 5 of my squares get transformed per game, and I'm ok with that. My workers are usually pretty busy tending to my own pollution, unless I have a small empire.

This came up in the newbie thread, and I was told that if I wanted any discussion on it, I needed to post it somewhere else... so, here it is FWIW.. :p

I think that the amount of money each city makes each turn (over and above that city's maint. cost) should be assumed to be in that city, and the rest should be assumed to have been moved to the capital each turn. Don't "excess" funds get paid in as taxes each year or five, or at the very least get stored in the federal reserve bank, or Fort Knox? :D

So for example, if Alexandria has a positive cash flow of 5gpt and gets sacked, the barbs should only get 5g, since last turn's 5g has already been shipped to Thebes. If they sack the capital I'm in big trouble... but then again, who's ever let their capital get sacked, unless it's in the first few game turns...?

This would prevent the player from having to micromanage one more thing that could get rather annoying, but would also prevent barbarian uprisings in backward provinces from making off with an unreasonable % of the national treasury. :)

I'd like to be able to expand the diplomacy options, so that you could introduce nuclear weapons treaties, non-aggression pacts and UN resolutions - with the latter, I guess you'd have to modify the fact that building the UN and getting elected wins you the game, unless UN resolutions are an option that only come into play if you've set the game up with the 'UN Election Win' option switched off.

Also like a third Forbidden Palace - or equivalent. this would be especially useful after conquering big swathes of enemy territory - maybe a "Cultural Centre" or something.

Also like the idea of certain wonders becoming World Heritage Sites after a few hundred/thousand years - so if that city is attacked by an enemy it causes third parties to intervene and declare war :-)

And finally, more trade options - a few more commodities would be nice, alongside the option of being able to sell arms abroad !

Originally posted by frunobulax
I'd like to be able to expand the diplomacy options, so that you could introduce nuclear weapons treaties, non-aggression pacts and UN resolutions - with the latter, I guess you'd have to modify the fact that building the UN and getting elected wins you the game, unless UN resolutions are an option that only come into play if you've set the game up with the 'UN Election Win' option switched off.


Definitely. I would like the same, similar to SAMCX.

Originally posted by frunobulax
lso like the idea of certain wonders becoming World Heritage Sites after a few hundred/thousand years - so if that city is attacked by an enemy it causes third parties to intervene and declare war :-)


Cool idea. But, do you think Muslim countries would declare war if Saudi Arabia (Mecca) was attacked? Would Jerusalem be an example?

Originally posted by dojoboy

Cool idea. But, do you think Muslim countries would declare war if Saudi Arabia (Mecca) was attacked? Would Jerusalem be an example?

Maybe you could do something with the "culturally-linked start" option, so that certain 'groups' of nations would respond/retaliate if a certain culturally-linked city (with a specific Wonder inside) was attacked.

Also, another idea, re. diplomacy - that you can have the option to threaten to use nuclear weapons if a certain city is attacked ! I guess the idea here is to have more dialogue/diplomacy with the AI when you (and they) have nuclear weapons - active deterrence !!

Also, ability to impose Trade Embargo (i.e. economic sanctions) if another nations fails to give back a city it has taken, or withdraw from another nation etc ... PLUS the ability to define Peace Terms, in the sense that the defeated nation agrees NOT to develop a certain advance (e.g. Stealth), or build certain types of units (ICBMs etc) !! This would be fun !!

Regarding all those ideas, imho you should remember that the AI is more artificial than intelligent :p and probably will be at a great disadvantage wrt human players.

But in PtW of course, you may threaten your fellow humans, being in line with hundreds of years of diplomatic traditions ....

Originally posted by heikeott
I think that the amount of money each city makes each turn (over and above that city's maint. cost) should be assumed to be in that city, and the rest should be assumed to have been moved to the capital each turn. Don't "excess" funds get paid in as taxes each year or five, or at the very least get stored in the federal reserve bank, or Fort Knox? :D

So for example, if Alexandria has a positive cash flow of 5gpt and gets sacked, the barbs should only get 5g, since last turn's 5g has already been shipped to Thebes. If they sack the capital I'm in big trouble... but then again, who's ever let their capital get sacked, unless it's in the first few game turns...?
The whole idea of barbarians is that they do run off with your money, and the current 5% of what's in the bank is not an unreasonable amount IMO. Your idea is ok, but I would like to allow maybe 2 or 3 times the gpt from that city for the barbs, as the city would never send all the extra money to the capital.

