Civ traits not hardcoded from the beginning?

[BobTheTerrible]

I doubt this will make it into cIV, but what they hey, maybe it can be modded in (doubtful) or considered for use in Civ 5.

Anyway, one thing about civ I thought was funny is that civ bonuses and UU's were tied to what they were historically. While this makes plenty of sense to the normal person, It doesn't make complete sense to me.

I think that civs should aquire their traits based on the map position and how they play in the game. For example: Germans should not get panzers as their set-in-stone UU. There should be some variation, ie it should be possible for another civ the get the panzer as a UU. Also, there's the conundrum of expansionist civs being locked on a tiny island. Rather than being labled as expansionist from the beginning, the game ought to label them as a trait more suited to a civ stuck on an island, maybe "organized" or something. Civs that start in the desert could be able to gain a special ability where they, say, treat desert tiles as 1 movement point rather than 2. Civs starting in the jungle may be able to learn how to make transverse the jungle faster, maybe reducing them to 1 movement point.

I'm using all bad examples here, as I have a habit for not exactly getting across what I want to say... but I hope you're beginning to understand hat I'm trying to say. I'd rather see civs gain trats and abilities based on how they play in the game, not preset. For example, meeting an angry Ghandi in the modern age, who's become Militaristic because he's been fighting with his many neighboring civs since ancient times. Or seeing a peaceful Bismark, who, being trapped on an island, is content to merely sell wine and stray away from other foreign affairs.

Of course, I think it should be an option to play this way, since I'm sure many people would rather have the set-in-stone bonuses and traits be determined from the beginning of the game.

What do you people think?

And as a side note, in cIV I would like to see a civilization have a few small bonuses, so each civ has special traits based on not only the leader who's leading them, but also the civ itself.

I hope this made sense...

 

[ThePersian]

I see what your talking about. FOr example the powerful early civs like the egyptions and Pesians (my fav civ) and Babalonians were always powerful compared to the Germans becuse of their UU units. FOr example the greeks were always impossible (i am using hyperboly) to beat becuse of their great UUs.

There might be a reason to ristrict UU units to only Campaign modes, as in games of historical importance, and for example the same as religon, the person to get science first ex Cavlery should be awarded with the UU for the caverlry trait. Make sence?

Its possible to suggest we take out UUs. But i dont know, it would be hard for me to give up the UUs.

Well its not just enough to say what is wrong with the game. I think we should come up with solutions.

My solution is people to get the science first should get a the UU for that feild. So if your the german and your stuck on the island you should be trying your hardest to get the UU for sea faring units.

 

[BarbarianSlayer]

I understand where you are coming from, but without unique traits they might as well only have one civ. If all of these civs can adjust, you will be playing other identical civs (i.e., all seafaring on an archipelago map).

 

[apatheist]

Unique units not being specific to a civ is weird. I can't imagine an Indian Panzer or an English Samurai or an Aztec Cossack.

I am intrigued by the UU going to the first civ to get the tech, but that has several obvious issues. One is that most techs that have a UU have more than one UU: Chivalry is the most obvious, but there's also Iron Working and Horseback Riding. Also, the Civ that gets tech A first is likely to get techs B, C, and D first. That means either that the rich get richer, or that it only really means something the first couple of times around, as the UU goes to the 2nd, 3rd, or 8th civ to get a tech because all the preceding ones already got a UU. Finally, that means that weaker civs get UUs later rather than earlier, making them hurt even more.

As far as traits being determined by your geography, I'm no fan of that either. First of all, if you have an archipelago world, it makes sense for all the civs to be Seafaring. If that happens, what's the point of it? Secondly, having some traits be more useful in some situations than others is by intent. It makes the game more varied. It makes you mix up your style. Finally, having traits and UUs be fixed makes game balance easier because a civ with a strong pair of traits can get a weaker UU or vice versa to balance things. Or they can get a UU that works with their strengths, like how the English had a naval vessel or the Germans an unbeatable tank. Then there's the historical flavor that people like.

