A call for mechanisms to balance game play

For example have every city past the 6th one cost 1 gold per turn to maintain and have it scale up so if you have 12 cities have the maintence increase to 2, at 18 cities increase to 3, etc.

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First WELCOME Tamman and enjoy the forums, I think that since paying maintainance for city improvements did not address that a more drastic measure is needed in this direction.

There just needs to be more consistently interesting gameplay in civ besides the addictive quality of "okay, I've already won... but now I wanna see if I can kill EVERYONE." or "I've already won, but man, I'm this close to discovering industrialization". If the game is going to last long, then so should the gameplay -- if you catch my subtle distinction.

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I catch the distinction and I recap: if you have say plague and civil war and Armageddon, and religious schisms and an improved AI and this does not stop you before the Middle ages.... then I wouldn't like to play against you...

Great ideas guys and gals.

I relise what you are all talking about and this problem has to be adressed. What about rather than weakening the straong civs stengthening the weaker ones. With a good harvest for example where for a certain number of turns all food production in lesser civs increases. OR when a certain tech gap appears the weak civ could get a different tech tree that would give them massive extras while on that tree. They still have the first tree but spend otehr money on the second one. Basically like a defector from the big civ sells techs to the weaker ones. Experts from a weak civ could find a way to find more resources and then get a huge set of resources appear.

A civil war is a good idea but instead of half of the empire challenging your leadership a city could disband itself and become a huge force of people go rampage in your terriotory attacking your cities. This would only happen in big civs and every city captured would then add to a new civ.

Although the previous idea, which I might add I haven't explained or thought about it very well, would weaken the civ it would be a bit unfair IMO

When a civ is so far behind that it has no change of catching up. It should die out and be replaced by a new one. This new civ should get an advantage that makes it possible to get a quick rise to power. That would bring back the balance in the game. It is a more realistic solution. Just as happened over time in history, civs come and go. There are only few civ's that survived the test of time.

Tamman, that sounds a lot like the current corruption scheme. Even with that he who is ahead stays ahead. Maybe the computer should just give up once it realizes that it doesn't have a hope on winning.

I suggested this in a thread that is now on the second to last page:

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Edit: This note is needed for clarification and to answer some criticisms that the subsequent parts of the thread had already addressed.

Note: This was the original idea but has been modified. Posts 26, 28 and 41 are needed reading in order to understand some of the changes, especially that the breakup of a civ would be completely under the control of the owning player (he need not change governments, he simply has a really good incentive to do so).

What about having civilizations that break up at certain key times? For example, let' suppose you take the Northern Europeans. After you obtain some critical reasearch (like Monarchy or Republic) your empire breaks up and you get to keep a certain number of your original cities (think Roman Empire collapsing). Now, perhaps, you are the Vikings. At some new point, your civ has been blown away by another Northern European civ. You automatically take that civ. Or, you could try to regain your empire back, one country at a time.

When an entirely different civilization tries to muscle in on your broken one (i.e. the Northern Asians--Tartars) the Europeans may or may not band together in an alliance to defeat the newcomers, depending on your score when you broke apart and on how you have behaved since.

Now comes the real litmus test of civ building. Suppose you don't want your civ (think China) to break up. You could forego the advances that break up the civilization, but you would take massive hits in research and the corruption could be far too prohibitive to allow an easy takeover of the game map. Additionally, civil wars could also limit the empire-expansion minded individuals. Thus you could get some things that resemble real events (like the fact that China was a world leader in research until about 500 to 1000 AD when it sort of stagnated).

Also, how about making cities work the tiles that they are on as a micro-screen and simply affecting the tiles near them if controlled? This would allow for more cities in close proximity (like in Europe and the Eastern U.S.) and have each tile have plusses and minusses to being created there. One of the problems that I have had with each of the Civ versions is that I have never seen a world map where Boston, New York, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond could even be placed on the map at their locations. Tiles should have the ability to have multiple citizens working the same tile. Obviously, this would not work well with food, so you have to have farm country to feed those factory workers. Some spots could be more lucrative for shields and allow 8 or more workers while others allow only one. This would get the city sprawl set more to the way things have actually gone in our world.

