Nomad Civs

Well, i came out whit an idea to make nomad "civilizations".
I think that we could make some civilizations whit a new trait called nomad (I think this would be only abvaible for Scenarios, in a normal game it would be too much of a disadvantage), these civs don´t starts whit normal Settlers, but whit a different kind of settler, one that cannot build cities, but it can build "Camps", these camps will not have a name, and could be only used for making military units, the population would never exceed the third level, they will have no cultural borders, the camps could make production, commerce and food, that wouldn´t be diferent from cities, so they will have scientific research too. In the camps "nomad settlers" won´t be made, the only way to have another "nomad settler" will be abandoning the camp, but when the civilizations researchs an advance, called something like "Sedentarism", normal settlers would be abvaible in the camps, so from this point you could build your capital, and become a real civilization.
The camps will not be able to make workers neither, so the only way to get a resource is when then camp is in the same tile of the resource.
PD: Sorry for mi English

It might be fun for a sort of Dune-ish desert scenario, where you have to rise to the top and control the largest band of nomads, but they would get slaughtered when faced with regular civilizations.

Why would they be crushed? They could always free from the enemy when threatened! But seriously, that's what will make the game fun, the challendge of taking on the big civilazations as a tiny nomadic tribe. This is a good idea, for scenarios only of couse. It's really annoying that in Fall of Rome all the tribes that were really nomadic are represented with cities and settlers.
A little change though, I thing that once you build so many units that a new "camp" should form automatically to symbalize the breaking up of a tribe into two differant ones. In that way you would be able to control many tribes, just like Genghis Khan.

I reckon there should be nomads in Civ. I just don't think the way you describe how thye could work would actually work. The easiest way to deal with nomads has been with barbarian camps.

Why couldnt work, in order for it to work though it would have to be on a Continetal or Pangea map Islands they would just get trapped.

this could also work for non-scenario games. How about all nations start off as nomads, as this was case in the real world, and the beggining of the game is a race to research "Sedentarism". Though other research could be possible. could make for some interesting gameplay at the start....


tech possibilities:
fishing for coastal nomads
herding for inland nomads - if you start on an island fishing would be a better tech to reaserch but herding also a choice so it all depends on starting location and player strategy.

these techs could allow the 'camp' to produce food in adjacent squares not just in its center.

colonel - how about starting at an earlier year in civ time, when all land masses were closer together, and as time passes the land movers further apart. this would allow nomad tribes to build very simple boats and travel to other land masses. This would also allow the civ 3 idea of volcanoes to be expanded on, and add earthquakes aswell - as they would be along the fault lines. would add a lot of realism to the game. maybe Sedentarism could be researched only after a certain year, say 3000bc when Civ 3 starts at now.

This seems to be an interesting idea, but it would require a LOT of balancing.
At the moment, I feel that there would be some point in the nomads' development, where the "nomadism" isn't strong enough anymore to deal with the "real" nations, but the switching to become one of those "real" nations would last too long. Well, as I said, it would require a lot of balancing and deep testing.
Furthermore, it would require the programming of a second "nation's logic" as the decisions to be taken would be totally different and so I fear that it will never make it into the game.

How about if everyone started the game with a special kind of settler, that start with 5 settler points and 5.10 attack.defense and for each settlement it does it loses one settlerpoint and strength - 3 left 3.6. This could later be a way to make 'folkvandringar' - peoplewanderings(?, like the Goths) happen, people from all settlements in a region gather up to go together. Nomad civs could be able to build a similar but cheaper and less powerful type of supersettler.

nomadic civ could have some bonus, like an accelarated production for units, or best units. Their objective would to fight normal civs, then take their cities and establish themselves as a stronger sedentary civ. They could also be another kind of super-barbarians.

The thing is that to be nomadic is to be pre-civilized. Some people link the existence of Civilization with the Urban revolution -- the idea that you could construct a city. I think someone else on these forums already posted this, but Civilization comes from the latin "Civis" which roughly means "town-dweller".

Not that Nomadic peoples don't sometimes settle down. But to be nomadic is to be pre-civilized. Pre-domestication of plants and animals. Sometimes even pre-trade or pre-social structure.

I had an idea for a scenario / modpack with changed rules, though, for Civilization 4. One where the halfway mark of the game is the ability to build cities. (Sounds crazy, eh?) Of course, I just hope the scripting language is open enough to do this, and easy enough that I can find the time to do it.

It is a common misconception that nations have to be settled to be considered "cultured" or "advanced". It is also common to say nomads make good warriors only. On the contrary, nomadic civs have tended to be at the forefront of art, civility and trade, and to be on the whole exceedingly more peaceful and tolerant than settled "civilisations". They make good warriors because they have to be tougher to survive on the steppes (the Highlanders of Scotland are a good comparison to how a harder life creates tougher warriors), not because they deliberately go out to conquer China or something. The word "civilisation" is flawed, in both etymology and usage.

Why couldnt work, in order for it to work though it would have to be on a Continetal or Pangea map Islands they would just get trapped.

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Not just that. Like other people have said, there would be far too few advantages of being a nomadic civ compared to a settled civ, and that the AI would have to be tinkered with to control nomadic civs properly which would be no easy task.

first of: it woulkdn't work in normal.

But it could be an option for the scenario generator.

Nomad Settlers - (1/1/2)(2/3/2)(3/3/2)(5/5/3) - Those figures are for (Ancient NS)(Middle Ages NS)(Industrial Revolution NS)(Modern NS) - Nomad camps never grow beyond (2)(3)(5)(8) and can pack up in one turn. Camps can build tier one buildings(so they are equivalent to other civs in Ancient to mid-middle ages) and have better units till middle industrial ages.

Nomad would not be so much a good trait, as it would be a good way for barbarians to now work. No longer would the camp stay in the same spot, as they conducted research on techs you have finished(if you are nearby).

ledfan said:

this could also work for non-scenario games. How about all nations start off as nomads, as this was case in the real world, and the beggining of the game is a race to research "Sedentarism".

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My thoughts exactly.

Maybe not sedentarism, maybe "Farming" would work better.
I have been listening during class, you know.
Everything else seems great!