TechnoCiv

vicawoo

Chieftain
Joined
Feb 12, 2007
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A few ideas to take Civ to the 20th Century!

Web applications have become increasingly sophisticated and powerful since civ 4 came out. Here's a few ideas to empower the civ4 user and make information more accessible.

Make the reference charts accessible on the web
I for one would love to be able to check the leader personality charts via web-browser while playing. I hate having to load up my open office or even worse, download the chart while playing. The solution? Google documents allows us to check spreadsheets online and allows public edits from selected users. I'm trying out the BTS leader reference at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rL7h4PTsm0gYhA7f9mRUSXQ, although I'd prefer a site owned account.
I checked further and there is an alternative called zoho which also enables spreadsheet macros.
I plan on testing out their functionality and seeing if the macros could be imported directly.

Selectable leader reference
Predicting AI is one of the major steps to becoming a great civ player. 3rd party applications have helped level the playing fields, so once again I turn to the BTS leader references. Combining knowledge with accessibility once again, imagine access to the following.
You're playing with sitting bull, ragnar, isabella, and gilgamesh on your continent. You select them all from an interface. Click diplomacy tab, you have find favorite civics, refuse demand penalties, peaceweights. Click war, you find declaring threshholds, unit build probabilities, sneak attack odds.
How would you do it? If google documents has an api that allows database style access to spreadsheets, it should basically be the same as pulling tables from a mysql database and presenting it in a new window. Otherwise, spreadsheet macros should allow you to create a new tab.

Twitter
Ah, one of the least innovative web applications I've ever seen. Yet somehow the ability to make and read short posts and updates has caught fire. One reason is that twitter can be easily integrated into facebook and other applications and is also accessible from blackberries and pc's alike. It capitalizes on the idea of social networking and can communicate a surprising amount of information in short messages.
Enter the common vbulletin forum structure, which compared to facebook has evolved as much as prehistoric crocodilies. Forums are start off with blog/article-esque entries, but often responses are compact, the might I say like a tweet?
Add in the fact that a highly disproportionate number of posts are made by the most active posters, and the possibilities of a user-centric, response based application becomes evident.
I'm testing it out by creating a sample application www.twitter.com/davemcw, named The Unofficial Davemcw Tracker, and I might test and create an RPC or series twitter follower. That's right, you'll be able to check up on civ even away from your computer, at the expense of your family and friends.

Simplify Series Creation
Strategy forum threads boil down to 4 subjects. Question threads, Series threads, strategy/mechanics articles, and help me (with this game). While question and help me threads will always exist and are proportional to the popularity of the game, Series' have been the glue that has kept people engaged.
However, series have always taken some effort to get started, and help me with my games at that. So why not make it as easy as possible?
A few easily implementable suggestions
A. A series tag for threads. Series should be sortable and have automatic enumeration, editable of course.
B. A post screenshot button. Select hosting service drop down, field to select file. Either that uploads it and returns the appropriate img file tag, or less elegantly opens a new window that takes you to login, hopefully to the upload page with the form pre-filled in. The whole having to login, upload, copy paste screenshots is miles from web 2.0 accessibility. Flickr supposedly has a good API, and photobucket recently made it's api public, so there is some promise
C. A starting form. Includes introduction and rules text block, autosave-4000 field, start screenshot, leader import form (select a leader, pastes code for picture of leader, unique unit, unique building). In theory you could read the leader and civilization from the save, then autoselect images uploaded to the website. I'm not familiar with manipulating the save data, but in theory you could get the settings as well, leaving the series creator only having to write their introduction ditty, rules, and other comments.

Help me with my game form
Pretty much a simplified version of the series creator. Autosave 4000 BC, save, and use that hypothetical screenshot API.

Wiki-style Civilopedia/custom search
If I want to check how many hammers the Great Lighthouse costs, google custom search for civilipedia, top entry. Maybe even select some text, and have a button which searches for that.
 
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