Civilization VIII, later or other project.

[Naokaukodem]

Coercion points and random events synergy :

As coercion points would represent the ability of a government to be maintained under any circumtances, diseases included, bad harvest, disasters and invasions, I'm seeing a window to make rise & fall still available but comtempting more the classical players who want cities and governments.

Let's say your coercion points generation is 11 out of 8. You are safe whatever happens now. (or not*) Now consider that the value-to-be-safe jumps in one turn from 8 to 15, because I don't know. (declared early ?) Then, you are in a zone from where, a random event would make your civ fall. BUT, if there's no negative random event in the next turns, you are simply safe, even if you have 11 coercion points out of 15 !

You can continue that route, taking the risks and all, or increase your coercion points generation to be defenitively safe. To be totally fair, a random event happening the turn the requirements increase would do nothing. (you have more turns to act)

* Or this could simply be a percentage chance of not collapsing whether you've reached the threshold or not : make it vary like 75% at 8 out of 8 and 100% at 16+ out of 8 for example. You could even make the coercion points totally invisible at this point, just display you chances of (not) collapsing to a random event and act in consequences.

 

[Naokaukodem]

As far as exploration, I would choose fog of war even if already explored. It would emphasis the advantages of falls, having your population sparsed on the map, or a barbarian/etc. gameplay. As to new resources you couldn't see before, I don't know : should we push the philosophy straight forward or should we implement kinds of floating icons in the fog of war, like possible locations of a new resource explored before ?

In the same vein I would like units or animals to leave a track of their passage (like foot prints) during a certain number of turns.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I have had an idea in another thread : Citizens Promotions. Here the brut post :

[Civ7] Give farms and agriculture in general more importance.

Unfortunately, this looks like a lot like Jon Shafer's At The Gates, which i heard didn't sell well or had bad reviews...

 

[Naokaukodem]

To clear things about production, which, I remind, might be one of the only local yields with food.

Let's assume the early logistics about production is patterned with food one. (3 tiles range)

Let's say you have a stack of 3 units in a tile. Whatever they are building will show up in this tile, be it mobile or immobile (Stonehenge).

You can dispatch those 3 units 3 tiles away the tile they stand on, but that's virtual. They just go into the wild collect resources and come back to the camp with their charge. On the global map, you would have a firecamp where the thing is built, units spread out with a thin line leading to the camp to see what camp they belong to in a quick glance.

First, the units dispatch in the way you have set up the focus of your camp that you have to create with an icon at the bottom (?) of the screen, like the "settle" old one. This focus can be growth, production, "no starvation", etc... or mixes just like Civ6. Actually, not sure if you have to set up camps, as every stack and every single unit will have, or should have one. OK no, camps are automatic. Wherever there is a presence in the form of population points, you have a camp. Let's say that you have a default camp focus that you can modify manually in each camp, if you want to. (the default focus can be modified in a task bar that you can hide, and is set up to "growth" when you start the game) You can also assign manually each unit to whatever tile 3 tiles away the camp.
From now on we can go different ways : either each single population point producting production with no assignment (things to build) is prompted automatically like it was a city in past Civs, and you choose to build anything if you are more than 3 tiles an ongoing project, unless your population point is 3 tiles or less from an ongoing project, in which case the first option to build is "attach to this project". (if there are several in the same zone, they will show up first in the list in a row) Note that if stacked units work on a project, the other stacks or population points could work the same project, being practically in another tile. (the camps or population points can be next to each others or up to 6 tiles away from each others, but the virtual locations would count in that case for real locations, and only one population point from any stack could work the project in the case of 6 tiles away camps)

Either we make so that, instead of the virtual population points locations, it is the camps entirely that have to be 3 tiles away of each others, not the virtual units themselves. That way, populations points could still be separated from each others by 9 tiles working the same project. That seems the most understandable, permissive and clear way to do it. So that virtual location would remain completely virtual. (for production purposes at least)

Blue is first case, green second :

