Folks, after about a year of livin' clean, I'm back on CIV3, weakness during these hot summer months. I broke down and bought C3C - it's pretty good, certainly plenty of interesting tweaks. But I'm finding it still doesn't satisfy certain cravings, that I hope will be dealt with in CIV 4. Here goes:

Diplomacy - the interface is nice, but it's just unsatisfying to go back and forth 5 times until you optimise the trade - there's got to be a better way - maybe you just make an offer and he either takes it or leaves it - or maybe you get two shots at it, then you can't make another offer till the next turn.

Diplomacy II - Too many times, even very early in the game, obvious tech trades don't happen because the AI is way too demanding. I've read others' reasons why this is so, but I just don't like it - certain basic trades ought to be no-brainers for reasonably friendly civs.

Diplomacy III - I just don't find I make interesting alliances, in the way that often occured in SMAC. I want to develop friendships where we die for each other (and when my comrads help me in war, they do it in a way that really helps!). Am I missing something? Do others achieve this? Maybe it happens more late in the game? (I rarely get passed the middle ages because I either win, lose, or get bored by then).

Gameplay - As I think I once said, I usally either win, lose, or get bored by the middle ages - somehow we need more twists and turns in the game to keep it interesting longer. In 90% of my games, it's obvious where things are going by about 0 AD, and if I'm behind, there is no clear way to come back (obviously this is mainly at the higher levels, where we all know you are toast most of the time - but still).

Gameplay II - I'd like there to be more real decision making - I find that way too much of my time is spent doing things that do not involve interesting choices. It's mostly pretty obvious what to do next, so it gets very mechanical - what build orders, tech orders come next, etc. I usually find it makes sense to build most everything possible (more or less) or at least use the same pattern for every city. And it usually makes sense to build nearly all possible techs, with only minor variations in the order from game to game, regardless of what civ I play. It seems to me that with CIV 2 I needed to put much more energy into considering alternative build/research strategy options - but maybe I was just younger and stupider then... Maybe there could at least be some differentiation interms of what city improvements/techs are available to different civs, or when they are?

Intelligence/espionage - as many have said, the spying aspect has been pretty much killed in CIV 3. I say bring it back! There ought to be ways to really make things interesting with spying, as I think it was in SMAC and CIV 2.

Levels - I think the system of levels now doesn't quite work - I can only really play decent games on about 2 of the levels - the others are either too easy or hard. How about levels that also differ in terms of things like complexity? maybe add some additional aspects as one works up the levels? There could even be a matrix of diffiulty with one axis like now and another with increased complexity. People would choose their game from the grid of options (if that makes any sense).

Enough for now. Overall I am rooting for the game to be well improved in its gameplay and AI - I'm hoping for much more than the kinds of little tweaks that seem to be mostly getting mentioned on these boards.

I think the things you've mentioned really puts light on the basic issues with Civ and helps steer those of us considering the finer details of unlikely additions back to the real issues.

I think you've hit the nail on the head about gameplay in general. There has to be more to the game than finding the ideal build and tech strategy. The real interest comes in the ability to play the game as if you're a part of history and can interact with other nations in a manner that seems fun and realistic.

I too long for the ability to establish lasting friendships with other civs and have that be an integral, fun, influential part of the game. I long for the ability to partner with other civs and cultivate a relationship that allows for each "to die for each other." Liberting your friends cities. Making exclusive trade deals. Sharing intelligence gathering. Trading techs. Supplying arms to that friend in need. These are just examples of some of the concepts that could make Civ so much more engaging and engrossing --even as the map has been maxed out and everyone has expanded.

I'm not sure what other types of things could really add to the later game experience, but I agree that these are the main issues that the Firaxis design team should be grappling with to ensure another timeless Civ game.

--CK

All great points but the one that caught my attention was the improved alliances where your alliances mean something other than other AI players will have to pay me slightly more to attack you. The only one I disagree with is the civ 2 way of spying, I HATE those diplomats, you can't touch them but they just go and steal your techs, there must be a better way than both in civ 2 and civ 3 but in my opinion in civ 3 it is better than in civ 2. I think a solution would be a more interesting and dynamic economy where your commerce and shield production would depend on city infrastructure and population instead of the surrounding terrain. This makes it possible for a smaller nation to become wealthier and more productive than a larger nation simultaneously increasing the effects of your decisions and adding those twists and turns needed to keep the game interesting. The way it is now the games excitement really drops soon after all the land is claimed because after that it is really just a wait, it really doesn't matter much what you decide to do because whoever has the most land will likely win if thats you then great if not well then you will probably lose and cant do much about it. It would be a fine addition to add in game messages requiring you to make a choice with each choice having different effects much like in Europa Universalis II.

yes, nice concise reasoning there..i agree on all points and the idea of level of complexity as oppossed to level of ai advantages is inspired. Good outside view that avoids nit picking and addresses major gameplay flaws.

GREAT ideas. I agree that often it just to much repetition and you really need to be kept interested. I would love to see more complex stuff like the stuff you suggested and it would certainly add a new sense of fun to the game

Hey there,

I think with the race to talk about all the cool wonders we can have, and how we can make the wars more realistic, let alone how to come up with the best economic system, we may have lost sight of your attitude towards the game. To me it's best summed up with "by the middle ages, I either win, lose, or get bored".

This ultimately suggests that the game needs to have more empowering decisions right up until the end, with the ability to mount a huge comeback, and the ability to shift strategies.

Our real world is presently full of twists and turns, and all with dozens of nations at peace. Even war has taken a different form, with people taking the role of liberator rather than conqueror. Yet Civ gets terribly repetitive, a game about conquering where the dominant power emerges by 1000AD.

I definitely agree with your first point on Diplomacy. I really don't like to be able to 'fine tune' my trade/diplomacy deals (and, to be honest, I DON'T ;)) The best system, IMHO, is allow you to have only 2 attempts in a given turn, and only have your foreign advisor be able to give you an 'idea' of if your opponent will accept it (i.e. nothing should be absolute!)

In fact, what I would love is to have the chance for ANY of your advisors to be wrong! In Warlords 3, I have lost count of the number of times that my military advisor has promised me a 'great victory', or a victory on a par with 'slaughtering sleeping cattle', only to win by the skin of my teeth ;)! I always imagined, in my head, said 'military advisor' being lead to the 'chopping block' ;) :D! Of course, in civ4, it would be a funny addition to be able to sack an advisor who gets it wrong-pure I candy, though, but fun all the same :)!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Thanks for these responses - glad to see I'm not the only one looking for these kinds of major changes.

I fear that it will be easier for Firaxis to do 50 little tweaks than 2 or 3 major changes in gameplay, or push the AI to the "next level". I heard somewhere that they may add religion as a gameplay factor, the way they did with culture this time - that would be fine, but to me it would be far too little to count as THE major change to CIV 4 (along wiith the no doubt much improved graphics that I personally couldn't care less about)...

Actually, though I believe this has been mentioned elsewhere, I do think that the possibility of your advisors being WRONG and/or sacking/executing advisors who do you wrong would add a whole new and intriguing element to the game!

For instance, what if there was an espionage function that allowed a foreign civ to BRIBE one of your advisors!

Synopsis: The English Foreign Advisor has been bribed by the French (who wants the English to start a war with their hated enemy, the Germans)! So, when the English player has any dealings with Germany, the foreign advisor will feed the player FALSE info (like, 'sire-I have it on good authority that the Germans are secretly amassing troops on our borders', or 'The Germans are FURIOUS at us, and I believe they are preparing for war' or 'The Germans are well known for being treacherous-declare war before they backstab us!')
I think that would be cool!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I fear that it will be easier for Firaxis to do 50 little tweaks than 2 or 3 major changes in gameplay, or push the AI to the "next level". I heard somewhere that they may add religion as a gameplay factor, the way they did with culture this time - that would be fine, but to me it would be far too little to count as THE major change to CIV 4 (along wiith the no doubt much improved graphics that I personally couldn't care less about)...

I think we're gonna get along quite well. You'll find a lot of kindred spirits these forums who aren't opposed to many ideas, but have set expectations high in terms of resolving gameplay flaws.

Micromanagement is one.
Late game boredom is two.
Repetitive gameplay and unbalanced strategy (expansionism) is three.
Predictable and disappointing AI is four.

I don't think these topics are unrelated either. Micromanagement ties into repetitive gameplay, late game boredom, and is the reason the high difficulties exist (the AI is no less predictable or more interesting at Deity level).

Late game boredom has everything to do with repetitive gameplay and unbalanced strategy -- expansionism becomes especially boring when the borders are well defined. America is the most powerful nation on the planet and has some of the most interesting strategies for dominance, and yet have expanded their borders very little in the past century. Where are the alternatives to expansion?

Anyway, it doesn't take much for me to go off and rant. But welcome to the fold, indeed.

Thanks, this is indeed a welcoming place.

Those four sound like the right concerns to me - any sense that Firaxis embraces this? I saw a ppt presentation from their CIV 4 chief developer that suggests not (I guess everyone has seen this?) "Simplicity" is his overriding concern. I'm all for reducing micromanagement, but this sounds to me like we're going to get a dumbing down of the game. Like for many products in society, there seems to be a sense that simpler (and stupider) means more sales...probably true, unfortunately.

Don't look at it that way. I think the idea is that Civ 3 has a nice level of complexity. It's complex enough that there's some depth to gameplay, but it's not so complex that it turns you off or confuses you.

There IS a focus on simplicity in the presentation. But you'll also notice he spends a lot of his presentation on "fighting cynicism" -- that old fans DO get tired of franchises if you don't bring them something new. He also spends a lot of his presentation saying that Civ 4 will have a larger, or at least slightly different audience than Civ 3. To me that suggests that the lead designer is conscious of the need to add a few killer features to Civ 4.

Combine that with the "simplification" rule and we're talking about cutting out some stuff in Civ 3 to make room for more stuff in Civ 4.

I'd just like to see that "more stuff" focus on making the modern game more interesting (cold war, puppet regimes) let alone the industrial game (colonialism, independance, civil war), and adding more variety in strategy (e.g.: a perfectionist economic powerhouse instead of an expansionist empire, e.g.: growing your quality of life instead of your quantity of cities).

Right now, the two leading choices for killer features are "Religion" and "Civics". Religion sounds neat, but doesn't resolve any of the gameplay problems. Civics, nobody really has a clue what it is. I'm worried they're moving forward without thinking about the gameplay flaws from Civ 3.

I'm worried they're moving forward without thinking about the gameplay flaws from Civ 3.

