I 100% agree. Not "only" for modding purposes, but also for Event driven State changes (I'll be posting a suggestion for modelling events within the next few days.)
C7 Feature Requests
- Thread starter WildWeazel
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I 100% agree. Not "only" for modding purposes, but also for Event driven State changes (I'll be posting a suggestion for modelling events within the next few days.)
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One of the things I want to add to my SlightlyBetterAI branch (or maybe a subsequent one if it's looking to be too big of a branch) is pulling out the AI weightings into fields that can then be updated from a file fairly easily. E.g. how much the AI values settling near coast, food, shields, etc. So, I agree.
(Being able to swap out parts of the AI is great, too. But being able to modify weights in an existing AI would be a more non-programmer-friendly way of opening up customization. Creating a Viking mod and don't think the AI is building on the coast enough? Bump up how much the AI values coasts, and that might be enough to fix the problem, no coding required. Maybe even be able to set that per-player, although that adds a little bit of complexity, so I'm hesitant to say it will happen, because there's plenty of other things to add, too)
(Being able to swap out parts of the AI is great, too. But being able to modify weights in an existing AI would be a more non-programmer-friendly way of opening up customization. Creating a Viking mod and don't think the AI is building on the coast enough? Bump up how much the AI values coasts, and that might be enough to fix the problem, no coding required. Maybe even be able to set that per-player, although that adds a little bit of complexity, so I'm hesitant to say it will happen, because there's plenty of other things to add, too)
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Civ as a visual novel... reminds me of One More Turn Theater.
The 3 orders limit sounds a lot like Old World, although I believe the number can vary there? Whenever it lands on GOG/Steam, I'm going to be playing a lot of it, probably in Q2. It doesn't try to be a Civ-scope game a la Humankind, but from what I've read it's a most excellent strategy game.
You've reminded me of this thread, whence I extract two posts:
They've given me an interesting idea. In my beloved Battle for Wesnoth game you can give a ‘name generator’ a few roots and random syllables for the game to generate names along a pseudo-linguistic basis (thus the dwarves get Aigcatlos, Aigcatsil, Aicalas, &c.)
Maybe the same could be done with city name lists? Just give a ‘Slav’ civ a few parameters like ‘“grad” and “Pole” can only be the final word, “bijelo” only at the beginning → 'Bijelo polje is your new city’?
And, also, I was thinking about new factions springing up later.
- What if a full AI-run civ sprang up in the year 1000 BC after a long time of nobody conquering an area? They'd proceed as normal from then onwards, of course with some extra techs to make up for the initial civs' head start.
- What if Barbarians, which in some extreme-modded versions of civ3 can actually conquer and run cities, could now actually further develop their camps into cities? Instead of having a really bothersome but ultimately powerless barbarian camp springing an endless stack of horsemen that can really be destroyed easily by 2 spearmen and a couple of archers, you could have them actually become sedentary and found a city-state with the name of their tribe. Maybe they couldn't produce settlers for a time or something, but they could be like the ‘Horde’ units in IIRC Rome: Total War's Barbarian Invasion that just transformed population into combat units and vice-versa.
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civilizationfanatic2000
Prince
i love the new factions idea, civ really needs this
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Civ4 and Civ6 explore the barbarian development idea somewhat. In Civ4, of course, they will eventually found and perhaps capture cities. In Civ4 games with very isolated landmasses, I've seen what amounts to a barbarian civilization develop there, and their technology evolves as well. On rare occurrences they'll even conquer a civilization (which has never been my civilization
). In Civ6, with the Barbarian Clans feature introduced in 2021, barbarians can develop into city states, with interactions with settled civilizations influencing the rate at which they progress towards that goal. Even without that feature, the Civ6 barbarians produce better units over time; one of the few things I like more about Civ6 than Civ3 is that you actually have to think about the barbarians in the expansion phase, and consistently throughout that phase. One unit to escort a Settler is not necessarily going to cut it, and I saw a barbarian Settler that they had presumably swiped from an AI civilization.I'd definitely like to have options in C7 for barbarians to be more consequential than they are in Civ3, and there's a non-negligible chance that at some point I'll play around with some combination of these ideas (and a few of my own) to provide a barbarian mod for the game.