Finally, I think that laborers should be able to build anything, not just city improvements. It is not just the loggers and miners who are producing those tanks. There are a lot of workers in those factories. Employment should be a bigger part of the whole Civ scene.

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Working with this, I believe this system is still one of the best ways to prevent the power curve problem stated at the beginning of this thread.

Explanation: When a civ finally researches a better governmental system, the people would be assumed to have become tired of the old leadership. This leads to massive civil wars and a breakup of the society into smaller units.

These countries will probably be bickering amongst each other perpetually unless an outside force tries to take them all out (such as the Tartar invasion posed above). For gameplay purposes, what would happen when you choose to switch governments is that not all cities would switch with you (unless, of course you did not have all that many to begin with). The other cities would form nations in some fashion yet to be determined.

However, if you choose to stay in despotism rather than switch, trying to obtain techs in the Middle Ages and beyond would become a real nightmare. I would suggest that the early MA techs would be twice as expensive and get progressively harder to obtain. By the time the industrial age kicked in, the techs might become 6 to 10 times more difficult for your researchers to get. Furthermore, the AI (and other players) would be made aware of just how expensive those techs are to you and will not trade them for significantly less (human players might, but that's their problem).

Now, for those progressive cultures, new techs will be coming at an easier pace, however, the civs either had to be small to begin with or they will be split into two or more factions, all with the same techs.

How does this break the 'run-away' curve? Because, once your civ has broken into two factions, there is automatically a civ with the same number of techs that you have. Not only that, but that civ would be right on your doorstep!

Answer to the claim that change of government should not trigger this: WE ARE CHANGING GOVERNMENTS! Not everybody is going to be happy with the new people in charge!

Reason for the higher expense of techs for backward governments: Government is an institution. IIRC from my Sociology Class (and I do recall correctly) all institutions resist change. More advanced technology = change. Thus, the naysayers will gain in power in governments that are backward!

How I see this playing out is:

You start as Northern Europe. You place settlements (for kicks and grins let's say you start on an Earth map in Northern Europe) all over Scandinavia, Germany, half of France, the northern Balkans, some of Russia, Poland, and late in the AA, you settle the British Isles. You get to the MA and you are happy with your empire, but you note with alarm that the Mesopotamian guy has broken his empire and has already gotten Chivalry. You have Feudalism, but chivalry is going to cost you about 48 turns to research at your fastest (since it is a tech that is more associated with advanced government which you have not enacted). If you choose to stay in despotism, you might try to take out the Middle East region. Trying this, you note with great consternation that the nations of Messopotamia ally against you and the savvy Messopotamian player (who is now Arabia) has used this to his advantage to hold you to a standstill while he gobbles up his allies in a mechanism that allows such allies to join into one nation.

Now the Arabs are more powerful than you because they have knights, are starting research on education and later astronomy and you still haven't got Chivalry. Fearing a major tech gap, you try to buy some techs off of the Arab civ. They want 1/3 of your cities, all your cash on hand and 1/2 the money you could produce per turn! After all, that's only fair, that's how much the tech is going to cost you!

You finally give in and switch governments. You do not, repeat do not, have a period of anarchy because the anarchy that ensues is that your empire will split into a certain number of factions. In this case, let's assume that you get France, Germany, Britain (sorry no Scottland or Ireland, I'm not trying to be mean, just gameplay savvy), Poland, Austria-Hungary, Scandinavia and Italy. For safety sake you take Britain which just happens to have two cities in France (you chose maybe 6 cities to keep and those were the ones you chose).

Continued on next post.

so far exciting... where is the next post?
do I have to stay up all night(in europe)?

Continued.