I hope we're all wrong on this. :(

I understand civics as 'laws and NGO's'. But let away this discussion :D
and I doubt that they will forget this, colonel Kraken. I mean they know this forum and there are plenty of topics discussing this. At least they have thought about it, and probably the got a solution full of new flaws which we can critizise during the civ4 era and bring plenty of solution for them during the developing time of civ5 :D.

Back to topic. I support the idea above :)

mitsho

I'm worried they're moving forward without thinking about the gameplay flaws from Civ 3.

I wouldn't worry about this because the people who are working on Civilization IV are reading in these forums for ideas and improvements.

This ultimately suggests that the game needs to have more empowering decisions right up until the end, with the ability to mount a huge comeback, and the ability to shift strategies.



Indeed - there isn't much 'rise and fall' of empires in Civ. The civs that were great in one age, possibly even appearing invincible, are just so much cannon fodder a few hundred years later. Persians, Romans, etc. Perhaps there could be more options for rebellion or liberation - look at Britian. 70 years ago we had a world-spanning empire, now all (or just about all) those countries are self governing, due to social and political change.

Great ideas everybody!

Warfare is a subject i have some ideas on. I think wars, and especially long ones, should be more difficult. Somehow, wars are not as interesting as they should be. If all western countries are seen as one civilization, they were the only civ to use warmongering/domination succesfully for the world (most non-western people see the ability of the west to organize aggression against enemies on a large scale as the most important).
To make things more interesting i thought of this:

1 Population
Sending people into war should influence population. If troops get killed, this should slow down population growth back home. When victorious however, more mixed siblings should inhabit the the conquered areas. The last effect should change over time, being more powerful in ancient times.

2 Supplies
Supplies should get a more important role in warfare. Modern wars are unthinkable without having a decent supply strategy, older wars are still dependent on food supply. For example, units can only be healed in producing cities, or by special units (later in the game). Mounted units need more food (horses!), rifles need saltpeter, tanks need oil, etc.
There are probably more ideas on special resources, I haven't thought about it that much, but exhaustable resources can work very well with more difficult wars.

3 Morale
Troops fighting a long time without supplies will have lower morale. As war weariness affects home, this influences the war itself.

4 Civil wars
Apparent already, with resisting cities, this could be a longer-term development. If a large area of distant cities only pay taxes and get nothing back, they can unite and revolt. Americans can have Confederates, Dutch have Belgians, Spanish have Basques etc.
This was mentioned before and I really like this idea. There are more (better) ideas in this, I guess.

Optional defending strategies:
- Scorched earth tactics could be used. Abandon cities, burn oil supply, burn acres, etc.
- Guerillas can be highly successful against low morale armies. Perhaps some spies/diplomats spreading propaganda can help here as well.

The question of waging a war will be much more difficult. Instead of just changing government and building some more units, much more effort should go into preparation.
Wars will be smaller, only to grab a couple of cities nearby, and then continue development. Together with the more advanced Diplomacy, as stated before, alliances are more interesting. Just raiding capitals to weaken shared enemies instead of taking it should be rewarded more. (destroy wonders?)

Just some thoughts, not really detailed, but some of the things that pop in my mind when I play C3C (still an awesome game though!)

Ok, this was pretty obsolete...
Sorry, I'll read previous topics more often...

Overall I am rooting for the game to be well improved in its gameplay and AI - I'm hoping for much more than the kinds of little tweaks that seem to be mostly getting mentioned on these boards.


Lewsir, great job, you nailed the flawes of the game exactly.

If all western countries are seen as one civilization, they were the only civ to use warmongering/domination succesfully for the world

What about the Mongol Empire, the Islamic Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Aztec Empire, the Inca Empire, the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Egyptian Empire, the Japanese empire, the Chinese Empire?

I think I've made my point... This notion that "western" countries are the only ones who have successfully used warmongering/domination "for the world" is BS.

nice retort, so obvious that i missed it. People -are indeed -people.

I think we're gonna get along quite well. You'll find a lot of kindred spirits these forums who aren't opposed to many ideas, but have set expectations high in terms of resolving gameplay flaws.

Micromanagement is one.
Late game boredom is two.
Repetitive gameplay and unbalanced strategy (expansionism) is three.
Predictable and disappointing AI is four.

I don't think these topics are unrelated either. Micromanagement ties into repetitive gameplay, late game boredom, and is the reason the high difficulties exist (the AI is no less predictable or more interesting at Deity level).

Late game boredom has everything to do with repetitive gameplay and unbalanced strategy -- expansionism becomes especially boring when the borders are well defined. America is the most powerful nation on the planet and has some of the most interesting strategies for dominance, and yet have expanded their borders very little in the past century. Where are the alternatives to expansion?

Anyway, it doesn't take much for me to go off and rant. But welcome to the fold, indeed.


Good point! Why is U.S a powerful country that does not have to maintain that power through expansion? Why is it that the same isn't true of Civ III, where expansion is the only way to survive?

What makes empire building fun is the fact that we who play the role of great statesmen of our nation must resort not only to military, but also economics, ideology, diplomacy and many other channels in order to secure our country's interest. A game that puts too much emphasis on war takes that fun away. Imagine reading the history of a country whose past is dominated by war and expansion? Wouldn't the history get boring to read? But imagine a history of a country whose past is dominated by strategic use of sophisticated diplomacy, ideology, economics, and other instruments of statescraft. I think most of us would prefer studying more about the later than the former.

Civ IV or its successor should think seriously about making the game less about war, and more about survival of and world wide domination by a nation. And although war and conquest is part of the equation of world wide domination and survival, it is not the only variable.

Some case studies:

1
U.S maintained its dominance in the world through a diplomatic technique that I think is called the Bismarkian model.

What is the Bismarkian model? After Bismark of Prussia unified all of Germany under Prussian leadership, and began to look to strengthen German influences throughout Europe, Bismark first targetted the central European nations. I do not exactly know the details, but basically it involves some kind of economic integration between Germany and some central European nations so that the latter becomes economically dependent on the former even though economic efficiency suggests that Germany would have been much better off by integrating its economy into the Western European economies of France and Britain.

U.S maintained dominance through a similar mechanism. Although much of the world hate U.S and her dominance, the world can not do without U.S. She is a vast market, and economic growth throughout the rest of the world depends on her keeping her market opened up. It is this dependence on U.S market that makes the rest of the world prone to cater into the demand of the U.S. And since the demand U.S makes often tends to be the ones that will keep U.S powerful when that demand is fullfilled, this dependence on U.S is significant in maintaining U.S' power.

Of course, U.S needs to have a strong economy in order to absorb all foreign imports in the first place.

2
China no doubt had had some of the world's most technologically advanced military equpiments in the ancient time. Its superb philosophy on war, such as art of war written by Sun Tzi, also helped to make Chinese military one of the strongest for a long time.

However, military is not the only reason that China is strong and dominated the political arena of East Asia. Another reason is ideology. Confucianism flew from China in all directions into Tibet, Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Accompanying this flow of ideology is Chinese culture. Why is it that China benefits from her neighbor's adoption of Confucianism and Chinese culture? Confucianism is fundamentally a philosophy of peace. It is a philosophy based on the central principle of benevolent rule for the people, with the corrollary that war is unacceptable by Confucian standard. China's neighboring countries, upon adoption of Confucianism, would begin to find it less and less rewarding to wage wars for pure pursuit of wealth and prestige because of disapproval from Confucius scholars, and this will make China's boarder much more secure.

And what of Chinese culture? Why does spreading Chinese culture helps to reduce the threat of barbarians of the North, such as the Huns. The reason is that by introducing to the barbarians civilizations and cultures, such as fine cloth, musics, arts, wine, and delicate food, and all the comfort of a highly developed civilization, the barbarians, whose strength derives from their ruggedness, will be made soft. In fact, such a strategy was used during the Han dynasty, and columnated in Han dynasty's subjugation of the Xiung Nu.


Therefore the lesson is this. It is not always about war, conquest, and a strong military that keeps a nation powerful. Other instruments of statescraft, when used wisely together with military, can make a nation great. And it is also that which makes empire building fun. Civ IV or successor games should do its best to reflect this multi-dimensionalism of empire building rather than adding new features such as religions, or incorporating new wonders, new units, or new city improvements.

What about the Mongol Empire, the Islamic Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Aztec Empire, the Inca Empire, the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Egyptian Empire, the Japanese empire, the Chinese Empire?

These empires were quite impressive indeed, and some were highly succesful in controlling parts of the world via warmongering (or other methods). However, most of these encompassed not more than two continents. Western civilization from ca. 1600 to 1940 ruled Europe, Americas, Africa, South and Southeast Asia, big parts of Oceania.
That is what I meant with 'the world'. Successfully conquering and utilizing the conquered areas.
I'm sorry if you consider this BS, but the 'Western civilization' was definitely the most succesful in conquering and exploiting most of the world. Economically, only in the last 20 - 30 years the economical supremacy of the west is challenged.

ShadowWarrior, you nailed it in my opinion. Right now, if someone threatening is on your borders, the only thing you can do is either build up your defences on that border, or form a pre-emptive strike. ... let alone paying them off and hoping they keep their word.

First off, I would have many small non-competitive nations, who play historically but not ruthlessly. Only a handful of nations would be competitive enough to never trust you, or to abuse your trust. (see here -- http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2100214&postcount=127 -- for details)

With that, you could open up new strategies for dealing with nations. Strategies that make you more powerful and not necessarily larger. Strategies that can be accomplished with zero use of force, in complement to force, or in spite of force:

1. Culture your rival

- send missionaries, artists and philosophers to make their people bigger fans of you --> more of your culture within their borders
- trade with them, to make them lovers of your luxuries --> more of your culture in their borders
- have an overall astonishing culture, increasing the value of your culture

Conclusion: With their people bigger fans of you -- more of your culture within their borders -- they feel more akin to you. The people experience more war weariness against you, and even the troops have lower morale. With enough cultural similarity/superiority, the entire nation could be absorbed into your empire, even if just one city at a time.

Examples: (Nations that cultured a rival into peace) The Northern Europeans culturing (Christianizing) the Vikings, China culturing the Hans

Examples: (Borders expanded through cultural hegemony and similarity) The spread of Islam (in the non-violent cases),

2. Make them economic dependants

- there's an expression: if Britain sneezes, Argentina catches pneumonia
- make resources more meaningful by making them useful even in buildings and everyday life
- model scarcity and supply of resources
- have the ability to leverage your resources -- be their only supplier of oil
- have the ability to take someone technologically inferior, buy out their resources, refine them (lumber --> furniture, oil --> gas), and sell it back to them!
- have a geographic position such that all trade routes go through you, and allow you to be a third party in said negotiations to demand a small payment for using your roads / harbors
- having a huge population makes you a huge market, and thus huge potential for profit, particularly if those people are demanding world famous products

Conclusion: Nobody's gonna bite the hand that feeds them. Unless getting fed becomes too scarce or too costly, in which case they'll bite in hopes of having direct access to the food supply. This would be the ultimate way to prevent war -- you won't see Britain and France going to war anytime soon, not until some resource starts running out, or one of them starts being a bad businessman. And if trade becomes open enough, you could take them in as a colony, or unite as equal states.