Some Civ4 mods have interesting ideas, too. Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (RFC) is the best-known mod to have civs that spawn later in the game. I want to say there was a mod that had your civilization start out as generic and acquire traits, as well, but I can't remember which one. Maybe it never got to the finished product stage? But you could definitely create custom civ traits in Civ4; it's the best Civ for customization if you have the skill set to take advantage of what it offers (notably Python scripting and, if you really want to get deep, C++ development. Which of course, are not skills the average modder has).
On the other hand, I'm not a fan of the entire civilization changing name, as in Humankind. From a continuity/storytelling/suspension-of-disbelief perspective, there needs to be some ability to know who your opponents are. RFC again struck a good balance here; play long enough, and if Rome survived it would become Italy, and if Russia went Communist it would become the Soviet Union, but you wouldn't have the Maya become Japan or something of that sort.
The name generator ideas are new to me, but I like them. We'd definitely need input from the community, but it could be a fun project. Maybe even have a few that are dependent on geography, e.g. "berg" meaning mountain in Germanic languages; Heidelberg might only be chosen if there were at least some hills nearby, and Gold Coast would only be chosen if it was on a coast.
civilizationfanatic2000
Prince
https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/continents.html
this is important for the concepts i talk about
this is important for the concepts i talk about
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Civ 2 and Civ 2 ToT cities can hold their own Barbarian cities, too - even with its own buildings and options of production. This is a great feature especially for scenarios. I attache a screenshot about the Civ 2 ToT scenario Imperialism 2 (what is somewhat like AOI for C3C). All cities with red flags in that screenshot are Barbarian cities (in the scenario called "oriental cities"):
Spoiler :
Basically, in civ3, as things stand, barbarians' effects are only through negatives. They serve only to block things. You miiight just trick them into attacking an AI, say, by carefully landing a settler just outside their range and making it board a galley when they get near, but that's about it. Otherwise, they just block things. They block your settlement, they block colonies and roads, they block exploration, and, well, their 25 gold might just be useful, except that it's 25 gold after spending 10-15 turns with half a dozen units bogged down chipping into their numbers one by one, which boils down to at most 3 gpt and that's before you count the costs of equipping, sending and maintaining the pacifying expedition. They are just… a cost.Civ4 and Civ6 explore the barbarian development idea somewhat. In Civ4, of course, they will eventually found and perhaps capture cities. In Civ4 games with very isolated landmasses, I've seen what amounts to a barbarian civilization develop there, and their technology evolves as well. On rare occurrences they'll even conquer a civilization (which has never been my civilization
I'd definitely like to have options in C7 for barbarians to be more consequential than they are in Civ3, and there's a non-negligible chance that at some point I'll play around with some combination of these ideas (and a few of my own) to provide a barbarian mod for the game.
Some Civ4 mods have interesting ideas, too. Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (RFC) is the best-known mod to have civs that spawn later in the game. I want to say there was a mod that had your civilization start out as generic and acquire traits, as well, but I can't remember which one. Maybe it never got to the finished product stage? But you could definitely create custom civ traits in Civ4; it's the best Civ for customization if you have the skill set to take advantage of what it offers (notably Python scripting and, if you really want to get deep, C++ development. Which of course, are not skills the average modder has).
On the other hand, I'm not a fan of the entire civilization changing name, as in Humankind. From a continuity/storytelling/suspension-of-disbelief perspective, there needs to be some ability to know who your opponents are. RFC again struck a good balance here; play long enough, and if Rome survived it would become Italy, and if Russia went Communist it would become the Soviet Union, but you wouldn't have the Maya become Japan or something of that sort.
The name generator ideas are new to me, but I like them. We'd definitely need input from the community, but it could be a fun project. Maybe even have a few that are dependent on geography, e.g. "berg" meaning mountain in Germanic languages; Heidelberg might only be chosen if there were at least some hills nearby, and Gold Coast would only be chosen if it was on a coast.
They might attack settlers and workers if they are near enough, but they always have a defence stat of 1, so really at some point they are a random meat shield that just happens to take a long time to wear down because there might be 30 or so of them in one tile.
