CIV-4 Big picture thoughts

[sir_schwick]

My opinion is that Civ should not try to find out whose empire will last 6000 years, but whose empire will change the world while its around. No empire will last 6000 years unless it never achieves greatness. The great empires still live though, through those that succeded them and inherited their culture and science(Hellens live through Romans).

Here is more on mechanics. As your empire rises in relative poweryou progress is plotted against a bell curve of sorts. Whenever the rise is rapid enough, you are beginning your ascent to greatness. The upper portions of the curve will be yoru Golden Age. The more powerful the curve, the better the Golden Age. Of course any rise involves a fall, which is proportional.
Here comes the kicker. At some point your empire will fall apart and seperate into many factions. However, if you had a strong cultural or historical prescence, you will have laid the ground-work or majorly influenced these new societies. This means whenever a new one forms, you can switch to the new one, which is not dictated by its parent civs curve. Thus, your goal is not to make it to the end of the game as the Romans, but always try to bring the glory of the society that evolved from the original. This can be accomplished through great acts historically or culturally/scientifically. Buddhism was dead for a long time in India, but was implemented into many Hindu variants. Thus the Buddhism eventually came back.
Of coruse you could also try to be a society that never achieves great notoriety, but lasts a long time.
As for great leaders, very rapid rises to power would indicate a great leader. This means your bonuses would be incredible, but expect that good things to last a very short time. Basically, you have to change history in 5 turns, but it will be possible iwth the crazy bonuses you get. AFter that the whole empire splits into parts mostly based on former cultural identity, but you have affected all fo them and carry on through them.

 

[dh_epic]

Sir Schwick, I think this is a neat idea. But it is definitely contraversial. I remember a similar idea coming up, and a lot of people had an aversion to the idea that their empire randomly or was forced into falling ... that it would take control away from the player.

I tried to claim it would change the focus of the game. Instead of a race, it would be more like "King of the Hill" in Halo. The user isn't racing against the others, but instead you rack up points for the amount of time and the size of your empire at its high points. And then the goal, when you hit those valleys, is to minimize the depth and length of those dips.

You don't necessarily need to do the heredity thing, but it IS a neat idea. I'll let you carry that baby. I'm already into it at the idea of having a dark age and rennaisance of Rome. Rome gets dozens of "domination" points from 300 BC to 300 AD... then for the next bunch of turns, they spend a long time trying to regain their footing, and get another 10 domination points for a halfway decent rennaisance from 1200 to 1500. Then they get another 12 domination points for a short lived but huge sweep into Africa in the Second World War. And you just hope that Rome accumulates enough domination points to take it to Britain -- who didn't have as good a classical age as Rome, but struck it big in the Industrial era.

A lot of people don't like that idea though because "that means my empire falls sometimes! that sucks!". I saw it more as running yards and trading possession in football. You don't get pissed off when you have to kick the ball to the opposition on the fourth down, because you hope that you've gained more yards in your posession than you'll let them gain in their possession. And you hope that when you finally get possession again, you'll run it all the way to a touchdown. And American Football is one of the most exciting and balanced games in the world.

 

[sir_schwick]

It might have been me who suggested it. My point was that since 'falling' is considered losing, the present really does not matter, just the ends. It is the reason dealings in Civ are so wierd compared to real life.

This could lead to multiple play types. "Test of Time" mode , "King of the Hill" mode.

 

[ShadowWarrior]

It might have been me who suggested it. My point was that since 'falling' is considered losing, the present really does not matter, just the ends. It is the reason dealings in Civ are so wierd compared to real life.

This could lead to multiple play types. "Test of Time" mode , "King of the Hill" mode.

An excellent idea, which conforms to reality much better than current Civ game does. However, like dh has pointed out, empires doesn't fall apart for no reason. There is a specific reason that empires who reached their peak will eventually fall. Such a "reason" needs to be modelled into the game so that we players will be satisfied with the fall of the very empire we ourselves created.

Can you think of how this can be done?

Chinese history until recent times has suggested that the fate of dynasties has to do significantly with whoever ruled the country. Basically, an incompetent emperor who is not diligent in the administration of his empire will find himself surrounded with evil imperial advisors who abuse their powers for their own interest. This always leads to fall of every single great Chinese dynasty.

