How does the modern age need to be improved? (Read below first)

[Mongoloid Cow]

1. No, not really
2b. No, not expansion. More competition would be better, which means a way of getting more civs to survive to the modern age. Minor Civs could help with that, but I'm starting to get the feeling that they won't be in Civ 4 for some reason, even though no mention of them has come (yay or nay) from Firaxis. Barbarians and overextention though could also help. In barbarians, if they were like the Germans, or the waves of different steppe tribes, just when things look good and peaveful, the barbarians might think you are going soft and invade in force. In overextention, if civs expand too far, threats like rebellions, insurrections, seccessions, decadence, and culture flips could start.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

In every age, a struggle of somesort is fought. It may not be an agressive struggle - wars can be fought at any time, and that is a different thing altogether. I'm talking about the things that you have to pay attention to, or you will lose the game or get so far behind that the game is unwinnable.

In the ancient age, is is a struggle for quick discovery, and for quick expansion. Without those, you lose in the Ancient era due to your pithy nation.

In the Medieval era, it is a race to re-enforce your position - to take those leftover bits of land, to make your cities productive, to improve your land, and to stay keep up with the tech pace (fail, and your enemies will get cavalry first, and kill you).

The early industrial era is really the last attempt of struggle. At this point the computer can still keep up in the tech race, and possibly industrialise before you. If they do, it can be game threatening.

But after industrialisation, there is really nothing left to do. There is no struggle. Here are some suggestions:

Late industrial:
[/list]
[*]Make certain industrial resources like oil and coal inaccessable UNTIL somebody has the technology to use it. That means in deserts (oil), isolated in the mountains (coal), in the sea (oil and gas)
[*]Make it so units have to specifically search for resources, like a prospector. Say a worker takes 2 turns to inspect all adjacent squares for coal, or 3 turns for oil.
[*]As the first generation of resources run out, make it harder to find the next set. So, you can search for oil again, but the workers will have to wait four turns.
[*]Once the resources have been discovered by one nation, they are visible to all nations (who know that nation). This means a quick redux of colonisation, and will create some interest for 20 or so turns of the game.
[/list]

Late Industrial/Early Modern

• revolutions - All government types may have problems with revolutions, if most preferred government is not the one that you have. Is especially hard for old-style governments (Monarchies, Despots, Feudal Lords) and countries bordering a popular government type.
• Global Scale wars - World wars could be triggered from sudden political events (e.g. the assasination of a prince), from the deterioration of a country's politics (e.g. a Fascist party taking control), or an event that divides global politics (e.g. a controversial war).
• When a global war does start, in one turn all the sides must be drawn. You must contact every person you have contact with, to discuss which side of the war they will be on. You can remain neutral by taking no sides, but you will lose all trade contacts with all of the warring nations.
• Economic depressions - If your nation fails to keep it's money moving, your citizens will become unhappy and corruption will take hold.
  [/list
  There can be game ideas introduced at this later stage, because the player doesn't have much else to do. These kind of nuances could add an interesting touch. What would be better would be two or so large concepts, for example take only one or two of the above, and make them hold sway on the result of the game. All of a sudden a player has to start thinking.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I suggested something like this. That the chance of a resource appearing depends on its 'scarcity' (i.e., how rare is the resource in real life), the presence of appropriate terrain improvements or cities, and-most importantly-how much of your budget you invest into, for want of a better word, resource development. Under this system, it would even be possible to discover a resource BEFORE you have the tech to use it!!! This way, war mongers will be at a definite loss, because they will be putting more resources into figthing wars than into discovering and developing new resources!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

Mongoloid Cow: Guaranteeing Competition in the Late Game

I respect your opinion on history, even if it's not the same as mine. I do think we can find common ground on finding a way to ensure more competition in the late game. You believe that could happen if there are more nations in the late game, and that they'd need to be within striking distance of conquest victory.

How do you feel about civil wars? Country's seperating or small outlier secceding, and so forth. Assume, first off, that you could find a logical and systematic way to determine if and how a civil war could occur. Also assume that stable nations would be able to leverage their stability as an advantage, and exploit another nation's instability. Even before the modern age, poorly assembled empires could crumble or even just "crack". And yet they could still have a chance of mounting a comeback if the same thing happens to a rival.