I agree with the general idea that traits shouldn't be tied to Civs, though. They're doing it with leaders in Civ4, which ought to be interesting.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I actually feel that they have come quite a long way-with civ traits and UU-by moving them away from specific civs, and instead assigning them to particular leaders of those civs. I think that especially where a civ has more than one potential leader (and, I suspect, it won't be long before all civs have 2-3 leaders each) this will give each civ much greater replay value-and prevent certain civs from dominating one era of the game-each and every time.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[bio_hazard]

I think the UU works pretty well as is, but if I were going to change it...

Either let one of the Great People (is that what they are called?, can't remember) designate ANY unit to be a UU, but you can only do this one or a couple times per game...

or... let civs that research a certain trait 2nd, 3rd, etc have a chance of building the unit as a UU. Doesn't it make more sense to see the basic model first and then figure out how to improve upon it? Maybe if you or your allies defeat the standard unit in battle, you could have a chance to build version 2.

That might make for an interesting balance aspect, as it would be good to be the first civ building knights or cavs, but that other civs could build better versions once they get military tradition.

Of course, I don't think UU's are going to be as important in CivIV because of unit promotions.

 

[JBearIt]

I actually feel that they have come quite a long way-with civ traits and UU-by moving them away from specific civs, and instead assigning them to particular leaders of those civs. I think that especially where a civ has more than one potential leader (and, I suspect, it won't be long before all civs have 2-3 leaders each) this will give each civ much greater replay value-and prevent certain civs from dominating one era of the game-each and every time.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

While we know that civ traits are to be tied to the leader, I haven't seen anything that indicates that the UU is as well. I think the UU is tied to the civ and not the leader.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

Hmm well one of the reason I say this is that(I'll pick a random example here) the Mongol's UU is a horseman. Well what if the Mongols have no horse access? It makes no sense for them to have a horse based UU if they're stuck in the jungle somewhere.

Good point about the archipelego (wow messed that spelling up). However, When I say "traits" I wasn't talking about the exact bonus-traits that a civ has, per se. I'm pretty much talking about civs being given kind-of traits, based on how they act. In said archipelego scenario, a civ who colonized many different islands would become "seafaring," and seafaring would not give any bonuses, it would just be a kind of title/trait added to the civilization, which would in the future make that civ more likely to use sea units etc. With the UU, Bio Hazard has pretty much what I was getting at.

I dunno, the more I try to explain it, the more I seem to be unable to. But what I'm really aiming at is trying to have each civ be different in different games, based on their surroundings and previous behaviors. Maybe it doesn't make any sense.

 

[JBearIt]

I dunno, the more I try to explain it, the more I seem to be unable to. But what I'm really aiming at is trying to have each civ be different in different games, based on their surroundings and previous behaviors. Maybe it doesn't make any sense.

I think we understand it. And to some extent the civs in Civ III (and I'm sure so will be the case in Civ IV) do play differently based on their surroundings. However, you have to have some pre-set characteristics and units or they lose all ties back to the historical civilization from which they come in the "real world." If that were to happen, you might as well have generic or made-up civs rather than historical civilizations.

 

[rhialto]

I don't see a problem with restricitng UUs as it is now. After all, its a What-If situation. The current rules highlight the fact that you aren't playing "a civ that happens to be called the Mongols", but that you are playing "the civ that *is* the Mongols". What if that culture had evolved in the jungle? Could they still have conquered half the world?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

My evidence regarding UU and leaders is that there is a screenie showing a Redcoat being built in a city. Now, I doubt very much that they have gotten rid of the Man-O-War, so this strongly suggests that Elizabeth grants you a Man-O-War as your UU, wheras Victoria grants you a Redcoat. Makes sense to me!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[ThePersian]

Oh wow does this suggest that Napolian will have a diffrent one the his conterpart?
If so what can you speculate?

