Civ4 - where's the meat?

[PawelS]

Quote:
Originally Posted by mccandless
5) infinite movement railways

I know I'm in the minority, but artifically capping transport capacity and movement -- over the course of a year (if not more) -- is not the most elegant solution, nor is it realistic. Granted, it would probably improve gameplay. To do it, and do it right, they almost need to implement a real-time system (oh, the heresy!)

I don't think that capping the transport capacity is a good idea, but the railroad movement shouldn't cost 0 movement points. For me, it's one of the biggest flaws in the civ series. Being able to move all your army from one end of your country to another immediately is just too good. IMO it should be half the cost of road movement (it's something like this in CTP, iirc).

Also, I think that when trading technologies, you shouldn't get the new advance immediately, but gain "blueprints" instead that will speed up the research of that technology (like in Hearts of Iron 2). The same with stealing techs by espionage. Implementing a new technology with no cost is too unrealistic for me, and often it leads to a situation when most of the civs have the same set of technologies.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

But, to me, this would just make the game easier on the player. Instead of a handful of large civs, you'd be up against a greater number of smaller civs. I'd much rather go up against 3 smaller civs -- defeat them in detail -- than one large civ.

-V

That's assuming that after you defeat those civs they don't rebel again. Civil wars make it easier for the AI too. Instead of going up against one big human controlled offensive war machine they go up against a bunch of cities where the military is tied down fighting insurgents in a desperate attempt to keep them from breaking away from the human player... not to mention bad economy because of the repressive civics choices that are needed to maintain control. Even though it is three times bgger, the Human civ might have a lower overall useful output than a smaller homogeneous well assimilated bunch of cities. (especially ones with AI bonuses)


Also an independent ally might help you more than a unified empire at attaining a diplomatic win... If military wins were made difficult (which rebellions and civil wars would do) then a diplomatic/science win might be the way to go.

For the identity of a breakaway civ... if they are not joining an existing civ, then
1. resurrecting a dead one (if it was unassimilated citizens causing the rebellion)
2. using one that wasn't there at the start (with some rules like first choose one of the same culture group (so if the French experienced a civil war the English or the Germans might be the result if they weren't there to begin with or currently.. of course if all European Culture group civs had been taken, either initially or as rebels, then things like Mali and Korea would come in.)

Once all the available preset civs were used up,

3. an ability to generate Random Civs based on the old Civ
Simplest
Geman Rebels form Germany 2(same Traits, UU, and culture group, with the words "Germany 2": for their leaderhead)
[the Second group of German Rebels makes Germany 3]
Germany 2 rebels make Germany 2.2 rebels
etc.

 

[Jaybe]

If there are civil wars in Civ4, then the splintering country would be of the same name,* but of the OTHER leader (at least when all civs have two leaders). A civ would only splinter once in a game.

I still say infinite rail movement would be okay IF the rail movement took ALL your movement. If you move by rail, you do NOTHING else in that turn: no other movement, no combat, AND (if it can be implemented) if attacked before your next turn you defend at HALF strength.

*Why the same civ? Because they claim that THEY are the TRUE [Romans, whatever] and YOU are the one going down the wrong path, of course.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Infinite rail movement is best solved by splitting the movement and combat portions of the game
(where one part of a turn involves repositioning troops and all civilian activities, and the other Simultaneous turn involves the combats that the troops engage in from their new locations)

 

[Akka]

Good call, McCandless. I would particularly like to hear about :

1) infinite resources (1 oil well can supply your worldwide empire indefinitely)

That's really the main concept left that can make or break the game, here.

Though I would also like to have knew on the other subjects as well.

 

[mccandless]

Why would you recognise their independence? What could you possibly gain? One player-run civ of ten cities if more powerful than a player-run civ of six cities and a four city, AI controlled, sub-civ ally. Why wouldn't a player immediately reconquer the towns?

That's assuming it's within your capacity to reconquer the territory. As the British found in 1776, it's not always possible to do so, and there comes a time when you're better off cutting your losses.

As for 'voluntary' secession, the benefits are that:
1) you could extract very favourable military terms by doing so, e.g. locked alliance, permanent ROP, short term tribute.

