How do they solve "big becomes bigger" without corruption?

No, no, but I ment that it could be a source of much grief and angst when the players are "forced" to re-load due to evil and ill-willing game-mechanics :p .
 
Gabryel Karolin said:
No, no, but I ment that it could be a source of much grief and angst when the players are "forced" to re-load due to evil and ill-willing game-mechanics :p .
Click to expand...
ROFLMAO!!! :lol:

Get rid of those evil game mechanics and Big becomes bigger will not be a problem! :D
 
Aussie_Lurker has hit the nail right on the head. I would love to play a civ game like that. Kind of the shadow power behind everything ( like the Swiss are now )

Hold on there is a man in black at the door.

aaaaarrrgggg!
 
Nothing FORCES a player to reload-be it a bad start position, a military defeat, disease outbreaks or a culture flip-a player CHOOSES to reload in these situations. The same goes with a civil war situation. I say if that players don't like these kinds of challenges, then perhaps they ought to try an RTS or FPS style game, and leave Civ to the more commited strategists.
As for modelling civil war, a simple algorithm could be generated taking the following factors into account:
City Happiness, City Health, # of foreign nationals and/or 'heretics', Distance from Capital, # and strength of garrison, proximity to a secceding city, Civics settings and Culture relative to the national average. Then, you could have certain 'trigger' conditions for a seccesion, such as a declaration of war (or signing of peace), changing your religion, changing your civics settings, losing your capital, National Health and/or Happiness dropping below a set threshold, foreign agents 'provoking civil war' and War Weariness reaching a certain threshold.
A good player will always be trying to minimize all of these problems ANYWAY, in order to get the best Civilization he can. Even the best player, though, cannot account for everything, and occasionally even THEY might find themselves the victims of a seccessionist movement within their great nation.
I, for one, relish the possible chance to deal with such things in Civ4, and will NOT be reloading if it happens to me (anymore than I reload after a culture flip!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Wrote long reply to this and then touched the corner of my thumb to the touch-pad and deleted it, grrr.

Proper civil wars as in civ1, where the empire is split and the computer asks you which side you want to take. Not a city flipping or whatever.

Also unless you have sucession events how to force peaceful empires to have some threat perodically?
 
It is not that difficult to mod civ (III or IV) in a way to make a non-militaristic strategy viable. You have to add interesting buildings (that increase production/science/money/stability) to the game in such a way that you just cannot finish the constructiong of all these buildings even if you're constantly constructing buildings in all of your cities. If you stop building these buildings to create units for a war, then the development of your cities will fall behind the peacefull civilizations. So the choice becomes one between a large undeveloped empire and a small, highly developed empire.

The Rise and Rule mod for CivIII tries to model this, I believe. Difficult choices liek this are good for the game.

It would of course also be realistic if some form of civil war or civil discontent was present for large empires. The large empire should build more stability buildings or lose large amounts of money on "stability". A long war that did not allow you to gain a substantual amount of territory might make you lose the game as the peacefull empires have been able to develop their small empires to such an extent that you can't keep up in the tech race.

The problems are of course in balancing it exactly right between the warmongers and the builder strategies.
 
There is another idea I've had to limit too big a growth.

it is the creation of provinces(, or regions, or states or whathever)

That is : you have to divide your cities in geographically coherent provinces.
Their max size depending on your tech development and government style.
small switzerland could be one province.
big USA would have to divide itself in several states

These region would not mean much in term of management at a given moment, but where one of them to fall too far behind in term of development/happiness/culture/religious tolerance or anything (say 1/4 of the best region "score"), they would trigger events like civil war or severe unrest, that could lead every other unfavoured region to be tempted to join it in a separatist adventure. (or joining another empire)

This way, great conquerors would have to take some time to make their new subjects happy. conquering youe neighboor al at once in a surprise attack could lead you to have severe problems when all your new subjects revolt at once :D )
+
invasion could trigger such civil unrest, the attacked area feeling miserable
(remember roman empire)
+
it would prevent switzerland to become a warmonger all of a sudden :
the newly conquered area would be too far behind in term of development.
btw, slow growth would be possible.
+
it would keep some kind of flip in the game, but only in unbalanced empires.

does it sound stupid or un-implementable ?
 