If they could get active and at least upgrade their units (or just build newer ones, because a barrackless upgrade might be too much for the engine), or occupy colonies and cities and capture workers and settlers instead of destroying them, it would already work better.
civilizationfanatic2000
Prince
different governments and civics should affect how you raise your troops and their quality
If you play a centralized government like Rome, then your troops should be infantry-focused, good quality, cheap, large in number, not disbanded after every war, but expensive to maintain.
if you play a decentralized government like France, then your troops are cavalry focused, varying quality (You can have super-elite medieval knights, or super-fodder levied spearmen), small in number, expensive, have to be disbanded after every war, meh to maintain
this is so you can nerf Feudal types of governments by having them be reliant on one type of troop
If you play a centralized government like Rome, then your troops should be infantry-focused, good quality, cheap, large in number, not disbanded after every war, but expensive to maintain.
if you play a decentralized government like France, then your troops are cavalry focused, varying quality (You can have super-elite medieval knights, or super-fodder levied spearmen), small in number, expensive, have to be disbanded after every war, meh to maintain
this is so you can nerf Feudal types of governments by having them be reliant on one type of troop
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Re: Barbarians, Yup. And unless you play the high difficulties, they don't even block things very effectively, due to the high combat bonus against them at lower and moderate difficulties. This is an area where I envision having a "classic" mode/mod where it works like Civ3, and a "C7" mode where the barbarians are a little more... interesting? Not pushovers? I've also thought about how it's sort of odd how all the barbarians are allied with each other, they never fight among each other. Tell that to all the barbarians, as the Romans considered them, who saw the invasion of the Huns as a threat to them, and with good reason. I've thought about some ideas about maybe having some barbarian tribes occasionally fight other ones... or having them decide to form a federation to try to take a civilized city. In large part, trying to make the early expansion game more interesting than "one Spearman escort is enough to deal with the barbarians." We'll see where we get to, there's a lot to implement, but making a more interesting barbarian AI, with even slightly more developed mechanics, is an area that I think could make the early game more interesting.
Drastically different playstyles by government is probably less likely, if only due to the fact that it will probably be hard enough to teach the AI to be effective with one model, let alone a few different ones. Units being disbanded after every war is something I'm not sure would work well in a Civ-like game; what if your neighbor on the other side declares war two turns later? Crusader Kings II somewhat has that, but with a levy model where feudal levies can be raised, and if they are lost in battle or due to attrition, they gradually regenerate over the years; they also have expensive, permanent retinue units and hirable mercenaries, and the levies must be disbanded before a war can start (usually you'll want to disband them when the war ends, as vassals dislike having their levies raised for extended periods, but you might keep them for a couple months to deal with rebels, for example).
Aside from the disbanding part of it, many of those ideas sound like something that could be approximated in a mod. PinkTilapia's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire does a good job of distinguishing between expensive, professional Legionaries, siege units, heavy cavalry, naval units, and skilled workers, and inexpensive skirmishers, scout cavalry, and slaves, and that's all within the Civ3 engine. Granted, I don't know how well the AI would do playing Rome in that scenario, and balancing the expensive and inexpensive units; it can be tough enough as a human. But that comes full circle to one of the reasons to keep the number of features and variations in check is that we want to be able to train the AI to be competent in the use of the features that do exist.
Civics... that's a Civ4 concept, albeit one that I somewhat like, but it's not going to be in any early cut of C7. Governments affecting troop quality is an interesting one though. Civ4's Vassalage and Theology civics give +2 XP each, IIRC, which amounts to one promotion and a good chunk of the way to the second, at the cost of higher maintenance than many of the alternatives. It's an interesting mechanics. I wonder if allowing governments to affect the number of hitpoints would work as a Civ3-style equivalent? With the Civ3-default number of hitpoints it may well be too much, but if you doubled the default, adding one might work. Or perhaps a straight-up bonus? Pirate Republic gets +10% naval combat strength? Interesting, and more options for customization is a general goal.