2) Also the new civ would gain its own capital and together with AI bonuses would get a considerable boost to its military production. These military units would end up fighting in your wars.

3) the new independent country would be much more efficiently run than your previous colonial possession, and trading with it will generate positive income. Previously, your colonies were likely to have cost more in upkeep than they were contributing.

4) Also, if you're looking at imminent secession anyway, you're probably better off granting autonomy and preserving your strategic advantages.

5) Finally, the secessionist subciv could still earn culture points for you or assist with diplomatic victory.

On your other points Volstag, my suggestions are:

1) Re what the rebel civs and leaders would be called, IMO this is not really a show stopper as they could just be called 'New France', 'New Germany' etc, if nothing else. You're probably right that sub civs shouldn't be main nations, though (i.e. England-USA is out).

2) A civ would split once in a game. (Jaybe has already made this point).

One of the benefits of this model is that it strengthens the peace strategies (diplomacy, trading, culture) versus the conquest strategy. This is realistic as conquering the world has proved to be quite hard in practice!

 

[Volstag]

If there are civil wars in Civ4, then the splintering country would be of the same name,* but of the OTHER leader (at least when all civs have two leaders). A civ would only splinter once in a game.

While that would certainly make it easier to implement/understand, the obvious problem would be: I allow my Civ to experience a civil war, on purpose, just so I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the game.

-V

 

[DiamanteLouco]

As for "why would recognize independence", just see world history. You are in a continent, fighting a bunch of wars and then those little cities damn far away decide to be independent, so you send 3 or 4 units, just in case and lose it, what you do? Scew them, preventing those pesky neighbours from entering your 5 main cities is more important then to hold 5 cities far away, so just let the cry-babies go and keep fighting inland, of course, you have no way to know that 30 turns later, those little pathetic far away towns will really become superpower, but that´s the fun!

 

[mccandless]

I don't think that capping the transport capacity is a good idea, but the railroad movement shouldn't cost 0 movement points. For me, it's one of the biggest flaws in the civ series. Being able to move all your army from one end of your country to another immediately is just too good. IMO it should be half the cost of road movement.

As someone in the 'finite railway' faction I basically agree. However, the railway issue needs to be linked to sea travel. This is a key gameplay requirement that generally gets overlooked:

Before railways, it was always quicker to move by sea than by road. Hence naval power was important and frequently decisive before 1830. This was radically changed after railways. Hence the key gameplay requirement is that

ROADS<<NAVAL MOVEMENT<<RAILWAY MOVEMENT

The gameplay deficiency in Civ3 is that naval movement is barely more than road movement, yet railway movement is infinite. This really skews military strategy and makes it unrealistic. If naval movement conferred real and lasting strategic advantages, then both AI and humans would invest in proper navies and the sea warfare aspect of the game would really take off.

Naval movement should be scaled by size of map, giving it a clear advantage over roads, and similarly railroad movement should be scaled upwards on huge maps. So we might be talking about 8 moves per turn on a tiny map and 32 moves per turn on a large map.

The infinite railway movement solution allows you to concentrate your entire military at any point on any front turn after turn, clearly unrealistic and distorting.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Actually, Volstag, another point which you have failed to take into consideration is that a 6-city player run civ will no longer be automatically more powerful than a breakaway, AI-controlled, 4-city civ. In fact, it is possible than even a 20-city civ may have potential troubles being as-or more-powerful as a breakaway civ of only 8-10 cities (due to the likely higher costs of Maintainance for the larger nation, the possible loss of valuable Wonders and resources, possible loss of your holy city or loss of several specialised cities). This, combined with possibly large distances between the original civ and the secceding civ might make prosecution of a war of reconquest nearly impossible. In such a light, recognition of independance may in fact be the best long-term option, especially if such recognition brings with it trade in whatever resources the original civ may have lost !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[HourlyDaily]

It wouldn't be too difficult to tie in a likely name of a Civ that would break away in a good civil war model. If there was a spare leaderhead - it could be something linked to them, Napoleon breaks away from Louis - the name chosen "some number" republic of France, would annoy some people but it would be somewhere on track.

