Disease [Idea]

[Boris Gudenuf]

I'd like to get an opinion on how much is too much for some people:

Buildings/Districts: I don't think the concept could exist without some buildings, maybe a whole district, being geared towards this. Housing already has its own district and buildings, and if Health were to replace it, I don't see the problem.

Great People: I don't think we need a specialized group of Great people to deal with Health. That role could be given to various others. I can see at least one Great Scientist/ Great Prophet etc. having abilities geared towards it.

Civilian Units: I know a lot of people hate having many different civilian units, but Plague Doctors honestly would look cool.

Resources: I've already mentioned this, but having some resources that could have health would be fine. Maybe you could upgrade one of them by founding a corporation, considering I want those to also return.

World Congress: Obviously we would need a Pandemic emergency, right? Using your science to research a cure and being able to send aid to other civs seems like the most mini-game part. But of course, isn't every World congress emergency already like a mini-game?

1. Could have a new District called something like 'City Services' which could include the Sewer/Water Supply (both Health Boosters), Hospital, possibly a Research Hospital as the highest Tier building in it. More than one District is, I think, Overkill.

2. Great Doctors for much of history were part of the Great Scientist group: Galen and Aristotle both wrote on many subjects including medical ones. There's no reason to sub-divide Great People. What might be added is a Boost to getting as the next Great Scientist with a medical/Health benefit if you are suffering from Health or Pandemic effects in your Civ.

3. IF a civilian unit of 'Plague Doctor' or something similar is added, they should have more than a single function related to events that you might be able to avoid completely: in addition to ameliorating Plague, possibly a civilian Doctor would be required in a city or settlement founded in Unhealthy Terrain to keep the settlement viable. Think the horrible death rates among European settlers in the Caribbean in the 16th - 17th centuries where they could really have used such help, or the American medical research that fought off Yellow Fever in Panama and made the building of the Panama Canal possible where it wasn't not that many years earlier without that help.

4. Resources might be the easiest thing to implement. As posted earlier, several Resources in the game already have Health benefits: Spices and Honey for two. Mercury famously for STD, although including that in the game is probably Problematic.

5. Among possible Technologies with potential Health benefits:
Medicine could be added in either the Classical or Ancient Eras. Formalized and written texts on herbal medicine were already available in both Egypt and China before 1500 BCE, the Ancient Era, and in rthe Classical Era we had the writings and medical discoveries of Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides, etc.
Charcoal, also a fuel for relatively high-temperature kilns making stoneware pottery and Iron smelting, was also used to purify water by both Classical Greeks and Phoenicians - a Health 'by-product', so to speak, for the early Classical Era.
Germ Theory, the discovery by Pasteur in the mid-Industrial Era, had massive health effects which translated into dramatically reduced Urban death rates and population increases. The Pasteur Institute would be a good Modern Wonder to combat disease, plague, and Health issues as well.
Pharmaceuticals, also late Industrial/Modern Era, based on discoveries like antiseptic chemicals, aspirin and derivative pain-killers, culminating in antibiotics like penicillin.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Civilian Units: A poor fit for a baseline health system without some sort of pandemic crisis minigame, and the last thing we need is more civilian unit minigames. Outside that option, they could either use up a charge to grant a health bonus to a city, or grant a health bonus to a garrisoned city, but both effects are much better attained with buildings, and are much easier to keep track off that way. About the only way in which they might be helpful is in late-game remote outposts where they can provide a health bonus that allow a new city to get off the ground before it can build improvements, but that's a very niche use. As much as the plague doctors are cool, I don't see that as a good fit.

I did clarify in an earlier post that they would only appear in a pandemic/epidemic situation. I could potentially see them as being the pre–World Congress option of dealing with them.

World Congress: Aside the fact that nobody likes the World Congress (but nobody likes the World Congress), I would say we're talking more competitions than emergencies (emergencies are pretty much all just forms of warfare in Civ VI). And while they are technically minigames, the difference between them and how most people use the term is that none of them involve its own units and its own map interactions. Competitions pretty much exclusively rely on one-of off-map actions, and interact with almost nothing except your build order and your ability to generate great people point. This is a reasonable appropach to the game.

