C2C Ideas Project development thread

[Faustmouse]

The tasks were pretty much all layed out (need update though). And isn't it basically the same as running 15 quests in parallel each era? Not sure if that is a lot of memory or not. I'd still like to see it, but if it is undoable then fine, just thought it might fit well with cultures

 

[Thunderbrd]

The tasks were pretty much all layed out (need update though). And isn't it basically the same as running 15 quests in parallel each era? Not sure if that is a lot of memory or not. I'd still like to see it, but if it is undoable then fine, just thought it might fit well with cultures

The guys that were working on the project gave up on the planning of it mid-stream. I don't think it's just because I hadn't quite enabled it for them yet but rather because of the enormity of it.

There were a lot of things I feel it's inspired since. Trying to define how the system would track and know a lot of the things that it would need to be watching for to qualify a civ for a particular heritage reward seemed to be likely to end up unusually memory heavy. Trying to get the game to recall everything that has happened while so much is being allocated to keeping in mind what's happening might be a little wasteful. But I'll admit it never got off the ground enough.

It could be revived but those who wish to do so would need a lot of dedication to it I think.

 

[Faustmouse]

I worked on it too and I'm pretty sure I finished it for all the eras that existed back then. It was in Oktober 2012, so 5 years ago and I might be wrong and never uploaded my ideas here

There are more pressing things to do, but I thought it could fit with cultural ideas, that was the reason I mentioned it

 

[Thunderbrd]

I worked on it too and I'm pretty sure I finished it for all the eras that existed back then. It was in Oktober 2012, so 5 years ago and I might be wrong and never uploaded my ideas here

There are more pressing things to do, but I thought it could fit with cultural ideas, that was the reason I mentioned it

Maybe wouldn't be so difficult to implement if well planned. You should track those down. I'll see if I can't find the old thread on that.

 

[Faustmouse]

You are right, it was quite shallow... My ideas up to modern can be found on pages 5-7 in the Heritage thread, but they'd need some re-evaluating and also to be extended a bit, if this is ever going to be a project in the future.

 

[Thunderbrd]

You are right, it was quite shallow... My ideas up to modern can be found on pages 5-7 in the Heritage thread, but they'd need some re-evaluating and also to be extended a bit, if this is ever going to be a project in the future.

It wasn't a shallow idea... it was a very deep idea with so far shallow planning Some concepts are a lot more difficult to implement than they appear. Others are much easier than they appear but seem tremendously complex until you start getting into them. The Outrbreaks and Afflictions is a good example and I suspect Ideas will be as well.

 

[Noriad2]

In the posts above there was talk about "tasks" that give rewards. Like adding more quests. This can be implemented right, and this can be implemented very wrong. Note that "quests" are a game mechanic that is borrowed from a different genre of games, the RPG (Role Playing Game) which became MMORPG (=massively multiplayer online roleplaying game). Of which World of Warcraft is the best known.

Civ is at its heart a strategy game. Sid Meier, who created the civ series, said that a game is a series of interesting decisions (of course he was talking about strategy games specifically, it is not true for any and all games).

Strategy games are about making cost/benefit decisions. You handle problems, which are often caused by scarcity. The biggest question in the economic part of civ is: what do I invest my hammers in? Every choice has benefits and drawbacks, and you sacrifice one thing to gain something else. In a good strategy game, the "best" choice should not be obvious, and ideally, the various options should be equally competitive.

I have played several MMORPGs in the past and they all tend to become easier and easier over time and degenerate into a theme park "click for reward" system that is addictive (look up "skinner box" (*) for more on this subject). Your "progress" equals the amount of time you put in, with barely any challenge. The fun comes from the steady stream of rewards for the time invested in clicking, with barely any hard decisions.

(*) skinner box: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

The worst way this task system can become is it becoming a kind of Christmas tree with 25 presents below it, and the game consists of picking the best 8 presents.

A good strategy game is also a sandbox game. You decide what to do next. Being given a list of "tasks" that you should do because the rewards are so strong, is not really a strategy game.