This would ensure that the modern age could be the "age of the comeback". After hitting a stumbling block in the middle ages or industrial age, you come into the modern age with some momentum. Several minor nations exist in the ashes of an empire, and you now race to conquer them before a rival does. It's the expansionism of the ancient era all over again, except this time with more powerful warfare. Sounds kind of exciting to me.

To shift gears completely, I leave you with one other example to consider. In a racing game, because a race can often take a very long time and someone can get a huge lead, game designers have a hard time keeping the race exciting all the way through. A 30 minute race could be decided in the first 30 seconds!

Some game designers have resolved this by giving the AI a "catch up" algorithm, that keeps them within striking distance of the player. The AI cheats not to win, but to keep the game interesting. Most racing games do this, or refuse to intervene no matter how boring the race is. An interesting exception is Nintendo's Mario Kart, where players have a few tools to mount a huge comeback, if they play their cards right.

Food for thought.

Aussie Lurker: Resources

There is no doubt that the modern age could turn on a dime if someone was suddenly denied access to a key resource such as oil.

This could happen in Civ 3, but it's highly unlikely. A huge empire is more likely to have oil in by virtue of their huge geography. And if they don't have oil, it won't take much for them to get a single square. If they have a single square of oil, they can build and power the world's largest army within a few turns. This, in a lot of ways, only reinforces the boredom of the modern age, with the big dog having all the advantages for the last quarter of the game.

What needs to be fixed?

Discovery is a great idea. This would "stall' the quick and easy warfare of the modern age with a new battle over who can prospect those vital resources.

But you should no longer be able to power the world's largest army from a single square of oil. If you're the world's largest empire with a single square of oil, you should have to ration it or find more. In this respect, a small nation may actually have an advantage -- they're spending less oil on day to day life for their citizens. Thus, if a large empire and a small nation have the same amount of oil, the small nation may actually have more oil left over at the end of the day to build their quality army.

And if you were still unhappy with the balancing impact of resources, the game could automatically bias oil towards underdog nations. Meaning oil is more likely to be discovered in a loser's borders than the world leader. I can't help but wonder, if there's a God, maybe he has this sense of irony and balance, with the world's hugest oil supplies in the hands of some of the world's most backwards tyrranies.

Gingerbread Man: Global War

As a side note, Gingerbread Man, I hope you skimmed the last two ideas, because they definitely address some of your ideas. I'm sure you have some additions or interpretations to offer.

But the thing that took me by surprise is your attitude that a global war should be, in some sense, "guaranteed" at one point in the game. If you could do this in a logical and systematic way, this would surely make the game more great than it already is. But if you forced a global war artificially, it might harm the game in other ways.

I would argue that a global war would be lots of fun. But forcing all or most players into that war would be bad. Thus, you need to encourage global war to happen naturally, but motivating neutral players to get involved in other players' conflicts. You'd need to attack the very idea of complete independence and force relationships.

Similar nations (we're both fascist, or we both speak the same language and dress similarly, or both pray to the same God) should be pushed gently into getting along with one another. The way to do this is through the people. Your people become more unhappy because you're not aiding your fellow communist, your fellow christian, your fellow pasta-lover against fascism, Islam, and rice-lovers. Joining in the conflict raises your peoples' spirits, because they feel like you're defending your very way of life. If you click on an unhappy face, they say "we want to know what you're doing about the threat of the Turks!" -- even though the Turks aren't at War with you. Yet.

By encouraging "similar" nations to side with one another, you can let global war form naturally by the player's choices.

Another way to encourage global war is with an idea that popped up called "moral victory". If a nation is committing genocide within its borders and mistreating its people, you should gain a kind of victory point for intervening. If a nation is going on a conquest of its peaceful neighbors, you should gain a kind of victory point for liberating the neighbors and giving the land back to those people.

This would encourage people to do more than just independently wage war in their own self interest, but start getting wrapped up in other peoples' affairs. A global war can only happen when someone is motivated to poke their nose in someone else's business.

Everyone Else: Drawing on History

Here's just a few ideas that have drawn on history, albeit not from times sooner than the modern age. You take a real life example, abstract it and simplify it, and let it be the foundation of a new gameplay element for Civ. I once again pose my "challenge" to other people:

1. Do you think the past 50 years, after world war 2, have been interesting for history in real life?

2a. If so, what are your favorite historical events from the past 50 years?

2b. If not, would Civ's latter ages be more interesting if they had as much expansion and competition as the earlier ages?