Aussie_Lurker said:
Nothing FORCES a player to reload-be it a bad start position, a military defeat, disease outbreaks or a culture flip-a player CHOOSES to reload in these situations. The same goes with a civil war situation. I say if that players don't like these kinds of challenges, then perhaps they ought to try an RTS or FPS style game, and leave Civ to the more commited strategists.
As for modelling civil war, a simple algorithm could be generated taking the following factors into account:
City Happiness, City Health, # of foreign nationals and/or 'heretics', Distance from Capital, # and strength of garrison, proximity to a secceding city, Civics settings and Culture relative to the national average. Then, you could have certain 'trigger' conditions for a seccesion, such as a declaration of war (or signing of peace), changing your religion, changing your civics settings, losing your capital, National Health and/or Happiness dropping below a set threshold, foreign agents 'provoking civil war' and War Weariness reaching a certain threshold.
A good player will always be trying to minimize all of these problems ANYWAY, in order to get the best Civilization he can. Even the best player, though, cannot account for everything, and occasionally even THEY might find themselves the victims of a seccessionist movement within their great nation.
I, for one, relish the possible chance to deal with such things in Civ4, and will NOT be reloading if it happens to me (anymore than I reload after a culture flip!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
Click to expand...

What he says is that civil wars can become an ANNOYANCE more than a true element of gameplay. If you choose to reload everytime because you simply can't tolerate such an extremist thing (to see your great empire divided), you will simply be bored, nothing more. There is all what such a civil war concept would bring to you... On the other hand, a simple reload may not be efficient while the prosessus of a civilization splitting don't operate in one turn only, so that a reload one or five turns before would not influence the civil war apparition...
Anyway I don't see anything that would counter the "snowball effect" in civil war, except if you can't avoid it as long as you have a great empire so you will not go great, because you would make the things for that not to happen (build buildings, change some ratios, etc.) and profit of your "cities" finally. I mean cities, but if there is corruption as in Civ3, it would be much more "territory" (ressources&luxuries). I will not add army support, because if you don't make war, you will not need it anyway... "Population" would be a good thing to add as it allows Domination and Diplomatic victories, but it does not increase power so does not count into the "snowball effect".
 
With the lurker here. Having a tension in large empires is necessary to give a more realistic counter to the snowball than the present model. So people might step around it with reloads. If you want re-load whenever you lose a fight. Nothing to stop you, except your pride.
 
The way Civil war/secession curbs the Snowball Effect is by altering player behaviour. As it stands, there is nothing to stop a player to expand his/her nation in a linear fashion. If anything, the player is ENCOURAGED to do so in order to win. If there was a threat of secession, OTOH, then the player will be forced to intersperse periods of expansion with periods of 'consolidation', thus eliminating the linear growth of the nation. In addition, the process of consolidation actually ties up resources which may have otherwise gone into fuelling yet more growth-thus ending the 'succeeds generates MORE success'. Note, I have NO problem with a player having a large empire, I just think that maintaining that empire should require a LOT more effort than is currently the case.
Oh, and secessions need not be annoying, or an unmitigated disaster. Civil War in previous games was only annoying because it was so arbitrary in nature (lose your capital=civil war!!) If handled right, a secessionist state can become a permanent ally to your own nation-or even a protectorate of your nation. Its only if you try and prevent a secession that you have civil war-something which could prove disasterous for your nation.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Of course secessions should be a big disaster, which secession has not lead to either: 1) civil war. or 2) significant political and economic tensions.
Look at Taiwan and PR of China for example, they are not at war, but it's still a divided civ. Untill about 20 years ago there was no trade between the 2, and even now you can't travel between the 2 directly. Also there's HUGE amounts of money spent on both sides on military because of the tension, there might be a war at any moment (in theory at least).
Look at Noth and South Korea for another example: seccession lead to war. But even in peace both sides have to devote a lot of their resources to military capability, for the possible war that may start at any moment.
What about Congo?
So, secession SHOULD lead to civil war, and if the civ remains divided, there SHOULD be a lot of tension between the 2 sides that damge the progress of both sides. This is both more accurate and (more importantly perhaps) a better solution to the big --> bigger snow ball problem. I mean how is a split gonna do anything to limit your progress if you can just immediately sign a pact of brotherhood [like in Alpha centauri] between the 2 sides; then you can just concentrate on building even more while your brother takes care of military protection. (provided the AI is good enough)
 
simple idea, as your empire expands, discontent rises. this means that as your empire grows, the outer cities start getting angry, which cause more central cities becoming discontent, soon most of your large empire starts rioting :eek: . like corruption, but if ignored your empire starts crippling. Not pleasant, but will ensure that civs can't snowball, as bigger civs = more unhappy peeps.
 