The Arab guy broke up his empire when he got feudalism (in short the Arabs are now feudalistic government). You break up during feudalism as well (I am saving Republic and Monarchy for later). You start researching like mad. Since you are in Feudalism, you can research Chivalry fairly easily. Of course, you now only have 6 cities when you used to have, maybe, 30 but that's ok, because many of the outliers could not contribute significantly due to distance from your capital. Additionally, since you used to be in despotism, many of the techs were getting way too expensive to research in that form of government.

After Chivalry you get Monarchy (the real kind, not the Civ2/Civ3 kind). Monarchy is also fairly easy to research because it is a natural flow from feudalism. You still have the same 6 cities, although you are also bothered by occasional skirmishes from those pesky French who seem to want you to be off the mainland. Meanwhile, you note that the Arabs have taken northern Africa and the Iberian Penninsula. You are sending troops to the mountains just at your southern border to prevent any further advance by them and they are otherwise engaged in a major war with the pesky Turks (who never joined them during your abortive previous war).

You switch to Monarchy and, as it turns out, since you don't have all that many cities, the transition goes smoothly (i.e. your civ stays together). You start researching Astronomy and you send emmisaries to the Chinese player. You note that he seems to have had it easy as his only real threat was India which did not attack him as it had its hands full with the Messopotamian/Arab player. China has not switched governments from despotism, deciding instead to take advantage of his peaceful situation and put all his money into research, leaving most of his military to remain ancient.

The Chinese guy has taken the time to get the tech Gunpowder, but does not have Monarchy, Education, Astronomy, Monotheism or Theology. You have all of the above and go to your Trade, Foreign, or Scientific advisor and discover that Monarchy would take the Chinese guy 45 turns. Education would take 55, Astronomy is unattainable without Education, Monotheism would take 35 turns, Theology is unattainable without Monotheism. You could research gunpowder in 40 turns (at a greatly lesser cost than the Chinese who have 27 cities in despotism). You decide to make an offer to the Chinese: Gunpowder for either Monarchy or Education and silks. The Chinese guy decides that he still likes his empire so he takes the offer of Education (allowing him to build universities) and gives you Gunpowder and silks.

The silk trade requires that you go through the Arab territory so the Arab guy has because he gets lots of money from the transaction. He uses the money to finish off the evil Turks and re-establish his dominance over the remainder of his former empire. However, he is still in Feudalism because a switch, when he has 25 cities, is going to break up his empire. Now we are coming to the mid to late Middle Ages.

You have gunpowder so you head out to metallurgy, which would allow you to ignore the effects of the Chinese wonder The Great Wall (it should not be the Chinese discovery of metallurgy, it should be the attacking power). You then get Military tradition and have, during this time, discovered that trying to take out France is going to be all but impossible because the evil Itallians and Austrians keep allying against you each time you try to make a major push on the French. Meanwhile, the stupid Germans and Vikings keep on raiding your silk caravans (i.e. you should be getting 12 happy smiles from the Chinese but keep getting a message that pirates, believed to come from Germany and Scandinavia have taken 6 of them). You finally make peace with the French, Itallians, Arabs, and Austrians and declare war on Scandinavia.

It turns out that the Vikings had not reasearched Monarchy and are pretty backwards. You invade with your Redcoats (i.e. musket infantry) and dragoons (in place of where cavalry currently are). You make mincemeat out of the Viking longships (read galleys) with your Caravels (which, due to your discovery of metallurgy, have a fairly decent bombard capability) and land your army on Norway. You capture Norway, Sweden, Finland and part of Russia (that was controlled by the Scandinavian Computer player). Poland took advantage of the disarray and captured Denmark and the Viking Civ is gone. Germany and Austria are busy in the Balkans trying to keep the Arab player from advancing too far. They are having a hard time of it because, even though they also have gunpowder, the Arab empire is kind of large and those pesky Medieval Infantry and Knights (or whatever Arab equivalent) are weaker than musket infantry, but not so much so that they can't do some major damage.

