Evolving Civ Traits

[judgement]

Originally posted by Blasphemous
After all, if you start preparing for a huge war and mass loads of troops, you will become Militaristic and lose an old trait. This adds another thing for players to watch out for... Wanna wage war but still stay Seafaring-Commercial? You'd better crank out more ships and commerce than soldiers.

I'm not sure how much I like this, though. Unless they were careful, as you say, to crank out lots of ships and commerce (or whatever was needed to retain their current traits) they any civ who wanted to have a huge war would become militaristic. The trait system, which is meant to differentiate one civ from another, loses some of its charm if all civs become militaristic when at war, become expansionistic when expanding, and so on. Basically, the traits would then only reflect what your current priorities were. If any civ can become militaristic when it wants to go to war, then all civs are essentially the same, in which case why have traits? The trait system would instead just become a way to give a little momentum to whatever priorities you currently have, i.e., if you've been focusing on science, it becomes a little easier to keep focusing on science. I'm not saying thats not a good idea, and it certainly is realistic, but it seems to me that it has a fundamentally different effect on gameplay than the current Civ 3 trait system, which is set up so that playing with one civ isn't the same as playing with another.

The fundamental question is this: how much should your choice of civ at the beginning of the game influence how the game turns out? In Civ 1 and Civ 2, it didn't matter at all - the choice only affected your leaderhead and the city names. In Civ 3, the introduction of traits and UUs made it so that your initial choice did influence the course of the game. But if, in Civ 4, any civ can have any trait, and the mechanism for changing traits is equally available to all civs, then it returns the situation to that of Civ 1 and Civ 2: it doesn't really matter which civ you pick, other than the graphics (and UUs, that's true, but people have the same complaints about UUs being inappropriate for your terrain). Now, I never had any real problem with that aspect of Civ 1 and 2: I like to let the situation I find myself in dictate my play style, not the choices I made before the game started. But I think we should acknowledge that, if we go with some of the ideas posted in this thread, then the trait system takes on a completely different purpose from what it does in Civ 3.

 

[Shyrramar]

@Judgement and Blasphemous

I have some things to point out. First of all I ment by my earlier post that it would be VERY hard to switch your trait. And by very hard, I mean very hard. Thousands of years of scientific trait would not be washed away by some wars. Actually, I agree with judgement here that wars should actually not have a direct effect on militaricism. A warlike civ should not be militaristic automatically.

Instead I would like to point out that every turn you have some trait would build your points, and every turn without it (if it has less points than the biggest two) would lessen them. What I am saying is that having ten libraries would bring you 30 points in total PER TURN. So that having ten libraries for a hundred turns would leave you with 3000 scientific points. If you then wanted to become militaristic, it would take more than a few wars to do that! First of all you should have enough barracks (just an example) to overcome to 30/turn scientific ratio. Then the scientific points would become to lessen (I actually have no idea how - perhaps according to the difference of the two traits in question, perhaps in percents..) and militaristic begin to build up. With 35 militaristic points (let's say) the scientificism would begin to decrease by 35-30=5 per turn and the militaristic would begin to build up by 35 points. In 50 turns the points would be 1750 to 2750, in 70 turns 2450 to 2650, in 75 turns they would be even with 2625 to 2625.

So the change would be gradual. With thousands of years of militaristic trait it would take thousands of years to change it. Perhaps not years in civ-terms, though, but turns (in hundreds).

With all civs having always two traits, there would be no actual "bonus" for doing well, but only traits as they are now determined by your playing style. Judgement note this!

What comes to the pointing system, I would want to it be more linked to the way you play, not what you can achieve. Getting the Map Making first does not make you scientific - just lucky or a good player . Building many libraries would give the message that you prefer to be scientific. You having an aggressive neighbour will not make you militaristic - with this I mean that the actual number or effectiveness of your troops is of no consequence. What should be of consequence is the number of barracks and the number of wars you have started and the number of times you have dismissed a plea for peace. This way you can defend yourself quite well without becoming militaristic.

The traits are (or should be) about the way you play, about the way your civ thinks and acts and sees the world. A civ with good defences is not militaristic - nor is a civ with a huge retaliation force of offensive units (defensive wars are not won by defensive units only). The number of your ships don't make you seafaring, but the number of harbors would.

