Disease [Idea]

[Patine]

I appreciate this well-thought out response

I think it's not the worst idea to give the gamer an 'easy out' as you describe it - nobody actually wants to be burdened by disease, but the concept of keeping your people healthy and safe is the actual gameplay (with a disease drawback if you fail)

I like your other complications. Maybe tiles could have a cleanliness multiplier or something.
Not sure about trade. I mean, trade is represented by being able to carry Disease once it spawns (in this concept), rather than spawning the disease itself. Although I suppose you could have "dirty trade routes" and "clean trade routes".

Also doesn't it make more sense for herd animals to reduce cleanliness rather than vice versa?

In Civ2, there was a notion that city size could not exceed 8 until you built and aqueduct and could not exceed 12 until you built a sewer system. Civ3 reprised this notion and added that a citizen died after working a flood plains, swamp, or jungle tile for several consecutive turns before reserching sanitation. Isn't that the sort of simplucity you're often going on, about.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I agree in the general suggestion, a system similar to CIV4's healthiness with the chance to generate and spread diseases, that could be moderated with buildings, technologies and policies. It would be a decent way to represent such significative element of human history in an abstract and gamey way, it is also a chance to replace "housing" that I feel is redundant considering most improvement/districts could be suppossed to provide their own housing.

About livestock also agree that these should reduce Healthiness and then trigger the generation and propagation of diseases. Still also understand the point of @Boris Gudenuf , so what about this:
1- When one city reach Unhealthy level (from a mix of factors) start to have a chance to generate a new Disease (of course there would be an unhealthy alert like in CIV4).
2.- Once the % generate the disease this would be named after the city it originated so for example one could be "The Thebes Disease", then with a particular identity these disease start to spread to others regions (like religious and ideologies) by means like trade routes.
3- Those dieseases would fade away with some time. So once each one is finally overcome in a particular city it would not be dangerous again in that place. These way we have a get a representation of acquired immunity.

Under this system any isolated population would still have the chance to get a disease from a source that already "normalized" it, like was the case during the global exploration.
Additionaly I think we can use also a "local disease" variable for some disease so they could be (in the system I suggest for "terrain") Cold, Temperate and Warm biome linked.

 

[Patine]

I agree in the general suggestion, a system similar to CIV4's healthiness with the chance to generate and spread diseases, that could be moderated with buildings, technologies and policies. It would be a decent way to represent such significative element of human history in an abstract and gamey way, it is also a chance to replace "housing" that I feel is redundant considering most improvement/districts could be suppossed to provide their own housing.

About livestock also agree that these should reduce Healthiness and then trigger the generation and propagation of diseases. Still also understand the point of @Boris Gudenuf , so what about this:
1- When one city reach Unhealthy level (from a mix of factors) start to have a chance to generate a new Disease (of course there would be an unhealthy alert like in CIV4).
2.- Once the % generate the disease this would be named after the city it originated so for example one could be "The Thebes Disease", then with a particular identity these disease start to spread to others regions (like religious and ideologies) by means like trade routes.
3- Those dieseases would fade away with some time. So once each one is finally overcome in a particular city it would not be dangerous again in that place. These way we have a get a representation of acquired immunity.

Under this system any isolated population would still have the chance to get a disease from a source that already "normalized" it, like was the case during the global exploration.
Additionaly I think we can use also a "local disease" variable for some disease so they could be (in the system I suggest for "terrain") Cold, Temperate and Warm biome linked.

I havie not played Civ4, but only having the earlier examples of Civ2 and Civ3 to go on, as I described above, which worked quite reasonably for quite a morbid subject.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I appreciate this well-thought out response

I think it's not the worst idea to give the gamer an 'easy out' as you describe it - nobody actually wants to be burdened by disease, but the concept of keeping your people healthy and safe is the actual gameplay (with a disease drawback if you fail)

I like your other complications. Maybe tiles could have a cleanliness multiplier or something.
Not sure about trade. I mean, trade is represented by being able to carry Disease once it spawns (in this concept), rather than spawning the disease itself. Although I suppose you could have "dirty trade routes" and "clean trade routes".

Also doesn't it make more sense for herd animals to reduce cleanliness rather than vice versa?

