A call for mechanisms to balance game play

[Khift]

The negative feedback loop would occur with the ability to obtain modern technology. If you remain in despotism or feudalism, you get to keep your empire (provided no one takes it from you). The problem you would run into is that trying to research Nationalism would be a nightmare and trying to research replaceable parts would probably be a lesson of "Oh well, I may as well assign the minimum research since it is going to take 50 turns anyways". Researching atom bombs would be virtually impossible because there are not enough turns in the game to get you to the point where you could research that many techs at such a low research level!

Read the posts again! Better governments will have better research rates. Not just a little better...MUCH better! On the order of x2, x3, x5, x8, x10! When your Zulus are researching techs at x10 (with only 6 cities and better corruption control) how far behind are your opponents Hittites going to do with 24 cities, high corruption, and a x2 research bonus? The Hittites are going to fall behind, period!

...

You don't have to split up your empire in my system, you just have to pay the penalty of not doing so (i.e. your early, primitive, repressive governmental policies stifle free thought and tech is very hard to come by later on). If you want to criticise the plan, at least have the integrity to read the whole thing and then criticise it on its final problems.

That's the problem. The player is coerced into switching governments and splitting his empire, with no ability to possibly mitigate this and find a middle ground. This frustrates people - being forced into choosing between the lesser of two evils is not a comfortable or entertaining thing to do. If there was some way to intuitively stop or lessen the blow, it would be alot better. But giving too much control to the mechanics of the game leads to frustration.

I think I'm going to write a simpler explanation of my "revolutionary" idea... I'm sure it'll be more accessible and less complex.

 

[rcoutme]

Actually, the mitigating factor would be to not build an empire too early. If you keep your number of cities down then your civ would not split upon change of government. I would be all for Firaxis letting people know exactly how large their civs could be without splitting and how the splits might occur. This should not be a random event. The player should go in knowing quite well how things will turn out.

The idea is to simulate what happened with: Alexander's empire, the Roman Empire, the Tartar empire, the Incan Empire (contrary to popular belief, the Incans did not get conquored by the Spanish directly, the Spanish fomented civil war and the Incan house of cards fell in and of itself), and (probably) many other empires, culminating most recently with the fall of the Soviet Empire (if that didn't splinter upon change of government then WHAT DID?).

 

[Warwind]

rcoutme what I meant was not pop 1 cities it was pop 6 or pop 12 cities which can easily be achieved with only a market place , luxuries , and military police. Actually I use ton’s of these city’s in my game’s just for unit support , units and to produce gold.

I do like the idea about the research cost’s , but would that also effect how much it would cost to steal those techs. As well as for peace deal’s you could still just blackmail those tech’s out of the ai.

 

[rcoutme]

Well, I personally believe that stealing the techs should be quite expensive. As for blackmailing the techs out of the AI, since the AI will know how expensive those techs are to you, they will be unwilling to give them up too easily. Also, keep in mind that those techs should be providing the AI with much better units. In the Civilization Consolidation Project that I am coordinating, one of the suggestions that will be put forth is that units that belong to an advanced age (compared to the unit they are fighting) will get either a x1.5 or x2 bonus for each age in which they outclass their opponents. This would mean that if you attack a bunch of musketmen with your horsemen (normally 2 attack vs 4 defense) you will see (usually) lots of horsemen bite the dust. Ever see the movie "Zulu"? The defenders of Roark's Drift were about 125 vs 4000 Zulu. The defenders won! In the above example, your attack would end up as 2 vs 6 or 2 vs 8 depending on which variable was used. Incidentally, if you went up against riflemen you would be going 2 vs 24 (6 defense x2 for each age).

From this, it should be notable that early units would have severe handicaps trying to take out their future compatriots.

In addition, I would like to see another 'Age' added. Whether it is called the Renaissance Age, Age of Discovery, Age of Colonisation or whatever, I think that there should be a definate split between the age of knights and that of carracks, muskets (more modern ones anyways) and cavalry. Actually, when I mod the game myself, I put cavalry out to Nationalism and replace it with either Dragoons or Lancers (think Zoro of Disney fame). It always seemed silly to me that cavalry had rifles but the infantry did not.

 

[warpstorm]

In many cases, the government changes after the old regime splits and falls. Your system seems to have cause and effect muddied.

I disagree about the Age of Discovery. This is a Western idea too tied to our particular timeline for good general gameplay.

 

[rcoutme]

In many cases, the government changes after the old regime splits and falls. Your system seems to have cause and effect muddied.

Yes, this system has it backwards, but in Civ I don't see any way to put the horse before the cart and yet keep the player in control, thus, I put the cart before the horse and let the whole thing get on down the road.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

one photo is a 1000 words.More balance now!

two photos is 2000 words obviously...

 

[SewerStarFish]

2. Try to contain the early settler rush by putting a limit to the size of a sustainable Empire during the different ages (the later the age, the bigger an Empire can be). Currently, this is done via corruption, but corruption doesn't stop anyone from trying to capture as much land as possible as early as possible. If, however, the bigger Empires become increasingly difficult to sustain, then over a certain threshold the Empire will fall apart and will form two (or more) new Empires, thus preventing monstrosities. This, combined with #3 (read below), will create a more challenging playing field.

BINGO! I've always was a little put off by not having a post middle age era of exploration where there were undeveloped areas. By the time you get explorers there isn't an open tile left on the map to explore.