Now you could say: if I happen to like harbors, I would become seafaring, which is stupid. This is not the case. The whole trait system is based on relative numbers. Therefore a civ that is doing fine and builds everything would not have random traits. The fact that history has meaning does have the effect that the order in which you build your improvements/whatever has huge influence on your points. Not only the actual number of your improvements. Hopefully this point is made clear enough.

What comes to your concern about the function of traits to begin with, judgment, I understand your concerns. But I believe that the trait-system is whole lot better than the system without them. In Civ2 your fleet was as effective as the fleet of your enemy, even though you have ruled the seas always and they just happened to amass a great armada to overthrow you. Now with this point-system you would be in the same situation with Civ2, but you would benefit for having traditions in something. A warlike civ is usually better in warfare than a not-warlike civ - even though they might have the same number of units. The temperament of your citizens have a decisive meaning.

You could take away the traits and return to earlier civs, but I see that as unnecessary. The trait-system has worked pretty well and would continue to work pretty well with these little customizations. And can't you actually turn off "Civ-specific abilities" in Civ3 - or does that turn only UUs off? I have never tried it.

The difference would simply be that you could choose whatever civ you liked even though you didn't like their "traditional" traits.

I have general suggestions to what creates points for traits:

Scientific: the number of your scientific buildings. In addition you would gain scientific points when your slider is scientific - in other words you keep your income small. This is different from blasphemous's percentual idea, as the percents actually presuppose that your economy is doing fine which would lead to judgement's concerns about "rewarding" a civ.

Commercial: The number of commercial buildings and the abovementioned slider. The number of roads should have no difference, as everybody builds roads simply because they are a basic way to improve your civ. All traits should evolve with choices that would be about taste, not about playing well.

Militaristic: the number of militaristic buildings, the number of war precipitated by you and the times you have refused to a plea for peace - could perhaps be linked to unconditional surrender as the player should not become militaristic for turning down offers that are clearly not enough to repay the damage done by war. Perhaps even the way you handle situations like spies getting caught should make a difference.

Expansionist: The ratio between the number of cities and the number of citizens within those cities: that would represent your choice of either keeping a few good cities or expanding to have more poor cities. If cIV should implement a feature of giving back the cities you have taken after signing a peace treaty, the ratio between keeping the cities and handing them back should make a difference.

Religious: The number of religious buildings. The way cIV handled religion/culture should make a difference too. If religion was linked to culture as well, then culture should bring points. Perhaps the average cultural points your cities have made compared to the time they have been around should make a difference.

Seafaring: the number of seafaring buildings and perhaps the ratio between coastal cities and inland cities.

Agricultural: the ratio between building mines/irrigation. The number of agricultural buildings.

Industrial: the abovementioned ratio and the number of industrious improvements.

One must keep in mind, though, that the "number of xx buildings" is relative. The age of the buildings should play a part. These are just suggestions to the basic idea.

Have I forgot to comment on some aspect of the conversation? If I have, please do mention it and I will try to explain my point of view.

 

[Shyrramar]

Oh yeah. Sorry for the spam, but one more thing concerning the comments of judgement:

The problem with changing the expansionist trait when the first expansion-phase was completed if of course a real one. But I do not see its relevance concerning the points system, or do you advocate the current system where the trait became useless nonetheless, but you couldn't even change it? Or is this an argument against the trait-system in general? In that case, I think a more constructive way to address this problem is to re-think the effects of the traits.

The real problem is IMO with scientific trait. When all science is researched, what's the use for it? This should be addressed by changing the effects of Future Tech (perhaps like in MoO2: your units would need lesser amount of shields to be completed or some such effect) or by changing the effects of scientific trait as a whole. This is one part of the problem that I have no ready answer to... unfortunately.

But the effects of other traits. I think that the lessened corruption should be changed from commercial to expansionist. It is the expansionist civs that should in reality benefit from lessening (distance-?) corruption, not the commercials. Commercial civs should get more money by other means (better trade-agreements, less maintenance for commercial buildings, more gold: perhaps every tile producing three trade would produce one more, or something). If expansionist civ should get the lessened corruption-effect, it would make the expansionism a good trait through the whole game.