Feel free to go into the industrial era, too, for ideas.

 

[bkwrm79]

I agree that making a single resource supply all your needs should probably be changed. I'm wary of too much micro-managing going into exploring, however. (Workers doing it is a terrible idea, I'm sorry. But Aussie_Lurker's idea of assigning a budget to it might work.)

One of the most important changes is getting rid of teleporting railroads. That would hugely enhance the modern era. War would become much more interesting. You'd have to intelligently deploy reserves near different fronts/potential battlegrounds. At the same time, ground transport links should still improve over basic roads (I think going from 1/3 to 1/6 or 1/8 would be best).

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

I reckon with resources, to assign a quantity to eah supply, and have all units and buildings tap into that supply. If you don't break even, you get a turns grace before units are disbanded and improvements are sold. I won't go into that here as I mentioned that in a previous thread.

Civil Wars was my favourite part about Civ 1. I absolutely loved how the tables could turn with just one hand played well. I would love to see civil wars and some minor random events (ie; disasters) ala Civ 1 style make a comeback. Of course, those players who wouldn't want them should be able to turn them off.

 

[Mei]

What'd be interesting for me is if civs could split or a region could request independance (both creating a new civ), a la the breakup of the old European Empires. This could create additional challenges as areas with high production or resources could suddenly be split or even gone completely, meaning that players would have to find alternative means of production. This could lead to an economic depression (ie Britain in the 1970s) or even a political revolution in the country that let the region go. Combine this with world or even regional wars (due to political instability- ie goverment changing a lot or lots of corruption, or a head- of- state assiasination in a region that doesn't want you as their master, or purely for resources or because of government) and the challenge in the late industrial/ modern ages comes back.
Of course, the way areas revolted would be based on a couple of things- Empire sizes, whether or not the area is "foreign" (which would include cities being built by another civ, even if it was starved to size 1 and rebuilt) and government type being the obvious ones- as well as how pleased they are- for example, if you gave the citizens in that area representation in your parliament, they'd be slightly happier, but tax that area heavily and they will revolt. It could well lead to more micromanagement of cities and areas in a large empire, but with the modern age having only workers to truely micromanage I don't think it'd detract too much from the game.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, again I had a VERY simple formula for limiting the amount a single resource can 'fuel' an entire nations needs-this is by connecting the currently 'much maligned' Disappearance Rate to an abstract idea of the SIZE of the resource, its 'Scarcity' and the size of your nation and the number of units you have.

A simple way of putting this is that the chance of a resource disappearing=
(Combined Size of Resource)(Scarcity)(# of cities in nation)(# of units/improvements that require that resource)(# of improvements/units which are built using that resource).
This way, larger empires will be at a slight disadvantage-on average-because they will have a greater risk of losing certain caches of their resources.

Another possibility is that, if the chance of the resource disappearing reaches a certain 'threshold', then you will be informed, and the people in your nation will become unhappy as the resource becomes more scarce and needs to be rationed. Building more units dependant on that resource will just inflame peoples mood even more!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rysingsun]

in all my games the modern age is characterized by a mad military romp by the leading power. ive never played a game that even got so far as nuclear weapons. the romp is just too fast. some things i wouldnt mind seeing changed:

1) make all modern age units and improvements more expensive. infrastructure is too cheap as it is and unit count is too high.

2) reduce the tedium. stack movement comes to mind. stack artillery bombardment would help immensely. allow workers to do multiple turns at a time (sitting out the balance until their time comes up). this will reduce worker tedium. it only applies late in the game. what if cities underwent 4 growth adjustments once every four turns? that would reduce city micromanagement. many other time-saving changes of this sort could probably be implemented.

3) here's a controversial one. increase the culture flip problem on cities distant from your capital. make it impossible to control a far flung empire if your culture isnt powerful. indeed eliminate most city improvement destruction including deliberate selling of improvements. the result is if a culturally weak player attempts to conquer a distant rival he will not only fail to do it but what he conquers will flip back almost unscathed. under this system world domination would require a parallel cultural domination. it would make the modern age very interesting. it would also add many turns to the game but the tedium associate with that is delt with by suggestions 1 and 2.

expanding on point 3. if a rival city is conquered it loses a certain amount of culture per turn. not an extreme amount. maybe 1 culture plus 1 percent of its accumulated game total. an eliminated ai can still get favorable culture flips to spring back to life. make the chances of culture flip depend on accumulated city culture ratio rather than on native population ratio. eliminate the abandonment of cities as an exploit around this. starvation will no longer help.

so conquest will require a strategy like this.