If done in the style of the Civ VI competition, you could have a pandemic competition where civilizations score points for completing the "Cure Disease" project, and for building clinics and hospitals, but that'S about as much of a pandemic mini game as I'd be interested in having. Most importantly, no units moving around trying to drive the pandemic out of this or that city.

Sure, I guess it would be more similar to a competition, but calling it a Pandemic competition, instead of an emergency, does sound weird. The way that competitions/emergencies work could also be different for Civ 7, if they return. There's no reason why a Pandemic emergency couldn't incorporate both aspects of discovering a cure and sending units to infected areas?

2. Great Doctors for much of history were part of the Great Scientist group: Galen and Aristotle both wrote on many subjects including medical ones. There's no reason to sub-divide Great People. What might be added is a Boost to getting as the next Great Scientist with a medical/Health benefit if you are suffering from Health or Pandemic effects in your Civ.

I didn't say anything about sub-dividing Great People. For example, Hildegard of Bingen is already a Great Scientist that you have to use on a Holy Site to and grants bonus faith. There's no reason in a future game that she could grant health bonuses instead.

 

[GeneralZIft]

No, I didn't. If your intent didn't across in your wording, that's not my problem. But what I constantly endure, for reasons I don't know, from you goes beyond infuriating to the level of egregious and intractable.


I quoted two other posters. You usually just say, in unbacked declarations, the people (or, in one case, early on, the, "silent majority,") support you, or that no one disagreed when some have, and also, insultingly, imply is not part of, "everybody."

Except, again, I didn't say that. I made my own observation that other people did not MAKE suggestions that I would consider unwieldy. Not that that was the consensus. Not that nobody thought otherwise. PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU COMMENT.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I didn't say anything about sub-dividing Great People. For example, Hildegard of Bingen is already a Great Scientist that you have to use on a Holy Site to and grants bonus faith. There's no reason in a future game that she could grant health bonuses instead.

Sorry, should have made it clear I was agreeing with your basic point.

And further, that there are several Great People in the game already that could have 'health' or medical bonuses added, as well as a host of additional Medically-Significant Great People that could be introduced.

Depending on how significant the game design makes the entire Disease component there are Great People available for almost whatever Era or importance seems necessary.

 

[Patine]

Except, again, I didn't say that. I made my own observation that other people did not MAKE suggestions that I would consider unwieldy. Not that that was the consensus. Not that nobody thought otherwise. PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU COMMENT.

Perhaps examine your presentation as opposed to your intent, before declaring your message perfect in clarify and insulting my reading - in a long chain of insults and false accusations that make anything you say to, or about, me hard to give credibility to. Now, I've made my point, and done with this egregious incident.

 

[Patine]

World Congress: Obviously we would need a Pandemic emergency, right? Using your science to research a cure and being able to send aid to other civs seems like the most mini-game part. But of course, isn't every World congress emergency already like a mini-game?

World Congress: Aside the fact that nobody likes the World Congress (but nobody likes the World Congress), I would say we're talking more competitions than emergencies (emergencies are pretty much all just forms of warfare in Civ VI). And while they are technically minigames, the difference between them and how most people use the term is that none of them involve its own units and its own map interactions. Competitions pretty much exclusively rely on one-of off-map actions, and interact with almost nothing except your build order and your ability to generate great people point. This is a reasonable appropach to the game.

I would rather not give another area of binding and mandatory dystopian world government power to an organization that should be as toothless and ineffective as the LoN or UN, frankly. The immense, "power," of the WHO in the recent pandemic was, like most other mandates the UN has, because a majority of nations were convinced it was a good idea, at the time, and many waffled, flip-flopped, changed course, and even dropped the whole affair in a true circus of high level administrative chaos.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I would rather not give another area of binding and mandatory dystopian world government power to an organization that should be as toothless and ineffective as the LoN or UN, frankly. The immense, "power," of the WHO in the recent pandemic was, like most other mandates the UN has, because a majority of nations were convinced it was a good idea, at the time, and many waffled, flip-flopped, changed course, and even dropped the whole affair in a true circus of high level administrative chaos.