Other traits don't suffer from any such problems anyway. The scientific trait remains a problem, because there will come a time when scientific research is done. Perhaps after the last official tech (by this I mean non-futuristic techs) libraries and others would begin to produce more culture and money for scientific civs? It's a stretch, but something should be done to the problem. Even without the traits at all, the problem will remain and should be solved somehow.

 

[Blasphemous]

Shyrrmar, you make some excellent points but I gotta defend my own point about tribes turning militaristic... When a tribe prepares for a very large war, it makes sense for it to become militaristic to a certain degree because of draft (which should perhaps also increase the militaristic score in it's in-game implementation) and because of the swelling of the army and extended use of military police. And, because disbanding units lowers your score faster than building them (in the setup I proposed), this effect is temporary, sorta like another type of mobilization, and can be dispelled once the war is over.
Also, if a civ has been gathering points towards whatever traits for ages, it should take a pretty damn big troop buildup to replace those traits... The big military flips would probably take place mostly in the earlier ages.
Regardless, I digress. I had not thought things through as well as you did when I posted, I was just sorta spewing out the ideas as they surfaced...

 

[D. Minky]

I love the idea of civs being able to evolve traits, or even pick up extra ones... Heck, a civ that is 10 times larger than the average civ is gonna have more traits than most as well.

And the idea of implementing Feats of Wonder from CTP is a fantastic idea. A lot of times, wonders seem less like wonders and more like special achievements. Having Feats of Wonder as well as Wonders makes a lot more sense.

 

[Shyrramar]

@Blasphemous: I still wouldn't go for the military-build-up-idea. A wealthy civ is not necessarily commercial by nature, a technologically advanced civ is not necessarily scientific, nor is heavily populated agricultural or a civ with big army militaristic. I may be the most peaceful nation on earth facing the Uglies and Meanest Aggressor of all time and therefore build up a great army (with my commercial and industrial powers) to repel them: this does not make me militaristic.

Whatever the case, I would think that in order for the traits to have any meaning apart from being bonuses earned by good play (no extra traits, I emphasize!), which they should have, the traits should reflect the temperament and outlook of the civ in question. A militaristic civ is a civ that likes wars. They like to do combat as they see it a natural part of life and a way for their people to prove their courage, and they see it as their natural right to attack their inferiors. That's a long way from a big and effective army that is used only when the situation dictates and always with certain distaste.

The traits should also be of greater historical importance, not contemporary. A civ preparing for war makes it no more militaristic in any way. Draft should not cause militaristicism either - it is only the last resort when professional armies are too few. In a sense you could say that having less unhappiness caused by draft is a bonus for a militaristic civ as their people are in general more approving of war.

I want to emphasize my point: traits should reflect the way the civ thinks in general, the temperament of the people living there. A "peaceful nation" is not a title given to a nation that has a little and/or unsuccesfull army, neither is "warlike nation" given to a nation with a strong army. Those titles are given due to the way that civ uses these armies. A warlike, albeit militarily weak, civ would respect civs with stronger army and would have no qualms about attacking civs that are even weaker than they. A civ with a strong army may not use it, because it believes in peace through safety. The one who always gets into fights is not necessary the biggest guy in the neighbourhood!

The overall problem I see in many of the suggestions is essentially the same that judgement saw: they are too much linked to overall success. A big army is only possible via great resources: therefore what makes a civ militaristic is NOT the size of its army, but the way it uses them and how much emphasis it puts to its army. Hopefully this has cleared my point of view.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Shyrramar
@Judgement and Blasphemous

First of all I ment by my earlier post that it would be VERY hard to switch your trait. And by very hard, I mean very hard.

I agree, this would be essential if trait-switching was implemented.

With all civs having always two traits, there would be no actual "bonus" for doing well, but only traits as they are now determined by your playing style. Judgement note this!