And indeed, the capital would become a target for attacks if this was implemented properly.

FWIW, I think barbs are an easy source of upgrades and cash, even on Deity when you have no attack bonus. You should be making much more from the barb camps than they manage to run away with.

You're probably right. I just started playing on Warlord level (yeah, yeah, I know, don't say it) and am accustomed to sending unaccompanied settlers all over the map to start new cities which then build their own defender in 5 or 10 turns. In a higher level (regent, I think) game that I downloaded to try, I lost nearly 1/2 of my treasury in 2 turns because they kept sacking new outlying cities one after the other, :( and I couldn't rush defenders because I was still in despotism and the cities were only pop 1 or 2. I have now learned that I must build escorts to send out with my settlers, which then become the new city's first defensive unit. Not sure whether it's from Civ II or Chieftain level, but *I* am used to settlers staying gone once I kill them off in an area. This deal of having them pop back up anywhere I can't see them is new (and fairly annoying). But on the bright side, I did learn something from it...

I definitely think the 'fracturing' of a civ would be awesome. Because, theoretically(haven't tried out yet), if your a religious civ, you don't really need to care too much when you're at war with a gov't with war weariness, because if your civ falls into anarchy, the next turn you could select your previous gov't to maintain the productive ablities it has. the breaking away of a civ should be(if possible) linked to how much unhappiness there is in your civ, and even maybe only for the areas that are far from the capital or areas that have cities with a lot of unhappy citizens. I've got other reasons, but i'm limited for time(gotta finish my homework for tomorrow).

Also, would terraforming be possible with the editor? that would be a nice touch. THen again, what tech would you need for your workers to be able to terraform?

More sophisticated diplomacy for PTW would be pretty cool as well as useful too. An idea is a one sided RoP, kinda like the occupation of a country to monitor what the heck their doing behind your back (sound familiar?). It would definitely be useful for wars that end with you being the victor, and being able to check out what that civ is doing during peace time, to make sure that their grudge against you won't result in another war, kinda like in WWI, WWII. Would even be useful in real life, seeing where we are now with Iraq and all.

The one-sided ROP is a great idea- especially if there is a diplomacy solution further down the road- something like you can occupy their territory for 20 turns, then you either get kicked out or must negotiate a real ROP. I'm thinking something like post-WWII Japan and Europe- we stayed fopr a while as the victors, but it took long-term alliances to form NATO.

@heikott:
Barbs can be an easy source of cash for you, instead of a drain on your reserves.

On Cheiftain you get a 400% bonus attacking barbs, going down to 50% on Emperor and 0% on Deity. Just send a warrior with your settler if there are barbs, and clean out the barb camps for 25 gold a go...

1. National Park designation - you can set aside squares within your control for non-development (no worker improvements, no city on that square). The park reduces pollution and increases happiness in surrounding cities, but vital resources can still appear in parkland. If you send a worker in to exploit the resource, you lose some or all of the happiness it generated.
2. Whaling/fishing resources get exhausted after a certain length of time, then reappear (or not) as stocks replenish.
3. Barbarians reappear periodically. Call 'em bandits, pirates, terrorists, "unlawful combatants", whatever. A weak military could result in stolen goods by land or sea.
4. Give cities more of a personality - certain towns are industrial centers, artist havens, pro-military, scientific centers, commercial, etc. Improvements matching the cities personality go faster. Specialists are produced more in line with the city's personality.
5. Preferences option to only produce the most modern offensive/defensive units (depending on resources). I can't tell you how many times a city has made a Legionary when I needed Infantry!

I like about everything else I've seen here, esp. the expanded diplomatic options and nation fracturing. Full-scale civil war might be an option under the right circumstances.

Originally posted by Thulsa Doom

5. Preferences option to only produce the most modern offensive/defensive units (depending on resources). I can't tell you how many times a city has made a Legionary when I needed Infantry!


Yeah- what's the deal with that? Why do Warriors stay on the production menu until the end of the game? Shouldn't obsolete units be falling off the list?

Not if you suddenly find yourself without a particular resource, Dennis.

