G&K pushes the naming of CIVS into two distinct paths

[Boris Gudenuf]

It has always bugged me that the majority of countries and 'civilizations' played in the CIV games did not exist throughout most of the timeframe of the game. In 4000 BC, you'd be hard put to even find much evidence of the peoples who would later be Egyptian, Sumerian, or Chinese - probably the earliest recognizable 'civs' played. It has also bugged me that the UU/UA for a given civilization bore no relationship whatsoever to their surroundings - I could never come to grips with the idea that a bunch of Mongols plunked down on an island without a horse or any other animal larger than a rat would develop horse-archers magically, or that a bunch of Polynesians in the middle of the desert would start sailing as soon as they found a body of water bigger than a bathtub.

Rather than Play a Civilization, I want to Develop a Civilization, and I think, with a combination of specific Starting Situation, Loaded Technology Development, and Loaded Social Policies, it would be possible to develop a game that allows that.

For instance, instead of starting as a 'Civilization', you'd start as a Tribe. Pick your name: Cimmerians, Whosiers, Ringadingians, it doesn't matter although there are literally thousands that could be used. Then you pick the options for your Starting Position, which would be much more specific than they are now:
Primary Ground:
Desert, Plains, Grassland, Forest, Hills, Jungle
Water Source:
River, Lakes, Oasis, Seacoast
Resources (pick two)
Stone, Timber, Grain, Herd Animals, Fish
NOTE that these might not be concentrated enough to show up as 'resources' on the map, but they will shape the types of technologies your tribe will develop.
Primary Religious Influence:
Ancestor Worship
Animism
Totemism

Note that this gives over 700 possible combinations, which alone should be enough to satisfy the most ardent burrower into the niches of history.

The resources and surroundings of your Tribe will naturally guide them in certain directions, but your decisions make a difference, too - after all, the Celts, Germans and Slavs (Russians) all start in very similar geographical areas, but developed very differently. Technology will be influenced greatly by surroundings. A tribe in the middle of the desert using Oasis for their water will take a loooooong time to develop Seafaring or Sailing. A tribe that lives in a Jungle with Lakes and no Herd or any other kind of domestic animal will take an equally long time to learn how to build wagons or ride anything.

Some examples:

You select Desert, River, Stone and Grain for resources, Ancestor Worship.
Result: You develop Agriculture and Irrigation very quickly, since the position and resource combination give you bonuses for both of them. Irrigation leads quickly to a Social Policy of something like Centralized Leadership. This allows Organized Labor, and Stone (of course!) will allow you to build Monuments (to your Ancestors). Consequently, within the first 1000 - 1500 years of the game, you're on your way to becoming Egyptians...

You select Plains, River, Herd Animals, Timber, Animism.
Result No reason for Agriculture - it will take a long time to research, but you can get Domestication really, really quickly. If, instead of settling down you remain Nomads (which really should be an Option in Civilization) then Herd Animals lead you to quickly build Wheeled vehicles (chariots/war carts) and on to riding Horses as soon as you find some Horses (which will be a lot more common around any terrain that supports other Herd Animals). Herd Animals also gives you access to bone, sinew and glues for Composite Bows, and you're well on the way to becoming Huns or Mongols. NOTE, however, that either of these will be badly handicapped if they don't, sooner or later, settle down and seize or develop a city or two - nomad camps don't innovate very well, and while you can kick butt on the more sedentary types for a while, eventually they will come after you with rifles and cannon and kick your collective bowlegged butts.

To develop this kind of game system will take a huge amount of preliminary research before anybody writes a line of code: just to come up with all the resource combinations and tech/social decisions that lead to the individual National UUs, UA, and other characteristics will be a major task, and to keep the combinations unique enough that everyone in the game doesn't make a beeline for the same UU/UA...

But think of the incredible games when you start in the desert and realize that you have the option of ending up playing as Arabs, Egyptians, Songhai, or Navaho, and based on the AI's combinations of playing against a range of 'civs' from Assyrian to Zulu!

 

[Mustakrakish]

Spoiler :

It has always bugged me that the majority of countries and 'civilizations' played in the CIV games did not exist throughout most of the timeframe of the game. In 4000 BC, you'd be hard put to even find much evidence of the peoples who would later be Egyptian, Sumerian, or Chinese - probably the earliest recognizable 'civs' played. It has also bugged me that the UU/UA for a given civilization bore no relationship whatsoever to their surroundings - I could never come to grips with the idea that a bunch of Mongols plunked down on an island without a horse or any other animal larger than a rat would develop horse-archers magically, or that a bunch of Polynesians in the middle of the desert would start sailing as soon as they found a body of water bigger than a bathtub.