Examples: (Nations that were once rivals but have too much at stake to not be close to one another) -- Canada and USA (19th century), the European Union (20th century), even tense relations between China and the Western World (21st century)

3. Have very common goals, enough to vassalize them or annex them, or just make them need you

- basically, for a high enough price, an AI nation will surrender completely
- particularly early on in the game, throwing down 100 gold could buy you the "surrender" of an AI with one city
- more cultural similarity, economic dependence, technological superiority would make it possible to buy them for cheaper
- happens under the gun -- if they're threatened by someone, they beg to become a province
- happens particularly under YOUR gun -- if there's no hope in hell of winning, might as well accept colony status before war breaks out

Conclusion: Nations are vassalized all the time. This is how empires are built, even unofficial ones. Particularly in the case of AI, factors like cultural similarity and economic interdependance can make the people of that nation more ready to accept membership into your glorious empire, all without firing a single shot.

Examples: Britain colonizing India (Age of Discovery), the Franks and Goths squashing their beef in the face of Islam (Dark Ages), Italian city-states joining the Franks for protection from one another (Middle Ages)

What makes empire building fun is the fact that we who play the role of great statesmen of our nation must resort not only to military, but also economics, ideology, diplomacy and many other channels in order to secure our country's interest.

Great thought, very well illustrated with examples. However, the devil's in the details. Supposing Firaxis were to try something like this, how would you envision its implementation? How can these activities be modeled? The model would have to be simple, clear, and include meaningful choices. (That is, if the solutions are obvious and unvaried, they would not work in a game.)

I, too, would like to see Civ grow into something more than a war game. Civ3 moved the franchise in that direction by ending the automatic "Player vs the World" teaming aspect of the AIs, introducing the first shreds of bona fide diplomacy into the gameplay. Unfortunately, the diplomacy is still too simple, and gameplay devolves into maximum exploitation of it. "Tech whoring" of all shapes and sizes, ability to buy almost any ally on the cheap, AIs unable to unite effectively against looming threats, etc.

Implementing the vision you've laid out is more easily said than done. Do you have ideas on how to do it?


- Sirian

Great thought, very well illustrated with examples. However, the devil's in the details. Supposing Firaxis were to try something like this, how would you envision its implementation? How can these activities be modeled? The model would have to be simple, clear, and include meaningful choices. (That is, if the solutions are obvious and unvaried, they would not work in a game.)

I, too, would like to see Civ grow into something more than a war game. Civ3 moved the franchise in that direction by ending the automatic "Player vs the World" teaming aspect of the AIs, introducing the first shreds of bona fide diplomacy into the gameplay. Unfortunately, the diplomacy is still too simple, and gameplay devolves into maximum exploitation of it. "Tech whoring" of all shapes and sizes, ability to buy almost any ally on the cheap, AIs unable to unite effectively against looming threats, etc.

Implementing the vision you've laid out is more easily said than done. Do you have ideas on how to do it?


- Sirian


Admittedly, I can not offer better suggestions beyond a general framework of the path on which subsequent Civ games should take. However, I believe that having an idea of the broad direction with which to pivot all later Civ games should go a long way toward compiling good ideas, or at the very least filter out those that are not in line with what I had in mind.

If everyone can be convinced of what I wrote regarding the direction Civ games should take on, then the next step we should do is to form a forum that aims to make that a reality, which I believe will emerge through meaningful discussion.

I believe that having an idea of the broad direction with which to pivot all later Civ games should go a long way toward compiling good ideas, or at the very least filter out those that are not in line with what I had in mind.

This forum is chock full of suggestions. How many do you think will get used?

Even good ideas will be left on the shelf if there is no ready way to use them. If you have a philosophical vision for a game but no means of translating that into gameplay, you may be disappointed. I believe the reason why Civ has been little more than a war game is not because the designers weren't interested in making something more, but because nobody thought of a way to do it successfully. That's where the real gains will be made, if at all.

I thought you articulated the initial vision very well. If you could also design the details as thoroughly... who knows. Maybe your ideas would make an impact.


Admittedly, I can not offer better suggestions beyond a general framework

Nod. Well, you can always hope someone else can design a way to implement your vision. I suspect that Civ4 won't wait, though. They probably already have a vision going in, and I imagine it would take something compelling to persuade them to change it now. Whether or not it already includes elements like you have described is unknown. If so, then they're already ahead of you by several steps, and if not, they're sitting where you are now, with no practical means to make it happen. Either way, it seems that you would have to produce something special to get their attention. Good luck. :cool:


- Sirian

This forum is chock full of suggestions. How many do you think will get used?

Even good ideas will be left on the shelf if there is no ready way to use them. If you have a philosophical vision for a game but no means of translating that into gameplay, you may be disappointed. I believe the reason why Civ has been little more than a war game is not because the designers weren't interested in making something more, but because nobody thought of a way to do it successfully. That's where the real gains will be made, if at all.

I thought you articulated the initial vision very well. If you could also design the details as thoroughly... who knows. Maybe your ideas would make an impact.




Nod. Well, you can always hope someone else can design a way to implement your vision. I suspect that Civ4 won't wait, though. They probably already have a vision going in, and I imagine it would take something compelling to persuade them to change it now. Whether or not it already includes elements like you have described is unknown. If so, then they're already ahead of you by several steps, and if not, they're sitting where you are now, with no practical means to make it happen. Either way, it seems that you would have to produce something special to get their attention. Good luck. :cool:


- Sirian

Implementing a new game philosophy into a succeeding Civ game is a gargantuan task, which I frankly feel I am not capable of doing by myself. I am hoping that a method of execution of this game philosophy may arise through discussion. And discussion is really what I want. After all, I think it is a synergy of many people's idea that make an idea truely great.

However, I am in the process of thinking of what we can do to possibly implement the game philosophy I've proposed in the previous post into Civ IV. I will share my ideas with everyone in here when I have the ideas thoughtout, and I hope to have your feedback. :)

one thing you missed oit IMO was bring back the animation style of the civ2 advisors! :goodjob: the were the best part of the game and also had more useful things to say then they do now.that trade bloke i think it is really gets on my tits when he says "germany and france have signed.....i told you they were evil" i wish i could kill him for talking to me in that way :mad:

Hey, I thought I had some decent ideas on non-war strategies to gain greater power, greater reverence, and even greater border size. Take a look upwards for my post.

The short version --

1. Shared Economic Future

If someone depends on you economically -- for resources or for money -- then going to war with you or your allies jeopardizes that. Standing by idlely while someone attacks you jeopardizes that. And for you to anger allies by making war would make your trade network more narrow and volatile. Right now, in Civ 3, nobody is really economically dependant on anybody -- you can somehow be rich without a single international ally.

2. Shared Culture

If someone's population shares some or a lot of your culture, then their people care about you. Standing by idlely while someone attacks you would make their people upset. Vice versa, attacking a people who admire your culture would lead to lower international opinions -- you are not seen as enlightened and cultured, but barbaric. You would even experience international allies boycotting your culture. Right now, in Civ 3, you can be a cultural powerhouse without having a single person outside your borders even LIKE you. In Civ 3, there is no measure and hence no value to moving your culture into someone else's borders peacefully.

3. Shared International Threat

If a small independant city state feels threatened and you happen to be the biggest badass around, they might just ask to join your empire. In fact, tied together with the prior two paragraphs, if a state feels it shares a common economic and cultural stake, they'd be even MORE inclined to join your empire, even if you're not THE biggest badass. If YOU are the threat that makes them scared, they might join you without any amount of war! Currently, in Civ 3, there are no small independant city states or anyone willing to just become a part of your empire, since every single AI is trying to win for themselves.

In short:

- allow players to transmit their culture to other nations through trade (luxuries) and units (missionaries and philosophers)
- measure it and reward it
- increase war weariness between culturally similar nations (nations that have some of each other's culture through trade and units)
- increase "peace weariness" when a culturally similar nation is threatened by a culturally different nation

- give resources more effects -- not just building units
- give resources a supply -- you can't build an army off a speck of oil
- make international trade more valuable than trade within your borders
- trade between two countries seperated by other countries should involve the other countries in the agreement -- allowing them to leverage their role as a middle man

- make some AI city states (not necessarily huge civ empires) that are willing to be bought
- allow nations to depend on one another in a military sense -- sharing units, buying units ...


Oh well, I tried to be short.

Hey, I thought I had some decent ideas on non-war strategies to gain greater power, greater reverence, and even greater border size. Take a look upwards for my post.

The short version --

1. Shared Economic Future

If someone depends on you economically -- for resources or for money -- then going to war with you or your allies jeopardizes that. Standing by idlely while someone attacks you jeopardizes that. And for you to anger allies by making war would make your trade network more narrow and volatile. Right now, in Civ 3, nobody is really economically dependant on anybody -- you can somehow be rich without a single international ally.

2. Shared Culture

If someone's population shares some or a lot of your culture, then their people care about you. Standing by idlely while someone attacks you would make their people upset. Vice versa, attacking a people who admire your culture would lead to lower international opinions -- you are not seen as enlightened and cultured, but barbaric. You would even experience international allies boycotting your culture. Right now, in Civ 3, you can be a cultural powerhouse without having a single person outside your borders even LIKE you. In Civ 3, there is no measure and hence no value to moving your culture into someone else's borders peacefully.

3. Shared International Threat

If a small independant city state feels threatened and you happen to be the biggest badass around, they might just ask to join your empire. In fact, tied together with the prior two paragraphs, if a state feels it shares a common economic and cultural stake, they'd be even MORE inclined to join your empire, even if you're not THE biggest badass. If YOU are the threat that makes them scared, they might join you without any amount of war! Currently, in Civ 3, there are no small independant city states or anyone willing to just become a part of your empire, since every single AI is trying to win for themselves.

In short:

- allow players to transmit their culture to other nations through trade (luxuries) and units (missionaries and philosophers)
- measure it and reward it
- increase war weariness between culturally similar nations (nations that have some of each other's culture through trade and units)
- increase "peace weariness" when a culturally similar nation is threatened by a culturally different nation

- give resources more effects -- not just building units
- give resources a supply -- you can't build an army off a speck of oil
- make international trade more valuable than trade within your borders
- trade between two countries seperated by other countries should involve the other countries in the agreement -- allowing them to leverage their role as a middle man

- make some AI city states (not necessarily huge civ empires) that are willing to be bought
- allow nations to depend on one another in a military sense -- sharing units, buying units ...