Drastically different playstyles by government is probably less likely, if only due to the fact that it will probably be hard enough to teach the AI to be effective with one model, let alone a few different ones. Units being disbanded after every war is something I'm not sure would work well in a Civ-like game; what if your neighbor on the other side declares war two turns later? Crusader Kings II somewhat has that, but with a levy model where feudal levies can be raised, and if they are lost in battle or due to attrition, they gradually regenerate over the years; they also have expensive, permanent retinue units and hirable mercenaries, and the levies must be disbanded before a war can start (usually you'll want to disband them when the war ends, as vassals dislike having their levies raised for extended periods, but you might keep them for a couple months to deal with rebels, for example).
Aside from the disbanding part of it, many of those ideas sound like something that could be approximated in a mod. PinkTilapia's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire does a good job of distinguishing between expensive, professional Legionaries, siege units, heavy cavalry, naval units, and skilled workers, and inexpensive skirmishers, scout cavalry, and slaves, and that's all within the Civ3 engine. Granted, I don't know how well the AI would do playing Rome in that scenario, and balancing the expensive and inexpensive units; it can be tough enough as a human. But that comes full circle to one of the reasons to keep the number of features and variations in check is that we want to be able to train the AI to be competent in the use of the features that do exist.
Civics... that's a Civ4 concept, albeit one that I somewhat like, but it's not going to be in any early cut of C7. Governments affecting troop quality is an interesting one though. Civ4's Vassalage and Theology civics give +2 XP each, IIRC, which amounts to one promotion and a good chunk of the way to the second, at the cost of higher maintenance than many of the alternatives. It's an interesting mechanics. I wonder if allowing governments to affect the number of hitpoints would work as a Civ3-style equivalent? With the Civ3-default number of hitpoints it may well be too much, but if you doubled the default, adding one might work. Or perhaps a straight-up bonus? Pirate Republic gets +10% naval combat strength? Interesting, and more options for customization is a general goal.
Re: governments and civics and troop quality.
Already some mods differentiate between units that cost you a lot of shields, units that cost you population, units that cost you upkeep and combinations of the three. Also some units are regulated through autoproduction.
Of course, the AI cannot really handle much of it because it already takes a lot of effort to make it use artillery at all and for it to use it effectively is almost impossible simply because of how you have to rebalance everything.
At least conscript troops are weaker, i.e. have fewer HP, but you cannot resettle them into your cities. It would be interesting if you could settle troops into cities if they haven't risen beyond -to keep some balance- regular. Veterans and Elites would be too much into military life, having become professionalised, while the others are still in time to.
Also conscripts could not require upkeep, perhaps.
(since we're at it, the fact that a battleship costs as much gold to maintain as a warrior is strange)
What would happen if, in specific scenarios, units required disbandment after a mandatory term of service, or what if they mutinied (see below for more on rebellions)?
Re: barbarians.
I think that it could be a useful shift in viewpoint if we changed from calling them ‘barbarians’* to calling them ‘nomads’. Maybe they could exploit the territory in their own way, e.g. first you get a small crappy settlement that just produces low-level units like Civ3's warriors and horsemen and galleys. Then it could ‘expand’ (we already know that the barbarian settlements change, because at first they only produce warriors and only alter do they produce horsemen and galleys), perhaps giving its occupiers e.g. a defensive bonus or a +1 to healing, and maybe after that becoming a city-state.
If units can cost regular civs popheads then barbarian/nomad units could cost their camps some population: tl;dr they'd be produced in some sort of proportion to the nearby tiles not occupied by sedentary civs.
Historically there were great territories effectively exploited by nomadic peoples who developed strong cultural traditions, had powerful armies that were up to the standards of the day, and also engaged in trade with their neighbours and industry. Livestock-raising peoples across Eurasia, Africa and the Americas built great confederations and empires throughout history. And don't forget that most of the population of the world was rural until things began to change in these past couple of centuries.
In-game, this way the nomads are somewhat competitive. You'd better settle that fertile plainsland, lest a few nomads settle and start deploying armies against you -or, worse, settle as a city of its own outright, giving rise to a new civ!
Fighting between nomads is also a given. Perhaps there could be more than one settlement of one same tribe and they wouldn't fight one another.
Those who've played Total War games might remember why I'm making these two following suggestions, but:
-Continued city unrest could lead to cities ‘flipping’ to nearby enemy civs, but also to their drawing in nomads to take them over, or to simply split apart and reject your rule to start their own government!.