Rather than Play a Civilization, I want to Develop a Civilization, and I think, with a combination of specific Starting Situation, Loaded Technology Development, and Loaded Social Policies, it would be possible to develop a game that allows that.

For instance, instead of starting as a 'Civilization', you'd start as a Tribe. Pick your name: Cimmerians, Whosiers, Ringadingians, it doesn't matter although there are literally thousands that could be used. Then you pick the options for your Starting Position, which would be much more specific than they are now:
Primary Ground:
Desert, Plains, Grassland, Forest, Hills, Jungle
Water Source:
River, Lakes, Oasis, Seacoast
Resources (pick two)
Stone, Timber, Grain, Herd Animals, Fish
NOTE that these might not be concentrated enough to show up as 'resources' on the map, but they will shape the types of technologies your tribe will develop.
Primary Religious Influence:
Ancestor Worship
Animism
Totemism

Note that this gives over 700 possible combinations, which alone should be enough to satisfy the most ardent burrower into the niches of history.

The resources and surroundings of your Tribe will naturally guide them in certain directions, but your decisions make a difference, too - after all, the Celts, Germans and Slavs (Russians) all start in very similar geographical areas, but developed very differently. Technology will be influenced greatly by surroundings. A tribe in the middle of the desert using Oasis for their water will take a loooooong time to develop Seafaring or Sailing. A tribe that lives in a Jungle with Lakes and no Herd or any other kind of domestic animal will take an equally long time to learn how to build wagons or ride anything.

Some examples:

You select Desert, River, Stone and Grain for resources, Ancestor Worship.
Result: You develop Agriculture and Irrigation very quickly, since the position and resource combination give you bonuses for both of them. Irrigation leads quickly to a Social Policy of something like Centralized Leadership. This allows Organized Labor, and Stone (of course!) will allow you to build Monuments (to your Ancestors). Consequently, within the first 1000 - 1500 years of the game, you're on your way to becoming Egyptians...

You select Plains, River, Herd Animals, Timber, Animism.
Result No reason for Agriculture - it will take a long time to research, but you can get Domestication really, really quickly. If, instead of settling down you remain Nomads (which really should be an Option in Civilization) then Herd Animals lead you to quickly build Wheeled vehicles (chariots/war carts) and on to riding Horses as soon as you find some Horses (which will be a lot more common around any terrain that supports other Herd Animals). Herd Animals also gives you access to bone, sinew and glues for Composite Bows, and you're well on the way to becoming Huns or Mongols. NOTE, however, that either of these will be badly handicapped if they don't, sooner or later, settle down and seize or develop a city or two - nomad camps don't innovate very well, and while you can kick butt on the more sedentary types for a while, eventually they will come after you with rifles and cannon and kick your collective bowlegged butts.

To develop this kind of game system will take a huge amount of preliminary research before anybody writes a line of code: just to come up with all the resource combinations and tech/social decisions that lead to the individual National UUs, UA, and other characteristics will be a major task, and to keep the combinations unique enough that everyone in the game doesn't make a beeline for the same UU/UA...

But think of the incredible games when you start in the desert and realize that you have the option of ending up playing as Arabs, Egyptians, Songhai, or Navaho, and based on the AI's combinations of playing against a range of 'civs' from Assyrian to Zulu!

Love it. And you know what? It's quite close to the game I always wanted, it would be an awesome game indeed, but not civ series unfortunately. They would never change their style so radically

But I'd love to create and shape a civ rather than playing with USA/others engraved in stone civs.

 

[Big J Money]

Boris, that would make an amazing total conversion mod, but I don't know if Civ V would allow for it (I'm sure it wouldn't).

As far as art and content goes, you could handle that like the way G&K handles religion: you have a limited number of names of "advanced" civilizations that become unlocked when you meed the criteria, along with various options for leader background art. First come, first serve.

I'm too tired to go into details about how this could work, and really it's OT anyway, but if someone made this game or a mod, I'd play it.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yeah, I realize it's OT and not bloody likely in the context of Civ V, but once somebody mentioned it I had to comment, because I've been thinking about this kind of game for quite a while - ever since Civ III, in fact.
And besides, it's not too early to be thinking about Civ VI, is it?