Oh well, I tried to be short.

Your ideas does capture the essence of making the game less about war, and more about other aspects of empire building. Yet, there's something about these ideas that just doesn't fit with what I have in mind, even though I can not exactly point out what it is.

Intuitively, I think I am asking for a radical change in Civ IV such that it will look nothing like its predecessors. Only by doing so can the multi dimensionalism of empire building be truely captured. Current Civ game framework simply doesn't enable us to do that.

Resource model:

Have any of you played Empire Earth and Rise of Nations? It is a real time strategy game. In such a game, we build villagers, who are the workers that collect resources and build buildings. From these buildings, we produce more villagers, who will do more resource collecting and constructing, or we can produce military units used to go fight our rivals.

The resource system in Empire Earth (and many other RTS) is one where to build any buildings or units, we need a combination of resource x, y, z. For example, to build a temple, we need 10 units of resource x, 15 units of resouce y, and 20 units of resource z.

Second, as civilization progresses through the ages, new resources will be required to build new buildings and units, while old resources will become less and less important in contributing to the making of these new buildings and units.

For example, in the ancient time, resource x, y, z were very important to building of anything. However, in the modern time, resource x, y, z, can nearly be done without, and a nation can still survive. This is because technologies in modern era requires different set of resources than the ancient era.

My idea is for Civ IV to adopt a resource model along the line of Rise of Nation and Empire Earth. In Civ IV, we will no longer have just food and some abstract "resource shield". We will have food and two types of resources, such as wood and stone. The building of anything in the ancient era requires some combination of food, wood and stone.

Once we move into the middle age, we will still need food, wood, and stone, but a new resource will be added. This resouce is needed for anything in the middle age to be build. And as we progress deeper and deeper into the middle age, that new resource will increase in importance, while ancient era resources such as food, stone and wood will diminish in importance, although they are still vital somehwat.

Once we move into the industrial age, food, wood, and stones will pretty much become useless. Food will be only good for population growth, while wood and stones are needed only for building of ancient era buildings, such as temples. In the industrial age, the importance resources are coal and iron needed for railways and industrialization, and building of modern army. A combination of two units of coal and three units of iron are needed to build each unit of riflemen for example.

This rise and fall of the importance of resources needed for each era will mean certain kind of possible economic interdependence. Also, it makes this game more dynamic because no longer will one civilization dominate for the entire game. The lack of access to important resources may make them not capable of building important city improvements or military units fast enough to take advantages of their technological advances.

For example, China is wayyyy ahead of the rest of the world in technology. It has already has economics technology. However, China is placed in the unfortunate position of lacking sufficient access to resource y, which is needed to build stock exchange. This means that stock exchange will be built VERY slowly. However, without stock exchange, you can not generate enough income to increase funding for technological research, so the growth rate of technology in China begins to slow down. Meanwhile, other nations will catch up in technology. China may certainly think about using its mighty military to crush opponents who have access to resource y. However, for China to do that successfuly, China will need resource y again to build a more modernized military. Otherwise, China is stuck with resouce x which is only good for producing an inferior type of military. This might mean that China will have to resort to other means of getting resource y, through perhaps diplomacy.

When such a condition of interdependence is created, all of other instruments of statescraft, such as diplomacy, will now have a more important place in player's strategy in guiding their nations.

This is however still a very sketchy idea, which requires refinement. I can already myself think of many objection to such an idea, which needs to be addressed. Therefore let me dwell more on this, and I will share with you what I have to say later. Any feedbacks would be appreciated in the meantime.

1. Shared Economic Future
2. Shared Culture
3. Shared International Threat

Culture in Civ3 has some cool aspects, but also some lame aspects. Culture is strictly per-city, without regard to how large a city may be. Thus the more cities you build, and the more densely you pack them, the more total culture you can achieve. This fits code logic but defies common sense.

There are math problems if this kind throughout the design, and overcoming them for Civ4 will not be easy. I see similar issues with your proposal, DH. Where does the strategy come in with culture or trade? There's next to none in Civ3. Considering that every time a harbor is pillaged by bombardment, the game makes a huge pause to recalculate all the trade route pathfinding, how could Civ4 add in MORE pathfinding options to try to keep track of bunches of new trade mechanisms? That seems unlikely.

As for neutral "minor powers", they'd be nothing but exploit fodder. See Galactic Civilizations for what kind of impact that would have.


If the things that player would do would be "no brainer", they wouldn't make for fun gameplay. Spreading culture off resources that are traded... Players will trade away all surplus resources. There's no choice involved and no strategy, simply "going through the motions" of whatever the map hands you. Worse, players would avoid purchasing resources whenever THEY would get infected with someone else's culture, unless the need for the resource was more dire than the penalty of the cultural infection. See my point?

No, I think you're overlooking something fundamental. As long as the game drives each civ to view each other civ as an enemy or rival, Civ is going to remain a war game. The means of attack may change -- cultural attack, economic attack, diplomatic attack may all be possible -- but if the gameplay still involves ATTACKING in some form, to improve your situation at the expense of other civs, then nothing significant will have changed. And if that is going to be the case, then Civ should try to make itself into the best war game that it can, rather than trying to put on makeup or wear a mask to conceal its true nature.


- Sirian

The problem is that coming up with a true cooperative victory that adds something new to gameplay (rather than rehashing the same "whoever has the biggest army wins" concept or something similar) would probably depart too much from the Civ spirit. Soren has said that for everything added, something else would be taken out. Adding something that big would probably require the removal of most of what we know to be Civvish. ;)

Population model:

Forget about the population model used in Civ III right now. I propose the below alternative.

We need population to do the following tasks:

Serve in the army
Build city improvements and wonders
Improve land for agriculture, mining and building of roads, forts, and other stuff
Work on those land to produce food, and other resources
Work in those city improvements, such as temples, courthouses, etc

If there are other tasks that I have not listed above, please point them out to me. But they won't be obstacles in my attempting to explain how my envisioned population model works.

Each city improvement requires some number of people to work on it. For example, a temple needs at least six people. Less than six, and the temple will not help to make the population feel happy at all. Having exactly six will help the population to be happy with minimum effect. Having more than six will increase the happiness effect. However, once we filled the temple with, lets say, fifty workers, any further addition will have no more beneficial effect on the happiness of the population. Using economic terminology, there is diminishing return to inputs.

So if we can not increase the population happiness further by adding more workers in the temple, what else can we do? We can build another temple in another city, or we can build a wonder. Or, we can simply "upgrade" the temple in a cathedral if we have the required technology. Given the same amount of workers, a cathedral will increase happiness more than a temple.

That's right. I am proposing that all city improvements with same functions will now be upgraded instead of being built A temple will be upgraded into a cathedral. A market place will be upgraded in stock exchange.

To upgrade or to build any city improvements or wonders, we need yet some population to actually do those upgrading and building. These are different from the population who work in those city improvements and wonders.

We will assign population to improve landtiles, build forts and roads. Then after those are built, we need assign population to work on those landtiles.

Those who work on landtiles to produce food and resources are different from those people who work in the city's temples, libraries, and marketplaces. This will truely create a urban/rural population.

Army will itself requires population, too. In current Civ game, army require gold support, but it doesn't seem to be constraint by population. This will change under this model I now propose. (more about maintainence of city improvement and army in my post about taxation model)

Population growth will continue to be a function of availabitily of food. Perhaps, we can make population growth also a function of standard of living as civilization progresses into middle and industrial age.

Thought experiments to illustrate how this population model works:

I am ruling the Chinese civilization, and I have founded on city, called Beijing. I currently have one hundred people in my civilization.

My aim is to increase population. To do that, I allocate about thirty people out of my one hundred to improve a landtile outside of Beijing. This landtile is a grassland, and is fertile after it is improved. I could have chose to assign only ten people to improve this landtile, however, this will mean that the improvement will not be finished until much later. I could have chose to assign all one hundred people to improve this landtile. But by the law of diminishing return, having one hundred people to improve this landtile will not make finishing such improvement faster than having just thirty.

With thirty people working on the irrigation, I have seventy left. I need at least ten people to work in my palace to administer my kingdom. This leaves me with only sixty currently "unemployed". I'll assign thirty of these sixty to build a temple. To build a temple requires a combination of ten units of wood, and fifteen units of stones. So I assign the ten people to lumber, and ten people to mine in another landtile near Beijing. Of course I could have assigned all twenty people to gather lumber first, then assign those twenty to gather minerals. Now I am down to just ten available workers. I assign them to work on the farms in another landtile near Beijing.

Once the thirty people who were working on the irrigation completed their task, I'll move the ten people who were farming into this irrigated landtile. Now, these ten people will be producing MORE food than they were when they were working in another landtile.

And what of these thirty people who have completed the task of irrigation. I can either assign them to build temple so that the temple may be build faster. Or I can assign five of these thirty to work in my palalce, in which case I'll now have fifteen people working in my palace. This means that the administration of my kingdom is more effective, with the positive effect of decreasing corruption, which leads to increase in lumber, mineral and food production. (But once I take those five people out of my palace, the food, mineral, and lumber production level drops back to its former level) The remaining twenty five workers can go to build roads, or I can draft them into the army.

Immediately, all of your reaction will be this. WAYYYYYYYYY TOO MUCH MICROMANAGEMENT!!!

Those of you who have played Rise of Middle Kingdom, Pharo, or Ceaser never complained about micromanagement of population in those games. Why?

In those games, any increase in population immediately go to fill jobs that are not yet occupied. The same can be done in this population model I propose.

For example, I currently need three more people in my temple to reach minimum effectiveness, six more people in my marketplace to reach minimum effectiveness. I make marketplace the first priority and temple the second. So when the population increase the next turn, the new population will go first to work in marketplace. Any remaining population will go work in the temple.

This should take much of the micromanagement away.

This population model should make some interesting choices for us players. The limited availability of population as well as the concept of diminishing returns means that we will have to learn to cope with trade offs of assigning population to different tasks, and pick those tasks that provides the least opportunity cost. We must ask questions like these. Should we assign more population to build marketplaces to increase commerce? Or should we simply increase commerce by assigning population to build roads? Doing the former means that marketplaces will be built much later, and the benefit of marketplace won't be realized for a longtime. However, doing the latter will allow us to realize the benefit of roads faster because roads are quicker to built. But roads themselves generate much less revenue than having a marketplace. So what should we do?

Or in another case, I might have to make a tradeoff between commerce and science. Given only limited population, should I assign more people to work in libraries or marketplaces?