​

Trade Routes, as you say, are Vectors for Disease. What makes it more of a 'crap shoot' is that there doesn't have to be a major disease outbreak where the Trade Route originates (or passes through) for the Route to spread disease: the population at one end may have developed relative immunity to an infectious disease while the folks on the receiving end have not. Case in point: the massive increase in long distance trade that occured when the Mongol Empire stretched from China to the borders of Hungary in Europe. They have now tracked the Bubonic Plague to creatures living in Mongolia, which the trade helped to spread. Since the Mongols and most of the Central Asian people had been living with these creatures (not only rats, but also gerbils and other small mammals: Deadly Gerbils has a strange ring to it, doesn't it?) for centuries, the disease did not reach pandemic levels among them - as it did in Europe, in a population with no built-up immunities at all.​

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This is what makes Trade Routes/Disease spread tricky, because it could be set up to give you no warning at all. I do not think that is a viable game mechanic (Zap! You just lost 30% of your population to diseased Hamsters that don't affect The Other Guy! - followed by Rage Quit) but for game proposes it can be massaged into a general reduction in population growth (which models the on-going epidemics that plagued Rome) rather than Catastrophic Pandemics.​

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And in this case, it's also Herd Animals as Vectors. From the time people started keeping large herds of cattle, horses, sheep, etc, those populations (unknowingly, of course) also developed immunities to many of the pandemic diseases, most notably Smallpox and Plague that originated in those animals and their parasites (fleas, etc). When the Yamnaya (Indo-European) Culture started moving into Europe with their wagons and herds around 3600 - 3200 BCE they brought Plague with them in their herds, and the result was a massive die-off of the European farmers - possibly a greater mortality percentage than the better-known Medieval Plague outbreaks, because in parts of Europe (Britain) farming virtually stopped for several centuries because there were no living farmers left.​

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Again, this needs to be 'toned down' to be a game mechanic, but perhaps a general Better Population Increase once/if you have pastured cattle, sheep, horses - and a better percentage for each additional animal-type, because you are building immunities to more varieties of potential Pandemics.​

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What this leads to, potentially, is a population with a Perfect Storm of susceptibility to Disease: no aqueducts, no medical facilities, no herd animals, suddenly introduced to a population that does have herd animals and has been exposed to everyone else in the world, could be ripe for a Pandemic-Type population loss (cue the American, Pacific-Islander Experience after 1500 CE when all of Eurasia's epidemics hit them all at once). I have mixed feelings about this potential. On the one hand, it hits the gamer with exactly what the people he's supposedly playing as suffered through, which I regard as Pure Karma; on the other hand, watching your cities empty out in a few turns is No Fun At All and a game is sort of supposed to be Fun when all is said and done.​

 

[Evie]

The Civ IV system, for Patine's benefit, went about like this.

Every city had a health limit. This was set starting with a default value (determined by difficulty), and could be added to via terrain features (fresh water granted +2 health, forests +0.5 health (rounded down)), resources (each unique food resource your empire had access to granted +1 health), and buildings (Aqueduct, Hospital and Public Transportation all contributed directly to health, and Granary, Harbor, Grocer and Supermarket derived additional health from food resources).

Every city also had an unhealtiness value. This was one per population point, plus additional unhealtiness from terrains (+0.25 per Jungle, +0.4 per Flood Plain, round down), and buildings (Various industrial buildings produced unhealtiness, increasing with access to coal or oil for many of them).

If the unhealtiness was greater than the health limit, the city became unhealthy, and every population above the health limit began consuming an additional point of food each turn, thus slowing down and eventually reversing city growth.

I think that's a robust enough system by itself. It doesn't need or benefit from a random per-turn chance of disease: the disease happens automatically when unhealth exceed health, first reducing population growth (because more people are dying) and eventually causing the population to regress (because the deaths exceed the births). That's a plenty good enough way to cover diseases.

If we wanted to add pandemic or epidemic to the system, we could simply add another modifier to the unhealth rules giving additional unhealth equal to the number of nearby (eg, "within X tiles") unhealthy cities (or better yet,unhealthy cities connected by trade routes). That should be plenty good enough without touching the random events can of worm.

 

[Patine]

The Civ IV system, for Patine's benefit, went about like this.

Every city had a health limit. This was set starting with a default value (determined by difficulty), and could be added to via terrain features (fresh water granted +2 health, forests +0.5 health (rounded down)), resources (each unique food resource your empire had access to granted +1 health), and buildings (Aqueduct, Hospital and Public Transportation all contributed directly to health, and Granary, Harbor, Grocer and Supermarket derived additional health from food resources).

Every city also had an unhealtiness value. This was one per population point, plus additional unhealtiness from terrains (+0.25 per Jungle, +0.4 per Flood Plain, round down), and buildings (Various industrial buildings produced unhealtiness, increasing with access to coal or oil for many of them).

If the unhealtiness was greater than the health limit, the city became unhealthy, and every population above the health limit began consuming an additional point of food each turn, thus slowing down and eventually reversing city growth.

I think that's a robust enough system by itself. It doesn't need or benefit from a random per-turn chance of disease: the disease happens automatically when unhealth exceed health, first reducing population growth (because more people are dying) and eventually causing the population to regress (because the deaths exceed the births). That's a plenty good enough way to cover diseases.