 

[El Caballerion]

It has always bugged me that the majority of countries and 'civilizations' played in the CIV games did not exist throughout most of the timeframe of the game. In 4000 BC, you'd be hard put to even find much evidence of the peoples who would later be Egyptian, Sumerian, or Chinese - probably the earliest recognizable 'civs' played. It has also bugged me that the UU/UA for a given civilization bore no relationship whatsoever to their surroundings - I could never come to grips with the idea that a bunch of Mongols plunked down on an island without a horse or any other animal larger than a rat would develop horse-archers magically, or that a bunch of Polynesians in the middle of the desert would start sailing as soon as they found a body of water bigger than a bathtub.

Rather than Play a Civilization, I want to Develop a Civilization, and I think, with a combination of specific Starting Situation, Loaded Technology Development, and Loaded Social Policies, it would be possible to develop a game that allows that.

For instance, instead of starting as a 'Civilization', you'd start as a Tribe. Pick your name: Cimmerians, Whosiers, Ringadingians, it doesn't matter although there are literally thousands that could be used. Then you pick the options for your Starting Position, which would be much more specific than they are now:
Primary Ground:
Desert, Plains, Grassland, Forest, Hills, Jungle
Water Source:
River, Lakes, Oasis, Seacoast
Resources (pick two)
Stone, Timber, Grain, Herd Animals, Fish
NOTE that these might not be concentrated enough to show up as 'resources' on the map, but they will shape the types of technologies your tribe will develop.
Primary Religious Influence:
Ancestor Worship
Animism
Totemism

Note that this gives over 700 possible combinations, which alone should be enough to satisfy the most ardent burrower into the niches of history.

The resources and surroundings of your Tribe will naturally guide them in certain directions, but your decisions make a difference, too - after all, the Celts, Germans and Slavs (Russians) all start in very similar geographical areas, but developed very differently. Technology will be influenced greatly by surroundings. A tribe in the middle of the desert using Oasis for their water will take a loooooong time to develop Seafaring or Sailing. A tribe that lives in a Jungle with Lakes and no Herd or any other kind of domestic animal will take an equally long time to learn how to build wagons or ride anything.

Some examples:

You select Desert, River, Stone and Grain for resources, Ancestor Worship.
Result: You develop Agriculture and Irrigation very quickly, since the position and resource combination give you bonuses for both of them. Irrigation leads quickly to a Social Policy of something like Centralized Leadership. This allows Organized Labor, and Stone (of course!) will allow you to build Monuments (to your Ancestors). Consequently, within the first 1000 - 1500 years of the game, you're on your way to becoming Egyptians...

You select Plains, River, Herd Animals, Timber, Animism.
Result No reason for Agriculture - it will take a long time to research, but you can get Domestication really, really quickly. If, instead of settling down you remain Nomads (which really should be an Option in Civilization) then Herd Animals lead you to quickly build Wheeled vehicles (chariots/war carts) and on to riding Horses as soon as you find some Horses (which will be a lot more common around any terrain that supports other Herd Animals). Herd Animals also gives you access to bone, sinew and glues for Composite Bows, and you're well on the way to becoming Huns or Mongols. NOTE, however, that either of these will be badly handicapped if they don't, sooner or later, settle down and seize or develop a city or two - nomad camps don't innovate very well, and while you can kick butt on the more sedentary types for a while, eventually they will come after you with rifles and cannon and kick your collective bowlegged butts.

To develop this kind of game system will take a huge amount of preliminary research before anybody writes a line of code: just to come up with all the resource combinations and tech/social decisions that lead to the individual National UUs, UA, and other characteristics will be a major task, and to keep the combinations unique enough that everyone in the game doesn't make a beeline for the same UU/UA...

But think of the incredible games when you start in the desert and realize that you have the option of ending up playing as Arabs, Egyptians, Songhai, or Navaho, and based on the AI's combinations of playing against a range of 'civs' from Assyrian to Zulu!

Boris... this is the exact reason why I posted this thread. YES! Your idea sounds amazing. Something very much like Jared Diamond teaches in GUNS, GERMS, and STEEL... that environment is the defining factor for all tribes to eventually become civilizations.

It would definitely eliminate some crazy (yet generally accepted) scenarios we see everyday; being the Mongols on a horseless island, playing as France with Japan right on your border in 3500 bc, playing as the Celts (a tribe/race of people) against the Ottoman Empire (a civilization consisting of many races).