 

[JBearIt]

My evidence regarding UU and leaders is that there is a screenie showing a Redcoat being built in a city. Now, I doubt very much that they have gotten rid of the Man-O-War, so this strongly suggests that Elizabeth grants you a Man-O-War as your UU, wheras Victoria grants you a Redcoat. Makes sense to me!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Good theory. I hope you're right. I just don't think I've seen any mention of the possibility of 2 unique units in any of the official previews so far. Of course, the previews are still probably just scratching the surface.

 

[Urederra]

My evidence regarding UU and leaders is that there is a screenie showing a Redcoat being built in a city. Now, I doubt very much that they have gotten rid of the Man-O-War, so this strongly suggests that Elizabeth grants you a Man-O-War as your UU, wheras Victoria grants you a Redcoat. Makes sense to me!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I recall a debate about what UU the romans have, since people have seen two different UU for ther romans, the legionary and the praetorian. So, maybe one Roman leader has the legionary and the other the praetorian, but this has to be double-checked. Civrules doesn't put the legionary as the roman's UU in his compilation document, and there must be a reason for that.

 

[Leuf]

It's a question of Nature vs Nurture.

I suggested (a long time ago) that it doesn't make sense that you'd have a civ that developed a trait that was irrelevant to their position, and I'm sure I wasn't the first then either. The Persians wouldn't develop Immortals if they had no iron. They wouldn't go run around the world trying to get their iron because they knew they'd be great swordsmen if they could just find something to make swords out of. England wouldn't develop into a sea power if they were landlocked, and on and on.

The wussy way out of this is to make sure that the resources they need are nearby, which is apparently the way they went.

To me it would make a lot more sense to let you see the start position first and then let you pick the civ you wanted when you make your capital.


-Leuf

 

[apatheist]

It's a question of Nature vs Nurture.

I suggested (a long time ago) that it doesn't make sense that you'd have a civ that developed a trait that was irrelevant to their position, and I'm sure I wasn't the first then either. The Persians wouldn't develop Immortals if they had no iron. They wouldn't go run around the world trying to get their iron because they knew they'd be great swordsmen if they could just find something to make swords out of. England wouldn't develop into a sea power if they were landlocked, and on and on.

The counter-argument is that it makes the civs indistinguishable from each other and loses that lovely historical flavor we enjoy so much.

Also, consider this... if you are the Greeks and have that Hoplite, you don't care so much about acquiring Iron for defense because you'll never need it to get a powerful defender. As a result, you play the game differently than you would if you were a civ that needed Iron to get the 3-defense Pikeman. Ditto for the Indians with the War Elephant not needing Horses. On the other hand, if you're the Persians and you have that killer Immortal, you're highly motivated to find Iron. Playing as the Persians, you're going to be much more fixated on Iron in the early game because that's how you get your edge. None of this is news to you, I'm sure, but I want to highlight the importance the UU can have in making you consider your strategies. They alter the incentives (or disincentives) to go after certain resources, build coastal cities, launch early wars, avoid early wars, etc. As a result, you play each civ differently, so (in theory), you can play the game 18 times as much before it gets repetitive. If traits were acquired like has been suggested, that wouldn't happen.

The wussy way out of this is to make sure that the resources they need are nearby, which is apparently the way they went.

I believe the consensus interpretation is not that they gave every civ every resource, but rather that every civ is going to have some resource. The former would neuter the idea of resources. The latter ensures that you always have something to offer, even if it's not what you need most, as that makes it possible to get what you need most.

To me it would make a lot more sense to let you see the start position first and then let you pick the civ you wanted when you make your capital.

That's complicated, though. It means that you might know where there's Iron or Horses or coastal squares many turns before you might have known otherwise.

 

[Leuf]

The counter-argument is that it makes the civs indistinguishable from each other and loses that lovely historical flavor we enjoy so much.

I disagree with this. You can start all the civs identical and let them evolve into different civs. I think this is a lot more realistic.

However I'm not saying the way it is now is inherently bad, as you point out it creates a certain dynamic. I just think it'd be interesting to try it the other way.