Noted! Except I disagree a bit. Even if the other civs have just as many traits as you do, having your trait change to suit what you're currently attempting to do can be considered a bonus, or at least considered a reward for succeeding. If I'm successful at building lots and lots of barracks, I will already be able to build a pretty powerful military force - I don't see much need to make it even easier! Since civs with lots of barracks produce more veteran units than civs with few barracks, they are naturally better at war, so why make them artificially better at war as well? Likewise, civs with lots of marketplaces and banks already get a lot more income compared to civs that have few of those improvements. If you give someone a commercial trait just because they built a lot of those things, then they get an additional ("bonus") benefit from having done so.

My point is, the game is already full of rewards for each type of behavior. Why give additional, artificial rewards? It adds realism, yes, but does it really add much to gameplay?

...I would want to it be more linked to the way you play, not what you can achieve. Getting the Map Making first does not make you scientific - just lucky or a good player . Building many libraries would give the message that you prefer to be scientific.

I understand what you're saying here, but I still don't really see the need for it. If you build many libraries, you already get lots of extra science from them - why exagerate this effect? Each different way you can choose to play has different results already... building lots of libraries is a way to get ahead scientifically. Giving a scientific trait to someone who likes to build a lot of libraries doesn't change that, it just puts them even further ahead scientifically. You could achieve the same thing without a trait system just by making libraries more powerful, or by making each new library add a slightly greater benefit that the last. (I'm not in favor of that, by the way, I'm just saying that traits based on your play style don't seem to add much).

What comes to your concern about the function of traits to begin with, judgment, I understand your concerns. But I believe that the trait-system is whole lot better than the system without them. In Civ2 your fleet was as effective as the fleet of your enemy, even though you have ruled the seas always and they just happened to amass a great armada to overthrow you.

Yes, but history is full of examples of some upstart overturning the status quo. Carthage was the dominant sea power in the mediterranean world, until Rome (who would not be described as a seafaring civ) built up their own fleet and started stealing the show from Carthage. Likewise, Spain was a major sea power, but along came England and her allies and defeated the Spanish Armada. Having a tradition of power in one area doesn't necessarily lock in your advantage in that area for the future.

Now with this point-system you would be in the same situation with Civ2, but you would benefit for having traditions in something. A warlike civ is usually better in warfare than a not-warlike civ - even though they might have the same number of units. The temperament of your citizens have a decisive meaning.

Yes, I agree with this point, and that is why I never said I'm against the idea of traits (or even against being able to change them), just that I have concerns about how its implemented. But its important to realize that what you call "tradition" and I called "momentum" would become one of the main functions of traits if the system described here was implemented, and that's a fundamentally different function then in Civ 3, where they make your pre-game choice of a tribe have permanent consequences. And, as I stated earlier in this post, one of my main concerns is that there's already quite a bit of momentum/tradition generated by the fact that barracks give you veteran military units, libraries increase your science, etc., so I'm not too sure about the need to give even more momentum by letting barracks give you a militaristic trait, libraries give you a scientific one, etc.

You could take away the traits and return to earlier civs, but I see that as unnecessary. The trait-system has worked pretty well and would continue to work pretty well with these little customizations. And can't you actually turn off "Civ-specific abilities" in Civ3 - or does that turn only UUs off? I have never tried it.

Except I don't see this as "little customizations" - I see it as a change to the very function of traits. In Civ 3, they make picking one civ different from picking another, but the changes being proposed here eliminate that and instead make it so that any civ you pick will alter their traits to suit your playing style. I don't really want to take away traits, I agree they work pretty well, but allowing any civ to have any trait would be a pretty major change IMHO, so I'm not sure we can assume it will continue to work well. Careful thought (and playtesting) would be required.

The difference would simply be that you could choose whatever civ you liked even though you didn't like their "traditional" traits.

Exactly! And that's a pretty big change - making the civ-picking in the pre-game much more like it was in Civ 1 and 2. Its not necessarily a bad idea, but it removes an interesting element from the pre-game: the element of trying to pick a civ based on what traits they have. Currently, if you try playing different games with different civs, it encourages you to try different playing styles. If any civ could develop any trait, then players could always play by their favorite style, and just have different graphics (leaderhead, etc.) in different games.