Now to rethink food dispatching regarding this model, I mean, the green one that I prefer, let's say that the range of food would be between camps rather than virtual population points locations. It would still work with individual units, but now centered in a camp. Obviously nothing prevents you to put a single population point near a good food location, and near a project camp in order to feed all the workers.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

First, the timing of the 'early game' will have to be figured much differently from the 'normal' game: the first indications of agriculture date back to almost 10,0000 BCE, people were colonizing Aegean Islands in 8000 BCE (Boating Tech), Cattle, Sheep, Pigs, and Goats were all domesticated prior to 6000 BCE, horses were hunted, then rounded up and kept in pastures for meat, milk and as draft animals by 4000 BCE, and the earliest bows have been found in bogs and dated back to 6000 BCE and cave paintings show men shooting arrows at other men (archery in warfare) dating back to 9000 BCE. In other words, a lot of 'technology' pre-dates cities by thousands of years.
.

When should Antiquity begins? 10,000 BC or 8,000 BC? so to make city walls available by tech earnings valid? Since you've cited in some other threads that the oldest stone city walls PREDATES 4,000 BC, a cyclopean wall which presented in Civ6 should be older than that.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

12,000 BCE: The Natufian Culture in the Levant/Palestine area had stone foundations for houses.
9500 BCE: Gobekli Tepe and similar monuments in southern Anatolia show evidence of monumental stone working, pillar erecting, carving.
8500 BCE: Lepenskii Vir, site in modern Serbia, has earliest evidence of sculptured stone monuments in Europe
8300 BCE: Jericho by this time was surrounded by a stone wall 10 feet (3 meters) thick at the base and estimated to have been about 4 meters high, with a stone tower (citadel?) inside the wall an estimated 8 - 9 meters high. This stone construction was largely fitted by hand, not 'ashlar' or shaped, no mortar (at least, none surviving)
7500 BCE: earliest direct evidence of mudbrick construction (Catal Huyok, Anatolia and Mehrgarh, Pakistan)
7000 - 5000 BCE: Peiligang and Xinglongwa Cultures in northern China had settlements surrounded by ditches and moats, probably with wooden palisades or rammed earth walls since no stonework has survived.
6000 BCE: Ugarit (Ras Shamra) in northern Syria had stone city walls by this date.
5100 - 4500 BCE: Butmir Culture in the Balkans, settlements surrounded by ditches/moats, probably with (now vanished) wooden palisades behind them
4500 - 3000 BCE: Fired Brick used to build multi-story houses in Cities - Indus Valley Culture
4300 BCE: first direct evidence of fired brick constuction in China
3500 BCE earliest direct evidence of rammed earth walls around settlements - Yangshao Culture, northern China.

Humankind starts off in the Ancient Age with wooden Palisades for your first City Wall, which is a simplified depiction of the (pre)historical Reality. In fact, people started fortifying their settlements with whatever material was available: mudbrick, stone, or wooden palisades, between (at least) 8500 and 7000 BCE, firmly in the Neolithic. It appears that only after population density got greater and they started running out of nearby large trees for palisades that the Chinese started building massive walls out of rammed earth, but a lot more archeology is needed: there could be much earlier rammed earth construction that is now buried deep beneath thousands of years of later settlement. The fortifications of the Iron Age Celts and Britons in northern Europe show how elaborate timber, earth mound and ditch fortifications could get, so the lack of stone does not necessarily mean less effective City Protection.

In a 'Perfect 4x" game, I would be tempted to make it possible to fortify a Neolithic Settlement with a 'curtain wall' which would be depicted graphically as whatever material the local terrain offered: a stone wall in a dry hilly climate, a mudbrick wall along the floodplains or river valleys, and a wet or dry ditch backed with timber palisades in heavily wooded areas. They would all be about equally effective, and could all be 'Upgraded' later: stone becoming ashlar or 'Cyclopean' construction by the end of the Ancient Age, mudbrick becoming fired brick faced walls, simple timber palisades becoming the cribbed timber framework artificial earthen hills with ditches and/or moats of the Iron Age (early Classical) Celts and Britons, and massive Rammed Earth solid walls as a substitute for lack of large Timbers or Stone by the beginning of the Classical Age.