I want to highlight the importance the UU can have in making you consider your strategies. They alter the incentives (or disincentives) to go after certain resources, build coastal cities, launch early wars, avoid early wars, etc. As a result, you play each civ differently, so (in theory), you can play the game 18 times as much before it gets repetitive. If traits were acquired like has been suggested, that wouldn't happen.

At the same time, once you know who your neighbors are you know more about them then you ought to. You might know 2000 years before it happens they are going to get this really nasty unit so you'd better get rid of them now. Or even though you don't really need any more iron sources, that one over by Persia you're going to make sure you get. But you shouldn't know that you ought to do that because Persia hasn't even invented its Immortals yet. So in that sense the game becomes repetitive because certain elements are predestined. I think it'd be more interesting if the Persian AI could check out its early position in the world and maybe decide it's not in a good position for an early attack and save it's UU for later. Or perhaps because you were a good neighbor to Persia you could change their course and they'd go for a defensive unit.

I believe the consensus interpretation is not that they gave every civ every resource, but rather that every civ is going to have some resource. The former would neuter the idea of resources. The latter ensures that you always have something to offer, even if it's not what you need most, as that makes it possible to get what you need most.

Right but what civ in their right mind is going to trade iron to Persia for anything? Great, my people will be healthy and happy when the Immortals come kill them. We'll have to see how this works out.

That's complicated, though. It means that you might know where there's Iron or Horses or coastal squares many turns before you might have known otherwise.

Personally I think you ought to start with a lot more knowledge of the map than you do in Civ3. You're a nomadic people, and yet the game doesn't allow you to roam around without falling behind. So presumably you've already wandered around for a while before the game started and this is where you ended up. I don't see how letting me see a 3-5 tile radius instead of 1 takes away anything from the game. It's a forgone conclusion that I am going to explore those tiles before anyone else anyway, so just give them to me and let me make some better educated early decisions. But they are going in the opposite direction, not even letting you know what part of the world you're in.


-Leuf

 

[ThePersian]

Maybe there should be a 5 turn rule were you can not build a city. Just move around.

 

[Huxley Hobbes]

I would like to put my two gold/cents/pence/yuan/yen/etc etc into this topic, as it was something I've been thinking about for a little while.

Generally, I have to say that I agree with Leuf on the general principles of the matter; there is no way for me to accept that the Germans, stranded alone on an island, are going to hold out for five millennia to get a hold of some Panzer tanks, instead of working on their seafaring abilities and the like.

I understand the sentiment that if civs evolved according to their surroundings, it woulde reduce diversity, but the very reason there are so many possible cultures is that worlds are diverse in the first place. Yes, in an archipelago everyone will go and build good ships. But why would a civ on an island of jungle and swamp have the same culture/abilities beyond that, compared to a civ from an island of plains and hills? I think traits would be better handled if chosen later in a Civ's life, after they've had a chance to explore and expand, and have a feel for their power base. And there ought to be a more diverse set of traits to choose from, affecting a great array of things. Eg, 'Jungle Fighting' counts under the 'militaristic' heading, and grants extra movement to foot units, as they are so used to moving through difficult terrain. But then 'desert fighting' gives a bonus to hit points, as the hardy people who live in desert lands are tough and swarthy. To have access to such a thing, I would suggest a system whereby a certain number of owned tiles/percentage of owned land is of the required kind. Alternatively one could choose scientific or trade advantages, but the only way I can think of diversifying those is through resources, so that aspect would need more work.

Moving on to UUs, I propose they be entirely abolished. I think it would be better if there was a wider array of standard units, open to all. However, to move back towards the idea of diversity, I have two or three propositions. The first entails having not only resources, but of different qualities. Let's take Iron, and a typical Pikeman-style unit. Say the standard power level is 10 for a Pikeman made with normal-quality Iron. With low-quality Iron, this might only be 9, but High-quality Iron might lead to a level of 12. What effects would this have?