If we wanted to add pandemic or epidemic to the system, we could simply add another modifier to the unhealth rules giving additional unhealth equal to the number of nearby (eg, "within X tiles") unhealthy cities (or better yet,unhealthy cities connected by trade routes). That should be plenty good enough without touching the random events can of worm.

Thank-you for the patient explanation.

 

[GeneralZift]

It would be interesting to see Medication as a Strategic Resource generated by some kind of Chemical Factory or something.

You would use up medication automatically to curb your less healthy cities from getting disease. And it would be auto consumed by Hospitals for example.

But you could send out medication in Aid to worse off players for diplomatic cool points. You know what I mean?

 

[Patine]

It would be interesting to see Medication as a Strategic Resource generated by some kind of Chemical Factory or something.

You would use up medication automatically to curb your less healthy cities from getting disease. And it would be auto consumed by Hospitals for example.

But you could send out medication in Aid to worse off players for diplomatic cool points. You know what I mean?

Medication is not, remotely, a generic commodity.

 

[GeneralZift]

In a game where the diseases would be generic, there's nothing wrong with the medication being generic right?

 

[Patine]

In a game where the diseases would be generic, there's nothing wrong with the medication being generic right?

Medication is not even remotely only just for treatment of disease PRN. Besides, as a strategic resource, it brings to mind despicable practices of pharmaceutical companies to egregiously and unnecessarily put key medications out of price reach of many in the Third World. That being said, I'm still not sold on your disease vector mechanic, and it still looks like it would be an aggravating distraction from enjoying the game.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

In a game where the diseases would be generic, there's nothing wrong with the medication being generic right?

I would assume that certain diseases might be customizable, or at least the name of them. The more they spread the more they can "mutate" or gain random abilities.

As for medication, I think certain resources could help stop the spread of diseases, like tea. Maybe more advanced ones would need a special (Medical) Research Lab to be produced first.

 

[Patine]

I would assume that certain diseases might be customizable, or at least the name of them. The more they spread the more they can "mutate" or gain random abilities.

As for medication, I think certain resources could help stop the spread of diseases, like tea. Maybe more advanced ones would need a special (Medical) Research Lab to be produced first.

This mechanic gets more and more unappealing sounding...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I would assume that certain diseases might be customizable, or at least the name of them. The more they spread the more they can "mutate" or gain random abilities.

As for medication, I think certain resources could help stop the spread of diseases, like tea. Maybe more advanced ones would need a special (Medical) Research Lab to be produced first.

The earliest Herbal Medicine compilation/textbook dates back to 1550 BCE in Egypt, so a generic 'Herbal Medicine' could be an Ancient Technology.​

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Several Resources already in the game, like Spices and Honey, have antibiotic/antiseptic properties, so could be applied to 'disease prevention/amelioration'​

​

There are in addition, Great Scientists like Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides, Celsus, al-Zahrawi, Paracelsus, Pare, any or all of whom could provide 'Medical Bonuses' to your Civ, or the Great Works from some of them (Galen, al-Zahrawi, Dioscorides) could provide 'extra' medical knowledge to combat disease.​

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BUT all of that seems to me to be ballooning the original concept into something more complex and intricate than the game needs. As @Evie posted, Civ IV had a good, basic Disease mechanic. Tweak some of the individual factors a bit based on the Terrain/Climate Model Civ VII uses, but I cannot see the point in adding an entire array of Great People, Great Works, specialized knowledge, specialized Resources, etc to get to the same thing Civ IV already had. Especially if Catastrophic Pandemic Population Loss is off the table, as it should be in any game that purports to be competitive in any way.​

 

[Patine]

I agree in the general suggestion, a system similar to CIV4's healthiness with the chance to generate and spread diseases, that could be moderated with buildings, technologies and policies. It would be a decent way to represent such significative element of human history in an abstract and gamey way, it is also a chance to replace "housing" that I feel is redundant considering most improvement/districts could be suppossed to provide their own housing.

About livestock also agree that these should reduce Healthiness and then trigger the generation and propagation of diseases. Still also understand the point of @Boris Gudenuf , so what about this:
1- When one city reach Unhealthy level (from a mix of factors) start to have a chance to generate a new Disease (of course there would be an unhealthy alert like in CIV4).
2.- Once the % generate the disease this would be named after the city it originated so for example one could be "The Thebes Disease", then with a particular identity these disease start to spread to others regions (like religious and ideologies) by means like trade routes.
3- Those dieseases would fade away with some time. So once each one is finally overcome in a particular city it would not be dangerous again in that place. These way we have a get a representation of acquired immunity.