-Culture could help ‘pacify’ the nearest nomads. Your cultural superiority from libraries and temples and wonders could make them better predisposed towards you.
-Perhaps one could buy off the barbarians. See:
So you could buy them into your side, if you can afford it.
Before I forget, a bit of a tweak could be used for ‘wild animals' lair’, too.
Of course, the next obvious thought is pirate havens on water tiles! I often see randomly-generated maps where there are islands that only feature mountain tiles. Those are pretty much useless except, possibly, as artillery bases. Since the game engine doesn't place barbarians unless you cause.
What if a goodie hut near water, instead of spawning some easily defeatable warriors, spawned some rather more insufferable galleys?
I myself would give the barbarians longships or other fighting craft. In my (in-house) mod the dromon is a separate war galley; already I've experienced the displeasure and chagrin of downgrading from Dromon to caravel, losing sea supremacy as the Byzantines.
Of course, all the above is not so much stuff that would need to be in the regular, vanilla Civ3-replica game, but stuff that could be in a more ‘advanced’ version and, quite simply, the stuff that I feel should be available under the game engine for modders to do with as they please.
*just see the names, some of them are Avars, Bantu, Goths, Hurrians and what-not, which, while several of the ‘civilised’ civs -even their specific in-game leaders- were or are downright barbarically genocidal.
Already some mods differentiate between units that cost you a lot of shields, units that cost you population, units that cost you upkeep and combinations of the three. Also some units are regulated through autoproduction.
Of course, the AI cannot really handle much of it because it already takes a lot of effort to make it use artillery at all and for it to use it effectively is almost impossible simply because of how you have to rebalance everything.
At least conscript troops are weaker, i.e. have fewer HP, but you cannot resettle them into your cities. It would be interesting if you could settle troops into cities if they haven't risen beyond -to keep some balance- regular. Veterans and Elites would be too much into military life, having become professionalised, while the others are still in time to.
Also conscripts could not require upkeep, perhaps.
(since we're at it, the fact that a battleship costs as much gold to maintain as a warrior is strange)
What would happen if, in specific scenarios, units required disbandment after a mandatory term of service, or what if they mutinied (see below for more on rebellions)?
Re: barbarians.
I think that it could be a useful shift in viewpoint if we changed from calling them ‘barbarians’* to calling them ‘nomads’. Maybe they could exploit the territory in their own way, e.g. first you get a small crappy settlement that just produces low-level units like Civ3's warriors and horsemen and galleys. Then it could ‘expand’ (we already know that the barbarian settlements change, because at first they only produce warriors and only alter do they produce horsemen and galleys), perhaps giving its occupiers e.g. a defensive bonus or a +1 to healing, and maybe after that becoming a city-state.
If units can cost regular civs popheads then barbarian/nomad units could cost their camps some population: tl;dr they'd be produced in some sort of proportion to the nearby tiles not occupied by sedentary civs.
Historically there were great territories effectively exploited by nomadic peoples who developed strong cultural traditions, had powerful armies that were up to the standards of the day, and also engaged in trade with their neighbours and industry. Livestock-raising peoples across Eurasia, Africa and the Americas built great confederations and empires throughout history. And don't forget that most of the population of the world was rural until things began to change in these past couple of centuries.
In-game, this way the nomads are somewhat competitive. You'd better settle that fertile plainsland, lest a few nomads settle and start deploying armies against you -or, worse, settle as a city of its own outright, giving rise to a new civ!
Fighting between nomads is also a given. Perhaps there could be more than one settlement of one same tribe and they wouldn't fight one another.
Those who've played Total War games might remember why I'm making these two following suggestions, but:
-Continued city unrest could lead to cities ‘flipping’ to nearby enemy civs, but also to their drawing in nomads to take them over, or to simply split apart and reject your rule to start their own government!.
-Culture could help ‘pacify’ the nearest nomads. Your cultural superiority from libraries and temples and wonders could make them better predisposed towards you.