Will_518: Please do not call the division of Korea into North and South a secession. The division was no secession in any sense of the term. Neither Korean nation seceded from the other. The boundary running roughly along the 38th Parallel is merely the line of truce agreed to when two warring sides decided to take a break from their Korean War. It's been a noticeably long break--that's all. It is unlikely that Civ4 will include the ability to parse others' lands unless someone mods the ability into the game.
 
Aussie_Lurker said:
You see, for me the funnest thing to do would be to become a Netherlands or Switzerland. A small nation of less than 2 dozen cities-but all with very high populations. These cities become culturally spectacular, with a healthy, happy and wealthy population-as I benefit from both the trade in my chocolate and gold (or tulips ;)!), as well as benefiting from the numerous trade routes which criss-cross my open borders. Also, because of my friendly nature (and my very strong culture) I remain relatively secure from outside attack. In fact, so well liked and trusted am I, that I frequently intervene to bring peace between warring nations (because war sooo screws up trade). I am also known to earn extra money, though, by selling or loaning my best units to certain nations when they are at war. In the end, because I am so well liked, and because I have such a strong and concentrated culture, I could go on to win either a Cultural or Diplomatic victory.
The thing is, though, that at least SOME (if not almost all) of what I described above sounds like it will be possible in Civ4!!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
Click to expand...


Aussie_Lurker: Fella, if you could persuade Civ's developers to implement many if not all your ideas you have written here, I'd buy you a drink. In fact, if you are interested in making a mod in which your ideas are made possible, I'd help out even though I be limited in the ways of modding.

The way I've been trying to come up with a solution of better game balance between militaristically large and peacefully small is not by penalizing large nations but by trying to empower smaller nations.

I think that large nations are created by good players. Penalizing good players is rarely a good design because it punishes players for excellence, hard work, and the patience of long hours. (The punishment I am referring to here is the decrease in the enjoyment, due to corruption-like effects, of having won and grown a large empire over many many hours of gameplay). Corruption was a horrid concept. Now health replaces it. But if health turns out to unduly punish good players for building large nations, then that would also blow.

But such solutions for limiting the bigs, such as your civil war model, food trading, and taxing for owning commercial routes, are clever, more realistic than Civ3, and harmless to Civ gameplay while adding more fun complexities.

Still, I'd just like to point out Orson Welles's improvised line in the "Third Man": "In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed - they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love and five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The ****oo clock." (btw, Welles is not saying that the two masters and the Renaissance listed here were produced by the Borgias but rather that the peoples of an un-unified and warmongering Italian culture produced them). Hahaha.
 
Most posters here agree that the snowball effect makes big empires even bigger, leading to the fact that in at least many cases the outcome of the game seems to be decided already early in the industrial ages (spoken in terms of Civ3).

Then, secession and civil war seems to be a logical means to counter this effect.

But, any proposal for those I've read so far lacked the vital point - any limiting factor only adds to the fun, if there are ways to counter the limitation. Since the developers never understood this, the corruption/waste concept was so annoying.

I for my part think that it is the concept of having units "produced" without any impact on the population, what makes for the snowball effect. Additionally, due to the workers misconception, all your terrain improvements are just for free.
THESE are the main components of the snowball effect. Corruption/waste just makes it boring later on (thus leading the player into early discontinuation of the game), but in no way stops it.

Now, if you would no longer "produce" military units, but just their equipment and would deduct the military personel from your city inhabitants, this would be a first step to slow down the avalanche. Any major military effort would considerably slow down your empire's rate of growth. This would already work in the early stages of the game, so racing for the "sweet spots" would only partially be possible.
Additionally, you would "loose" production, as you still would have to produce the equipment.
Second, if you would have to pay upkeep for all your terrain improvements, you couldn't just cover any tile with irrigation, mines, roads, railroady, outposts, fortresses and barricades anymore. This of course would require a re-modelling of the economic concept of the game. But this is a mess, anyway. You wouldn't create income from the sheer presence of a roaded tile, but only by having your cities connected to each other. By that, it could be even counter-productive to connect your latest city to the rest of your empire, spoken from the financial point of view. Nevertheless, to be able to protect that city, you would still have to it. Growth now could in fact mean degradation.

