Dynamic civilization traits

[danielkulla]

I think I found a way to have the popular civilization trait feature in the game without its culturalist (or racist?) implications.

The idea is that each terrain square generates a certain probability for different traits, f.e. deserts for spiritual, rivers for commercial, forests for industrious, mountains for spiritual and protective, and so forth.

In an easy implementation, this would mean that after the founding of the first city by the surrounding terrain it is decided which traits your civilization has. This would probably already work for Civ4 Mods.

Even more dynamic - and even less culturalistic - it would become that these major traits change with won or lost territory all through the game. For the historical perspective, the core terrain from the beginning could be weighed higher in the equation. In turn, the influence of these traits could diminish by entering the modern age.

I would also like a bigger influence of these traits - so that different traits enable civs to do specific research quicker (or slower), that they have different building speeds for practically every building and unit.

 

[Fromage10x]

I had a kinda similar idea some time ago (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=93357).

 

[danielkulla]

I would consider your idea to push the culturalism of the original Civ4 concept of civilization traits even further - while I'm trying to put it upside down.

My idea would be that these traits depend on a combination of geography, terrain, natural resources (and some probability factors), and that they could change along with them providing different reasearch and building abilities (and inabilities...)

Thus, the character of a civilization would be formed by the natural, material conditions it is come upon and not as it is now: the traits are somewhat inbuilt or inbred into the civilization no matter where they start off from. You know, a nation of seafarers that spends perhaps millenia of its history in the middle of a giant continent doesn't make any sense.

(That, in replying to that other posting of yours, people insisted on predictable civilization traits to follow a certain strategy pattern only illustrates my point. The original concept seems to support the idea of historical determism to a point where any dependance on real-life influences is only perceived as disturbing the gameplay.)

 

[Stildawn]

Id be more keen on the traits based from your capital city terrian only, things always changing on you would suck lol. And people spread out from their capital so it would be natural to assume the traits of that city would go with them.

 

[rysmiel]

Id be more keen on the traits based from your capital city terrian only, things always changing on you would suck lol.

I disagree entirely, because being able to control what your traits were at various pints in the game by choosing your expansion and development priorities to make them happen would be an extra level of cool control.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

Would the problem of starting in or near tundra or snow be compounded by being granted traits that won't help you get out of a crap start.

It would also be shattering to base your startup on certain traits only for them to change multiple times mid-game, eg. you've built certain terrain improvements 'cause you're Fin, have'nt built Aqeducts 'cause you're Exp; and then your traits flip around?!

I will admit that the trait change is slightly realistic (though not time-wise) with rulers dying of old age and fresh blood taking up the helm. The new king may have entirely different traits; but hey, they'll be dead in 50 yrs etc. so you could be changing traits every turn early on in game!

 

[CCRunner]

What if you could start out with the standard two traits at the beginning then after every two or three age advancements, you could choose a third trait from a list of two traits that would be determined by factors like geography and religion's presence.
That would be a boost to advancing ages which currently does absolutely nothing but change graphics.

 

[Fromage10x]

To Kiwi--It wouldn't simply change your traits willy-nilly, they would only change if you suddenly started playing the game in a significantly different way.

 

[rysmiel]

Would the problem of starting in or near tundra or snow be compounded by being granted traits that won't help you get out of a crap start.

Yep; I like the idea of dynamic traits, but very much not ones that depend on your surroundings, they should depend entirely on your gameplay.

It would also be shattering to base your startup on certain traits only for them to change multiple times mid-game, eg. you've built certain terrain improvements 'cause you're Fin, have'nt built Aqeducts 'cause you're Exp; and then your traits flip around?!

To my mind, if your play-style and strategy suits Financial, then the game should make you Financial, and the same for Expansionist; I think this does kind of need no traits at all for the first (10 ? 20 ? 50 ?) turns so that the game gets a baseline on how you are playing.

And with regard to changes in mid-game; they'll only happen if you push your strategy that way, is how I was thinking. Though on the other hand, it's not impossible that some traits would be more useful in early game than mid-game or vice versa, so you might well want to change them and to play accordingly.