A grand empire strategy may possibly be created out of this population model. We can assign more people to science research than any other task, and the strength of our empire derives mostly from science. But doing so will always have a cost, which is less accomplishment in the arena of commerce, landtile development, armies, blah blah blah. So adopting a pro science strategy may be the best way to go if we are situated in a fertile region, where less people can work on food production and still generate substantial food to support science. Geographical constraint, in another word, may be important toward determining how we want to use our population. (More about geography model later)

This is all the idea I have regarding population model so far. It is very disorganized at this point. I'll make adjustment to the population model later and organize it a little better to make it more understandable.

The one thing I would like to see, that certainly could provide an interesting twist later in the game is revolution and/or civil war..

Civil unrest, disorder... that's easily managed (to an extent) but if my empire or part of that empire decides to 'be free from my tyrannical leadership" I now have a great problem to deal with, and not just from a military stand point, but economic geo-political.. I understand there is some factoring of this, with cultural conversions, but it's not enough.. I want open rebellion, I want to have to deal with factions that will attempt to remove me from power.. to defeat me internally.. I want other nations siding with the revolutionaries to come to their aid... and those other nations that recognize my leadership to side with me.. I think the potential for civil war or a region striving for independence, especially later in the game, would keep my interest longer

That, in my opinion, is the one great thing missing in the game..

Geography model:

Geography model: (Read my post on population model first)

Population assigned to different tasks will have different effect on the direction of the empire. When we players assign most of the population to irrigate and farm to produce food, we become an agricultural nation, and our population grow incredibly fast. When we alternatively assign more population to work on scientific research, our nation becomes scientific powerhouse. When we assign most of our population to work on mines and forests, we will be a nation rich in mineral resources.

But why would we ever want to assign our population to work on one task as oppose to another? This is where my geography model comes in.

I propose that geography plays a very significant factor in influencing the population task assignment decisions. More specifically, I propose that for each kind of terrain, there are associated disadvantages and advantages. Player's must learn to complement the advantages of the terrain that locates their civilization with the task that they assign to their population.

A grassland terrain will produce much food, some mineral resources, and literally no lumber at all. (Please read my post on resource model) Given such a terrain, civilizations located in this region will grow incredibly fast. Players who find themselves in such situation should aim to adopt a pro-population growth strategy.

Dessert terrain will yield literally nothing. No lumber, food or mineral resources can possibly be had in such terrain. But such disadvantages are offset by the advantages that dessert offers. People who grew up in a desert environment tends to be rugged. They have high endurance and stamina, and make great warriors. Therefore military units build on desert terrain can, given everything else being equal, fight much better than their rivals who come from cultures located in fertile grassland regions. Players whose civilizations originate in desert, should take this into consideration. Their initial strategy may have to be based mostly on fighting. They may have to use their superior fight force to subjugate neighboring civilizations, and demand tributes in forms of certain quantity of lumber, food, and minerals every turn. (I will talk about tributary system, and international political systems and diplomacy in a later thread)

For these desert civilizations, once they have obtained stable tributes, they can use these tributes to begin building up their civilizations. Tributes in form of food will enable their population to grow, while tributes in form of minerals and lumber enable them to build perhaps better weapons or build their cities into civilized metropolis.

In another word, for each terrain type, there must be associated disadvantages and advantages. The disadvantages and advantages should make such a drastic differences that it really matters if players adopt the appropriate strategy.

Second thing about geography pertains more to the map size. I don't know if this is doable, but I seriously propose making the map size much MUCH bigger than it currently is now.

With a much bigger map size, we can truely have a vast region of desert, or vast region of grassland populated only by some forest or hills, or a vast region of mountains and hills populated by occasional dryland or grassland. In Civ III now, a landtile of grassland may sit right next to a landtile of dryland. As a result, players can easily compensate the lack of mineral on grassland by exploiting the adjacent dryland. Geography makes no impact at all in the choice of civilization development strategy.

One last thing to remember is this. It is VERY important that while a vast region may be characterized mostly by one type of terrain, it also MUST have some tiles of other terrain type. A vast region of grassland must occassionally have some hills or forests. This way, although players are forced to select a pro-population growth strategy, they will have some mineral and lumber access to do other aspect of empire building. Otherwise, a severe inbalance of access to different important resources will result in incapacitating the players to do anything. Therefore the key is to strike a good balance. On the one hand, as is the case with Civ III, we do not want to grant equal access to all resources for all players, which removes geography as an influencial factor in our choice of strategy, we also do not want to, on the other hand, make the unequal access to different resources so severe that players cannot do anything.

Trade model

Read my resource, population and geography model first.

Let us say that I am China, and the geography I am located in is mostly grassland, which means I will have to select a pro-population growth strategy.

How does pro-population growth strategy help me? More population means bigger army, more workers to improve the land, to work in temples, market, libraries, and build wonders.

So more population as a result of being located on grassland gives me more workers. However, without sufficient lumber and minerals with which to build temples, libraries, marketplace, it will be a while until I can actually reap the benefit of having lots of people to research science technologies, create happiness in my empire, and generate wealth from trade and blah blah blah.

In another word, I need lumber and minerals. What can I do? The solution is to trade. This is where my trade model comes in.

So I (China) have a huge HUGE supply of food. I can either use my huge supply of food to grow my population or to trade it for lumber and minerals. Lets say my population has already grown wayy too fast, and its time to simply slow the growth of my population by channeling those food to be sold to international market so that I can trade my food for lumber and minerals.

Civ IV should have an international trade screen. This trade will work like this.

It will show supply and demand for all resources in each country.

For example, it will show that China is now supplying the world with lets say 10 units of food each term. (I can alternatively simply choose to supply only 5 units, and let the remaining five go to grow my population)

The price of each unit of food is two units of lumber, or two units of minerals. I put this price tag on to the international market, and those who acccepts the offer will sign a contract (or a treaty) with me. The treay will basically say that I (China) will trade 10 units of my food in exchange for 20 units of his mineral. This deal will last some number of turns.

Perhaps, my trade partner wants to extend the trade deal for 20 turns while I only wish for the deal to be effective for 10 turns. Then the only way to get me to agree to a 20 turns deal is to increase the price of my food. So in another word, I will want 3 units of lumber for each unit of food now. Or alternatively, I want certain technology in exchange for agreeing to a 20 turn deal. So the number of turns that this deal is valid is negotiable.

I do not want to go too much into details about the barbarians and the diplomacy model yet. But let me just say for now that it is very likely that barbarians will have to play in Civ IV the role of middlemen between civilizations' trading. In another word, barbarian won't be just those mean and nasty nomads who come in, raid, kill, rape, then go away.

Using the above example, China might actually not have been trading with another civilization. Instead, China was concluding a trade deal with the barbarians who obtained those lumbers and minerals from another civilizations with whom I do not yet have contact.

Second, diplomacy will now take a significant role in affecting international trading and development of my empire's economy. Signing a treaty of embargo against me might seriously hinder my ability to develop my empire's economy. More about diplomacy later.

Shadowwarrior,

I'm a fan of your resource model. I was thinking of something along the same lines, but couldn't articulate it. I think you spelled it out nicely -- resources are required for buildings as much as gold and production. I like the idea that you can still build certain buildings, albeit very slowly, if you're lacking in a necessary resource. (History is an indictator of multiple different paths to the same goal.)

And I agree, particularly when you add this to a few of your thoughts on economy. When you have this kind of resource interdependance, you might try to leverage one resource for another and become very close to one ally. You might try to be the top world provider of a resource. You might embargo your competition who is also trading that resource, or embargo the nation who needs a resource to wage an effective war on you. And if you factor in the nature of trade routes, you might think twice about standing by idlely while India is at war and the trade route through them is jeopardized, cutting you off from important trade.

International trade simply isn't valuable enough in Civ 3, but it is incredibly important in real life. Let's give meaning to "strategic resources". Beyond that of "you'll want to build your city near iron" or "you'll want to conquer this city near oil".

Your population model is also an intriguing idea, and it offers some realism. Unemployment is a neat idea, and so is the idea of tradeoffs between commerce and science that aren't controlled by taxes (which is kind of a dumb idea in Civ). But if I were a developer, would I devote energy to this kind of change? The jury is still out, in my books, because I'm not sure it really opens up many new strategies for all changes involved.

Still, I think that you're laying the foundation of an Economic Dominance strategy, which is completely unavailable in Civ 2, and in Civ 3, the seeds are barely planted, at best. Very important strategy.

Sirian,

I admit my ideas need refining, tweaking and balancing. But where you see a "culture exploit" (offloading every last excess luxury) I see a risky and viable strategy. Trade away luxuries and become a cultural powerhouse, but contribute to the glorious lifestyle of your enemies, who may kill you. Isolate yourself in pre-emptive defence, and watch as other nations reap the benefits of cultural hegemony. In other words, pursuing a cultural strategy is somewhat opposed to pursuing a domination strategy.

If I could see Civ 4 as a game, I would see it as three equal but distinct strategies. Becoming an economic powerhouse, becoming a cultural powerhouse, or simply dominating through military. Each would slightly interfere with one another. Instead of a race to see who can dominate, as in civ 3, the game would become a race to see who can win their respective goal.

Imagine a military powerhouse that is relatively barbaric and unhappy (Vikings), frustrated by the fact that for every one city they conquer, two of their cities are assimilated into a weak but famous Civ's culture (France).

Imagine a cultural powerhouse (France) that is dependant on an economic giant (Germany) as its main trading partner, only to watch that trading partner say "you know, I think I'm gonna jack up the prices to twice as much. Heck, maybe I'll stop trading with you altogether".

Imagine a rising cultural powerhouse (Israel) sending repeated missionaries into the "uncivilized" world, with more of their culture within the borders of rivals. Firstly, they are sewing the seeds of sympathy in other civilizations, making it harder for rivals to sustain a war against them without weariness, or without angering other sympathetic civs in the region. Secondly, this rising cultural powerhouse is also sewing the seeds of cultural victory. So a rising military powerhouse (Persia) decides to nip this one in the bud, and starts killing any missionary sent towards them, preventing their culture from being contaminated, and preventing a rival from rising up through culture. In fact, a strategy you could open up is "cultural purging" within their borders, trying to drain their rival's culture within their borders, and even embargoing against rival cultures.

But this embargo and cultural purging leads to counter-embargos, and counter-purges, until people finally get fed up and declare war.

You're right, my view is very competitive. It is war-like in some sense, but to say "enh, why beat around the bush, let's just do straight up war" is unfair to the strategies I'm suggesting. What I'm talking about is a three-tiered competition (Economics, Culture, and Military -- with technology choices to support all three). With three different levels, your strategy might be to dominate one tier while making it shaky as hell on another tier that your rivals care about.