Is that a terrible thing? Maybe not. If I really want to play as the Greeks but to be militaristic and religious, maybe I should be able to. But in that case "Greek" would just mean Greek graphics and UU - why wouldn't I just be Japanese (who are normal mil. and rel.)? Just cause I like the Hoplite better than the Samurai? Or I like the historic Greek civ more than historic Japan, and I like the name "Alexander"? The current system gives you important things to think about when picking a civ - if traits respond to your play style, it removes this element.

As I see it, there are two advantages to a system of changeable traits: (1) its a little more "realistic" since it adds "tradition" (and I don't see this as a very important advantage) and (2) it lets you tailor your playing style to the situation (terrain, neighbors, etc) that you find yourself in, without worrying that you're going against your civ's permanently assigned strengths. To me, #2 is why I'm willing to consider this whole idea. It just doesn't make any sense to be a seafaring civ if you find yourself in the middle of a big continent, or to be a scientific civ if you find yourself behind your neighbors in tech and decide to trade it all from them rather than researching it yourself. I'm sure there are numerous situations in which a player says "I wish my civ had different traits, the ones I have aren't very useful in this game," and changeable traits would address this issue.

What about a simple scheme where when you get your golden age you get to pick your traits? This would balance the complaint that civs with early golden ages being at a disadvantage: now, they'd have their trait-related advantages for more of the game. If that was too powerful (too much advantage in an early GA) you could make certain traits unavailable until certain techs are discovered (Industrialization allows Industrious trait, for example?). That way, civs that had later golden ages would have a bigger menu to pick from. Using this scheme, you could pick your civ's traits to suit the situation you found yourself in any particular game, since you'd hopefully know that situation well by the time you had a GA. And it would make a certain amount of sense: civs don't usually get famous for a particular aspect until they've reached their peak - in other words, the traits assigned in Civ 3 are typically those the civ had during its golden age. This would be somewhat similar to Blasphemous' idea, except with the simplification that you could simply pick the trait you want (whenever you had your standard GA) rather than have specific traits tied to specific types of GAs, triggered by specific actions.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Shyrramar

Whatever the case, I would think that in order for the traits to have any meaning apart from being bonuses earned by good play (no extra traits, I emphasize!), which they should have, the traits should reflect the temperament and outlook of the civ in question. A militaristic civ is a civ that likes wars. They like to do combat as they see it a natural part of life and a way for their people to prove their courage, and they see it as their natural right to attack their inferiors. That's a long way from a big and effective army that is used only when the situation dictates and always with certain distaste.

I agree with everything you said in this post, but doesn't the above paragraph sort of argue that traits shouldn't change? Blasphemous' idea about being militaristic because you build up your military, and your idea that you're militaristic because you build lots of barracks, don't really seem much different to me. Oh, I understand your logic, but still, how does building lots of barracks change the temperment of my people? Maybe my people hate it that I'm wasting all their money on barracks and wish I would build them more libraries instead

 

[rcoutme]

I like the idea of creating the points per item (be it a building, improvement or whatever). This would have to be tweaked BIG TIME though if the game designers were to use it. For instance, if each irrigated tile gives points, then what relation do they have to libraries? In addition, the current system gives no bonus whatever for irrigating a grassland tile while in Despotism; would this mean that because I built mines that I was industrious--obviously not.

I definately would like to see evolving civ traits, but we may have to design it for Firaxis or they may see it as too complicated and too esoteric to develop.

 

[Shyrramar]

Okay, judgement You got me there!

Let me see. I agree with most that you said. One thing I thought about while being spanked by your words is that the traits should bring something new to the game, not more bonuses (what you rightly crusaded against ). What about making militaristic civs have lesser war weariness (not combat bonuses) and smaller effects of draft? This is just a suggestion (as WW isn't even implemented in other but two governments). So that the bonuses were not simply making you better in what you did already, but bring a totally different sort of bonus? A seafaring civ could sail a bit faster? An expansionist civ had lesser corruption?

This is just a desperate thrust to save the system of traits, as I have begun to lose faith. You commented somewhere that the more you thought of these traits the more you think they should be ditched. Well, perhaps you think a bit faster than I do or I haven't thought of this as much as you, but I do see your point now. After taking this point-system to its logical conclusion (in my point of view) I see it's impossibility. This point is well emphasized by the fact that you seem to agree about everything I say, but then ask if it is really necessary ? Well, I think it is not.