-Perhaps one could buy off the barbarians. See:
In civ3 they
- already loot your cities for first shields and then money
- they can be captured with the enslave function (btw, where there is VP scoring, do they count towards VP if you kill them, like civs' units? I'm almost certain that they do - I need to replay the Classical Maya scenario)
- goody huts can give you units that join your side, so they are interacting with you in a quasi-commercial way
So you could buy them into your side, if you can afford it.
Before I forget, a bit of a tweak could be used for ‘wild animals' lair’, too.
Of course, the next obvious thought is pirate havens on water tiles! I often see randomly-generated maps where there are islands that only feature mountain tiles. Those are pretty much useless except, possibly, as artillery bases. Since the game engine doesn't place barbarians unless you cause.
What if a goodie hut near water, instead of spawning some easily defeatable warriors, spawned some rather more insufferable galleys?
I myself would give the barbarians longships or other fighting craft. In my (in-house) mod the dromon is a separate war galley; already I've experienced the displeasure and chagrin of downgrading from Dromon to caravel, losing sea supremacy as the Byzantines.
Of course, all the above is not so much stuff that would need to be in the regular, vanilla Civ3-replica game, but stuff that could be in a more ‘advanced’ version and, quite simply, the stuff that I feel should be available under the game engine for modders to do with as they please.
*just see the names, some of them are Avars, Bantu, Goths, Hurrians and what-not, which, while several of the ‘civilised’ civs -even their specific in-game leaders- were or are downright barbarically genocidal.
Re: Limiting how far a unit can move from a city
I've been wanting this functionality for a long time too! I think one way to do it would be to create a number of tiles and number of turns away from the friendly cultural border (I'm guessing that would be eaiser to code than a distance from a city), and then either make the terrain impassible or -- and I think I'm leaning towards the latter here -- the unit takes X amount of HP damage per turn until it dies. Otherwise, you might get units camped out a certain distance from the cultural border that would just sit there forever.
Anyway, the number of tiles (and number of turns) before the unit takes damage could change per unit (perhaps also the amount of damage), or with certain techs or governments or whatnot for all units in a civ. If the latter, I assume a Flag exception would be required. With the latter, it wouldn't be necessary, but if there are a lot of units in the mod, it could become quite a headache to set the range parameters for each unit. Not sure what would be the best.
I've been wanting this functionality for a long time too! I think one way to do it would be to create a number of tiles and number of turns away from the friendly cultural border (I'm guessing that would be eaiser to code than a distance from a city), and then either make the terrain impassible or -- and I think I'm leaning towards the latter here -- the unit takes X amount of HP damage per turn until it dies. Otherwise, you might get units camped out a certain distance from the cultural border that would just sit there forever.
Anyway, the number of tiles (and number of turns) before the unit takes damage could change per unit (perhaps also the amount of damage), or with certain techs or governments or whatnot for all units in a civ. If the latter, I assume a Flag exception would be required. With the latter, it wouldn't be necessary, but if there are a lot of units in the mod, it could become quite a headache to set the range parameters for each unit. Not sure what would be the best.
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Jon Shafer's At the Gates has a feature like that, unit supply, which decreases with distance. Unfortunately, it also decreases with winter, which means that if you're a new player, you'll send your units out scouting in the summer, and then they'll starve or freeze in the winter.
I think a clear and intuitive user interface would be key for that to work. Right now Civ shows you Movement Points; it may well be necessary to show Supply Distance, and have it be predictable and for the map to provide feedback if you're about to move a unit into a low-supply area. Paradox games, at least Europa Universalis IV, do this with tooltips if you're moving a unit, e.g. as you hover over a province it will show "Unit weight with Army of Anatolia: 30.2. Supply limit: 32". Although, as I recall they've had to moderate the effects as the AI can be ignorant of the effects of attrition due to low supply.
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There is a lot of room for expansion with barbarians. I like the nomadic ideas; indeed one of the challenges is how do you make nomads interesting in a game about settled societies? As I recall, wasn't it Civ4 that had a (Firaxis-shipped?) mod where you could play as the nomads? In most attempts I've seen, the "nomads" still have settled cities as their base, just different traits, e.g. cavalry units. Although I haven't yet played Attila: Total War; maybe that one is different.