A few thoughts on AI competativeness:

All nations compete for first survival, second domination. The main flaw with Civ 3 was that war is the only way to dominate. If they could make control an issue of developement and policy as well, it would solve many of this forums's complaints. In Civ 2 all the AIs were competative, but preset to fight you. They just need to make it a system where each player evaluates who they need to worry about the most, and assume it is not the human player unless it really is. As for diplomacy, I think SMAC had it best, although the trading table was much more intuitive to use. Combine the trade style and the SMAC optiosn and you have a winner, especially when it comes to war.

On the rise and fall of civilzations:

In civilization when you fall you lose. Historically all 'winning' empires fall at some point. I think the game should change so your responsiblity as a player is to make the greatest impact when you are up. Under this system your relative power and success are tracked along a curve. The faster the rise the faster the fall. the more intense the rise the more intense the fall. To encourage making a lasting impression, any civs that form from the remains of your society you can decide to control, even if you are still alive. Imagine the Romans are falling, but the Byzantines, succesors to your heritage, have emerged. YOu can switch to the Byzantines to try and form a new desitny. The winner is he/she who managed to change history.

If I could see Civ 4 as a game, I would see it as three equal but distinct strategies. Becoming an economic powerhouse, becoming a cultural powerhouse, or simply dominating through military. Each would slightly interfere with one another. Instead of a race to see who can dominate, as in civ 3, the game would become a race to see who can win their respective goal.

Civ3 is already like that. Problem is, everything blends together in unintended ways. One can reach early domination, then pause in the killing and cruise to any victory type they like. One can build up an economic superpower, then start cranking military units post-industrial and swarm the battlefield.

As long as Civ remains as versatile as it is now, we're going to continue to see this kind of strategic blending. Thus in my view, compartmentalization of gameplay types appears unrealistic. If all gameplay remains of the competitive type, then the uber strategy will remain to eliminate rivals, the sooner the better. Only if player is FORCED to leave off war to open up other gameplay types will this problem be resolved. I think this means that cooperative gameplay types would be required. After all, you can't cooperate with those with whom you've eliminated or permanently alienated. The war path would remain open, but it would NOT be the end-all be-all "put your boot to their throat, then pick your type of victory" strategy.



All nations compete for first survival, second domination.

I disagree with the premise. Domination means rising above others by stepping on them, suppressing them, keeping them down, defeating them, lording over them. Not all nations live that way, despite what many may claim. Success can come at the expense of others, but it need not. Success can arise out of excellence, skill, work, creativity, and cooperation.

Nationalism is not the strongest aspect of human nature or human culture. We are all one species. Civ as a game is based on your premise, but life is not. Thus Civ is automatically tilted away from reality. Well, that's fine. It's only a game, after all.


If they could make control an issue of developement and policy as well, it would solve many of this forums's complaints.

No matter what hoops the player may be required to jump through, the fact will remain that a single intelligence will be in control of the game from start to finish. Logic dictates that the Civ4 designers must bow to this fact. They can design a "realistic" game on a much smaller scale, a slice of time lasting ten or twenty years, maybe fifty at most, and simulate what you are describing, but then that would not be Civ, would it?

Since we can assume that Civ4 will follow the lead of its predecessors in starting somewhere in the ancient age and aiming to finish somewhere near present time/technology, attempts to jiggle with the core game design seem unlikely. Yeah, it might be cool to pick a slice of history and play only a few hundred years on a different scale, but that would be a whole new type of game.


- Sirian

Hey Sirian,

I think you raise a valid point. But it's a point I try to address. What I'm talking about is multiple divergent styles of gameplay. The reality is that in Civ 3, you have multiple victory paths that really can be tied together with one main overarching strategy.

In Civ 3, if you expand your borders and dominate, you're right, you can quickly cruise to a scientific, cultural, or military victory. Not to mention you probably have the most powerful economy. This is because culture and economy are these internal, domestic concepts. You can somehow have a beautiful culture without anyone in the world even liking you. You can somehow have the most powerful economy without anyone willing to trade with you.

What I'm proposing for Civ 4 is some exclusivity between strategies. Because economy will depend on international trade, you can't be a warmonger and still be rich. International war would really mess with economy, even if you weren't involved. War would close your imports and exports to the enemy. Not to mention that a nation at war would have burdened or closed trade routes, limiting contact between Civs. For a long time, durring the dark and middle ages, there was little contact between Europe and India, or Europe and China. Not because they hated each other, but because nobody could really move through the near East because of religious war / tension. A hostile Near East messed things up for everybody.

Same thing with culture. Sure your people can like your culture. But what makes cultural domination more compelling is when everyone ELSE likes your culture. Not that you assimilate everybody, but that everyone has a bit of your Civ in them. Isn't it pretty neat that some of our favorite games are Japanese? Isn't it interesting to consider that European suits are considered the attire of the well-to-do all over the world? Did you know the Greeks invented clapping? To transmit these value systems, rituals, and symbols, someone had to cross between borders. This is pretty much impossible if anyone crossing between borders is killed out of fear or hatred. Artists, philosophers, missionaries, explorers, and traders need these borders to be open to bring the glory of your civilization.

I think you really can pull the strategies apart with the right kinds of rewards / penalties. It's a matter of gameplay balancing.

I disagree with the premise. Domination means rising above others by stepping on them, suppressing them, keeping them down, defeating them, lording over them. Not all nations live that way, despite what many may claim. Success can come at the expense of others, but it need not. Success can arise out of excellence, skill, work, creativity, and cooperation

I disagree with the sentiment life is not like this. Human competition is a natural and beneficial part of human nature. Some individuals manage to be content with what they have, but the normal human behavior is to want what one considers 'best'. Domination does not have to be military, and often the great empires could not maintain their empires through force alone. Being the leader means that you have to keep other competitors down, unless its more profitable enough if you do not. Economic warfare is a very real and present part of the modern world. Maybe one civ in 30 should have the cultural/religious/societal desire to remain content with what they have and not try to be the top dog, because these societies do exist.

I do not think a system that made the economy a battle-field would have to make the game only fifty years long. However, it would allow competition to occur in more than just one field.

Being the leader means that you have to keep other competitors down

Activity of this sort is called "crime", at least in the United States.

Staying ahead of competitors can be done by keeping yourself up. Pushing others down is called sabotage, libel, theft, arson, racketeering, and more. Societies who tolerate, even encourage, the "pushing down" of competitors will reap what they sow, and it will be a barren crop indeed.

There's a woman in the United States by the name of Tanya Harding. Ever heard of her?


- Sirian

My point was that if you want to be the leader, you must be the best. If you are not, you must make sure no one else is either. Competative edge does not necessarily involve malicious acts of sabotage, but it can as well. Of course all these actions must also be filtered through whatever system of Ethics is being used. Usually that system is established by the current leader, which is not always a competitor. This is why some(but not too much) government regulation is necessary in economic matters just as in political(government exists, not they control politics). Anarchy produces a system where the strong rule and economic anarchy rewards the most ruthless company. This was a real problem in the 1800s and early 1900s in the United States. Anyway, I went [offtopic] there for a second there. My point was that all players in a system usually play by the established rules of the system, which are established by the most powerful party in the system.

If this posts seems a bit disjointed and very poorly written any suggestions to improve my presentation would be appreciated.

I maintain that even with laws, there are ways to keep competition down. The world isn't squeaky clean, and it sure as hell wasn't 200 years ago either.

I also maintain that they COULD compartmentalize strategies much more. First off, cultural and economic strategy would absolutely require having allies. Secondly, someone who starts wars unprovoked would see that reflected in their people: "well sheez, if Caesar can backstab the Persians, then I can cancel my deal with farmer Quintus down the street."

But more on the cooperative tip -- because I think me and you, Sirian, are on the same page more than you can think.

A zero-sum game is a game where you take something that belongs to somebody else. Your friend has 5 apples. You steal 2 from him. You've gained 2 apples, and he's lost 2 apples, and there are still 5 apples in the universe. No net gain for the universe, hence zero-sum.

A non-zero-sum game is where you make gains but those gains were created "out of thin air" instead of taken strictly from someone else. Some people use the prisoner's dilemma to show how cooperation is more profitable than strict nihilistic self interest. I'll use the fisherman's dilemma:

There are two fishermen. They can fish by stabbing fish with a stick, or they can fish by using a net. However, it takes two men to use the net. Using the net will catch 10 fish in one day, whereas stabbing fish with a stick will catch 2 fish.
- If both cooperate, they get 10 fish, and split it 5 each
- If both refuse to cooperate, they work alone and get 2 fish each
- If one FALSELY cooperates, they get 10 fish and keep it for themselves

At first it looks like the last one is the most profitable. After all, you get to keep 10 fish, more than any other option. But compare two fishermen -- the Fisher Brothers -- to Khan and Caesar, over 7 days.

Khan and Caesar agree to fish with a net. Caesar then backstabs Khan and takes all the fish for himself, getting 10 in one day. Breaking the trust between the two, neither agrees to cooperate and continue fishing with sticks, getting 2 fish each for the remaining 6 days. Caesar ends up with 22 fish, and Khan with 12 fish.

The Fisher brothers agree to fish with a net, and even sign a contract that they will split the catch two ways. Over 7 days, they cooperate, getting 5 fish each. Each brother ends up with 35 fish, which is much more than Khan caught, and even more than Caesar got even though Caesar "cheated"!

The point of that thought experiment is to illustrate how I figured culture would work. Khan tries to spread his culture with a few missionaries and luxuries into Caesar's empire. In doing so, he gains points from having culture within Caesar's borders. Caesar decides to return the favor, sending his missionaries to Khan. Khan -- fearing he will lose the culture war -- kills Caesar's missionary. Missionaries and luxuries from other Civs have trouble making it to the at-war-Civs. It is only after centuries of war that they bury the hatchet.

But during those centuries, Greece and England handled themselves differently. England began sending its furs to Greece, making their furs world famous and increasing their culture score with English culture behind Greek borders. Greece recognized the economic and cultural benefits that England was trying to reap, but instead did one better: they sent repeated units (artisans, missionaries, philosophers) to England to transmit its ideals and values -- gaining them valuable culture points. Greece is now a worldwide cultural leader, with England on their tail.

What of Khan and Caesar? Their culture is far behind. Within their own borders, their people are proud. But around the world, nobody even gives a crap about Mongol philosophers or Roman furs. All the little population-heads wants to hear from GREEK philosophers and get ENGLISH furs.

Faced with a terrible predicament, the Romans go to war with Greece. Greece, not one to fight fire with fire, leverages its culture.