1) get enough culture to make military exploit viable.
2) conquer cities not too far away.
3) build culture in them. work on swaying the culture ratios in those cities. expect to have many flip back and to have to repeat the process.
4) after a great deal of time acquire more culture in these cities than the original power had. such cities if they flip will tend to flip back on their own if not too distant from the player's capital. if they are distant they will take longer and more work.
5) when culture has been solidified in the conquered territories further expansion is possible.

now what we have is a military game that does not turn into a mad dash for world conquest. we also have a game where cultural development is more important than military development. yet military is necessary to expand cultural boundaries so they compliment each other.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

Gingerbread Man: Global War

As a side note, Gingerbread Man, I hope you skimmed the last two ideas, because they definitely address some of your ideas. I'm sure you have some additions or interpretations to offer.

Guilty as charged Just throwing ideas around, sorry if I'm covering already covered ground - I generally don't delve into these types of threads.

I would argue that a global war would be lots of fun. But forcing all or most players into that war would be bad. Thus, you need to encourage global war to happen naturally, but motivating neutral players to get involved in other players' conflicts. You'd need to attack the very idea of complete independence and force relationships.

Similar nations (we're both fascist, or we both speak the same language and dress similarly, or both pray to the same God) should be pushed gently into getting along with one another. The way to do this is through the people. Your people become more unhappy because you're not aiding your fellow communist, your fellow christian, your fellow pasta-lover against fascism, Islam, and rice-lovers. Joining in the conflict raises your peoples' spirits, because they feel like you're defending your very way of life. If you click on an unhappy face, they say "we want to know what you're doing about the threat of the Turks!" -- even though the Turks aren't at War with you. Yet.

Excellent idea! The game would be encouraging late game wars by making them a benefit to your nation. Don't go to war, and your people will be unhappy.

Maybe this democratic idea of 'your people want one thing, do it or they'll be unhappy' can be extended to other parts of the late game. Even if You are not in a democratic government, you could still have problems with people revolting or impeaching you, causing a short anarchy, and reduced happiness in that type of government.

Another way to encourage global war is with an idea that popped up called "moral victory". If a nation is committing genocide within its borders and mistreating its people, you should gain a kind of victory point for intervening. If a nation is going on a conquest of its peaceful neighbors, you should gain a kind of victory point for liberating the neighbors and giving the land back to those people.

This would encourage people to do more than just independently wage war in their own self interest, but start getting wrapped up in other peoples' affairs. A global war can only happen when someone is motivated to poke their nose in someone else's business.

That may be a little harder to implement. Maybe do it a bit more abstractly - if one of your neighbour's people are unhappy with their Government, you have justification to wage war with them without international disapproval. Executing a war like this badly, however, could end up ugly, triggering an international dispute.

 

[dh_epic]

A lot of great ideas on how to reduce micromanagement. Stack movement is key. Even thinking about a new resource system where scarcity and consumption are better modelled, keeping that largely automated... that's key, to me.

bkwrm79 raises my favorite beef with the modern age: infinite movement railroads. I don't care how "realistic" the travel time is, it makes gameplay really crappy when you don't have to think about where to station your troops.

But a LOT of people very interested in civil war, seccession, and the like. Mongoloid Cow, Mei, and rysingsun all mention it in one form or another. I've got to say there are dozens and dozens of threads on this board dealing with these kinds of issues. Regionalism. Civil War. Balkanization. Improved Nationalism. Vassals. Annexing.

I like this concept. The thing that a lot of people protest is the idea that Civil War would (1) be completely random, (2) punish someone who's playing well, or (3) take control away from the player. I don't think it should be random or punish someone who's playing well, but it should become a new force for people to master. War wouldn't need to change -- war could still be as fun and challenging as ever. There would be new challenges in peacetime.

rysingsun is on the right track. The idea that there are two steps to building an empire. One is taking the city. The other is building support in that city and nearby cities, so taking the next city is possible. Taking more than your support base can handle will result in turmoil. And your enemies could exploit this turmoil.