Later, the Scandinavian cities start a revolution (i.e. civil war) and due to their joining their forces with the Poles, you just let them go, with a warning to be 'nice'.

You finally get the tech Navigation and send one of your caravels west (to see what you can see). Granted, since this is a world map, you pretty much know that you are going to find a whole new continent, but we're just making suppositions here. On a random map, if you only covered 1/3 of the world so far, you would probably expect there was at least one more continent out there.

Your caravel reaches the North American continent and you find very primitive people living here. The Iroquois have really not developed well because they, the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas have been fighting wars for the entire game. They have reached the tech Monarchy, but not Chivalry and they are all still in despotism.

You find that for some very minor techs (to you at this time) you can trade the Iroquois for 1/3 of North America! You do this, and BAM! you are now the most powerful nation in the world. You went from 6 cities to 15 in a single shot!. Due to your advanced government the cities all the way across the Atlantic still give about 75% of production and money to your coffers. You immediately start building them up with libraries, banks, cathedrals, etc. Since these cities were sold to you, their marketplaces, temples and harbors remain intact. All of the people start out as Iroquois but over time, they will switch to British.

Heading toward the very late middle ages you notice that you will have a very hard time researching Democracy because you never researched City States early in the game. You are not allowed to go back for that tech because you needed it before you switched ages. You could research Republic, but doing so will automatically make all cities over 12 rebel and begin their own republics. You decide that you don't want to hurt your future like you did at the end of the AA so you go for Republic (which takes you 24 turns, it would have been 12 if you had ever been in City States). By this time you have set up a pretty good army to recapture the three cities you know you will lose to Republic. When those cities rebel, they immediately make an alliance with all of the American civilizations (the cities are located in the Florida/Georgia/Alabama region) and you have a major fight on your hands. Meanwhile, the pesky French and Itallians have now also reached the Americas and start trading techs to the Aztecs and Mayans for their share of the Americas. You expected to be fighting guys with balls and chains and instead you are now coming up against musketmen! You have to sue for peace and let those extra cities go.

Meanwhile, back in the Balkans, the Austrians, Polish and Germans have joined into a single entity in order to try to better hold back the Arabs. They now have a fairly large size empire and could rival your British if you don't keep them fighting the Arabs. If the Arabs decide to switch to Monarchy or Republic in order to get the faster tech rates, their empire will collapse into civs with size 6 or so.

If you decide to research Democracy, you will not get the automatic break-up penalty (that is all cities over 12 defect) since you already researched Republic. However, if you decide to switch your government into Republic or Democracy, you will get the empire-breaking which will allow you to choose 6 (or whatever) cities and the other cities will split into groups of 6 or so also. Democracy is looking pretty good since the Industrial Age techs are very expensive in Monarchy or Republic. Thus you need to be in either Democracy or some other advanced government (maybe include Constitutional Monarchy, Fascism, Communism in the 'modern' governments).

I could continue this description but I think that my point is made. This system would absolutely eliminate dominance by a player out in front in the early stages. The player would have to create carbon copies of himself in order to advance quickly, since change of governmental systems would be not only lucrative but almost crucial to advancing. Change of government would create new civs (unless someone was playing One City Challenge or 5 City Challenge) that had the same techs and the civ that spawned them!

The biggest problem that I see with the system is the victory points. My suggestion would be, give each of the new nations the same victory points as well.

I like that idea of having government changing be more far reaching. government change often went with a revolution or a civil war.
Sweet dreams

One of the really good parts of this system is that much of the system is based on the idea that the splinter civs still retain affiliation with thier 'brothers'. Thus, if instead of you taking out the Vikings, the opposite happened, then you would have the option of taking up the mantle as the Viking player. Since the Vikings are a Northern European creation (in the above example) they are played either by the Northern European player or by the Computer. Thus, in Multi-Player, if you lose your civ but have been splintered along the way, any other civs that spawned from your civ are playable.

In single player the same is true also, however, the computer will not (for obvious reasons) be worrying about playing a different civ from the Messopotamian player (assuming that Messopotamia was a comp. civ to begin with).