Putting away real-world realities, do you really think if it a pandemic was hypothetically put in the game a World Congress wouldn't address the situation at all?
At the end of the day this is just a game.

 

[Patine]

Putting away real-world realities, do you really think if it a pandemic was hypothetically put in the game a World Congress wouldn't address the situation at all?
At the end of the day this is just a game.

The World Congress, like Nuclear Gandhi, is a game feature I feel should be retired.

 

[Evie]

I could potentially see them as being the pre–World Congress option of dealing with them.

"Dealing with" Pandemics prior to the Industrial era (which is way after the World Congress forms, incidentally) mostly meant letting them burn through the population. Fortunately, pandemics themselves were also pretty rare prior to the Industrial era (maybe Age of Discovery) because without rapid transportation it's way harder for a disease to spread globally. Either way options for "dealing with" Pandemics pre-World Congress really need not be a thing.

Nor do we need random event anything-demics that the player must "solve" as a separate mechanism from the base health/unhealth system ; the health/unhealth/disease system already covers that. Adding a wholly separate pandemic mechanism just for pandemics when we already have health-ill health is just doubling down on the health representation for no particularly good reasons. In my not at all humble opinion, the only way pandemic should ever be done is as part of another, broader system, using the same mechanics as the broader system. Hence the suggestion to use something like the Competitions mechanics. Either way, plague doctors are unlikely to be a good fit.

(Really, if the point is just to get plague doctor into the game, can we just have a medic unit that, I don't know, help units heal, and then the medieval-renaissance graphic for the medic can be a plague doctor. Really. We do not invent a whole game mechanism just because some guys once wore cool masks

Re World Congress, As far as I'm concerned, the World Congress is a forum to allow for multilateral diplomacy and crisis response, something that the game is otherwise unable to handle since it's stuck at bilateral diplomacy. It badly needs improvement in that role, and may have to be removed if it can't be improved because it's not doing a great job as is (and diplo vic must die), but that's the core of it's gameplay role. Calling for its abolition because it does not accurately represent any actual international institution (which it doesn't try to) just seems...silly.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The World Congress, like Nuclear Gandhi, is a game feature I feel should be retired.

The World Congress as Civ has implemented it is a Fantasy with all the impact people wanted from a 'world government' mechanism but have never gotten - and won't as long as no country will voluntarily give up any item of sovereignty, no matter how minor, to a World Government except under pressure. - And, as part of that, no World Government so far has had the strength or military force to actually impose anything on anybody: that all has to come from component governments who can drop their support and withdraw their troops at a moment's notice.

BUT

There have been significant Extra-National movements that were important - mostly on a limited scale in both time and area - that it would be interesting to have in the game in some way.

The Congress of Vienna in the 19th century as an example: it not only established a 'balance of power' within Europe, it imposed that balance and (very conservative) Stability among most of the powers for most of the century.

Same period, the various Conferences in the late 19th - early 20th centuries that imposed "Laws of War" for treating prisoners and civilians and tried to limit the weapons used - with wildly varying results.

The Washington Naval Conference of 1922 which did succeed in imposing limits in numbers and sizes of ships in the world's major navies: probably the most successful 'military limitation' ever imposed and the only one I know of that was imposed and accepted (with some cheating, of course) World-wide successfully.

None of these (as far as I know) except possibly the Washington Naval Conference, succeeded in any World Wide limitations, and most were based on the wishes of a few Major States and their Vested Interests, but that's all the more reason to drop the Fantasy World Congress in favor of more limited Industrial and Post-Industrial Conferences, Agreements and Treaties to impose more specific limitations to unfettered game-play in perhaps more specific and limited areas.