 

[Phrozen]

In the medieval period most castles were made of wood actually or some combination of stone for say a keep but wooden walls. Hardened and plastered timber is actually pretty hard to breakthrough particularly without any siege weapons or just hand held rams.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

In the medieval period most castles were made of wood actually or some combination of stone for say a keep but wooden walls. Hardened and plastered timber is actually pretty hard to breakthrough particularly without any siege weapons or just hand held rams.

Got it! It was a psychological defense as well as an actual fortifications. Particularly with stone quarryings and masonry is quite time consuming process and requires a good deal of engineers to overseer stonewall constructions.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

In the medieval period most castles were made of wood actually or some combination of stone for say a keep but wooden walls. Hardened and plastered timber is actually pretty hard to breakthrough particularly without any siege weapons or just hand held rams.

Depends on what part of the Medieval Era and where. In most of Europe the early defenses were earth mounds with timber palisades, because the technique and the expense of stone masonry construction were beyond them. Around 1000 CE stone keeps and walls started going up again (they had been common in the Roman Empire, but of course, within the Empire most cities did not have elaborate fortifications, so what they had fell apart pretty quickly after a few centuries of no maintenance) - but even then it was uneven: it was not until after 1066 that stone construction started up in England, imported with the Normans from France, where it was already becoming common.

Outside of Europe, stone fortifications were never common in China, because good building stone was not readily available down in the riverine plains where the cities were: as noted in the above post, they started building massive rammed earth walls almost 3000 years before the first historical Dynasty, and that was the most common Fortification from then on (including most of the Long Wall - only a tiny segment under the Ming was built in stone, but that's the part that survived best and is now the great Image of the Wall and the tourist destination)

The traditional generic Walls in Civ (and in just-released Humankind, unfortunately) would stand to get a new look i the future: while stone, timber, earth mound, even mud brick walls could be equally elaborate and effective against armies, they had veery different degrees of protection against Siege machinery and especially against the earliest gunpowder Cannon (Bombards or Mortars): stone walls, which had been the most resistant to traditional catapults and trebuchets, were least able to withstand the pounding of cannon, while Rammed Earth walls 20 + fet thick were virtually impervious to them and even mud-brick actually stood up to solid shot pretty well. It would be nice to see some of the 'subtleties' of the fortification versus attacker conundrum reflected in the game . . .

 

[Phrozen]

The stone castles were for very important locations and with very powerful and rich nobles. Your average lord probably lived in a wooden castle or fortified manor house. If they were middle management so to speak they might have some stone in their castle like a keep or gatehouse but not fully stone walls.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Don't forget verticality...
In order to beat up Humankind, next CIV VII need to do even more!

Take Lake Titicaca, at 4.000mt on sea level for example. HK does not have that level of water implementation, even if it has pretty cool waterfalls...
Lower than sea level terrains that could flood in time, just as some river may change course...
to the end, it takes just one single metorite hit to wipe out a tiny stretch of land...
This is the pivotal point Firaxis will have to work on in the first place. Adding Physics to the map for me is the next step.
Everything else I have read so far in this thread is, visionary, and I endorse it.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Don't forget verticality...
In order to beat up Humankind, next CIV VII need to do even more!

Take Lake Titicaca, at 4.000mt on sea level for example. HK does not have that level of water implementation, even if it has pretty cool waterfalls...
Lower than sea level terrains that could flood in time, just as some river may change course...
to the end, it takes just one single metorite hit to wipe out a tiny stretch of land...
This is the pivotal point Firaxis will have to work on in the first place. Adding Physics to the map for me is the next step.
Everything else I have read so far in this thread is, visionary, and I endorse it.