And I do agree that the building of barracks isn't the key - perhaps the number of wars and such would be. But you can't wage war without neighbours, so who would be militaristic to begin with? Argh.

What about a simple scheme where when you get your golden age you get to pick your traits?

This is a good idea. This would indeed make the early golden age better in comparison to later GA. I wonder, though, how would the AI be able to pick any even halfway-intelligent traits? I don't know if this can be implemented either, but atleast it is a refreshing thought. This would also add up with the problem of civ having a UU that it cannot build due to missing resources. I must gather my thoughts in order to redirect it after being the Advocator of Point-System I am a bit perplexed now what steps should be taken: to ditch the trait-system, to try to save the point-system, to go with your GA-trait-system or perhaps simply allow people to customize their civ

Thanks for the slap, judgement!

 

[Shyrramar]

Originally posted by rcoutme
I like the idea of creating the points per item (be it a building, improvement or whatever). This would have to be tweaked BIG TIME though if the game designers were to use it. For instance, if each irrigated tile gives points, then what relation do they have to libraries? In addition, the current system gives no bonus whatever for irrigating a grassland tile while in Despotism; would this mean that because I built mines that I was industrious--obviously not.

I definately would like to see evolving civ traits, but we may have to design it for Firaxis or they may see it as too complicated and too esoteric to develop.

Yep. Questions, questions, questions. I thought about the despotism problem too - in addition to terrain forcing you to mine instead of irrigate. And the relation between trait-point-providers is a well-founded question: after all, what choice am I making concerning agriculturalism and scientificism when I both irrigate AND build libraries?

But should anybody come up with a solution that would sound realistic, balanced and most importantly relevant, please do post it up. Perhaps it will blow away my depression :suicide:

 

[Stefanskantine]

I find myself in agreement with Shyrramar's (original) arguments and tentative proposals for how the point system will operate. The only potential problem I see is that under the current system (and pretty much all civ type game systems from the history of civ and CTP) science and commerce are unavoidably linked. For instance, a civ who wanted to focus on science would need to build marketplaces, banks, and stock exchanges to increase the total amount of gold overall, then allocate to science. The proposal to differentiate between the traits based on the position of slider allocating gold between science and the treasury makes sense, excpet for one problem- under the current system, ammasing a huge treasury by denying gold to science has no real purpose and isn't beneficial to gameplay.

To make this system work, the role of commerce would have to be changed and expanded. For instance, the treasury would have to become much more useful. Rush buying improvements and units would have to be made less costly. Also the possibility of rush buying technologies could be introduced. Of course, it would still be somewhat more efficient overall to research or build through the normal methods, but introducing a rush buy feature with greatly lowered cost would give a reason for some players to hold on to a greater treasury. These would be players who would evolve a commercial trait- those that prefer to sacrifice some some efficiency in normal scinence/porodcution for the increased liquidity and flexibility of rush buying with gold. This is just one possible system that could create a meaningful distinction between science and commerce, allowing players a meaningful choice between two styles leading to different traits.

As a bare bones proposal, I think all of Shyrramar's other trait-aquiring point rewards make sense. None really display the same degree of overlap as science/commerce. Thus its probably a good starting place for a suggestion for cIV.

 

[Shyrramar]

Originally posted by Stefanskantine
I find myself in agreement with Shyrramar's arguments and tentative proposals for how the point system will operate.

Then you should re-read judgements point-to-point slaughter of my idea
No, seriously, it is a good start. If someone with greater intelligence capacity than I currently own (or with greater luck) could just take it the one step further it needs to go to have any usage in the game...

As a bare bones proposal, I think all of Shyrramar's other trait-aquiring point rewards make sense. None really display the same degree of overlap as science/commerce. Thus its probably a good starting place for a suggestion for cIV.

Let me think about the rewards-part a bit more. These are fitted into the way civ3 works and would of course be different in cIV if those parts of the game was different. This is something that should be addressed no matter what the trait-system would be..

Commercial: Better trading deals with other non-commercial civs. Represents the way your civ has grown to be experts in marketing and bartering.
-Problem(s): Multiplayer for one.

