Bring Illness and Disease to the Game

Dearsman23 · Jul 18, 2013

Disease, as it is in human history, holds high significance in the fall of great civilizations. Many technologies invented throughout the ages were made in response to stabilize historic outbreaks. Bubonic plague, typhoid, influenza, smallpox, AIDS, cancer etc. All unique to where, when, and how it wiped out numerous populations.

It would only be fitting to bring disease into the world of Civ. Countries can develop medicines, sell cures to other countries, use disease to their advantage, and perhaps - adjustable by difficulty - players will face tough challenges.

Would love feedback on this!

steveg700 · Jul 18, 2013

I would normally say nobody would want this, but I've recently seen an absurd amount of support for Kris swordsmen, so just goes to show people will embrace penalties as a feature.

wigwam · Jul 19, 2013

Through most of history, humanity had absolutely no understanding of or control over the spread of disease. We didn't know enough to use it as a weapon until the 18th century or so, and only in the 19th century did we begin to understand how to prevent it and control its spread; it was also only in the 19th century that we developed actual cures for any diseases.

So disease would either have to be grossly ahistorical, or completely out of the player's control for half the game—which doesn't sound much fun.

otaman1 · Jul 19, 2013

Europeans were trying to find a cure for the plague; that is, by praying. Lol i dunno

3335d · Jul 19, 2013

Dearsman23 said:
Disease, as it is in human history, holds high significance in the fall of great civilizations. Many technologies invented throughout the ages were made in response to stabilize historic outbreaks. Bubonic plague, typhoid, influenza, smallpox, AIDS, cancer etc. All unique to where, when, and how it wiped out numerous populations.

It would only be fitting to bring disease into the world of Civ. Countries can develop medicines, sell cures to other countries, use disease to their advantage, and perhaps - adjustable by difficulty - players will face tough challenges.

Would love feedback on this!

There is a mod for this.

orikos · Jul 20, 2013

I like the idea, diseases are important thing in a game that based on the history.

TheMightyRyon · Aug 30, 2013

Actually humanity used disease as a weapon way before the 18th century. Genghis Khan threw diseased bodies into the cities he was attacking to spread their disease. Although finer use of it as a weapon probably didn't happen until modern times.

DudewiththeFood · Aug 30, 2013

They had a city health system in Civ4. You lost health through factories, forges and population but gained it through each type of bonus resource connected to the city and from hospitals/aqueducts IIRC. When a city became unhealthy, unhappiness went up and each point of unhealthiness gave you one less food.

epicivfreak · Aug 30, 2013

...and there was disease implemented in Civ3 - which was quite unfun just in general, and if you were stupid enough to build in the right place (which the AI often was), could very well lead to you building a settler for the entire game because disease reduced your population every time it hit and you'd never have enough population to actually create the settler (back then, it cost population to build a settler unit).

Bring Illness and Disease to the Game

Dearsman23

Chieftain

steveg700

Deity

wigwam

Prince

otaman1

Prince

3335d

CCtP Player

orikos

Praetorian from Orikosia

TheMightyRyon

Chieftain

DudewiththeFood

King

epicivfreak

Prince

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