Just a thought - part of on-going thoughts about Extra-National or Non-Playable-Civ entities in the game: we've got City States, Tribal Huts and 'Barbarian' Camps as Less-Than-Civ entities already, what about More-Than-Civ entities, like the International Church (Buddhist, Catholic or Islam, among others) or International Banking Families of the Renaissance, modern International Corporations, or, for something Really Different, the Holy Roman Empire - a rather Unholy Confederacy of Competing Interests only loosely attached to the Austrian throne and then only sometimes. It would be interesting, I sometimes think, to Open Up the game to give the gamer more variety of 'opponents' or limitations to deal with . . .

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Nor do we need random event anything-demics that the player must "solve" as a separate mechanism from the base health/unhealth system ; the health/unhealth/disease system already covers that. Adding a wholly separate pandemic mechanism just for pandemics when we already have health-ill health is just doubling down on the health representation for no particularly good reasons. In my not at all humble opinion, the only way pandemic should ever be done is as part of another, broader system, using the same mechanics as the broader system. Hence the suggestion to use something like the Competitions mechanics. Either way, plague doctors are unlikely to be a good fit.

Well, the whole point of the emergency would be if the disease gets out of hand by spreading to multiple civs, which hopefully should be avoided as long as the player and other civs do a good job preventing them.
I see Plague Doctors/Medics as a last resort unit, similar to an Inquisitor whenever you launch an Inquisition.

(Really, if the point is just to get plague doctor into the game, can we just have a medic unit that, I don't know, help units heal, and then the medieval-renaissance graphic for the medic can be a plague doctor. Really. We do not invent a whole game mechanism just because some guys once wore cool masks

Sure. I would assume that proper Medics would come later anyways.

 

[Patine]

Re World Congress, As far as I'm concerned, the World Congress is a forum to allow for multilateral diplomacy and crisis response, something that the game is otherwise unable to handle since it's stuck at bilateral diplomacy. It badly needs improvement in that role, and may have to be removed if it can't be improved because it's not doing a great job as is (and diplo vic must die), but that's the core of it's gameplay role. Calling for its abolition because it does not accurately represent any actual international institution (which it doesn't try to) just seems...silly.

Well, my reasons do run deeper, and more pragmatically, I admit, though I do harp on the UN comparison a lot, don't I?

 

[Evie]

Among other things

Alexander - the problem is you're still piling two separate health mechanisms. You have the simple one that track an abstract health/illness as generic value, and provide a simple but robust game mechanisms that put a soft cap on population growth, and then you have a separate system of individual diseases that try to spread and can be fought of and cured. Having both is just overusing ghe concept of heslth system, and the first simply is better at addressing health as a civilization issue as a whole, while the other seems almost entirely dedicated to just addressing one specific aspect. In a very "ripped from the headlines" way - overfocusing on what was relevant in recent news.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Alexander - the problem is you're still piling two separate health mechanisms. You have the simple one that track an abstract health/illness as generic value, and provide a simple but robust game mechanisms that put a soft cap on population growth, and then you have a separate system of individual diseases that try to spread and can be fought of and cured. Having both is just overusing ghe concept of heslth system, and the first simply is better at addressing health as a civilization issue as a whole, while the other seems almost entirely dedicated to just addressing one specific aspect. In a very "ripped from the headlines" way - overfocusing on what was relevant in recent news.

I never specifically said I agreed with having "health" as a passive soft cap on population growth. That was other people.
To me that would be too boring and would rather just them implement that as Housing again.

 

[Evie]

Ah.

Well, then we have a case of mutual disinterest. I am not interested in spending the game firefighting diseases to keep them from turning into pandemics. That, to me, would be pointless busywork for something that is much more cleanly handled as a passive mechanism.