Militaristic: Less WW on republic and democracy. Less unhappiness caused by draft. Better chances of acquiring promotions and leaders. If not on Rep. or Dem. perhaps a slightly lesser unit upkeep-cost (A stupid idea?)?

Expansionist: Lesser distance-corruption. Would work for me...

Religious: A tough one. It should not be "less culture to expand" or "better chances to flip", because that is already caused by the numerous cultural buildings you have built to become a religious civ (or cultural civ?). Ideas, anyone? I'm out of them...

Seafaring: Less chance of sinking - only usable in early ages. Greater movement speed due to better handling of ships - only usable in early ages? What else? Are there any seafaring modern civilizations?

Scientific: Perhaps creativity of scientific civs allows their science to "cross-over" to the next tech? So that it wouldn't begin totally from scratch, but would use the excess science points from the previously completed tech? Too small a benefit? Your specialist scientists are better? Not very ingenious, I give you that..

Agricultural: This also eludes me. All I can come up with are variants of "more food" or "less food needed for growth" or "people wouldn't starve as easily"... Somethings that are already covered by the large numbers of irrigation. Perhaps allow irrigation without fresh water? No. A bad idea that.

Industrious: Following the logic of scientificism: production allowed to cross over. Too big a benefit? Less pollution due to better management? Only useful in later ages...

I can only come up with a few good ideas. Not all traits seem to have good ideas. Perhaps all the traits are not needed anyway?
Ideas?

 

[AdHHH]

Genius idea, it could be simply implemented by having 4 stages of trait development, which the AI would judge at the end of each age, and one starting from the beginning obviously. It could just be judged on
Industrious - # of workers
Commercial - # of commercial buildings/wonders and roads to other Civs
Militaristic - # of units in relation to other Civs (i.e. how big your army is comparatively [sp?] )
Religion - becoming a concept so some other feature will prolly be replaced
Agricultural - size of Civ, although Im hoping this is removed from the game
Seafaring - # of ships comparatively and naval buildings/wonders
Expansionist - comparative map size

Only 1 trait would develop. In fact, this is an excellent idea Stefanskantine

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Shyrramar
I wonder, though, how would the AI be able to pick any even halfway-intelligent traits?

Yeah, so many of the potential improvements in Civ 4 depend on first having really good AI. All this thinking is certainly giving me a better appreciation for what the designers go through. I wonder how many ideas like ours they've already had and then discarded because they thought about them even more than us.

Thanks for the slap, judgement!

Like I said, I thought the idea sounded cool at first... sorry I spent too much time thinking about it

 

[Stefanskantine]

New Idea:

Civ Traits are first awarded at the start of the game based on start location other factors:

Militaristic: If you start among many rivals/barbarians.

Scientific: If you start with certain terrain/resources? I need help on this one.

Seafaring: If you start on the coast, or on a small island.

Commercial: If you start with a number of luxuries/resources.

Industrious: If you start with hills/forests.

Religious: If you start near volcanoes/mountain ranges.

Expansionist: If you start with a lot of open territory/isolated from rivals.

Agricultural: If you start on a river/floodplain.

These initial traits represent the starting “culture” of the people, which is not something the leader should necessarily be in control of anyway. It’s quite realistic and logical- if you rise to rule a coastal tribe, you might reasonably expect them to be seafaring.

Now, here’s the “evolving” part. Imagine you happen to have started on a coastal square. You begin the game as seafaring (I am using one trait for simplicity of explanation), your first city is a seafaring city by default, and your first citizen is a seafaring citizen. As long as your city remains as being considered seafaring, every new citizen that grows there is also seafaring, even if he moves to found a new city as a settler. When the new city is founded on the coast, the individual city gets x seafaring points just for being founded by a seafaring nation, maybe it gets more points if it is on the coast, etc. Building naval units, harbors, etc. are also things that would increase each individual city’s seafaring rating. However, building units and improvements of all the other types will add to the city’s score in other areas. If one of your previously seafaring cities (maybe this one was inland, so started with a smaller seafaring point bonus) starts building more, say, science improvements than seafaring, and its scientific point total surpasses its seafaring total, this city begins to produce scientific citizens. All old citizens are seafaring, but all new ones in this one city are scientific (so long as that has the highest point total). Your civ will remain seafaring, until the total scientific population (in all cities combined) surpasses the total seafaring population, and your civ’s advantages will then switch.