The England-> U.S.A. example is not going to work so well if the US is already in the game, whereas the English relinquished many colonies (but don't have leaderheads unless the mod community gets to work)

There may be some teething problems for the mod community but the civil war ideas outweigh these little niggles.

 

[mccandless]

The ability for small nations to compete on a level playing field with larger nations; the new and expanded combat system; the removal of the Wonder Cascade and no more micromanaging of production and science as a means of winning games, the total revamping of city specialisation, Great People and Golden Ages, the new, flexible tech tree and-of course-the new religion and civics systems-are all huge game changes which I feel will make us have to completely re-evaluate our 'winning' strategies.
I also have some confidence that we will hear more about these other factors as we get closer to the games release. But what I have heard is enough to make me desperately want this game !.

All the stuff you've mentioned (great people, tech tree etc) are welcome improvements and will make a difference, but my point is this: I would trade them all in for decent fixes to the main strategic shortcomings. Maybe Firaxis is holding back information on these things as part of a cunning marketing strategy, and doubtless there will be further surprises to come, but let's hope that when we open the box we find Civ4 and not Civ3.1.

 

[Volstag]

Actually, Volstag, another point which you have failed to take into consideration is that a 6-city player run civ will no longer be automatically more powerful than a breakaway, AI-controlled, 4-city civ.

I respectfully disagree, in the fact that a reasonably competent player is superior to the AI w/ regards to planning and executing strategy. In fact, I cannot envision a scenario in which a 4 city AI civ could "beat" my six city civ -- everything else being equal. Care to elaborate?

In fact, it is possible than even a 20-city civ may have potential troubles being as-or more-powerful as a breakaway civ of only 8-10 cities (due to the likely higher costs of Maintainance for the larger nation, the possible loss of valuable Wonders and resources, possible loss of your holy city or loss of several specialised cities).

If this is true, and it could very well be, how is a domination win ever going to be possible? If a 20 city human controlled civ is (nearly) as powerful as a 10 city AI civ, it stands to reason that a 10 city AI civ is clearly more powerful than my 10 city civ -- which, to me, seems impossible (unless we're talking about the highest difficulty levels).

This, combined with possibly large distances between the original civ and the secceding civ might make prosecution of a war of reconquest nearly impossible.

I'm not very well read concerning the finer points of Civ IV, but I fail to see how distance will prevent the prosecution of any war. As far as I know, there is no supply line (though I wish there was), which means my armies can go anywhere they want, near or far.

In such a light, recognition of independance may in fact be the best long-term option, especially if such recognition brings with it trade in whatever resources the original civ may have lost !

You're, kinda, making it sound like it's the only option, given that:

1) A smaller breakaway AI civ is as (if not more) powerful than my larger human controlled civ.
2) I may not be able to prosecute a war against them, due to distance (which has never been a limiting factor in any iteration of the Civ series)
3) Recognizing their independence might be the best long-term option.

All of this adds up to: if a civ breaks away, revolts, whatever, there's really not much the human player can do about it. Again, no disrespect, but I just don't see it panning out that way. If this is true, a domination win seems nigh impossible. Maybe domination is no longer a victory condition... I dunno, I should read more about it.

-V

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You have just proven, Volstag, that you did not take the time to read my post properly. If you had done, you would have noticed that I used words like 'no longer automatically' and 'might be nearly impossible'. My point being that, yes in Civ3 Civil Wars might have been pointless, because the larger civ would probably find it all too easy to militarily reabsorb the smaller seccesionist civ back into the fold. There are a number of features already mentioned in Civ4, however, which make such an easy re-conquest much less certain. Where there is sufficient uncertainty in military victory, then cooler heads might prevail-leading to a diplomatic outcome instead.
The thrust of my original post is that the outcomes of civil wars in civ4-were they to be implemented-would not be a foregone conclusion and, therefore, would make the whole game much more dynamic (especially if you have minor civs in the game that players can 'absorb' into their nation as well) and, far from reducing player choices, would actually expand the range of options open to the player and AI alike.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

 

[mccandless]

I think that when trading technologies, you shouldn't get the new advance immediately, but gain "blueprints" instead that will speed up the research of that technology (like in Hearts of Iron 2). The same with stealing techs by espionage. Implementing a new technology with no cost is too unrealistic for me, and often it leads to a situation when most of the civs have the same set of technologies.