Primarily, I think it would allow for diversity (Especially when combined with the second suggestion, detailed below.) in which routes the player takes. If you have abundant Iron, but it's not very good Iron, you might well be compelled to move on and find other resources (Though of course this would be dependant on having more than one resource for each age which allows exclusive units to be built.). Or it might lead you to take a back foot on the war stance, and concentrate on science to try and reach an age where Iron is less of a necessity; or maybe you'd try and trade for better Iron with your fast, strong, and healthy Horses.

The second idea is to increase units, buildings, and even Civs in total depending on their actions; their manufacturing, battles, and so forth. If Japan churns out division after endless division of tanks, and fights a war almost entirely with tanks, isn't it reasonable to think their next batch of tanks will have improvements made? I've always felt that Civ games had too much demarcation between units, and not enough (Ie none.) evolution within the units themselves. With regards to buildings, would it be unreasonable to think that France, with an extensive network of well-funded and often-used libraries, would enjoy greater benefits from them than Britain, with poorly-backed and dilapidated libraries dispersed seemingly at random throughout the Empire? I would say some system of cumulative years/turns of Library existence, combined with a modifier dependant on funding given to Libraries (Say they need 2 gpt each, but you can give 1 or 3 gpt to save money and lose benefits, or spend more and do better.), would affect your the science benefits libraries give.

A short exemplar. Let us say you are America, and build a Library in New York. Normally, Libraries give say +20% to science output for New York. After every 100 cumulative turns, that increases by 1%. That doesn't sound a lot, but consider; ten turns later Washington completes it's library, meaning that instead of 90 turns, only 45 remain until that extra 1% comes into effect. Obviously, if you have a sprawling empire with 15 cities and they all have libraries, the gain would be ridiculously large in a very short time, so a cap of maximum gain would be needed (30%?), but I quite like that idea. Let us call it 'Expertise'. To factor in the different amounts of gpt you can spend, if you spend only 1 gpt your libraries will not contribute to this amount. If you contribute 3gpt, you get an extra 15% per turn, per library. (Eg for every 100 cumulative turns, you will have acquired 115 Expertise Points.) Or possibly, spending 3 gpt would allow you to raise the maximum science bonus to 35%, on condition that you keep the funding that high? (It should also, I would argue, drop slowly back down to a 20% bonus if you get it up and then drop funding to 1 gpt per turn.)

I realize that these ideas may bring in greater levels of micromanagement, but I propose that the status quo (Ie, typical finding and bonus) would suffice for lower difficulties, with more tweaking being needed at the higher levels. And I know they're not likely to be workable with the CivIV game engine, but I thought I'd just throw my ideas out there.

Edit: Another idea, as suggested by bio_hazard, is to allow the player-appointment of UUs. Say, one per age? Or one per X turns*? And it would allow you to rename the unit as you saw fit (Though it'd be nice if there were suggestions there already, of course.), and gave a bonus to the unit in some way. A bit of work, but it would allow players to decide a UU depending on their current situation, not on predetermined stuff.

* To counteract the obvious peril of saving up all of them for just before you launch a full-scale war against everyone, the game would inform you just as you reached the criteria for the next one that you were at the final chance to choose a UU, and if you decided not to it would be forever lost?

Also opens up possibilities of wonders allowing an extra UU to be appointed.

 

[apatheist]

I disagree with this. You can start all the civs identical and let them evolve into different civs. I think this is a lot more realistic.

I completely agree that it is more realistic.

At the same time, once you know who your neighbors are you know more about them then you ought to. You might know 2000 years before it happens they are going to get this really nasty unit so you'd better get rid of them now.

Ah. That is a good point. I think it takes away less than it gives, though.

Or even though you don't really need any more iron sources, that one over by Persia you're going to make sure you get. But you shouldn't know that you ought to do that because Persia hasn't even invented its Immortals yet. So in that sense the game becomes repetitive because certain elements are predestined.

...

Right but what civ in their right mind is going to trade iron to Persia for anything? Great, my people will be healthy and happy when the Immortals come kill them. We'll have to see how this works out.