I too would like to start off generic and have the ENVIRONMENT be the first factor for the rest of the game. Though I'm not a modder, I think this would be way too hard to implement in CIV as is. It would have to be a whole new game, and for that, we would have to discuss it in a whole new forum called 'TRIBAL FANATICS'

 

[Kabloosh]

Love it. And you know what? It's quite close to the game I always wanted, it would be an awesome game indeed, but not civ series unfortunately. They would never change their style so radically

But I'd love to create and shape a civ rather than playing with USA/others engraved in stone civs.

I have to agree. I do like playing certain Scenarios. I think Rise of Nations did that pretty well especially when it came to the whole cold war scenario. I wouldn't mind doing something like that where you have a predetermined set up for a Civ. For example you start at Spain right as they gained their "world power" status and guide it through history or make up your own path changing how Spain is possibly preventing it's defeat to England. Or you play as the upstart England and aim to defeat Spain and France to become the great super power it was destined to be.

 

[seasnake]

It has always bugged me that the majority of countries and 'civilizations' played in the CIV games did not exist throughout most of the timeframe of the game. In 4000 BC, you'd be hard put to even find much evidence of the peoples who would later be Egyptian, Sumerian, or Chinese - probably the earliest recognizable 'civs' played. It has also bugged me that the UU/UA for a given civilization bore no relationship whatsoever to their surroundings - I could never come to grips with the idea that a bunch of Mongols plunked down on an island without a horse or any other animal larger than a rat would develop horse-archers magically, or that a bunch of Polynesians in the middle of the desert would start sailing as soon as they found a body of water bigger than a bathtub.

Rather than Play a Civilization, I want to Develop a Civilization, and I think, with a combination of specific Starting Situation, Loaded Technology Development, and Loaded Social Policies, it would be possible to develop a game that allows that.

For instance, instead of starting as a 'Civilization', you'd start as a Tribe. Pick your name: Cimmerians, Whosiers, Ringadingians, it doesn't matter although there are literally thousands that could be used. Then you pick the options for your Starting Position, which would be much more specific than they are now:
Primary Ground:
Desert, Plains, Grassland, Forest, Hills, Jungle
Water Source:
River, Lakes, Oasis, Seacoast
Resources (pick two)
Stone, Timber, Grain, Herd Animals, Fish
NOTE that these might not be concentrated enough to show up as 'resources' on the map, but they will shape the types of technologies your tribe will develop.
Primary Religious Influence:
Ancestor Worship
Animism
Totemism

Note that this gives over 700 possible combinations, which alone should be enough to satisfy the most ardent burrower into the niches of history.

The resources and surroundings of your Tribe will naturally guide them in certain directions, but your decisions make a difference, too - after all, the Celts, Germans and Slavs (Russians) all start in very similar geographical areas, but developed very differently. Technology will be influenced greatly by surroundings. A tribe in the middle of the desert using Oasis for their water will take a loooooong time to develop Seafaring or Sailing. A tribe that lives in a Jungle with Lakes and no Herd or any other kind of domestic animal will take an equally long time to learn how to build wagons or ride anything.

Some examples:

You select Desert, River, Stone and Grain for resources, Ancestor Worship.
Result: You develop Agriculture and Irrigation very quickly, since the position and resource combination give you bonuses for both of them. Irrigation leads quickly to a Social Policy of something like Centralized Leadership. This allows Organized Labor, and Stone (of course!) will allow you to build Monuments (to your Ancestors). Consequently, within the first 1000 - 1500 years of the game, you're on your way to becoming Egyptians...

You select Plains, River, Herd Animals, Timber, Animism.
Result No reason for Agriculture - it will take a long time to research, but you can get Domestication really, really quickly. If, instead of settling down you remain Nomads (which really should be an Option in Civilization) then Herd Animals lead you to quickly build Wheeled vehicles (chariots/war carts) and on to riding Horses as soon as you find some Horses (which will be a lot more common around any terrain that supports other Herd Animals). Herd Animals also gives you access to bone, sinew and glues for Composite Bows, and you're well on the way to becoming Huns or Mongols. NOTE, however, that either of these will be badly handicapped if they don't, sooner or later, settle down and seize or develop a city or two - nomad camps don't innovate very well, and while you can kick butt on the more sedentary types for a while, eventually they will come after you with rifles and cannon and kick your collective bowlegged butts.

To develop this kind of game system will take a huge amount of preliminary research before anybody writes a line of code: just to come up with all the resource combinations and tech/social decisions that lead to the individual National UUs, UA, and other characteristics will be a major task, and to keep the combinations unique enough that everyone in the game doesn't make a beeline for the same UU/UA...