This would also give a much better feel to the development of a modern civilization. Instead of always being the Americans, you started as Northern Europeans. You went from NE to England, to America. On the way, you had spurts and jumps, just as civilizations did throughout history.

You could probably come out with a way to beat this system every time, but, IMHO, you would be much harder pressed to do so because of the splits occurring during government change and because of the need for governmental change in order to advance quickly in technology.

One of the other problems that I foresee with my suggestion is what to do with smaller maps. Obviously, the system would work best on huge Civ3 maps. However, the map size could determine the number of cities that would be retained by a player when his empire broke up.

Another one of the points I failed to mention was that the empire would be broken up based on population. In other words, the number of cities would determine IF you broke up, but the amount of your civilization that you get to keep would be dependent on the population of the cities. This would be necessary in order to prevent someone from starving his population down in all but the cities he decided to keep and then conquoring the other cities since they would be too weak to defend themselves.

The idea is excellent-as all your ideas (respect)-
Two points:
when you decide to "split" your empire you get also a choice of which splinter you will play with?
If you reach the same point again in alater age the process can be repeated?
Does that leave conquest and domination as victory options?
I think we should lobby firaxis hard on this idea...

Ok, as for conquest and domination. After you get to a "Modern Government" you will no longer be splitting your empire (unless you happen to be masochistic and like switching governments a lot). You will probably (not definately, though) have some rivals who have the same techs as you when you switch into your final government. These nations should be able to form alliances that will squelch you if you move too far too fast. Not only that, but a nation that is about to go under, could trade lots of techs to his neighbors for some quick help in a war against you! Even if you manage to kill off those pesky French, the Arabs might have sent half their army to the French in return for all the French techs! Now the Arabs are a threat to you.

'If you reach the same point again in a later age the process can be repeated?'

Yes. In my above example, if, during feudalism you had taken out the French cities (let's say 5 of them) and then switched to Monarchy, you would have lost all of your gains since your size limit was about 6 cities. If you switch to Democracy or Constitutional Monarchy (assuming that these are both 'modern governments') while you have your 12 cities (at the end of the example), you will have a revolution that splits your empire in half. You might choose the 6 European cities (not my idea of smart!) or you might choose to start the new country USA and take the 6 cities in America (that used to be Iroquois). Probably you would take the American cities because: 1. The Iroquois did not have Engineering and so they are unlikely to have used up all of the forest shield bonuses. 2. Your European competitors (that you set up, btw, when you splintered your first time) are powerful and most of their power is concentrated in Europe. 3. You got the most lucrative sites in America (before the French and Itallians got there) so if the French and/or Itallians break into parts due to switching governments (which is likely) they will be unlikely to take cities in the Americas. Thus, they will be unlikely to build up any of these cities to a great degree. 4. Your American neighbors, in spite of getting some pretty good techs from the French and Itallians, are still not nearly as dangerous as the European nations, especially the German/Polish/Austrian alliance--which is now ONE nation (until it switches governments and breaks up). 5. For individual tastes, you happen to have come from the United States and would like to set up the 'real' country.

You always will decide which group you want to take, however, you must--to the best of your ability--take contiguous cities. You start off by choosing your capital (which automatically gets a palace) and then click on the cities you want to add until you have reached your population maximum. The computer will then ask you "Are you sure these are the cities you wish to keep?" If you say yes, then the rest are split up by the computer and assigned civ names in keeping with the Capital city that spawned them. Thus, if Bremen and Berlin were both new capitals one would be Germany and the other would be something else (maybe Prussia or Westphalia).

You would get to name your new civ before the others got named, and it could remain what it started out as.

...and the number of cities or max pop is determined by the size of the map and can be altered in the Civ4 editor, right?
BTW I think you should put it in a whole new thread to get the proper attention...
so far I find it perfect...

I did put it in a whole new thread, it's on the second to last page. That let's you know how much attention it got.