Under this system any isolated population would still have the chance to get a disease from a source that already "normalized" it, like was the case during the global exploration.
Additionaly I think we can use also a "local disease" variable for some disease so they could be (in the system I suggest for "terrain") Cold, Temperate and Warm biome linked.

It would be interesting to see Medication as a Strategic Resource generated by some kind of Chemical Factory or something.

You would use up medication automatically to curb your less healthy cities from getting disease. And it would be auto consumed by Hospitals for example.

But you could send out medication in Aid to worse off players for diplomatic cool points. You know what I mean?

I would assume that certain diseases might be customizable, or at least the name of them. The more they spread the more they can "mutate" or gain random abilities.

As for medication, I think certain resources could help stop the spread of diseases, like tea. Maybe more advanced ones would need a special (Medical) Research Lab to be produced first.

The earliest Herbal Medicine compilation/textbook dates back to 1550 BCE in Egypt, so a generic 'Herbal Medicine' could be an Ancient Technology.​

​

Several Resources already in the game, like Spices and Honey, have antibiotic/antiseptic properties, so could be applied to 'disease prevention/amelioration'​

​

There are in addition, Great Scientists like Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides, Celsus, al-Zahrawi, Paracelsus, Pare, any or all of whom could provide 'Medical Bonuses' to your Civ, or the Great Works from some of them (Galen, al-Zahrawi, Dioscorides) could provide 'extra' medical knowledge to combat disease.​

​

BUT all of that seems to me to be ballooning the original concept into something more complex and intricate than the game needs. As @Evie posted, Civ IV had a good, basic Disease mechanic. Tweak some of the individual factors a bit based on the Terrain/Climate Model Civ VII uses, but I cannot see the point in adding an entire array of Great People, Great Works, specialized knowledge, specialized Resources, etc to get to the same thing Civ IV already had. Especially if Catastrophic Pandemic Population Loss is off the table, as it should be in any game that purports to be competitive in any way.​

This brainstorm cannot, as I see it, lead to a mechanic that will add anything but an egregious and annoying onus to gameplay. In the day or two (since Evie clarified the Civ4 mechanic for me, my concerns have been practically unresponded to, and you all continue brewing this monsters, seemingly pretending my cautionary views are not worth including in the discussion. But, I can not, at all, forsee how this proposed notion could enhance, and not detract from, gameplay enjoyment. Health should be a purely implied, passive, background feature, like slavery, though admittedly for different reasons.

 

[pokiehl]

I would assume that certain diseases might be customizable, or at least the name of them. The more they spread the more they can "mutate" or gain random abilities.

As for medication, I think certain resources could help stop the spread of diseases, like tea. Maybe more advanced ones would need a special (Medical) Research Lab to be produced first.

One interesting idea this could open up is weaponized pathogens. Maybe through spies or something.

 

[Patine]

One interesting idea this could open up is weaponized pathogens. Maybe through spies or something.

That brings in one of the most repugnant elements of modern warfare. Thank-you for making an obnoxious mechanic proposal far worse.

Moderator Action: Stop making this personal and be civil in your discourse. leif

 

[GeneralZift]

One interesting idea this could open up is weaponized pathogens. Maybe through spies or something.

Haha this reminds me of that game Plague Inc

 

[Patine]

Haha this reminds me of that game Plague Inc

And, of course you're in on that vile bit, too. And deliberately not responding to me because sober and cautionary sense of an unfolding bad mechanic idea is better ignored than dealt with by those want vapid sensationalism and not ideas for a viable game people are expected to play.

Moderator Action: Again, please be civil in discussion and discuss the topic and not your other forum members. leif

 

[pokiehl]

Haha this reminds me of that game Plague Inc

That game was insanely popular for a while…But I brought up the concept because that sort of thing becomes a more manageable mechanic if there’s a way to deal with it rather than just having to suffer it (ie, medications as you suggested)

 

[GeneralZift]

That game was insanely popular for a while…But I brought up the concept because that sort of thing becomes a more manageable mechanic if there’s a way to deal with it rather than just having to suffer it (ie, medications as you suggested)

Yes, you're right. I think the best countermechanic (or balance mechanic so to speak) for a Disease / Cleanliness / Health system is a Medication system.
So that gives the designers more freedom of approach to use Disease or Unhealthiness more freely if they can rely on Cleanliness and Medication mechanics to counteract them.
These Unhealthiness / Uncleanliness systems are supposed to weigh down a player's greedy choices (such as overpopulating without sanitisation).

The medication system gives the player agency to provide aid for other players, they can micro-specialise in meds and provide that to many players for profit.
Just in the same way you can expect to take the opposite mechanic to its logical extreme and be able to "plant" diseases in foreign countries to create havoc.
Plenty of new openings in player expression in my opinion.