Both games also miss the variability of Terrain/Climate even in the 'regular' span of the game rom 4000 BCE to 2021 CE: Sea Levels have changed, entire Ports silted up or drowned, coast lines 'migrated', rivers have not only flooded they've changed their entire channel by hundreds of miles (a favorite trick of China's great rivers in the past 2 - 3000 years).
And the Neolithic, whether we start it with the approximate start of Agriculture in 10,000 BCE or Humankind's 15,000 BCE, was at the end of the last major Glaciation, so there were Major Changes in the landscape right up to 4000 BCE and even after:

1. England was connected to Europe - there was no channel of water between them until after 6500 BCE, and before then most of the North Sea was a flat, marshy plain.
2. The Sahara Desert didn't exist: it was a grassy savannah with many rivers and lakes, and supported several human hunter-gatherer or herding cultures. It only dried out after 4000 - 3800 BCE.
3. The Black Sea was about half its present size, and shallow, and there was an 'extra' Khvalynian Sea north and west of the Caspian - which poured into the Black Sea by 8000 BCE bringing it up to current dimensions.
4. Most of the Great Lakes in North American were covered by a series of Glacial Lakes, the last of which, Lake Ojibway, broke through the ice barrier and dumped 50,000 cubic kilometers of icy fresh water into Hudson's Bay and the North Atlantic in 6200 BCE, causing wetter, colder Europe and severe drought all over the Mediterranean and Middle East that lasted 300 - 400 years.

"Climate Change" should not be an End Of Game phenomena only: regional, continental and even global effects from it have been with us since the Neolithic, and need to be modeled in a 4x 'historical' game.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^ There's more.
2000 years ago. A region which is now lower central of Thailand was a sea bed, A settlement that's now a subdistrict of Phong Teuk (ตำบลพงตึก) was a sea port with and evidence of Roman trading post, and a lamp with Silenus idol on it. This archaeological artefact was found in 1920s a couples of years before 1932 Revolution. https://www.finearts.go.th/promotion/view/19849-การจัดสร้างตะเกียงโรมัน--จำลอง--โดยสำนักช่างสิบหมู่- The other artefacts found in the same site even belonged to Early Christians there!
The other archaeological site is a Wat (Temple) itself
https://db.sac.or.th/museum/museum-detail/249
Wat Cheti Hoi, a cheti/stupa itself was made of a millenia old oyster shells founded there during an excavation for a construction project in AD 1989. Actually I don't like Abbot and villager's actions to build a Cheti with archaeological artefacts, actually it is illegal though but the authorities did little to stop such archaeological sagrieliege.
Yet this did prove how Earth landscape changes over courses of six thousands of years. This proven that what's now Bangkok and Ayutthaya were once a sea bed, AFAIK the Menam estuary should be some houndread kilometers in land, North of Lopburi maybe.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

I would say that civilizations need to be generic- i.e, 'Desert Civ'. 'Steppe Civ'. 'Tropical Civ' with differing start times (Civilization occurs around large rivers in a desert)

Then as the player progresses through the game, random names start to be generated- consistent random names as if they come from a conlang. Several civs can share the same language, migration of barbarian players could cause language shifts, etc

This is just my opinion though.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

also make a difference between Decentralized governments and centralized ones- feudalism would have less maintenance but it would take longer to get things done like make buildings and recruit units, while chinese bureaucracy allows you to get things done forever but everything costs more money

 

[Naokaukodem]

I would say that civilizations need to be generic- i.e, 'Desert Civ'. 'Steppe Civ'. 'Tropical Civ' with differing start times (Civilization occurs around large rivers in a desert)

Then as the player progresses through the game, random names start to be generated- consistent random names as if they come from a conlang. Several civs can share the same language, migration of barbarian players could cause language shifts, etc

This is just my opinion though.