I GARBArSARDAR Jr with a variety of devious methods :devil2: will see that this wont be the case from now on
(i will even make a poll with pregnant chads)

Anyways: In case someone wants to know what happens to the fledgling USA. The Brits research Democracy and switch Governments. The player takes the 6 cities on the East Coast of N. America. By having added all those libraries, cathedrals, etc. the savvy player gets huge culture bonuses and since he is in Democracy, the culture bonuses are even better at switching those primitive Iroquois and Aztecs. Cities start flocking to the USA player, who also happens to be creating lots of settlers and using culture creep as a major tool. Whenever the Iroquois player (played by comp) tries to combat this by declaring war, the USA gets to conduct the war with no war weariness because the Iroquois invaded! (I believe that WW should not occur if the nation is technically defending itself. Thus war weariness should only start or continue when the democracy forces are busy taking out the enemy cities, not when defending their own cities).

The Iroquois are eventually wiped out. The French take a bunch of Aztec cities, but when they switch to democracy the American cities owned by the French split into Mexico and Central America. The Itallians decide to keep Monarchy and don't switch their government.

The USA player takes his civ all the way to San Francisco and also happens to get about 1/3 of Canada because the (now computer) English player kind of bumbled that part of its expansion. The USA takes advantage of the English war with the Chinese and buys Alaska from the Chinese for some quick cash and whatever tech is necessary for riflemen. The English are pissed at the Americans but can't do much about this because they are involved in some nasty European politics.

The Arabs realize too late that they really should have switched governments. They got gunpowder late (thinking to try for other techs instead) and nobody would sell it to them. They took half of Africa before the Indians (from India) started to cause them some really big problems. The elephants kept on making lots of pikemen's widows very sad by sending home squashed husbands.

The USA researches through the Industrial Age at a feverish pace, all the while taking as much land by culture creep as he can safely get away with. Eventually, the USA player decides to risk War Weariness and invades the Central Americans and the Hawaians at the same time. He pulls off a major coup and the other nations that could have threatened this move are caught off guard. In just 3 turns he consolidates his gains and retains Honolulu and Hilo (from the backward Polynesian player) and Panama (his only real objective in Central America) and Bogota from the Central Americans. Since his preemptive war was short and sweet he gets away with it. Now he has a canal for his ships to get from the east coast to the west coast and he has some Pacific Ocean bases.

The English player (as previously mentioned) sent some more techs to the Iroquois in exchange for some cities in Canada. The Brits set up some cities in Northern Canada, Greenland, and Iceland. They are not very prosperous or industrious, but they're home. The English fight a war with China (who now have riflemen) and force the Chinese to pay gpt for a peaceful solution and also get Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok. The Chinese player has finally learned that despotism sucks and switches to communism (one of the techs that he got from the USA). The empire splits into 3 or 4 factions who fight like hell until one of them comes out victorious. Maybe the pesky USA player will make an alliance with one of the factions, preserving it as Formosa. Maybe also, another faction becomes the Japanese, who, instead of choosing Communism, choose fascism (that they get from the German player, who is now German again due to the split of the German/Austrian/Polish alliance when it switched governments).

This leads us up to WWII and the modern age.

Any takers?

definitely,,,,....

Sorry to keep adding to this, but since the thread was asking how does this keep one civ from dominating too early.

The situation is: USA is fairly powerful. England (including overseas possessions in N. America, Greenland, and Asia) is nearly as powerful.

The Germans could become powerful, especially if they can beat up those pesky Polish (who control a large portion of Russia).

The Arabs split up their empire and create multiple factions including the Turks, North Africans, Persians and Arabs.

The Germans, Austrians, Japanese, Turks and Itallians form an alliance to beat the crap out of the rest of the world. The Itallians are the least advanced but hold much of South America.