However, Persia can still attack you with horsemen, archers, and catapults. They're more likely to if you have an essential resource. Also, you're only one civ. Maybe some other civ is willing to gamble that they won't be Persia's victim. Maybe the Greeks have Iron, and the Persians are between the Greeks and the Romans. Or maybe Persia is weak and the Chinese look like they're going to pounce. Since the Chinese have that powerful medieval UU coming up, you want to keep them from getting too strong, so you give Persia Iron to keep them alive and China focused on them.

Personally I think you ought to start with a lot more knowledge of the map than you do in Civ3. You're a nomadic people, and yet the game doesn't allow you to roam around without falling behind. So presumably you've already wandered around for a while before the game started and this is where you ended up. I don't see how letting me see a 3-5 tile radius instead of 1 takes away anything from the game. It's a forgone conclusion that I am going to explore those tiles before anyone else anyway, so just give them to me and let me make some better educated early decisions. But they are going in the opposite direction, not even letting you know what part of the world you're in.

Maybe there should be a 5 turn rule were you can not build a city. Just move around.

Have I got an idea for you ;-). http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=122550

Even so, it doesn't help you with resources since you can't see iron, horses, saltpeter, etc. when you first start out.

Say the standard power level is 10 for a Pikeman made with normal-quality Iron. With low-quality Iron, this might only be 9, but High-quality Iron might lead to a level of 12. What effects would this have?

The simplicity of having all pikemen being equal makes it a lot easier to reason about the game. I just don't want have to deal with differentiating between France's Pikemen +3 Magical Helmet of Healing or Russia's Spearman -1 Boots of Dung.

With regards to buildings, would it be unreasonable to think that France, with an extensive network of well-funded and often-used libraries, would enjoy greater benefits from them than Britain, with poorly-backed and dilapidated libraries dispersed seemingly at random throughout the Empire? I would say some system of cumulative years/turns of Library existence, combined with a modifier dependant on funding given to Libraries (Say they need 2 gpt each, but you can give 1 or 3 gpt to save money and lose benefits, or spend more and do better.), would affect your the science benefits libraries give.

Agreed, in principle.

Obviously, if you have a sprawling empire with 15 cities and they all have libraries, the gain would be ridiculously large in a very short time, so a cap of maximum gain would be needed (30%?), but I quite like that idea.

Any time you think, "but that will make it too powerful, so there should be a cap," take a step back and re-examine the idea. Caps like that are a horrible, terrible idea that often lead to exploits, neutered features, and unbalanced play. Come up with a different formula that doesn't require a cap to keep it from becoming too powerful.

To factor in the different amounts of gpt you can spend, if you spend only 1 gpt your libraries will not contribute to this amount. If you contribute 3gpt, you get an extra 15% per turn, per library. (Eg for every 100 cumulative turns, you will have acquired 115 Expertise Points.) Or possibly, spending 3 gpt would allow you to raise the maximum science bonus to 35%, on condition that you keep the funding that high? (It should also, I would argue, drop slowly back down to a 20% bonus if you get it up and then drop funding to 1 gpt per turn.)

I realize that these ideas may bring in greater levels of micromanagement, but I propose that the status quo (Ie, typical finding and bonus) would suffice for lower difficulties, with more tweaking being needed at the higher levels. And I know they're not likely to be workable with the CivIV game engine, but I thought I'd just throw my ideas out there.

Much, much, much more micromanagement. I agree in principle, but this would make me bang my head on my desk. How should I know whether paying an extra 2gpt for a 3% science boost is a good investment? Besides, taxes and science come from the same pool, so it doesn't really make sense.

Consider this alternative. First, improvements become cheaper to build as you build more of them. For example, your first library might be 80 shields. The fourth one is 75. The 13th one is 70. The 40th one is 65. Maintenance remains the same. Secondly, improvements become more effective over time. A 1000-year old University should give more of a boost to science and culture than a brand spanking new one.