It is however almost impossible to model "incompetence" into the game. If we are good players, we will rule the nation deligently throughout the game for 6000 years, and our empire will last for that long. But if we are bad players, we will not have a chance to survive the first few centuries. In another word, we either dominate the game throughout, or we loose from the begining. (I very much doubt that there are many of us who, in the middle of the game, will begin to deliberately rule our empire with incompetence so that our empire will eventually fall for the purpose of having our game conform to reality)


My point is that in history, the fall of any great empire is the result of bad leadership. Since in Civ games, we are the leaders, we will be able to control the quality of leadership that is given to the governance of the civilization we rule. Therefore it is hard to model the fall of once mighty empires due to incompetence of the government.

However, there are many other variables leading to demise of empires in history. Those are often outside the grasp of emperors. For example, the Manchurian emperors of China in the last few decades of the 19th century are still very good emperors who devoted themselves to the administration of their countries. However, they can not control what was going on outside of China, which was the rise of the European great powers. As a result, Manchurian dynast, which once commanded the awe and respect of the world, felt from grace, and died of a humuliating defeat by the alliance of the 8 nations.

Those external variables that also determine the fortune of our empire are outside of our control. And by modeling them into the game, we will possibly be able to introduce a game feature in which empires that once was powerful will eventually die, leaving the memory of its existence and its former glory in the form of the empire's offsprings. One obvious example is the Roman empire and the European nations.

If you have read my models on resources, population, geography, and trade, you should be able to see somehow how the decline of empire might be brought about. My model on resources suggests that there are vital resources for production associated with each period. When we are unable to obtain access to those resources, we can somewhat compensate that by substituting those with previous era resources, with the disadvantage of having a product of inferior performance. For example, in the middle age, a vital resource that was unneeded in the ancient era is iron. Iron is needed to build, lets say, swordsmen. Lacking iron, a civilization can build swordsmen using ancient era resource, but they will get swordsmen that can fight much less effectively than swordsmen built of iron.

This need to constantly secure access to new important resource for each era may possibly contribute to the decline in the fortune of empire. Of course, there are many othe reasons that empires fall, not just because of lack of resources. Can you think of any important external variables outside the control of leadership that lead to demise of empire, and which can easily be modeled into Civ games?

 

[sir_schwick]

Civilization as a game makes assumptions about things that are happening that a player never sees or could control. The problems in Rome had somewhat to do with corners that were cut early on to allow for massive expansion. These problems festered until the point they caused massive decay. This would be explained by a rapid rise in relative power, you had to use methods and systems that were not necessarily sound for the long-term. So, the more you cheated the system, the more the system cheats you later on. Its not as scientific as either one of us would like, but would be something easy to understand. "The greater the rise the more spectacular the fall."

 

[dh_epic]

Yeah, I'm with Sir Schwick again. Not to say that the leader stuff isn't valid -- because it's definitely a realistic element of history. But it would just be too hard to model in Civ, where you ARE the leader now and forever -- how could your nation suddenly be lacking in leadership?

I like what Sir Schwick talks about in "cheating the system". Give the user more shortcuts, but let these shortcuts have distinct penalties.

One such thing I've talked about is a tech web -- where you can take a militaristic route to make your nation mightier, or you can take a "normal" route. The prior route would make you strong, but also keep your people ignorant and prevent the onset of democratizing technologies like the printing press or nationalism.

Or you can push your borders out really really fast without taking the time to culturally assimilate people, expanding your empire a lot and gaining a lot of "domination points". However, your empire would be more likely to crumble into civil war due to the disjointedness and hard feelings and lack of common cultural thread -- this shortening the amount of time you could collect "domination points".

The sharper the rise, the sharper the fall, right?

Tying it into provinces and civil war is DEFINITELY a cool concept, in my books. But I know a lot of people would feel differently. Again, I think that all critics are hearing is "what? my empire needs to fall? since when is success a reason to penalize someone?" Still, I'm not talking about all success, just untempered, reckless growth.