The Greek-loving population heads in Rome cry out for peace.

Even the population heads as far as China are saying "man, what Rome is doing to Greece is so uncool. Greece is so beautiful, it's a bastion of culture! We are big fans of Aristotle!" China declares war on Rome, much to the happiness of its people.

Greece asks England to stop trading furs to Rome, which would make the Roman people very unhappy and cause enough weariness that Caesar will end the war. Of course, where Greece sees tyrrany, England sees opportunity, and says "thanks but no thanks" to Greece. England begins transmitting much more furs to Rome, trying to get one up on Greece in the culture race!

Anyway, sorry for ranting. But I hope you can see the potential for gameplay balancing to open up some kind of divergent, compartmentalized strategies. (I hate the "expansionist platform to all victories" as much as you do.)

I did not mean to say that unilateralism was a winning strategy, but a human one. I do agree with dh_epic that usually cooperation nets better results over time. The strategy decision is when is war going to be profitable and when is peace going to be profitable. No group is going to serve something then its best interest, and most of the time that interest is best served by cooperation.

No, I think you're overlooking something fundamental. As long as the game drives each civ to view each other civ as an enemy or rival, Civ is going to remain a war game. The means of attack may change -- cultural attack, economic attack, diplomatic attack may all be possible -- but if the gameplay still involves ATTACKING in some form, to improve your situation at the expense of other civs, then nothing significant will have changed. And if that is going to be the case, then Civ should try to make itself into the best war game that it can, rather than trying to put on makeup or wear a mask to conceal its true nature.
Best quote about the Civ series I may have never read. :thumbsup: I read it several times and I think it sums up what I somehow dislike about my favourite game. Yeah I play a bloody war game, period. :blush: But do computers like games where it's not about killing ? (Please don't talk me about SimCity (a good game), it's a simulator.) But Sirian, what about cultural wins in Civ3 ? What about OCC 20k games ?

Your comment is very clear and right, but now I'm feeling depressed about what Civ4 will be, instead of having high expectations... :cry:

Your comment is very clear and right, but now I'm feeling depressed about what Civ4 will be, instead of having high expectations.

Don't fret. I'm far from a pessimist about Civ4. There is cause for hope, even with the recognition of how difficult it would be to improve the franchise.

Civ3 made huge strides in the right direction, in my view, and many of the gains came through the patching process. This showed that the team "got it" when it came to good civ gaming. That buys a lot of currency with me. I will get Civ4 right away, and even if it is not ideal, I will stick with it until the kinks are ironed out.

Will Civ4 be good? I'm sure it will. Will it be great? Can't answer that yet. :cooool:


- Sirian

I maintain that even with laws, there are ways to keep competition down.

For sure.

Laws are rules encoded by and enforced by a government. Rules have a letter and a spirit. Both must be enforced, thus the need for judges, to interpret the letter, and where ambiguous or unforeseen, or where discretion is left within the law for the judge, to judge the spirit and intent, within the bounds afforded by the letter.

Law is such a sticky practice, lawyers make big money. The purpose of a lawyer is to know the laws well enough to advise and guide you, or to represent you or your interests to law enforcement. Lawyers are supposed to work within the law, as well, but it just gets more and more blurry, the more complex the laws become.

Poorly written laws are all over the place. Many legislators have good intentions, but the letter is where the chief power lies, not the spirit. And even if they successfully write a law to stop one bad behavior, often it merely puts pressure on the next flaw or loophole, and the process begins anew.


Designing a good game is the same sort of pursuit: rule creation. Games can be a lot simpler, but still face the same obstacles.


Your fisherman example is well crafted and thought provoking. But it does not extend far enough. If Khan can come around with a pack of horsemen and demand half the catch of Russia, Greece, China, and Japan, and GET IT because its cheaper for them to pay tribute than to suffer war, Khan may get the most fish of them all. This is not reflected in any of the Civ games, where taking AND HOLDING territory is so easy. The cultural flip-back isn't the answer they hoped it would be.

Genghis Khan and his hordes were among history's most successful tribute collectors. Would be interesting if Civ could operate that way, or operate the way the European empires did. Instead, the only empire type we get is the Roman model, conquering neighbors and a civ expanding to cover lots of ground. That model, too, is worthy, but IN A GAME it is very difficult to try to include all these options and balance them. It's not that Civ designers never tried before. Rather, they have yet to succeed beyond a certain point.


Yes, dh_epic, we agree on much. The question is how to model the concepts, to encode them... How to write good rules.

The "real AIs" vs "flavor AIs" may be on the right track, but I'm not sure it gets there. Civ3 AIs are all flavor AIs. They follow the cash, rather than their own self interests.


The problem with game rules is that three types have been tried:

* Reward the successful. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

* Penalize the successful. Anyone who starts to lead gets dragged down.

* Randomize the rules. Luck dictates your fate.


These all suck. :lol:

We need something else. :cool:


- Sirian

I believe that fundamentally all interactions between nations are competitions or conflicts of some kind. Unfortunately Civ only really simulates one kind, military. It completely neglects ideological, cultural, and especially economic conflict.

On Tribute:
SMAC was decent in this regard, especially since the enemy factions knew it was time to surrender. The current Civ AIs do not understand the concept of 'survival' very well. I do agree that control should be more about effective diplomacy and policy then just military strength. "The Pen is mightier then the Sword."

I believe that fundamentally all interactions between nations are competitions or conflicts of some kind.

I respect your belief, but even a simple bilateral trade agreement contradicts your view. "We're good at growing rice, you're better than we are at making shoes. Let's trade."

This model follows the core principles in dh_epic's Fisherman example. The art of negotiation may always include competitive aspects, but negotiations that break down will benefit no one, so if both sides will benefit from cooperation, there's a very good chance they'll come to agreeable terms.


- Sirian

I'm glad we're having a constructive discussion. I'm seeing where you're coming from Sirian, for sure. I think the whole "three approaches" is dead on.

Penalizing the successful sucks because you feel like you lose control.

Rewarding the successful sucks because you can run away with the game by the middle ages.

Complete randomization is no game at all. I know how realistic it can be in a football game to have random injuries, but when it is so powerful that it can ruin your game, it's very discouraging and frustrating. Makes a game not worth playing if in the end you lose because of something you had 5% control over.

Still, I think there are a few things they haven't tried, or haven't quite executed successfully:

1. Reward the unsuccessful with a "catchup" mechanism

Nothing too powerful, but maybe just an opportunity to turn things around. Ever play Mario Kart? Ever notice how if you end up lagging way behind, you always seem to get the Lightning Bolt or the Star? It's not enough to put you in first place, but it's enough to get you back into the heart of the race -- so you very seldom have people falling behind deliberately so they can get the lightning bolt.

I'd even be happy if they let the AI cheat. Not to give them a constant speed advantage at higher difficulty levels, but to give a couple of them "catch up" algorithms. This is what I mean when I distinguish between "flavor AI" and "strong AI". The strong AI would get the cheats that keep them from falling too far behind.

If you've ever played a racing game where you can lap the second place AI, you'll understand why a catch-up cheat algorithm is actually less frustrating then trying to find a constant speed for the AI that will make them not too powerful and not too weak.


2. Make the game into a series of dilemmas instead of "no brainer" choices.

In civ 3, if I told you 'I could speed up your expansion" you'd say "YES PLEASE". If I told you that I could get you a tech sooner, you'd say "YES PLEASE". If I told you that I could make your workers move and work efficiently without getting captured, you'd say "YES PLEASE". These are all no-brainer decisions that the player makes on a regular basis and that you could pretty quickly teach a monkey -- they are things you almost always do if given the chance.

What if expansion had a cost? What if discovering a military tech shaped your Civ's psyche in a way that it wasn't ready for socially, even though it made you a force to be reckoned with? What if you spent less time micromanaging, and more time deciding on that big vision -- be an economic powerhouse OR be a military powerhouse (emphasis on the "OR")?

Which is partially why I'm so into pulling strategies apart. Don't punish success, per se. But have different kinds of success come with respective prices. Pursuing that Artillery makes you a more dominating physical force, but centralizes power in the hands of a few, preventing a middle class from emerging, and keeping your economy slower.

These kinds of subtleties are what I've been trying to give examples of. Things you can slip into the game to force the player to make hard decisions, instead of the nobrainers. Civ 3 is kind of like a racing game where the questions you ask people are "hey, would you like to go faster?" The answer is always the same: yes.

To use another simple game as an analogy, think about Hearts (a card game). You want to get as few hearts as possible, because a heart counts against your score. But the exception is if you get all 13 hearts, in which case all the other players get 13 points against their score. What's great is the fact that you can't waffle and decide to change strategies -- the strategies interfere with one another.


Bringing me to the next question:

if the Mongols could demand tribute from everyone (which is a neat strategy that should be available) without conquering them -- sacking cities repeatedly and becoming immensely wealthy... then why were they only around for a couple centuries?

I'm no historian, so I don't have the answer. Although i think it had something to do with cultural assimilation.

As it should be in Civ 4: in demanding tribute from these other nations, they started to get various famous commodities. The Mongols became "civilized" and "cultured". Their people didn't want to go to war with China -- they regarded themselves as respectful equals of China, even cousins, and so the troops just lost that killer instinct. Some of their people even started to consider themselves citizens of the other more "civilized" Nations, and as such were assimilated.

That's one way that you can make it hard for the Mongols to run away with the game. Heaven knows if we think hard enough, we can come up with others -- better ones.

why were they only around for a couple centuries?

They dominated utterly for a couple of centuries and were a force to be reckoned with for a long time. Why did their empire fade? Why does any empire fade? Resistance grew. Balances of power shifted. Other cultures emerged not to absorb them, but effectively to oppose them. The Russians in particular had to bow down to the "Tatars" for quite a long time but eventually united and threw off the yoke, more or less.

A key reason that empires fail is when they are built on the strength of powerful leaders, who age and die and are not replaced. Are great leaders made or are they born? Perhaps a bit of both.

The democratic system, the "four freedoms" of FDR, with universal suffrage and widespread embrace of human rights... This culture seems to have the potential for greater longevity, but it has not been around long enough yet to be sure, and we'll both be dead before it has the chance. We can assume that it will, assume that it won't, or admit we don't know, but a case can be made for why this system has a chance by contrasting it with the reasons that tore down preceding systems and noting the absence of these problems from the current best options.


Civ is fun in large part because it leads us to ask these questions. "What if" history had gone differently?


Rewarding the unsuccessful with a catchup mechanism should not be necessary, in my view. Civ3 has "catch up mechanisms" left and right. I'm less than impressed with them.