You seem here to be thinking of passive as a flaw; but nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, a game need active systems, but a game also can only have so many active systems before it loses coherence and become a frakensoftware, coblled together from superficial bits and pieces of a dozen different game without unifying vision or focus. We're already seeing it with Civ VI after a couple expansions: too many active systems that each run in their own silo snd can be ignored. Hence, good games limit how many active systems they have, picks the ones that are most important to what the game is, and focus on developing those instead of spamming active systems and losing coherence as a result. (It's notably why each Paradox game has different specialties and Paradox hasn't tried to make a Frankengame with HOI warfare, Victoria socio-economics and CK character management).

For anything that doesn't fit that list, passive is a quality, not a flaw. It allows those aspects of history to be important (very much so) to the game without distracting from the core active features, and instead bringing additional to the core features. Rather than scattering efforts into numerous active features, you use the passive features to support and strenghten the active features and tie the systems together.

Sure, looking at each feature individually, an active feature always sound more fun than a passive one. But in terms of acually pulling the game together, passive features are every inch as important to the game, every bit as valuable, and just as important to the overall fun as any active feature.

 

[pokiehl]

The World Congress as Civ has implemented it is a Fantasy with all the impact people wanted from a 'world government' mechanism but have never gotten - and won't as long as no country will voluntarily give up any item of sovereignty, no matter how minor, to a World Government except under pressure. - And, as part of that, no World Government so far has had the strength or military force to actually impose anything on anybody: that all has to come from component governments who can drop their support and withdraw their troops at a moment's notice.

BUT

There have been significant Extra-National movements that were important - mostly on a limited scale in both time and area - that it would be interesting to have in the game in some way.

The Congress of Vienna in the 19th century as an example: it not only established a 'balance of power' within Europe, it imposed that balance and (very conservative) Stability among most of the powers for most of the century.

Same period, the various Conferences in the late 19th - early 20th centuries that imposed "Laws of War" for treating prisoners and civilians and tried to limit the weapons used - with wildly varying results.

The Washington Naval Conference of 1922 which did succeed in imposing limits in numbers and sizes of ships in the world's major navies: probably the most successful 'military limitation' ever imposed and the only one I know of that was imposed and accepted (with some cheating, of course) World-wide successfully.

None of these (as far as I know) except possibly the Washington Naval Conference, succeeded in any World Wide limitations, and most were based on the wishes of a few Major States and their Vested Interests, but that's all the more reason to drop the Fantasy World Congress in favor of more limited Industrial and Post-Industrial Conferences, Agreements and Treaties to impose more specific limitations to unfettered game-play in perhaps more specific and limited areas.

Just a thought - part of on-going thoughts about Extra-National or Non-Playable-Civ entities in the game: we've got City States, Tribal Huts and 'Barbarian' Camps as Less-Than-Civ entities already, what about More-Than-Civ entities, like the International Church (Buddhist, Catholic or Islam, among others) or International Banking Families of the Renaissance, modern International Corporations, or, for something Really Different, the Holy Roman Empire - a rather Unholy Confederacy of Competing Interests only loosely attached to the Austrian throne and then only sometimes. It would be interesting, I sometimes think, to Open Up the game to give the gamer more variety of 'opponents' or limitations to deal with . . .

If the World Congress in Civ 6 were just more like it was in Civ 5, it'd have been way better. The Civ 6 iteration is a big downgrade. I hope in Civ 7, World Congress goes back to being more relevant and hands-on.

I DO like the addition of Emergencies, but I think their implementation could've been a lot more interesting.

 

[Patine]

If the World Congress in Civ 6 were just more like it was in Civ 5, it'd have been way better. The Civ 6 iteration is a big downgrade. I hope in Civ 7, World Congress goes back to being more relevant and hands-on.

I'd rather the opposite,myself. In fact, as I said, I'd rather it go to the Dustbin of History.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

You seem here to be thinking of passive as a flaw; but nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, a game need active systems, but a game also can only have so many active systems before it loses coherence and become a frakensoftware, coblled together from superficial bits and pieces of a dozen different game without unifying vision or focus. We're already seeing it with Civ VI after a couple expansions: too many active systems that each run in their own silo snd can be ignored. Hence, good games limit how many active systems they have, picks the ones that are most important to what the game is, and focus on developing those instead of spamming active systems and losing coherence as a result. (It's notably why each Paradox game has different specialties and Paradox hasn't tried to make a Frankengame with HOI warfare, Victoria socio-economics and CK character management).