Not even "desert", "steppe" nor "tropical", just "tribe(s) of hunter-gatherers" in this case. As to differing start times, would that include the player as well ? Because with tribes at start, surely not everyone will opt for a state-civ at the same time, not even players.
Your idea about names is interesting, but it differs from the political philosophy of Firaxis to pick historical names. As to me, I guess the name does not matter so much, we could go for whatever native name fits the starting location, inspired by nowadays african isolated tribes or native american tribes maybe.
As to languages, it would be a nice upgrade to have in future Civs, but would be kind of complicated to implement I guess.

also make a difference between Decentralized governments and centralized ones- feudalism would have less maintenance but it would take longer to get things done like make buildings and recruit units, while chinese bureaucracy allows you to get things done forever but everything costs more money

If any, Feudalism should work like Vassals in Civ4 : less control and risk or rebellion, have to set up a common enemy to unite, otherwise it would be a vast waste. Would be a nice source of gold though, and possibly science also.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

Not even "desert", "steppe" nor "tropical", just "tribe(s) of hunter-gatherers" in this case. As to differing start times, would that include the player as well ? Because with tribes at start, surely not everyone will opt for a state-civ at the same time, not even players.

Yeah it would. If you pick Germany in TSL, then you'll just be a Germanic barbarian for a while for instance

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Both games also miss the variability of Terrain/Climate even in the 'regular' span of the game rom 4000 BCE to 2021 CE: Sea Levels have changed, entire Ports silted up or drowned, coast lines 'migrated', rivers have not only flooded they've changed their entire channel by hundreds of miles (a favorite trick of China's great rivers in the past 2 - 3000 years).
And the Neolithic, whether we start it with the approximate start of Agriculture in 10,000 BCE or Humankind's 15,000 BCE, was at the end of the last major Glaciation, so there were Major Changes in the landscape right up to 4000 BCE and even after:

1. England was connected to Europe - there was no channel of water between them until after 6500 BCE, and before then most of the North Sea was a flat, marshy plain.
2. The Sahara Desert didn't exist: it was a grassy savannah with many rivers and lakes, and supported several human hunter-gatherer or herding cultures. It only dried out after 4000 - 3800 BCE.
3. The Black Sea was about half its present size, and shallow, and there was an 'extra' Khvalynian Sea north and west of the Caspian - which poured into the Black Sea by 8000 BCE bringing it up to current dimensions.
4. Most of the Great Lakes in North American were covered by a series of Glacial Lakes, the last of which, Lake Ojibway, broke through the ice barrier and dumped 50,000 cubic kilometers of icy fresh water into Hudson's Bay and the North Atlantic in 6200 BCE, causing wetter, colder Europe and severe drought all over the Mediterranean and Middle East that lasted 300 - 400 years.

"Climate Change" should not be an End Of Game phenomena only: regional, continental and even global effects from it have been with us since the Neolithic, and need to be modeled in a 4x 'historical' game.

And such changes aren't brought about by climate alone. Tectonic shifts are also responsible for changes of landscapes as well. An Indonesian literature (which known in Thais as 'Inao') also cited the separations of landmass brought about by volcanic eruptions (I can't remember which isles did divided) which also associated with the decline and downfall of Majapahit Empire. Not to mention about 'Atlantis' which Archaeological findings did somehow identify the site of the fabled city as near yet another volcanic isle somewhere in Mediterranean between Greece, Turkey, and Egypt, the said isles once have a large settlement there. (And not anywhere in Atlantic Ocean and not even right between Europe and Continental Americas.)

 

[Naokaukodem]

Yeah it would. If you pick Germany in TSL, then you'll just be a Germanic barbarian for a while for instance

And I guess the USA would be natives that let them to be conquered by european civs ? Or a side story where it would be the contrary ? I must say Civ never did so well when it comes to colonization. Except with this map where all civs start on the same continent and there's a second that stays empty until colonized, but we hardly see battles/shenanigans between civs, it's just barbarians and city-States.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

And I guess the USA would be natives that let them to be conquered by european civs ? Or a side story where it would be the contrary ? I must say Civ never did so well when it comes to colonization. Except with this map where all civs start on the same continent and there's a second that stays empty until colonized, but we hardly see battles/shenanigans between civs, it's just barbarians and city-States.

dunno what to do with the USA