Now this is a somewhat more complex system, but if it could be implemented I think it would be great. Civ traits would be very stable and have a lot of inertia, they would be extremely difficult to change. It would be near impossible to exploit late in the game in the manner some people are worried about, due to the persistence of old citizens. However, it would be possible to change traits based on gameplay choices, mostly earlier in the game. This also gives the flavor of traits as cultural differences, since they are determined by the individual citizens.

I'd like to hear feedback from anyone brave enough to read through all that.

 

[General Porkins]

a very well-thought out idea. hopefully all can agree to this as a good starting point for the concept of evolving traits. you have come a long way from your days of adding tactical canoes and city-founding blimps into civ 2

 

[capslock]

Although Stefanskantine is a sub-par, at best, civ player, I think he has a good idea here. The implementation will be difficult, especially for the start, which is why I propose having no traits at the start. You will start with a blank slate, and your civ will reflect the decisions you make and the style you play with.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Stefanskantine
New Idea:
Civ Traits are first awarded at the start of the game based on start location other factors:

If I'm not mistaken, in C3C, seafaring civs have a higher than normal chance of starting near coast. Your idea is very much like that, except in the opposite direction (where you start determines the trait instead of the trait determining where you start). I like the thoughts relating each trait to some terrains types, but I think I'd rather go in the direction of seafaring in C3C (but for all traits).

My reasoning is that it's fun to pick what traits you want to have at the beginning of the game - it adds a level of interest when picking a civ. And initial placement is already a random thing that can have a big effect on the overall success of your game. Its bad enough to get a crappy starting position, but I'd be even more irritated if that position gave me traits that I didn't like or want. Let the player pick the traits (either directly or by choosing a civ that has certain default traits) and then let the computer generate a starting position that is appropriate for those traits. And an advantage of this is you wouldn't have to think of relevant terrain for every trait: some traits (like scientific?) simply wouldn't affect your starting position, while others would.

These initial traits represent the starting “culture” of the people, which is not something the leader should necessarily be in control of anyway. It’s quite realistic and logical- if you rise to rule a coastal tribe, you might reasonably expect them to be seafaring.

Well put, but I would still like to be able to decide whether to play as a coastal tribe or not. Currently, before the game starts, you can pick a certain tribe or you can select "Random." But if starting position was random and it determined your traits, then a choice of civ when starting a new game would only be a choice of graphics and names, and for all other purposes, it would be like forcing everyone to select "Random" when picking a civ - you'd have no control over what traits you got.

Now, here’s the “evolving” part. Imagine you happen to have started on a coastal square...I'd like to hear feedback from anyone brave enough to read through all that.

I'm intrigued by this whole discussion of "evolving traits" and think it would be cool if done right. As Shyrramar said, and you seem to agree, it must be quite hard to accomplish or its open to exploit. Your ideas about individual cities/citizens accumulating their own "points" towards trait changing would certainly add a lot of complexity (which always raises red flags for me ) but it occurred to me that if implemented, it could be connected somehow to the concept of culture and the chances of culture flips, resistance, rebellions, etc. For example, say you begin as a seafaring civ, and build your first several cities on coasts. Even if they were far from your capital, their people would lead a similar lifestyle to those in the capital, so they would feel like part of the same culture, and be unlikely to rebel or flip to another civ. But then later in the game you start expanding into the interior of a continent (maybe to grab a resource you want) and start making cities with lots of shields. The people there would thus be industrious rather than seafaring. This wouldn't affect the city production at first, since your overall civ was still seafaring, but it would give the citizens there less in common with the rest of your empire, so they might have a greater chance to rebel and switch to another civ, especially a civ with the industrious trait. And, like you suggested (assuming you kept them happy and they stayed part of your empire long enough) if they started to outnumber the earlier seafaring people, your civ might undergo a cultural shift and switch to the industrious trait from seafaring.

 

[Blasphemous]

I really like Stefanskantine's idea even tho I still do think the point system has merit...
Other than that I'm pretty confused, so I won't even bother to try and defend my earlier suggestions and points. =S