For anything that doesn't fit that list, passive is a quality, not a flaw. It allows those aspects of history to be important (very much so) to the game without distracting from the core active features, and instead bringing additional to the core features. Rather than scattering efforts into numerous active features, you use the passive features to support and strenghten the active features and tie the systems together.

Sure, looking at each feature individually, an active feature always sound more fun than a passive one. But in terms of acually pulling the game together, passive features are every inch as important to the game, every bit as valuable, and just as important to the overall fun as any active feature.

It depends on what it is. Not everything passive is a flaw. But I think that having a disease/health system being only passive seems too limiting, in my opinion.

 

[BuchiTaton]

1. Could have a new District called something like 'City Services' which could include the Sewer/Water Supply (both Health Boosters), Hospital, possibly a Research Hospital as the highest Tier building in it. More than one District is, I think, Overkill.

I would like to have customizable districts (plus the need to be attached into an "urban area"), so being buildings liberated from particular districts my Health related ones would be; Baths, Hospital, Park and Recycler. Meanwhile the Reservoir and Sewer would be whole city "Services" upgrades like Metro.

4. Resources might be the easiest thing to implement. As posted earlier, several Resources in the game already have Health benefits: Spices and Honey for two. Mercury famously for STD, although including that in the game is probably Problematic.

Cities gain a health bonus when supplied with Honey, Fruit and Spice resources.

5. Among possible Technologies with potential Health benefits:
Medicine could be added in either the Classical or Ancient Eras. Formalized and written texts on herbal medicine were already available in both Egypt and China before 1500 BCE, the Ancient Era, and in rthe Classical Era we had the writings and medical discoveries of Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides, etc.
Charcoal, also a fuel for relatively high-temperature kilns making stoneware pottery and Iron smelting, was also used to purify water by both Classical Greeks and Phoenicians - a Health 'by-product', so to speak, for the early Classical Era.
Germ Theory, the discovery by Pasteur in the mid-Industrial Era, had massive health effects which translated into dramatically reduced Urban death rates and population increases. The Pasteur Institute would be a good Modern Wonder to combat disease, plague, and Health issues as well.
Pharmaceuticals, also late Industrial/Modern Era, based on discoveries like antiseptic chemicals, aspirin and derivative pain-killers, culminating in antibiotics like penicillin.

My line of Healthness related technologies is:
* Soap, from ancient times helping to clean and smell nice. Could be linked to extra bonuses to religion and resources like Olives, Pigs, Incense and Sulfur.
* Plumbing, classic solution to take out the filth. For sure material for an ironic quote about the use of lead.
* Destillation, technicaly improved by medieval Muslim physicians deserve to be noted. Of course this includer production bonuses to Sugar and grains.
* Vaccines, the idea of expose people to a "weakened" form of disease to acquire immunity was developed along modern times.
* Antimicrobials, the industrial aplication of the Germ Theory in the form of different threatments to prevent and cure infections.
* Nanosensors, a rising technology for easy monitoring of infectious agents and enviromental pollutants.

 

[Evie]

You have to be limiting in game design. Again, the alternative is Frankengames that are a hodgepodge of unrelated, disconnected mechanisms. A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when he has nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away, etc.

Or, to put it another way, when it comes to making something an active part of gameplay, go big or go home. Either make it a big, developed core feature that much of the game revolve around, or don't bother making it active at all - small active features only serve as distraction from the core features and lead to a kudzu game. If you can't go big, just mske it a passive part of other existing game elements.

And honestly, I don't see pandemics or health alone as having the scope to support an entire core game feature. You would need to expand the idea into a bigger scale to get a core feature; a more general crisis system *might* and even then I'm not so sure it's really worth it. Nor do I think this it's a wise choice of one.