Ahh. Another plus to ptw. At replaceable parts, you get guerillas... won't ever have to accidently build swordsmen again. Of course, there still should be an option for which units to "never build." You still wouldn't really want guerillas if you can build infantry, or even modern armor.

Originally posted by DiamondzAndGunz
Ahh. Another plus to ptw. At replaceable parts, you get guerillas... won't ever have to accidently build swordsmen again. Of course, there still should be an option for which units to "never build." You still wouldn't really want guerillas if you can build infantry, or even modern armor.

I've got PTW on PC and the guerilla (6-6-1) cost the same as infantry (6-10-1); however, the guerilla doesn't require any resources.

So, if you're on the defensive and back pedaling, I understand why the guerilla doesn't require resoucres; however, I would also believe that cost is important too at this stage of the game. Seems the guerilla unit should be cheaper, to stand a fighting chance.

Yeah; I too have PTW on PC. I still think that the guerilla should have a decreased cost as well. It becomes a sorta pointless unit to build if you have rubber. You still might have plenty of these left over, though, if you built lots of swordsmen/archers.

They are good if you have no rubber though. You are no longer at as much of a disadvantage. Nonetheless, a lower cost would be great. If you have no rubber, you're a sitting duck, so you need to mass produce units fast.

Originally posted by dcaint
Why do Warriors stay on the production menu until the end of the game? Shouldn't obsolete units be falling off the list?

I'm currently playing as the Babylonians and am at war with the Zulu (c.1802). Having started off with a massive bombing campaign, targetting their strategic resources (horses, iron, rubber, aluminium, oil), they have effectively been 'bombed back to the Stone Age'. They are reduced to producing Impi, after having had lots of Infantry, Cavalry, etc, which are easy prey for my Tanks and Mech. Inf. - so, there's always a need for obsolete units for AI's who don't protect their resources !! :)

Originally posted by Thulsa Doom
1. National Park designation - you can set aside squares within your control for non-development (no worker improvements, no city on that square). The park reduces pollution and increases happiness in surrounding cities, but vital resources can still appear in parkland.

Great idea ! Always felt there should be 'Ancient Ruins' that can function the same way - things from before the Dawn of Civilization (such as Stonehenge in England, the Buffalo Jump in Alberta, or the promise of a Mac version of PTW ;) )

1] The farce of global warming in the Real World is not man made. The Earth's temperature is actually cooler now than it was 700 years ago when the Vikings settled Greenland. If humans want to raise the temperature, they need to kill off all the plant life; then we'll have Global Warming. In the game, we can still have pollution, but no global warming. 2] The UN should actually raise corruption and waste, because liberals, socialists, communists, politicos, and green peacers run it; eventhough the US pays the most capitol into it.
3] New improvement could be Hippodromes that turn into racetracks with combustion. Need Horseback Riding and Construction and when combustion comes along, it turns into indy or nascar tracks. Could also have radio stations or TV stations with Radio advancement. 4] Hospitals could help out with research, because in real life they do. What does everybody think? EZ

For those who have PTW, can you capture cities with guerillas? If so, its definitely a big giveaway as to who is using them often (hmm, that city was attacked by a guerilla and is now sporting the color of the Russians. I wonder whose guerilla that was?) It would probably make more sense if you couldn't keep cities that you captured. Anyone willing to see if you can keep cities?

Bring back the lawyers from CTP!

I loved the idea of economic warfare. It was a great way of crippling a competing civ who was building a wonder I wanted.

One question -- would it be possible to increase the culture points per turn each time there is a palace improvement? It seems to me that, when your citizens are happy enough to fix up your castle, you ought to get some added benefit. Of the people running the editor, does anyone know if this is possible (I tend to doubt it, based on what I've heard so far)?

Originally posted by easy
2] The UN should actually raise corruption and waste, because liberals, socialists, communists, politicos, and green peacers run it; eventhough the US pays the most capitol into it.

How about making it possible for the UN to be able to block America from going to war with any Arab nations... eh ! ;)

Originally posted by easy
2] The UN should actually raise corruption and waste, because liberals, socialists, communists, politicos, and green peacers run it; eventhough the US pays the most capitol into it.Yes, 22%, whereas the EU only pays 33%. :D

And contrary to the US, the EU countries paid the money due. :D :D :D

The UN's just like the league of nations. A feel good organization that doesn't actually have any teeth.

That just my 2 cents :-D