I think another complaint is that this would probably make world domination completely impossible. But to them I say domination in Civ 3 changed from Civ 2 -- you no longer had to kill everyone, but just a certain percentage. And with the rise and fall element, you really would have almost like a game of football. Someone reaches 48% with the second place guy at 40%, but then the first place guy hits a dark age / civil war and crumbles down to 30%, and the second place guy makes an endrun towards the 50% mark. I love the idea of endrun after endrun cut short, only to have one team/Civ finally make it.

 

[kryszcztov]

Some interesting ideas here. Couldn't we even imagine a game where the goal for a civ would be changing all the time ? For example, at the beginning of the game, your civ would have three goals in which to choose one, like having 5 cities, building 10 warriors, and meeting 3 other civs. The goal would be to achieve ONE (or why not ALL ?) of these goals as soon as you can. Success would be measured by a points system, and of course the sooner the more points. Then you again have 3 goals in which you can choose your own path, like connecting 5 cities by road, building 4 barracks, and sell one of the silks you can see over there to another civ. And so on... Looks like some adventure going on ! It would even look like a campaign whose scenarios would be linked in the same game. The AI civs would have the same to do (but that could be different goals), and performance would be measured from the Stone Age to the XXIst century. In multiplayer each player would compete to get the most points in the long term. And goals wouldn't be known in advance, you'd learn them when the previous goal was completed. That reminds me of that variant in Risk, where each player would pick up a personal goal. But the AI and the program would have to be good... Oh, and you could still ignore the goals and try to conquer everyone or get a total victory in diplomacy, economics, science or civics... But that would require excellent skills, and that would be tougher than choosing the points system. Time is running...

 

[sir_schwick]

This would make a good additional game Mode. "Test of Time", "King of the Age", "Victory Points". Even if the point system is not formally implemented, that is how the AI should be thinking. They should have a set of goals that all range on scope, from All-Game to THis Moment. That way they could focus their actions on specific goals such as, "Weaken player A", "Reinforce Border with Player B", "Prepare for possbile growth with Civic Techs", etc. Now it seems purely reactionary and uses a rather weak tech choosing paradigm in my opinion.

 

[dh_epic]

I've always wondered what Civ would be like if it were almost like a card game -- the kind where cards have different effects and such. The idea of drawing a card that says "conquer 3 cities and receive 10 points" is a neat idea -- not an actual card, but in abstract, the random effect idea is what I'd have been interested in. Besides drawing a random goal, you could draw a random effect like "send 5 missionaries into an enemy's territory in the next 5 turns and cause civil war".

Very un-civlike. But hey, I like going a little crazy in the big picture. We can make more repsonsible suggestions later

 

[sir_schwick]

"Test of Time" - Standard Epic Game
"King of the Age" - Empires rise and fall, so its your responsibility to make your mark while you can.
"Victory Points" - Accomplishing certain random goals gives you points toward ultimate victory.
"Mission Civ" - All players get secret assignments they must complete to win.

 

[dh_epic]

I like those gimmick games. I imagine they'd be mutually exclusive, though.

 

[sir_schwick]

That's why they are different game modes and not just game options. The changes would be fundamental enough that it would be easier to rename them as such.

 

[dh_epic]

Yeah, kind of like playing Death Match versus Capture the Flag. Same basic mechanics, but fundamental differences in goals and thus strategy.

 

[sir_schwick]

Perfect analogy. Furthermore, it is like CTF vs DM because both have some distinct mechanics the others might not have or that are unique. CTF has the flags and maps are designed a certain way.

ToT would not have Decline and Switch model, VP and Mission would be alike, but probably should be some difference in mechanics.

Either way Perfect Analogy!

 

[Tholish]

Cities should have a chance of seceding based on cummulative loss of resources to corrupution, and on mixed nationality, cultural influences, unhappiness, and the proximity of other secessionists. Secessionists near in time and space should band together to form new civilizations, for which there could be a name list. Leader heads would be problematic, unless you just used flags. This could be a way to break down quick rise empires and keep allive the notion that real history at least could have been something modelable by civ had things gone that way.

