Civ Personalities & Attitudes

CIV PERSONALITIES

One thing that was lacking in Civilization III was broader Civilization personalities. After a while it seemed that civilization personalities were separated into two groups: those that hated you and those that didn’t. It didn’t provide very interesting storylines. When a civilization is initialized it should have more detailed personality variables. For example during a game of Civ III I hunted down a civilization that had about 40 cities and when I was about ready to take their last city I made a threat and their response was “If you attack our cities you will be destroyed. It’s as simple as that.” The Civilization was a little too confident for one that was about to be destroyed. Where was the fear or threat to fight to the last man. There should have been a possibility that they would cave to my demands or surrender.

Part of the Civilization personality variables should be Confidence and Determination. I should be able to a Shock & Awe strategy undermining a civilization’s confidence. If I level their confidence the determination variable would decid weather they would fight to the death or cave. Not all civilizations should respond the same. Each civilization should have a variable constant that determines how easy it is to demean their confidence.

CIV ATTITUDES

I also wish that there was more stability in Civilization attitudes. I’ve had many allies in Civ III but there was not one among them that wouldn’t stab me in the back. I can give money, resources and technologies with a civilization over a long period of time and all they end up doing is hating me. Where are my loyal allies. They should be among relationships I’ve been developing over periods of time, however, in Civ III they don’t exist. You’ll ultimately be at war with all your friends. This doesn’t allow for good storylines.

STORYLINES

In the development of a Civilization IV storylines should be considered. For its not just a game it’s history retold. It’s a story. Instead of mindless warfare there should be more of an evident story behind an aggression. It should be evident that an invading Civilization is after a resource, cities, revenge, to change you policy or disarm you. Civ stories at this point consist of two main categories: Your at war, you’re not at war. There seems to be so much missing.


NEWS

One thing that would improve the concept of world-wide storylines is somewhere to get news, maybe a running teletype. Unless my troops or cities are near to the action I have no idea what is going on in the rest of the map except for if a Civ is at war or not. If the Romans Invade Greece and take one of their cities I’d like to read the news to find out. If someone uses weapons of mass destruction I want to know. News can also be progressive through time. In the beginning there would be very little news but as technology grows and the world becomes a smaller place news becomes more plentiful.

OK, one of my biggest GRIPES is that a civs 'preferred' and 'shunned' government type should REALLY mean something. It should truly effect the chances of a civ adopting that government type, and how the civ relates to civs of other government types-even for a human player. Basically, if you try and adopt a government that your civ shuns, then all hell should break lose, and you should face a major revolt or even Civil War! Even associating with a civ in your civs 'shunned' government should make your people unhappy. Culture groups and religion type should also influence how civs view each other!
In addition, there should be a 'scale' of governments and Religions for each civ-from +10 to -10, say, to reflect how preferred or shunned a particular government/religion type is!
Additionally, a civs demographics and characteristics should effect how they deal with each other in diplomacy. For instance, commercial, agricultural and scientific civs should be, on average, much more peaceful than, say, a militaristic, expansionist or seafaring civ. Of course, if your civ is currently under the influence of the military, then this would push things in a different diection.
Also, these demographic and characteristic factors should also effect the TYPES of deals the civs try and get in diplomacy. For instance, expansionist, religious and seafaring civs might prefer luxury resources and RoP deals, wheras militaristic civs might want alliances and tribute.
Industrious civs might want to trade shields for food or strategic resources, wheras agricultural civs might trade food for shields or luxuries-both of these civs might also prefer MPP's over alliances or RoP's.
My point is that these civs won't avoid other types of deals-its just these are the ones that the dominant faction WITHIN these civs prefer!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I agree with SirBradleyG. Those things are important to forming a better system of internation relations and diplomacy. How am I to avenge an evil or WMD if I am uninformed about it?

YES YES YES I agree!

More broader civ personalities please!!

Sorry to bump a really old thread, but I just have to say I agree.

Also, I have a few possible additions:

1. Civs act based on their terrain. For example, a civ with many mountains, that somehow has a horse resource will not build many horse units, or dive into horse technologies. Perhaps each age should have a set number of technologies needed to get to the next age, and not specific ones. A civ with a lot of jungles should build more guerilla style units.

2. More terrain geared units. Civilizations should also build units based on their terrain. Perhaps each unit should have a bonus on certain terrain? Also, guerilla units should IMO be a cheaper, invisible unit, as that would be much more realistic.

If I think of anything else, I'll post it here.