Realistic Approach Institute

[Kriku]

Dear All

It has been announced that Civ5 will be the most moddable Civ game ever. However, a number of unrealistic restrictions seems to apply to the gameplay and it is not clear whether or not they could be modded. There has been a number of highly realistic and enjoyable mods in the past. IMHO, the Vikings mod for Civ2 and the Revolution mod for Civ4 are both especially outstanding examples of excellence.

People who feel that historical realism is an important part of the Civ game are hereby invited to join the new Realistic Approach Institute social group. Modders are especially welcome. The purpose of the group is to discuss the ways to make gameplay more realistic and possibilities to model historical events in Civ.

I have been playing Civ games from the 1st version. I am a professional computer programmer and study history at university. I have tweaked past Civs for my own purposes but have not made any full-featured mods this far. However, if Civ5 really offers as good tools as promised, this will change.

All suggestions are welcome.

 

[rastak]

The very first change should be the leaders lifespan. This is beyond unrealistic. I would think over the course of a game you should go through 100 generations of leaders.


edit : Dynasties ala Crusader Kings being one part of this.

 

[Kriku]

The KOEI game Clan of The Gray Wolf had an interesting approach to this: the leader had to share his time between war, economy and private matters. If he spent too much time for the first two, he died without an offspring and the game was over.

In the Revolutions mod, coups were featured and you were forced to abdicate for 30 turns or so if you led your nation to poverty and despair.

 

[Kriku]

The group is here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/group.php?groupid=293

 

[GeoModder]

Realistic approach huh?
I suggest you go with a search for Persian, Koptic, and Imperial Mandarin voice actors for starters.

 

[AlpsStranger]

This is actually a good idea. We can have a solid virtual boardgame as the primary, default version of Civ5. Those of you who have values you hold higher than raw gameplay can create something more to your liking.

I am not being sarcastic in the slightest when I say this.

 

[rastak]

Crime needs to be factored into city management.
Supply and logistics are needed for miltary action.
Planet needs to die if too many nukes go off.
Land where nukes go off needs to be unusable for a long time.
Scale needs to be made WAY smaller for ranged weapons to make any sense.

Maps will need to be of a much smaller land area since they can't be made large enough for scale to make sense for archers.

 

[Kriku]

Well, I must admit that I cannot tell the difference between Imperial and Non-Imperial Mandarins

 

[GeoModder]

Me neither, but appearantly it sounds hilarious to perhaps a billion people.
Not that I expect many Chinese can speak imperial Mandarin at this day.

 

[Kriku]

Planet needs to die if too many nukes go off.

It is not dead yet in spite of a pile of nuclear weapons detonated in testing sites since 1945.

 

[Calouste]

The very first change should be the leaders lifespan. This is beyond unrealistic. I would think over the course of a game you should go through 100 generations of leaders.


edit : Dynasties ala Crusader Kings being one part of this.

Problems with that is that kings and princes married to women from other, foreign, royal families. Then someone dies without children and suddenly you have all kinds of remote relatives claiming the throne resulting in anarchy and a few wars.

Realistic, but in a strategy game the effect is that you might as well be rolling dice.

 

[rastak]

It is not dead yet in spite of a pile of nuclear weapons detonated in testing sites since 1945.

Yes, 1945 nukes are ok.....year 2000 nukes blow up planet. Good point. Not all Nukes are equal so that has to factored in to the realism mod. Nukes progressively get more powerful.

 

[whipflash]

Yes, 1945 nukes are ok.....year 2000 nukes blow up planet. Good point. Not all Nukes are equal so that has to factored in to the realism mod. Nukes progressively get more powerful.

To start with "mordern nukes" are prety much the same is 1970's but we have bigger bombs now MUCH bigger but those are not nukes... And if out planet can survive around 1000nukes, i think our planet can survive tactical nukes and big bombs. So to have bombs that effect our earth you better first add a new tech called "dooms day missil" which could end all life on earth and make everyone lose (Y)

Anyways what i would love to see is some sort of realism when it comes to empire management and warfare, like the system in cIV haveing spearmen killing horses, axemen killing swordsmen/spearmen, swordsmen raiding citys and so on. If a empire dont improve its economy each 10 turns (that would say that it dont make more gold from tiles/buildings) its starts to fail in economy and each 10turn makes you lose 1/2% of your otherwise normal gold output, and this event could be trigged by a tech like economics etc. I want internet in the game to have a HUGE part in the world developement kinda like everyone has to build a project called "the internet" and also every city has to build "internet station" or something like and it should make people happy, increas great people generation and culuture and tech per pop, and ofcourse its just a small bonus on each front so its not to op, but still huge citys should really benefit from this.

 

[rastak]

I'm thinking ICBMs with the biggest warhead available.

4 or 5 of those and none of us know for sure what would happen.

 

[Crustacean Soup]

Fusion bombs are still "nukes"; that term is way too imprecise

4 or 5 of the largest ICBM-loadable nukes wouldn't end us. One 50 Megaton bomb in 1961 didn't end us, and I'm pretty sure you still can't put a 50 megaton bomb on an ICBM. Use enough and you might throw enough stuff into the air to trigger a nuclear winter, though.

 

[rastak]

Fusion bombs are still "nukes"; that term is way too imprecise

4 or 5 of the largest ICBM-loadable nukes wouldn't end us. One 50 Megaton bomb in 1961 didn't end us, and I'm pretty sure you still can't put a 50 megaton bomb on an ICBM. Use enough and you might throw enough stuff into the air to trigger a nuclear winter, though.

The Russian bomb?

Yea, maybe ending the planet is extreme and is debateable.

I guess we'll need to account for size and delivery then and not have one size fits all nukes.

 

[Xen]

I am no modder, but I can contribute ideas to this project that i think will be well rounded, and representative of realistic developments in history.

 

[GeoModder]

I just read that the Russian R-36 (afaik the largest ICBM built) can 'only' carry an about 8 ton warhead to its target.

 

[Crustacean Soup]

Yeah, I do need to kinda take that back; another page says that one could theoretically carry a single 37.4 megaton nuclear warhead. It's still not the common case though, MIRVs are more usual. Still not exactly Earth-cracking in any case.

 

[rastak]

I just read that the Russian R-36 (afaik the largest ICBM built) can 'only' carry an about 8 ton warhead to its target.

I wonder if the mod should allow multiple launches of ICBMs. Realistically a nation might build up a stockpile and if they really wanted to take someone out they'd launch a bunch at once. The mod will need to differentiate between super powers and smaller nations. I guess if you are kicking ass you're likely a superpower and can launch a bunch at once if you have them.