Multiple tech lines can be done without added complexity, just using optional and dead end techs like Chivalry and Military Tradition, or Music Theory and Democracy. What is needed for tech is Education--subtract test tubes every turn, and then add the ones you earn with "research" spending. If you get a negative result, you "forget" research, or even techs, sliding back into the dark ages.

The super leader who then dies is already represented. Its called a Golden Age. Maybe the length should be variable like revolutions. Other leaders represent the dynasty, or really just the will of the people (either imposed from above or manifested from below), not just the government per se. Similarly with taxes. They represent the investment of the economy, not necessarily just the public sector. Maybe that should be reflected, but really its just that you have to play the game as a player.

It should be possible to switch what civ you are playing during the game. I start playing the Greeks and later on I switch to the Romans and then later on I switch to the Byzantines. Or, I could be playing a boring game, defeating all the AI civs and decide to switch and play one of the lesser civs, see if I can't turn it around. This could also be part of the answer to a dumb AI. That would synergize with secessionist civs to produce what Sir schwick was talking about with getting scored for victory based on taking over a splinter of a fragmented empire, but would also do much more. Maybe it could be set up so that victory is to be measured by a group of civs, that you play. For example, you could play a locked alliance and jump around playing each nation on different turns, and victory could be based on points of that locked alliance against others. Or, you could set for points victory based on the group accumulation by some given starting civ and all its splinter civs. Or you could even set victory to be based on the points accumulation of another civ that you never play, but leave in the hands of the AI for the whole game while you play another civ completely. Endless possiblities.

Another thing is specialist citizens. Should be bigger deal. They were a major factor in civilization being what it was.

Sorry this wishlist like stuff isn't of the same calibre as the rest of this excellent philosophical thread. But its a fine line between Why and How. They are often implied in each other.

 

[dh_epic]

No need to be hard on yourself, I think you have some interesting thoughts on leaders.

If we wanted to simulate the effect of leaders and dynasties... When you hit that special age (which should happen more than once)...

A great leader is born, but they have a time limit. 20 turns or something. When the leader is around, he doesn't just bring units together, or give bonuses in that respect... he also brings stability to the empire, and instills a Nationalistic pride. All of the sudden there are serious happiness bonuses to the cities you conquer, as long as he's around.

What would happen when he/she "dies" is an interesting question...

At bare minimum the happiness bonuses could disappear, and the cities could encounter some kind of unrest, with even the possibility of seccession.

If we wanted to get trickier, there could be a bonus for "disbanding" the leader early, devoting the remainder of his life to bringing stability and order to your empire instead of military glory. For example, if you disband him 10 turns in, you encounter no unrest. 15 turns in, some unrest. 19 turns in, almost the same amount of unrest. The idea being that you present the user with a real dilemma: make your empire big, or make your empire stable. If you make it big, you risk stability problems. If you make it stable, you miss out on the benefits of empire building, you'll never get Alexander all the way to India!

I also had a brief idea of the leader turning into "four generals" when it "dies", but I think that might be pushing the historical metaphor too far

As for secession, I think it's an important concept that needs to be in there. People have called it Civil War, but I'm also talking about the peaceful break-away that happens. Forging a new identity. I think taking control of the smaller breakaway empire is a fascinating and challenging option. And, in fact, I think it could tie into something I've talked about before.

"Historical Victory"

Historical victory would just be a way of rewarding the player for historical behaviors that aren't necessarily profitable, and for taking bigger risks and going for bigger challenges.

You get points for undertaking these kinds of tasks, instead of just taking the traditional Civ route of "build a lot of units, pick on someone much smaller than you, expand, expand, expand". And once you accumulate enough points, you achieve victory. I've talked about giving these bonus points for liberating lesser nations and helping them build stable happy Nations. I've even talked about giving bonus points for going after someone as strong as you, if not stronger. The idea is to force the user into a dilemma -- play it safe, or take the risk for big rewards?

One such risk could be taking control of a breakaway republic. Voluntarily letting your empire getting carved up like a pie, and taking the small piece... and everything you do from then on counts for that much more, score wise.


I take a very simple approach when it comes to the game. If you want to see more variety in behaviors in the game, you need to reward alternative behaviors, and make them equally as compelling as the "safe" behaviors we've known in Civ until now.