my thoughts on Combat & more. please add / remove ideas ^^

definately need to enhance the space program part of this game.

something along the lines of launching spy sattelites into orbit that can give you a city view of cities

or even go further & create a space station scientific wonder

putting sattelites into orbit that could carry 6-8 missiles would also be great.

Launching satellites into orbit has to be commercial too, so that a poor city or one without the tech can buy or trade to get it from other nations.

more options for WMD, like chemical & biological weapons. these are important alternatives to nukes becuase you could have weapons that could wipe out stuff without destroying the city or landscape.

for example chemical weapons would have a 1 space range of effect inside the city & kill 25% of the population of a city each time it is used & have a high effect on mechanical units there.

biological weapons would have the effect of killing 15% of the population instantly & then 5% each turn for 3 turns, having a lighter effect on mechanical troops.

Missle ships, ships that can carry 4 cruise missles and have an attack bonus when using them to bombard other land/sea targets.

Jjust like we have armies, we need Fleets, especially for island wars these would be great !

more animation for the modern units, launching stuff should look cool & there should be several animations for the same thing to stop boredom.

i have many more but i cant think right now.

key points.

enhance modern warefare - people like to simulate the world they live in
enhance post modern warefare - people like to fantasize about the future
diplomacy - omg diplomacy , cold war, winning without fighting massive wars (would require heavy military, economic and perhaps cultural power to gain leverage & make other civs do things they wouldnt normally dream of doing)
commerce - be able to sell / rent / trade virtually your entire game from roads to your vice president.

Lets just say I disagree. One point in particular caught my attention.

diplomacy - omg diplomacy , cold war, winning without a heavy military

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The USA actually had the largest and most powerful military of any single nation in the cold war, and it was larger than anything ever seen before in history. The cold war was NOT about being without a heavy military. If you really want to simulate the world you live in, perhaps you should learn a little more about it?

ah yes your right, i changed it to say what i really mean.

I like to play the current world how it is. start off focusing on economy and later near the end game explore the different options available to a powerful nation. unfortunately, almost always the only fun option at this stage is declaring war. or you could go for a space victory or diplomatic which can be a bit boring. it's good if you want to beat your previous score though

Satellites with missles is not realistic. Originally the US feared that whenever USSR put Sputnik within orbit they would have orbital nuke platforms within 10 years. Research into the topic showed it was impractical to maintain a fleet of bomber satellites. Also, it would be easier to target them in the atmoshper, and radiation would reveal there location versus Earth based silos.

Yeah, I think there's a difference between "winning without a heavy military" and "winning without using your heavy military". Although I think both should be possible, the latter is definitely what the cold war is all about.

Actually we didn't fight Russia because we didn't want to, it would not have been profitable to be in a direct conflict. Both sides realized that and discovered they could accomplish much of the same thorugh proxy conflicts.

Well yeah, the means of the cold war was different. That's the point. Not as much emphasis on how you use your weapons -- although the arms race was still an important element.

A lot more proxy wars, economic warfare, and espionage. Three things that are missing from Civ 3, and thus renders the modern age pretty dull.

Imo, by the time you reach the modern era, your civ isn't necessarily representing one nation, but a tightly knit alliance with similar outlooks. As such, cold wars are really just the two civs being at war.

I've recently been replaying Master of Orion (v1), and I noticed one diplomatic level that no other game seems to have implemented.

Bush wars.

Yep, it is possible to be officially at peace, still trading, but have small fights that don't affect diplomatic relations, provided you don't go all out. That would be the way to implement a cold war.

How did Bush wars work in Master of Orion? That's definitely the essence of cold war -- a war that is waged through diplomacy, intelligence, and economics... along with secret wars in far off places through puppets.

On your first point, Bigbird, I think the whole 'space race' element of the game needs an overhaul. Instead of a 'one-off' trip to A/C determining space race victory, I would rather see a 'cumalative' space race victory, where civs can build and launch numerous space vessels. Some will be for sattelites, some will be to build a space station (which can be done cooperatively or alone), some will be for 'space exploration' and some will be for 'off-world' colonies. Each 'mission' will have a 'duration' and 'chance of success', both of which are determined by tech level, resources commited to the space race and the amount of relevent Earth based improvements/wonders you possess!
Each successful mission will grant you certain tangible in-game benefits (like improved wealth and productivity, access to new supplies of new and existing resources, new techs, increased research output etc), and will also add points towards your 'space race' victory. Each unsuccessful mission, though, will create unhappiness AND lose you points towards 'space race'!
Anyway, just a thought!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

As far as Cold Wars go, I think they become even more viable if you were to include minor civs (see the relevent threads). This way, you would have your minor powers who, though they might not be able to win the game on their own merit, could still swing the 'balance of power' to one major civ or another-thus making their support (or destruction ) critical!!
Imagine this scenario. Earlier in the game a major power (perhaps France?) conquered a minor civ and assimilated them into their nation. Later on, this minor power starts to feel a surge of nationalism and demands its independance. A second major power, desperate to erode the power of France, and keen to obtain future leverage with said minor power, starts to assist some of the minor power's cities-both financially, diplomatically and militarily! A THIRD major power, afraid that this might put Major power two in a 'winning' position-and also keen to keep major power one on side-starts sending its OWN military units to combat the 'civil war' currently breaking out within the territory of the minor power! What I have just described to you is the Vietnam conflict-from a Civ4 perspective! Now, how ELSE would we be able to simulate such a tumultuous time in history?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

dh_epic said:

How did Bush wars work in Master of Orion? That's definitely the essence of cold war -- a war that is waged through diplomacy, intelligence, and economics... along with secret wars in far off places through puppets.

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I'd love to point you to a download link, but forum rules forbid me from naming it. So let's summarise the original moo model instead.

There are a few levels of diplomatic relations: alliance (same as civ3), non-aggression pact, contact, war, and no contact.

As long as your relationship is alliance or non-aggression, you do not fight the other empire. Under an alliance, you are forced into a war with any empire that your ally is at war with. Only formal declarations of war are considered for this purpose.

When an ai civ is at war, it will attack you with all its got, going for the kill.

When an ai civ has conbtact with you, it will usually leave you alone. However, if it has no more expansion room, it may choose to chip away at your weaker colonies.

http://sirian.warpcore.org/moo1/index.html has some good reports of games, which go a long way toward explaining the moo model. Note that moo2 did not have these bush wars.

Under bush war rules, you could get away with attacking border worlds, fights in unclaimed territory, and any size of fleet action on your own territory. But push the bush war limits too far, and the ai would formally declare war on you. Continuing bush wars, if hot enough, could escalate into a full war too, as diplomatic relations decline. The cool aspect is that even though you might be fighting, you can still conduct trade with that empire under a bush war.

As for the bush wars feature, I think that could be encompassed by "colonies". Not colonies as these little squares to gather resource, but colonies in the way that India was a British Colony, or Brazil was a Portugese Colony (if I have my geography right). Why / how you'd have a colony and not actually conquer the territory as part of your main empire is a whole other discussion... but these could be the settings for many conflicts that don't otherwise result in the outbreak of an official war.

Aussie, the vietnam example is killer. I love it when you can come up with a simple model and show how an important sequence of historical events is played out. Not just in terms of what happens, but in terms of what the strategic thinking is behind each party. There's obviously a reason for France to give up on Vietnam as much as there is a strategy for other nations to try to leverage Vietnam towards their political ideology.