This ties into stuff that I'm talking about with Gingerbread Man. Peace needs to have its own demands and challenges. And failure to master these challenges can result in war. War can't always be something you choose to do out of your own self interest. If you were dragged into more wars, if it felt like your hand was forced, the game might actually have more interesting conflicts for much longer. Being forced into a war you don't want would actually slow down the major winner-takes-all kinds of wars.

As a second thought, Gingerbread Man, on "moral victory". A lot of modern wars happen because of some moral belief in self sacrifice and promoting world order. Again, the key is diverting the player's attention from the narrow idea of war-as-conquest. This way you slow down conquest. But you can also open up other concepts, such as liberating (not conquering) a people. I don't think this would be hard, actually. You'd earn points for giving up land you conquested. You'd earn points for intervening in someone else's war, and stopping someone on a conquering-spree. The hardest part would be figuring out a point system that would be competitive until 2050 -- and that would be worked out in playtesting.

I keep my challenge on the table:

What are some of your favorite moments from the past 50 years of history?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, DH_Epic, I still think that Frekk had the BEST solution to the infinite RR problem-i.e. not limiting the MOVEMENT, but simply restricting the CAPACITY!! This would maintain the realism aspect of RR movement, whilst forcing a player to really think about what units he moves where-especially if he is facing a war on 2 or more fronts-or if he has a very expensive railroad infrastructure.
Of course, I still feel that said Capacity system should be extended to Roads as well, though perhaps allowing MUCH greater latitude!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

What are some of your favorite moments from the past 50 years of history?

I'll take that as " What are some of your favorite moments from the past 50 years of history THAT CAN BE IMPLEMENTED IN THE GAME?"

lets see. If had a look at the biggest 'battles' of modern times, over the economy, military, and world politics, and abstracted them to something you could put in a game:

• International seperation (e.g. Cold War). Smaller countries rally around one of the top two (or three) powerful nations, and pool intelligence. Countries rally around their side of world politics (e.g. Communist vs Capitalist). Interaction between the two parties is limited, and often hostile.
• Arms races. The top two parties in a Cold War may have a passive battle, to see which one can support the largest military with their economy. If you are falling behind, a proxy war may occur.
• Proxy war - as a spinoff of an arms race, a small member nation of one side of world politics may attack a small nation on the other side of world politics. The larger nations would supply the smaller nations with arms. Could make a quick war a long and painful one, with an unpredictable result.
• Economic collapse. If your demographics such as GNP and income per capita slip too far, the people may become poor and as a result your income drops. There would have to be a path to recovery, like build some railroads or libraries and banks.

That's all about what I have for now.

 

[GoodGame]

Aussie_Lurker,

I agree that the mods of CIV 3 address the issues. I'm just saying that I want the standardized CIV4 to address those as well.

And there are plausible techno "What Ifs" that should be addressed as well, since technology doesn't completely stop for the lack of one resource.
***********************
Dh_epic wrote:

1. Do you think the past 50 years, after world war 2, have been interesting for history in real life?

2a. If so, what are your favorite historical events from the past 50 years?

2b. If not, would Civ's latter ages be more interesting if it had as much expansion and competition as the earlier ages?

The past 50 years have been incrediblely interesting, but it was never productive to panic or exaggerate the situations then. If anything, we probably understate/ignore things as a coping mechanism, and that becomes a cultural habit---and thus a viewpoint that obscures its own recent history.

The most important things by far are probably:
1. Soviet Politcal Aggression.
2. Recession of Colonial powers authority in the world
3. Almalgamation of multi-country organizations.
4. Capitalist markets spread throughout the world.
5. 'Modern' (at least only 1 or 2 generations old ) surplus military equipment spreads throughout the world.
6. Nuclear weapons stockpiled very high, pointed at the homeworld (not at xenos :>). Nuclear weapons progressively improved to high degree (fission, fusion, bombers to ICBMs).
7. Stealth weapon systems to foil Radar ( Radar itself was basically a new technology of WWII).
8. Mass Market entertainment and news, progressively approaching 'real-time' content.
9. Computers applied to real problems, and then progressively taken home and modernized.
10. And much much much more that we just have to take for granted ( I don't even consider the Man in the Moon very terrific, even though it is.---simply generation gap prejudice).

Mostly trends, not specific events. The fact that there is too much to consider is why the modern era should be broken up into more detail and parts, and that's probably also why it isn't----too detailed to be enjoyably playable.