Interesting idea, but surely some techs are usable instantly, e.g the USSR stole fission secrets, whilst some techs e.g. industrialisation would probably require a longer 'digestion' period. How would you distinguish between the two cases?

 

[PawelS]

Interesting idea, but surely some techs are usable instantly, e.g the USSR stole fission secrets, whilst some techs e.g. industrialisation would probably require a longer 'digestion' period. How would you distinguish between the two cases?

I thought of making all the techs use blueprints (dividing them into 2 categories would complicate things too much) but probably my idea is not possible to implement even with the Civ4's modding capabilities, because it would be a new feature. I think I'll just make some techs (like industrialization) untradable.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I respectfully disagree, in the fact that a reasonably competent player is superior to the AI w/ regards to planning and executing strategy. In fact, I cannot envision a scenario in which a 4 city AI civ could "beat" my six city civ -- everything else being equal. Care to elaborate?


If this is true, and it could very well be, how is a domination win ever going to be possible? If a 20 city human controlled civ is (nearly) as powerful as a 10 city AI civ, it stands to reason that a 10 city AI civ is clearly more powerful than my 10 city civ -- which, to me, seems impossible (unless we're talking about the highest difficulty levels).


I'm not very well read concerning the finer points of Civ IV, but I fail to see how distance will prevent the prosecution of any war. As far as I know, there is no supply line (though I wish there was), which means my armies can go anywhere they want, near or far.


You're, kinda, making it sound like it's the only option, given that:

1) A smaller breakaway AI civ is as (if not more) powerful than my larger human controlled civ.
2) I may not be able to prosecute a war against them, due to distance (which has never been a limiting factor in any iteration of the Civ series)
3) Recognizing their independence might be the best long-term option.

All of this adds up to: if a civ breaks away, revolts, whatever, there's really not much the human player can do about it. Again, no disrespect, but I just don't see it panning out that way. If this is true, a domination win seems nigh impossible. Maybe domination is no longer a victory condition... I dunno, I should read more about it.

-V

A few points
1. Domination Should be near impossible (the closest anyone got in the real world was say 30% with the Mongols or the British, and that was while no other civ had more than 15%, but they both collapsed due to political problems from within rather than the smaller civs ganging up on them..the only way in a standard civ to bring down the leader)

2. The idea isn't that 20 is worse than 10 but that 20 is only slightly better than 10, because those extra 10 cities may cost a lot of upkeep, also a Civ that breaks away should only do so with some chance of survival (ie there isn't a vast loyal army sitting right next to the rebellious cities)

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Naval movement should be scaled by size of map, giving it a clear advantage over roads, and similarly railroad movement should be scaled upwards on huge maps. So we might be talking about 8 moves per turn on a tiny map and 32 moves per turn on a large map.

The infinite railway movement solution allows you to concentrate your entire military at any point on any front turn after turn, clearly unrealistic and distorting.

Well I disagree naval movement should be scaled with the map, but I agree it should be much faster. Why scale it with the map by the way, if a small map continent takes less time to cross than a large map continent, shouldn't a small map sea take less time than a large map sea?

Being able to reconentrate your troops in one turn makes sense, especially if combat only takes place between turns, and if wars end up being 4-10 turns long rather than 40-100. (the tactical-strategic split)

 

[brokguitar]

A thought i like with the idea of what happens to the cities if there is a civil war (do rebels form new civ?, do rebels use the second leaders face?,etc.) is to just turn those cities into barbarian controlled cities.The city should retain all cultural value,and barbarian cities should be able to make use of all upgrades in the city and outside improvements. With the thought of what type of units can be produced, the game should have a trigger where troops are equivalent to the average tech between all countries. If every country knows rifleman, then the barbarian troops can produce rifleman. There should be no cap on how many or how fast they produce units, it is what the city can normally do. This is my version of civil wars i want to mod in. What do you guys think?

 

[LouLong]

5) infinite movement railways

As far as I know this feature is gone. Or at least it was written somewhere it was gone. But Firaxis may have changed its mind about it since then (but I don't think so si it is probably gone).