I think a clear and intuitive user interface would be key for that to work. Right now Civ shows you Movement Points; it may well be necessary to show Supply Distance, and have it be predictable and for the map to provide feedback if you're about to move a unit into a low-supply area. Paradox games, at least Europa Universalis IV, do this with tooltips if you're moving a unit, e.g. as you hover over a province it will show "Unit weight with Army of Anatolia: 30.2. Supply limit: 32". Although, as I recall they've had to moderate the effects as the AI can be ignorant of the effects of attrition due to low supply.
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There is a lot of room for expansion with barbarians. I like the nomadic ideas; indeed one of the challenges is how do you make nomads interesting in a game about settled societies? As I recall, wasn't it Civ4 that had a (Firaxis-shipped?) mod where you could play as the nomads? In most attempts I've seen, the "nomads" still have settled cities as their base, just different traits, e.g. cavalry units. Although I haven't yet played Attila: Total War; maybe that one is different.
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Costs for moving units:
In some of the new Civ 2 ToTPP scenarios one has to spend money for the fuel of units when moving them (p.e. for tanks, aircraft, ships).
C3C holds a very simple option to show a kind of limited supply in the game: Units are not healing when standing on a LM terrain.
In some of the new Civ 2 ToTPP scenarios one has to spend money for the fuel of units when moving them (p.e. for tanks, aircraft, ships).
C3C holds a very simple option to show a kind of limited supply in the game: Units are not healing when standing on a LM terrain.
Ooooh, yes. In TAM there were special ‘Desert’ units which were knockoffs of regular units but which ignored movement costs for deserts. Something like that could work. Basically, if you fortify units on swamp terrain they stand a chance of dying, but if you just move them around they never do, even if they start and end the turn on disease-bearing terrain.
Perhaps it could go hand-in-hand with the nomads: outsider units in ‘difficult’ terrain could take damage per turn or decreased stats, a bit like the attrition mechanic in Rise of Nations. Nomads, hardy natives, could very well not.
Is this a default option in the epic game?
I haven't caught up yet on the barbarian discussion yet, but "how do you make nomads interesting in a game about settled societies" is perhaps the most fundamental challenge of the Civ franchise. As I recall, until roughly 1600AD, settled societies were the exception, rather than the norm! It would be amazing to figure out how to make nomads, both forager and pastoralist, playable and fun, even though they don't have cities. Nomad confederacies (like the Mongols, obviously, but many others as well) were hugely impactful on sedentary states, but that kind of mobility, fluidity, and dispersion makes it really hard (at least for me) to conceptualize within the standard Civ framework. I imagine it might be an entirely different game -- one I would very much want to play -- I just don't know how to imagine it would work!
Heck yeah, there could be so many fun ways to play with this functionality! Fuel supply like Civinator said, or camel units that don't have supply issues if they're in desert terrain, etc.
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I wouldn't say settled societies were the exception so late. Urban societies, yes, but there were plenty of primarily rural, agricultural, but definitely settled societies, from Europe to India to China, as well as in the Middle East (relatively recent Timurid invasions notwithstanding). But yes, the nomads remained highly impactful on settled societies until not that many centuries ago.
Perhaps one of the challenges in portraying them is there aren't very many nomadic video game developers, nor indeed that many nomadic video game players, these days. Pesky how those video games need electricity, and that isn't necessarily easy to come by when you're sleeping under the stars and living in the saddle.
Perhaps one of the challenges in portraying them is there aren't very many nomadic video game developers, nor indeed that many nomadic video game players, these days. Pesky how those video games need electricity, and that isn't necessarily easy to come by when you're sleeping under the stars and living in the saddle.
Puppeteer
Emperor
I spent the last two years without a long-term lease and moving around a lot.... But I didn't really interact with people, so I guess I still don't count.
Point taken! That was my mistake, I should have said "states," not societies. "Urban societies" is spot on, and I think that's what Civ typically models a "civilization" on -- which makes sense etymologically, of course. Anyway, I need to catch up on the discussions here about barbarians etc., but this is super fascinating for me, given my reading material at the moment. It would be super cool to see C7 implement some mechanics that considerably expand the role of non-state and non-sedentary societies in the game. *glee*
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