But think of the incredible games when you start in the desert and realize that you have the option of ending up playing as Arabs, Egyptians, Songhai, or Navaho, and based on the AI's combinations of playing against a range of 'civs' from Assyrian to Zulu!

Great Idea for a great game, but I'd go one step further: I'd have default packages that you could select based on historical civs. You can either select the nation itself, or you can just pick the package you like. So you can either scroll through and pick the Celt package, or you can pick Timber, Stone, Animism, Herd Animals and SeaCoast and that package is recognized as "Celts" and you're off (with the appropriate colors and symbol). The Diplo screen interaction doesn't really need named historical figures, it could just have the civilization you're dealing with.

 

[dexters]

After the core starting civs, the bonus Civs added tend to be from fan requests, markets where the game does well in and finally requirements for the scenarios that are created for the expansions.

I believe Austria for example was created because it was a good fit for a scenario they have for G&K.

Civ naming have always been about capturing important political entities that contributed to history. The same state for example, Ottmans/Byzantium is represented twice in previous games. Civ4 also had the Holy Roman Empire.

 

[pspboy7]

I've been 'fanatically' reading these postings the past few days in anticipation of G&K, but am noticing something that is bugging the anthropologist inside of me.

It all started with G&K's inclusion of Sweden, which led many to ask, 'should Sweden even exist in G&K considering Denmark is a civ?' And it got me to ask the same question, and come up with my response...'Isn't Sweden very similar culturally and could just be lumped together with Denmark as Scandinavia?'

But this is a common theme of CIV that becomes more confusing. Civ names are based on TWO naming mechanics: CIVILIZATIONS/COUNTRIES/STATES (Ottoman Empire, Rome, USA, Japan, etc.) and TRIBAL/CULTURAL AFFILIATIONS (Arabs, Celts, Polynesia). The former are recognized entities with boundaries or used to be tribes/cultures (France as the Franks for instance) that assimilated into political entities, and the later are ethnicity based (Arabs are people that exist in Egypt, Ottoman Empire, and present day Carthage & Byzantium, and the Celts are present in most of Western Europe).

Just makes me think... which direction will CIV go seeing as G&K continues this trend? Like, why not make EVERY Civ based on a tribe that becomes a civilization later in the game (i.e., Celts can become Britian or France)? Or, just the opposite... no tribes. (Instead of the Celts, just call them Scotland, Ireland, etc.?)

So what do you think... keep the CIVS as ACTUAL civ names? Or have more tribal/cultural-based 'civs'?



And yes, I'm ready for the maelstrom of 'you dont know anything about history' replies that come along with this posting... bring it on.

If every "civ" was in the game, that would be 150+ civs hehe, and over half would be linked to the British!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Great Idea for a great game, but I'd go one step further: I'd have default packages that you could select based on historical civs. You can either select the nation itself, or you can just pick the package you like. So you can either scroll through and pick the Celt package, or you can pick Timber, Stone, Animism, Herd Animals and SeaCoast and that package is recognized as "Celts" and you're off (with the appropriate colors and symbol). The Diplo screen interaction doesn't really need named historical figures, it could just have the civilization you're dealing with.

Aside from the 'Starting Package', though, the development of your civilization also requires certain decisions on your-the gamer's-part. Not every 'tribe' that starts in a desert will develop into 'Arabia', and a tribe that starts in the woods could wind up looking like Celts, Germans, Iroquois, Russians, or maybe even Khmer or Thai/Siam. For that matter, I would like your decisions to skew the civilization even within its parameters: will you play the militant Germans or the scientific Germans? Will you build the Paris of the Impressionists or the Paris of Napoleon?
And, instead of having a demi-God immortal leader staring at you from the Leaderscreen for 6000 years, how about if certain historical leaders, or leaders with historical characteristics, show up during the game. You could find yourself facing a France under Louis XIV or a Sweden under Charles XII, with all the advantages (and disadvantages) that those leaders gave their countries. You could also find your own tribe/country generating a 'special leader' if the conditions/decisions/situation was ripe. How about a game that plays differently because in one iteration your 'Russians' had a leader with the attributes of Peter the Great while expanding and in the next game got into a major war while led by a leader with the attributes of Nicolas II Aaaargh!

Bottom line, I want variety of gaming, and Civ has been getting less and less variety, it seems, with every new version of the game. Although, as I type this, my othefr computer is downloading Gods & Kings to see if they've restored some variations in game play...