There should be some enlarged ancient/medieval competition, but it doesn't need much more. And again, the RAR mod is pretty much the standard for that.
A challenging mod indeed would be to take all the CIV3C standard scenarios's tech and unit trees and mesh them into one random, detailed scenario. Even more challenging if you strip the traits and UU's off and incorporate them into the trees. The next question would be---would it be fun to play?

 

[microbe]

Modern Age is the least interesting stage of the game and it shouldn't be any longer. FWIW, it should be shortened for most games.

If you think it should be longer, maybe you should play a "Modern Age Scenario" (or request such a scenario to be made).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

But Microbe, it isn't boring because of its length, its boring for a whole host of other reasons. IMHO, simply SHORTENING the modern age won't achieve anything-it will simply be boring for a little bit longer. The real secret is to make the modern age VERY exciting, mostly by introducing new concepts previously unavailable in earlier ages, whilst at the same time shaking things up a bit so that the winner is not pre-determined before the modern age!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rhialto]

You know, I don't think the modern age is boring because it is the modern age, but because it is the end-game phase, a completely different, and inherently insolvable, problem.

Every game from chess upwards has an end phase where all you are doing is mopping up the remnants of the enemy. Most games also have some kind of 'sudden death' victory condition, such as civs regicide and wonder victories, fool's mate in chess, and so on. If you add extra stuff in the modern age, all you are essentially doing is pushing the mopping up phase even later, into a late-modern tech level, or possibly even a future level.

If you make the modern tech level sufficiently interesting, then games will usually end either with a sudden death victory, or else by hitting the games turn limit. And hitting the turn limit as a victory will simply trigger calls for a longer turn limit, which will restore the problem. It is significant that no one has called for a shorter turn limit as a solution to avoiding the boring modern age endphase.

The only way to avoid the boring endgame phase is to make the sudden death victory conditions more easily obtainable, either by making more of them, or else by making the existing ones easier.

 

[searcheagle]

Somethings that haven't been mentioned with reguards to the modern age:

1.Naval Power[/U]- The main way to do that is to make these affected by sea power:

A. Supply of raw materials
B. The selling of finished goods by both the government and corporations. The home governments would be expected to ensure the corporations goods are not interferred with.
C. The ruler of the seas can interfer with opponents goods (of all types) and can charge fees to those who uses the seas (as payment for "protection")

2. Fragmentation of the Tech Tree
Divide the tech tree into smaller techs, which are easier to research. This would force the user to ask the question: Do I want to move ahead in the Tech tree or do I want to get such and such a unit, like the way Ironclads were split into their own tech.

3. Air Combat: Right now, air combat is too automatic. Even with SAM missile sites, Mobile SAMs, and assigning fighters air superiority, the bombers are rarely even take damage.

4. Random events? or semi random events that are as a result of other actions.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Which is why I am suggesting throwing a spanner into the modern age, such that victory is no longer assured, and you are not merely 'mopping up'. Having to pursue multiple victory at once, before the turn limit, having numerous ways of being knobbled or knobbling others opens up the game a lot more, and makes victory less than guaranteed-along with changes to earlier ages as well!! Of course, even IF you ARE guaranteed victory by the Modern Age, these additional 'tools' will at least make the end game more intriguing than a simple 'mop up'. Questions like "do you fight your closest rival with nukes, conventional weapons, or do you fight them via proxy 'puppet states'?" "Do you try and be a strict environmentalist, or will you be a resource hog and 'to hell' with the consequences?" "Do you invest your resources into being an economic powerhouse, a cloak and dagger expert, a space explorer or a cultural hegemonist-or perhaps you try and be a 'Jack of all trades'?" Having to answer all of these questions in the modern age will make it far more than a mere mop up-even if that is the position you ultimately find yourself in!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[brinko]

how about in the modern age after all is said and done, on in a random date after 2020, the earth becomes invaded by a dualistic alien force...

j/k

-have a un force operated by the ai so in modern age, if ur bored declare war on the un.
-like barbarian cities, have terrorist cities, so if ur bored u have something to bomb.
-now and then, have a naval mutinee, so when ur bored, u have something to sink.
-now and then have heros like che gueverra run gorilla wars in ur country, where there goal is the captial, and have their units, as modern as yours.
-create new countries or states like isreal, supply them with arms, and place them somewhere half across the world. but the irony is that when they declare war, the homeland doesnt nessisarily have to.
-have air balloons like in ww2 to spy on borders in order to watch other country wage war on eachother...