The nartural world is a harsh place. I like the idea of extending the boats being lost at sea.
Say you send some troops accross a big desert, then there should be a chance that they don't come back. Same with mountain ranges.
Obviously, this would only apply to early units, and once you got to a certain stage, it wouldn't cause a problem.
Also, the larger the region, the more likely. So, if it's one square of desert surrounded by plains, well, you're pretty safe. If you send some medival infantry into the middle of a huge desert, they'll probably die.
In the real world, it wasn't just the sea that hindered exploration.
This way, you could have a civilisation on one half of a continent with a huge mountain range across it, and there could be a rival civ on the other side, and you wouldn't know for ages, until you managed to send some explorers across (or sailed round the coast) and find a well developed civ on your doorstep.
Oh, and maybe change the ships a bit. So they can't operate out in the ocean indefinatly without risk of being lost at sea. (again, until a certain tech).
Would also lead to some exploration missions/wonders (somebody mentioned circumnavigating the world in the wonders thread). So, you could add travelling to the north/south pole (although, would have to redo the way the poles are treated to allow this). If your unit makes it there, and back to home land, then their home city gets a cultural boost or something.
On the whole, in the real world, civ's havn't had "wonder races" (expect for nukes and space race). But there was a large part or european history in which various countries raced for the pole's and what not. (If anybody knows the story of Shackleton, you'll know this was a very interesting time).
I wouldn't make it a big prize though, just an optional thing you can do. FOr a start, it would add a little excitment if your civ is largely peacefull.
Maybe have a small wonder which you can build (Royal Geographic Society or something) which allows you to mount exploration missions.
in civ 3, does the Explorer unit actually have a use?
Also, something like Africa/America would be a cool. This would simply involve tweaking the map generating engine a little. As it is, in every map I've seen, the civ's have been speard over a few continents, and there's rarely much unsettled land by the second half of the game.
So how about increasing the chance of a continent with no civ's starting on it being genereated. And if the maps a large one, it might take a bit of finding (and due to the randomness, it may be that there isn't a "new world" on the map you're playing, or that it turns up to have an advanced civ on it).
Then you'd have the "new world" with minor civ's on it (fancy barberians of some sort). Then you can exploit/destroy them the way the British Empire (and others) did for huge profits (that's how history has generall worked). But I'd have some negative side effect to this. I'm not sure what the best method would be.
Thoughts?
Say you send some troops accross a big desert, then there should be a chance that they don't come back. Same with mountain ranges.
Obviously, this would only apply to early units, and once you got to a certain stage, it wouldn't cause a problem.
Also, the larger the region, the more likely. So, if it's one square of desert surrounded by plains, well, you're pretty safe. If you send some medival infantry into the middle of a huge desert, they'll probably die.
In the real world, it wasn't just the sea that hindered exploration.
This way, you could have a civilisation on one half of a continent with a huge mountain range across it, and there could be a rival civ on the other side, and you wouldn't know for ages, until you managed to send some explorers across (or sailed round the coast) and find a well developed civ on your doorstep.
Oh, and maybe change the ships a bit. So they can't operate out in the ocean indefinatly without risk of being lost at sea. (again, until a certain tech).
Would also lead to some exploration missions/wonders (somebody mentioned circumnavigating the world in the wonders thread). So, you could add travelling to the north/south pole (although, would have to redo the way the poles are treated to allow this). If your unit makes it there, and back to home land, then their home city gets a cultural boost or something.
On the whole, in the real world, civ's havn't had "wonder races" (expect for nukes and space race). But there was a large part or european history in which various countries raced for the pole's and what not. (If anybody knows the story of Shackleton, you'll know this was a very interesting time).
I wouldn't make it a big prize though, just an optional thing you can do. FOr a start, it would add a little excitment if your civ is largely peacefull.
Maybe have a small wonder which you can build (Royal Geographic Society or something) which allows you to mount exploration missions.
in civ 3, does the Explorer unit actually have a use?
Also, something like Africa/America would be a cool. This would simply involve tweaking the map generating engine a little. As it is, in every map I've seen, the civ's have been speard over a few continents, and there's rarely much unsettled land by the second half of the game.
So how about increasing the chance of a continent with no civ's starting on it being genereated. And if the maps a large one, it might take a bit of finding (and due to the randomness, it may be that there isn't a "new world" on the map you're playing, or that it turns up to have an advanced civ on it).
Then you'd have the "new world" with minor civ's on it (fancy barberians of some sort). Then you can exploit/destroy them the way the British Empire (and others) did for huge profits (that's how history has generall worked). But I'd have some negative side effect to this. I'm not sure what the best method would be.
Thoughts?