* There's tech deflatation, for starters. Please note that tech deflation started out very strong but has been toned down again and again in patches. Some might be OK or even useful, but the net effect is that players end up abusing the option. The AIs will ALWAYS buy tech if they can afford it, almost always sell to anyone who can afford it. Thus the AIs will quickly buy in, unless one of them is just that far ahead, economically. Players are wise not to rush. Wait and let all the AIs who are strong enough buy in first, then buy in at a much lower cost. Best of all, if the AIs spread out a bit, where some are ahead and some behind, buy one tech from a leader (not a monopoly tech, but any tech known by 2+ civs) and then trade it to a civ who doesn't know it but who knows another tech player doesn't own, and so on and so forth, picking up several techs, maybe even lots of techs, on the cheap. EVEN WITHOUT THE N-FER TRADING, though, just buying in at deflated prices lets players have a MUCH weaker economy than the AI and still be in the game.

Why bother with that? Get rid of the catch up mechanisms and then players CAN'T compete with AIs who have Diety and Sid advantages. HOORAY, says me. We can have more normal looking gameplay, instead of "dig yourself out of absurdly deep holes" as the only viable challenge.

* AIs are coded to grow tired of war over time, without regard to whether they obtain objectives or not. Realistic? Arguable. All it really means is that savvy players can fight hopeless wars, but have the AI dance its forces around in circles for a while, while the player makes gains, and then player can have peace on his terms, when he wants it, and can make peace when it would be to his best advantage.

* Popping military leaders that can rush great wonders... they got rid of that in C3C, but it allowed players to neglect building and actually pull more wonders than those who built their own.

* Espionage (tech theft) can catch you up big time in the late game, but it's a pure dice roll. (Or, if you have a mind to bother, a reload-until-you-get-the-result-you-wanted absurdity).

* Corruption. The corruption effects place diminishing returns on additional territory controlled, meaning that civs who swallow lots more land don't grow proportionally stronger. This serves as a huge catch up mechanism.


Why worry about some civs falling too far behind? That makes them easy pickings? So what? As long as some AIs are strong, the game goes on. It's only when player can isolate and pick on the weakest target over and over, absorbing their lands and resources with impunity, that weak civs disrupt the game balance. Well, making them stronger won't fix that anyway. (Does it help in Civ3? No.) Something else is needed to fix that.

If the AI is given catchup advantages that players are not, that's one sorry AI. Overall, I think the Civ3 AI is rather strong, actually. It expands like nobody's business, builds more than enough units, fights a decent war. It does all these things on fair terms, where the only true cheat it has in place is the trading rate. AIs on high difficulty charge one another less for making trades, buying techs, etc. There is something important missing from the AI, though, and catchup mechanisms won't supply it.

The AI in Civ3 doesn't need catching up. It races way out ahead and then devolves into pointless wars ON WHICH IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THROUGH, thus squandering its strength. Players can choose targets wisely, have peace when they want it, have war when it's to their advantage, buy allies on the cheap, or conserve their strength and continue to grow while the AIs are wasting their lead in random attacks on one another. The AIs do not lack strength. They just don't know what to do with it!

Catch up mechanisms papered over a lot of things in Civ3, but they also break other things. I'm not wholly opposed to them -- in measured doses, they serve useful purposes -- but I don't see them as solutions.


- Sirian

I wanna add my 2 cents in this great discussion, maybe the best thread I've followed since ages.

dh_epic's fictional story about Romans, Mongols, Greeks, English and Chinese was very pleasant to read. It has that true feeling we can find out in many parts of History... Just to add on the Mongols : I think they didn't lose power like that, they just got various results in the different parts of the world they first conquered. Remember that people are the base of power... *hint* *hint* So in China for example, by the time Marco Polo arrived there, the Emperor was Kubilai Khan, one of Genghis's grandson. But he was just Emperor of the Chinese, while other members of the family ruled elsewhere (same goes for the split of Charlemagne's empire in 843). And of course Kubilai was not interested in taking over the world (though he would have done so if given the chance), but to unite China (get rid of resistance ?) and defend it against new threats. So after a few generations the Mongol Empire wasn't one anymore, because the motherland was too weak to compete with emerging Europe (gunpowder ?), and its "satellites" were melting its influence in the local cultures. And the Mongol culture wasn't a dominating one. The Khan was even kicked out of China at some point. Hard to model in a game, uh ? :crazyeye: (sorry if I'm wrong on a certain point)

I also wonder if Civ2's AI was better for competing againt human players. I can't compare well with Civ3 because :
- I was younger when I was playing Civ2 ;
- I didn't have the Internet (CFC, competitions...) back then ;
- I wasn't wondering on such questions ;
- I'd find it hard to play Civ2 again !! :lol:
But it looked that I had a harder time to beat the AI on Deity than with Civ3. In fact there was no problem to get a running empire, but the end of the game was sometimes intense. While in Civ3 it's usually the other way round : trying to catch the AIs first, and then slowly but SURELY get ahead of them and sit and wait for the victory to come. Maybe it's because the AI didn't change much whereas new features were added (culture, resources, and many things that were changed) ? And I liked the way AIs didn't want to sell a tech because they were starting on a wonder related to the tech. Lastly about Civ1&2, there were very tiny kingdoms (at least in Civ1 ?), like the Babylonians (!) that would never build a settler ; those civs were doomed, but actually, look at what the Greek city-states achieved : an immense culture while living on a tiny mountain land, and then Alex came from Macedon, and took half of the known world. Will this be possible in Civ too ?

Also, about military aspects : it seems that big wars really took the whole empire's resources, so that all the country was devoted to the war effort (but then, Civ3's war-time economy is a fake attempt to model this, it goes in the other way). I find it hard to build a real army in Civ3 and wage a huge war, but it rarely stops my development when I don't achieve my goals. We should be heavily penalized when we lose big wars, and we shouldn't get much bonus when we win a total war ; in fact, the losing foe should be defeated and lose much power (but still have the opportunity to fight back). All in all, a war shouldn't come to "we both have 2 apples, I defeat you and take your 2 apples" but "I defeat you, take you 1 apple, and the other apple was lost in that bloody mess". Civ3 somehow tries to reach that, but really not enough for my taste. When I go to war, I don't feel that epic feeling going on, unless I play an always-war game. But once again, the AI is to blame for part of it, I guess.

Civ2 was "harder" but it's not an impressive kind of hard. The AIs team up on the player, especially if player is the most powerful. Well, when is player NOT the most powerful? The Civ2 AI is anemic at expansion, so any strong player will almost invariably obtain more land and be the strongest civ in the game.

This is one of those "three approaches" I mentioned: the one where success is automatically penalized. In effect, it quite nearly turns EVERY game of Civ2 into an "always war" situation. :rolleyes: That's cool in terms of "making it harder", but to me at least, that grows old really fast. It's gamey, sorely predictable, and a bit too simple to be effective.

Civ3 goes the other way. The AI bends over backward not to gang up on anybody. The flow of cash dictates who allies with whom against whom, and player has a fair shot at that. Skilled and experienced players can turn this to advantage, and this can make the game "too easy" for some. But I consider that a step up from Civ2. In fact, it's the chief reason I gave Civ3 a try. I was SO tired of the old AIs-all-gang-up-on-me dynamic, that I had quit playing Civ altogether and never even bought Alpha Centauri.

The problem is, "never" ganging up is nearly as bad as always ganging up. And ganging up entirely at random is no good either.

See? We're back to the "three approaches". :sad: We need something new.


- Sirian

This is one of those "three approaches" I mentioned: the one where success is automatically penalized. In effect, it quite nearly turns EVERY game of Civ2 into an "always war" situation. :rolleyes: That's cool in terms of "making it harder", but to me at least, that grows old really fast. It's gamey, sorely predictable, and a bit too simple to be effective.
Yeah, I remember those games where every fundamentalist civ would ally against me, or how they said : "X and Y sign a pact against [me] to counter his massive agression !" or something similar. :lol: At least there was something to do in the Modern Age, there would be a huge world war to deal with (I remember building dozens and dozens of those howitzers as the real effective solution), or the space race would be very tight (never the case in Civ3), and/or nukes would fall like no tomorrow (making fighting against pollution as vital as breathing, making ferrying of troops a tricky nightmare, and BTW I have never seen a nuke in any of my Civ3 games). At least there was something, but was it better than in Civ3, was it good ? On the long term, no, like you said, but I somewhat miss a bit of that Civ2 aspect.

Money rules in Civ3, everything can be bought, and there are very few STOP signs (like an AI refusing to ally against another AI no matter what, but that is rare). Why does that damn AI want to give me Military Tradition for Music Theory and cash (example already used) ? Money really is the most perverting thing on Earth for sure !! :lol: Would the damn AI care to consider the amount of cash I get every turn ?

"We need something new." Any idea or not ? :scan: What about science not being the ultimate element to describe the development of civilisations ? Of course science IS the most important one (and today there is no question about it !), but it can't be the only aspect ? We could split Civ's old system of technology into pure science, practical science and social enhancement (Civ4's civics ??). And what about some discoveries triggering mini-golden ages for certain civs, as a limiting factor ? The player would always have to take care of something new ( ;) ) so that the game never becomes boring. Up to a debate to see if such additions would have to be pre-determined (and so known by the human player and the AI before being available) or be a random feature (like Gunpowder could give military bonuses to China in one game, and to France in another one).

Sorry a bit that i'm sidestepping to an earlier post, but I think it was so good that it needs commenting.

Folks, after about a year of livin' clean, I'm back on CIV3, weakness during these hot summer months. I broke down and bought C3C - it's pretty good, certainly plenty of interesting tweaks. But I'm finding it still doesn't satisfy certain cravings, that I hope will be dealt with in CIV 4. Here goes:

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Gameplay - As I think I once said, I usally either win, lose, or get bored by the middle ages - somehow we need more twists and turns in the game to keep it interesting longer. In 90% of my games, it's obvious where things are going by about 0 AD, and if I'm behind, there is no clear way to come back (obviously this is mainly at the higher levels, where we all know you are toast most of the time - but still).

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Gameplay II - I'd like there to be more real decision making - I find that way too much of my time is spent doing things that do not involve interesting choices. It's mostly pretty obvious what to do next, so it gets very mechanical - what build orders, tech orders come next, etc. I usually find it makes sense to build most everything possible (more or less) or at least use the same pattern for every city. And it usually makes sense to build nearly all possible techs, with only minor variations in the order from game to game, regardless of what civ I play. It seems to me that with CIV 2 I needed to put much more energy into considering alternative build/research strategy options - but maybe I was just younger and stupider then... Maybe there could at least be some differentiation interms of what city improvements/techs are available to different civs, or when they are?