A Waretime Idea

[KentuckyJared20]

Ok, first off I'd like to say that since it's 1 A.M where I live, and I'm tired so this idea isn't as fleshed out as it could be, but I don't want to forget it so I'm posting right now. Sorry if someone has already thought of this, which they most likely already have.

My idea is this, I've noticed, being the excellent detective that I am , that a short war in any Civ game is 100 years. IRL, that is an insanely long war, and to my knowledge only 1 war has ever been that long. (100 Years War) To fix this problem, how about whenever a war is going on that you are participating in, a turn only last 1 year, wars will still be long, but not AS long. Now if a war is going on that you're not a part of, then a turn would go on as normal (to you), but when the new turn starts a pop up would appear saying something to the effect of: "France led by Napoleon attacked the English Queen Victoria, a bloody war ensued and, while no real territory was lost or gained by either side, 357,000 soldiers lost their lives. While 250,000 innocent bystanders were killed in the siege attacks brought on by both sides. Realizing that they had reached a stand-still, the sides reached a cease-fire. The war lasted 10 years."

Now that is what I had an epiphany of sorts about, and yes I realize I'm new, so no "HAHA NOOB THINKS HE HAS AN IDEA" jokes please. Thoughts, suggestions?

 

[Camikaze]

I'm not a fan of this idea, although there are those that support you in this. If you suddenly shrink turns, then everything in the game becomes warped. Production, commerce, research, movement, etc. It would effectively give a massive, massive advantage to anyone that was a war. You could produce more in a given period of time, become richer over a smaller period of time, research more over that same amount of time, and move halfway around the world whilst other civs would be stuck with moving their units only a few times. There is a solution to this, which is reducing the amount you can produce, research, accumulate culture, etc. in a war turn to the same as you could in the same given period of time otherwise, but this is warped also, as it would allow you to take too much advantage of your own uniques, or your own small advantages. For example, if you were the Romans, you would go to war when you had Praets and the game would be over before you knew it, and before any opponent could research nearly enough to oppose you. Similarly, if you are the first to research Rifling, you could go off on a world wide conquest before anyone had the chance to research it as well to oppose you.

 

[Tee Kay]

My idea is this, I've noticed, being the excellent detective that I am , that a short war in any Civ game is 100 years. IRL, that is an insanely long war, and to my knowledge only 1 war has ever been that long. (100 Years War)

The Punic Wars lasted on and off for 118 years. The Ottoman-Austrian conflict dragged on for three centuries. Actually, before the 19th century, short wars are the exception due to slow movement and logistic problems. The most rapid conquests in ancient times were Alexander's campaign and the Arab conquests in the 7th century, and both empires disintegrated very quickly. If wars seem too long in a game of Civ, it's because the empires in game are much bigger than most historical empires.

In the modern age technological improvements changed that. This is already partly modeled in the game: in the modern age, the time interval between turns are shortened, so modern wars (like in history) don't seem to last that long in terms of years, although it might take a similar number of turns.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I'm not a fan of this idea, although there are those that support you in this. If you suddenly shrink turns, then everything in the game becomes warped. Production, commerce, research, movement, etc. It would effectively give a massive, massive advantage to anyone that was a war. You could produce more in a given period of time, become richer over a smaller period of time, research more over that same amount of time, and move halfway around the world whilst other civs would be stuck with moving their units only a few times. There is a solution to this, which is reducing the amount you can produce, research, accumulate culture, etc. in a war turn to the same as you could in the same given period of time otherwise, but this is warped also, as it would allow you to take too much advantage of your own uniques, or your own small advantages. For example, if you were the Romans, you would go to war when you had Praets and the game would be over before you knew it, and before any opponent could research nearly enough to oppose you. Similarly, if you are the first to research Rifling, you could go off on a world wide conquest before anyone had the chance to research it as well to oppose you.

While your first point and part of your post and the solution you propose are obvious, your second part is interesting. I have lot of difficulties to figure out how to counter this effect, but can't come with a single answer...

Maybe something like i was militating earlier, like organic spread of Science: you can know a tech by facing your enemies in a war. It should take some total victorious battles in order to be able to reverse-engineer a tech.

Example: your enemy invading you and being superior to you scientifically launch a stack in your territory. You have to defeat this stack in order to make appear on the map a symbol of military tech, on the ground of the defeated stack. (a little like a goody hut). Then when you send a unit into it, it uncovers a new tech.

Maybe if you are too much backwarded, the usefull techs in order to reach your last military enemy one would have nothing to see with war, so you couldn't have any "military tech hut" appearing.

Maybe the apparition of this hut would be a percentage for each unit killed. For example, if you kill one Gunpowder unit, you will have say 10% chance to see it drop such a kind of hut. If you go in this tile, you have the tech, but if your enemy reaches this tile before you, the "military tech hut" disappears, or maybe with a command of military units like "clean the area", that would take some turns maybe.

Plus, spies could definately play a great and very important role in the Civ series with such kind of ideas: you could always send a spy to your enemy's towns to steal them a military tech.

It could as well work in this way: each enemy defeated drop an equipment item, and if not retrieved by the enemy, may transform your soldiers into the same type of units that dropped the item. This way, you could always rush enemy indidual units or small stacks with weaker units and transform them for a better defense, the time you steal the enemy his military techs.

I know. That does not eliminates completely the "war enhances science" problem, but it reduces it a little.

 

[Tholish]

Just have military and economic turns in a ratio of 10 to 1. During military turns you can move units and fight. Nothing else happens. Economic turns are like the current civ turns in every other way, except that between each are ten military turns. Kind of like super Marathon game speed. Except with a "jump ahead" button so you can skip military turns when there is nothing going on.

 

[Camikaze]

That would make military the major focus of the game, however, overwhelmingly so. That is not a good thing. Yes, military matters are an integral part of the game, but they are not the game. Economics, culture, religion, etc. are equally important aspects, and to diminish them would not be a good idea.

 

[KentuckyJared20]

I'm not a fan of this idea, although there are those that support you in this. If you suddenly shrink turns, then everything in the game becomes warped. Production, commerce, research, movement, etc. It would effectively give a massive, massive advantage to anyone that was a war. You could produce more in a given period of time, become richer over a smaller period of time, research more over that same amount of time, and move halfway around the world whilst other civs would be stuck with moving their units only a few times. There is a solution to this, which is reducing the amount you can produce, research, accumulate culture, etc. in a war turn to the same as you could in the same given period of time otherwise, but this is warped also, as it would allow you to take too much advantage of your own uniques, or your own small advantages. For example, if you were the Romans, you would go to war when you had Praets and the game would be over before you knew it, and before any opponent could research nearly enough to oppose you. Similarly, if you are the first to research Rifling, you could go off on a world wide conquest before anyone had the chance to research it as well to oppose you.

Well, I certainly didn't think about production, and that is the major whole in my idea it appears.