Of course, C2C does have some choose-your-reward systems, like picking a leader with certain traits. But these are pre-game decisions that set the initial stage for the game, not the objective in the game itself.

To summarize, a strategy game becomes better by adding more hard choices, with options in which you sacrifice something in exchange for something else, and it becomes less of a strategy game when it is about grabbing a steady stream of easy rewards.

 

[stoferb]

In the posts above there is talk about evolving cultures from earlier cultures. While that is more logical than the current system, and therefore increases immersion, I can't help but think that an approach like that will destroy the current way to gain cultures (by having cities close to specific map resources and features). The current system has excellent interaction with the map (it influences where to put cities) and therefore increases the strategic depth of the game. Sacrificing strategic depth for more immersion is a questionable route imho.
.

Maybe map resources could still be a way to determine which culture route you get. For example you find yourself having a territory full of desert (atleast your heartland is) so you decide to go for arabic. So you first go afroasiatic - then semitic - then arab because you have settled a city with both figs and camels in a city or something like that. Or alternately, once you have gone semitic you discover you'd rather have maritime perks and go pheonician, seattle coastal city that has prime timber and then build it.

This also give rise to another idea, maybe when a city builds a new prime culture the city changes name to correspond to it. Because obviously, if you start out not having a certain culture, it's tricky what your cities are supposed to be called. But it also raises a big questionmark about leaders for your civ. Do they switch automatically when you switch primary culture? Do they switch every era? Obviously if you're maybe not even european yet, it's weird if your leader is Augustus in 50.000 BC.

 

[Thunderbrd]

This also give rise to another idea, maybe when a city builds a new prime culture the city changes name to correspond to it. Because obviously, if you start out not having a certain culture, it's tricky what your cities are supposed to be called. But it also raises a big questionmark about leaders for your civ. Do they switch automatically when you switch primary culture? Do they switch every era? Obviously if you're maybe not even european yet, it's weird if your leader is Augustus in 50.000 BC.

I'm not sure I'd want to see the city names change, although players can change their city names if they wish of course. There's a lot of moments in history where the culture changed in a city but the city name did not and only a few where we might be able to say that happened (Istanbul for example.)

As for the leaders, there are much deeper plans regarding that but I don't want to promise much out that far. The idea is to have leader units that are actually on the map, and they can vie for control of your empire and yes, can be cause for adopting a culture that fits the leader you want to be utilizing.

 

[tmv]

The idea is to have leader units that are actually on the map, and they can vie for control of your empire and yes, can be cause for adopting a culture that fits the leader you want to be utilizing.

Is this going to be like chess? Or what happens if an enemy captures your leader?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Is this going to be like chess? Or what happens if an enemy captures your leader?

Not so much. But you may be forced to have a new leader take over and in the process have to start over developing the traits for that new leader. There should always be a number of potential leaders spawned and they can influence the cities they are in with their individual traits, which they can develop a little more like promotions. Sometimes they may be problematic because they can vie for splitting up the nation or naturally be a strong source of spreading a new culture 'idea', making it hard to keep the nation harmoniously unified. But if you develop them, they can be a strong suitable replacement for when the current leader perishes, which they all would do in cycles. Each might tend to last about an era long in play. There's a lot more we could do with it as we go.

 

[Rmi]

Has anyone played 'AGE OF WONDERS 2' (or 3). It is basically fantasy CIV with leaders on the map. If your leader dies (and can't respawn) you're done.


It sounds like a new type of hero/great person.

 

[Toffer90]

Has anyone played 'AGE OF WONDERS 2' (or 3). It is basically fantasy CIV with leaders on the map. If your leader dies (and can't respawn) you're done.

Yes, all three of them, I like the first game of the series the best. The top three games of that genre is in my opinion AoW1, Heroes III, and Eador Genesis. I wouldn't put civ in the same genre as them though.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Bump

 

[Thunderbrd]

Bump! Been some discussion lately about ways to improve culture spreads and I wanted this taken into consideration.