The Japanese start out by invading Manchuria. The USA and English players threaten war (in a modern diplomatic screen) but find that the other nations listed above will automatically support the Japanese (in effect they have a MPP) if anyone tries to stop them (other than the Chinese of course). Note: MPP's should not, repeat not, protect a player from his own invasion. If the Chinese completely conquor the Japanese, the MPP should not activate since the Japanese are the ones who declared war!

The Japanese are doing pretty well against the Chinese, so the English and USA players sign an embargo against the Japanese. Since the English, USA, Germans, Austrians, French, Itallians, and Indians have purchased all the oil available (the USA purchased extra in order to deny it to its enemies) the Japanese are now without this critical resource.

The Germans threaten to declare war on the French. The English say that they will defend the French if such a move is made. This starts WWII in Europe. The Itallians come in on the side of the Germans, but because they are so far behind in techs, they can't really do much. The Japanese demand an end to the English and USA embargo and when those countries refuse the Japanese attack.

Since USA is already allied with England against the Japanese, they also declare war on Germany.

The following are possibilities: The USA and English players could combine (they came from the same initial civ). The USA and Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Italy any combination, could combine. Even though Germany and Turkey are allies, they can not combine (since Turkey came from the Messopotamian civilization). Turk cities could go over to Germany due to culture creep, but the civs can not combine.

The Chinese and Japanese could combine, but India and China (even if they are both at war with Japan for 250 turns!) can not combine.

If the USA loses the war, the human player would have the option of playing England. If England loses also then he may play any of the other civs that he started. He would have to choose England first since that was the last civilization spawn that he created (other than USA).

If the USA player did not pick up those three cities that broke off when he researched Republic, then the order of control would be first England (which was still controlled by the player after the 3 cities left), then the Confederacy, then any of the other Northern European Spawns.

Of course, anywhere along the way, the human player could decide that he was tired of being beaten up by the computer and could state that the game was over and get his place on the Wall of Shame list.

On the other hand, if the USA player is wildly successful and manages to get England to join him. He just might wipe out all of his enemies and end up with a vastly powerful empire that races to the space race, controlling Australia (from the English), southern Asia (also from the English), most of N. America (from the USA, England and the purchase from China), much of S. America (by invading during the war with Italy), parts of France (which lost cities early in the war and then withdrew so the USA/England player didn't give them back), Japan, and parts of China. He might even have Germany, Poland and much of Russia as well.

The point is, that this occurs very late in the game (not very early) and would only happen once in a great while (usually the comp. player will not join the human player unless the two need the coordination in order to fight off some fierce enemies). Also, if the English don't join the USA then the two of them will race each other in the space race (in a nice peaceful manner, no doubt--NOT).

good point about MPP's too...
question: how are commodities traded(?), you mention about buying the available oil
I ask that because i think there is another thread(By Aussie?) that could lead to an interesting combination...

It was my and Aussie's opinion that one should be able to buy up commodities whether you use them or not. In addition, we believe that luxuries should give a number of happy faces (which could either be distributed automatically by the governors or done manually by the player). Thus, you might have a source of silks that gives 12 happy faces (maybe the quantity would change based on the era or some sort of tech). If you have 12 cities, the governor would default to giving one happy face to each city. If you wanted to, though, you could go put them all in one city.

We also believe that a route should have to be established. If that route goes through another civ (example would be Middle East silk route) then that civ should get money for allowing the trade to travel through its borders. An additional way for the civ to make money (even more actually) would be if that civ had contact with the one that had silks and the other civ did not. Thus, Civ A wants silks. Civ B is between Civ A and Civ C. Civ C has silks and wants furs which Civ A happens to have.

If Civ A and Civ C have contact, then they must negotiate a deal with Civ B whose land must be crossed for this trade to occur. If A and C do not have contact, then B could buy up both commodities and sell them (presumably at much higher cost) to the respective Civilizations.

Trade_Perror and Aussie have been trying to hash out new economic theories and agree on some points and disagree on others. I am not an economist by trade (I am what my profile states) but I think I have some idea as to what their basic ideas are. How the specifics would work is still unclear to me.