If then a non-linear concept of costs for the town-improvements would be added (just for display purposes: temple 60 shields, colosseum 180 shields, cathedral 540 shields...) it would be very hard to maintain a real big empire. Only the very best players would be able to do so. But hey, they would deserve it, wouldn't they?
 
Old Lion: Your idea is brilliant. I guess we'll see what mods Civ4 will allow.

Commander Bello: Your idea seems like it would help solve the problem--any repetitious action that takes away populations from cities would. Plus it is realistic. It is not possible in our age--even though we have various technologies that could potentially lower the cost of maintaining our highways, for example--to pay for all the roads. But my lame objection to it is that your version of the game seems like a too-slow paced game for me. Also, as much as I have enjoyed trying to defend my small nations from the big meanies on the block while trying to race to a cultural victory, I have also enjoyed trying to own every stinking inch of the planet. Your version of the game seems to take the luster away from wanting the latter just as corruption did. ;)

Furthermore, the issue of maintenance cost for field improvements seems it should be trickier than you suggest. If a large empire with a large coffer should have trouble paying for excess roads and all, wouldn't smaller nations with smaller coffers have a simialar problem? Maybe I'm wrong about this.
 
You make some good points Bello. One thing I have suggested previously is that cities have an individual BASE maintainance with an additional-SMALLER-cost based on the cities' populations. For me this would encourage the Quality over Quantity approach to city building-i.e. that there is a smaller NET cost to having a dozen cities with an average population of 12 than if you have 40 cities with an average population of 6, both because the smaller civ is paying a smaller combined price for his cities AND because those larger population cities are each producing more commerce for your nation.
If you chuck in maintainance cost for terrain improvements AND a reasonably realistic population 'cost' for building units, then I think you will see a situation where smaller, peaceful 'builder' type civs can well and truly THRIVE!!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
SenJarJar, the thing is that Smaller nations (in terms of both cities AND tile coverage) would have a monetary advantage over Larger Nations for several key reasons:

1) More cities=more units to defend cities. This not only takes money out for unit maintainance (which I REALLY hope they have improved) but may have the effect of reducing city health, thus slowing population growth-especially if working of a low base-which makes the earning capacity of these cities much lower.

2) As I mentioned above, cities with larger populations have greater potential to earn cash, because they can work more tiles than lower population cities. In my original model, a city's Wealth (and therefore its income-generating potential) was supposed to be based on its Population and its Demographics, but thats a different story.

3) Nations which cover a LOT of ground will require connective infrastructure (roads and rail) between their various cities-and this is where the heaviest cost burden would fall on a larger empire. This would be partly balanced out, though, by the increased # of general terrain improvements that could be built for cities with higher populations!

Remember, the idea is not to HURT larger empires, but simply to slow down their pace of expansion-and the rewards expansion provides-to a point where Large and Small Empires can be relatively equal in competitiveness. i.e. Gaining a large Empire should NOT-in itself-virtually guarantee victory. Large empires should require higher degrees of management and maintainance-and failure to do so should have dire consequences. The smaller player, OTOH, does not suffer as much from these burdens, and so can 'stay in the race' as it were. At least, thats how I see it!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
Krikkitone said:
I think the real solution to the snowball effect is to make a bigger empire a particular strategic path (ie conquest) to getting power, but one that is not necessarily better than other strategic paths (diplomacy, culture) to getting power. (so that more success in one area ie conquest doesn't give you more power unless you also have some strength in the other areas)... so culture might prevent runaway conquest by tying down troops in occupation.. and conquest might prevent culture through 'national humiliation'
Click to expand...

This is brilliant. If this idea were fleshed out, it, as a founding principle to a game, could totally change the CIV genre of games.

I can't believe no one picked up on this idea as the best idea mentioned in this thread. People too busy arguing to see how freaking perfect this idea is, and how it could change the way the game is designed next time?
 
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