Lack of the Plague

[Nordic Jesus]

Where is the bubonic plague in civ4, sometimes known as the Black Death. Such an influential historic event cannot be left out. Exsample: The plague came to south Britain in December 1348, it had spread to all of the British domain within one year. Probaly it killed 1.4 of 4.2 million inhabitants. THe plague had also inflicted losses on Europe between 541 and 700 AD, wtih 8 to 12 years intervals severly weakening the Byzantine Empier. World wide diseses still couse big problems as has been seen with the aids epidemic.

 

[Psyringe]

The plague is not implemented. Maybe they save it for an expansion. It was not implemented in vanilla Civ3 either, but came with one of the expansions (don't recall which one, probably Conquests, as PtW added very little).

However, since we do have the possibility to write events in Python, I'm certain that we'll see a Plague mod in the near future.

 

[Finite Monkey]

Fun stuff that plague. I recall reading in the CIV4 design notes at the back of the instruction manual that in the creation of CIV3 prior to "Golden Age" they had a "Dark Age". In play testing it was determined that a Dark Age was to disappointing to implement. They then came up with the opposite (a boost in production etc.) in the golden age idea.

To answer your question, maybe they tried to add something like a plague but found it to be too fickle or detracting from the overall experience and cut it out. I was not aware they added it in an expansion but please tell me which and I'll go back.

To add a little something to the conversation... Wouldn't it be interesting if a "Dark Age" could be implemented (opposite of Golden Age) through diplomatic means? I see this being more fun in MP than Single player but are there any other thoughts on the matter? I would say it can be similar to a UN vote where if the majority of societies (or maybe all) decide to shun you, you enter a dark age.

 

[57%]

What about global generic events that affect everyone? A pandemic reduces everyone's population by 1 per city... Or a global economic recession reduces income. Maybe just have them last a couple of turns.

Pandemics could also affect larger nations more than the smaller ones, and the latter could affect wealthier nations more than the poorer ones. It could be a nice balancing system to keep the leading civs in check.

 

[Psyringe]

I was not aware they added it in an expansion but please tell me which and I'll go back.

I remember now, it was Conquests. They had one medieval conquest (i.e. scenario) where the plague played a major role. The plague was not implemented into the main game by default, but there was either a game option to activate it there, or it could easil be modded in (I don't recall which).

Wouldn't it be interesting if a "Dark Age" could be implemented (opposite of Golden Age) through diplomatic means? I see this being more fun in MP than Single player but are there any other thoughts on the matter? I would say it can be similar to a UN vote where if the majority of societies (or maybe all) decide to shun you, you enter a dark age.

While I would like to see a Dark Age, I don't think it should be introduced by diplomatic means, this sounds like some kind of scientific embargo ... which would also be an interesting idea, but not what I understand under "Dark Age".

What about catastrophes that have a certain chance to happen, but you *can* prevent them when you prepare for them?

For example: There is a 1% chance per turn that a plague will break out. In a turn where this is the case, the game randomly determines an empire to be struck by the plague. Then, it checks how many granaries / hospitals etc. this empire has per city, as an average. If this average is below a certain number, then the plague will break out, and the player will be notified that due to his lacking health infrastructure, the plague is now rampant in his empire, and additional unhealthyness is added to all his cities. If, however, he has enough of these buildings, then he gets notified that his excellent health infrastructure prevent the outbreak of a plague. (Come to think of it, you could also sum up the health points of the cities instead of counting buildings, or you could look whether the player has an especially unhealthy city where a plague could originate).

The nice thing about this idea is that it also works for other catastrophes. Like a Dark Age. There is a 1% chance per turn that a dark age will break out. In a turn where this is the case, the game randomly determines an empire to be struck by it. Then, it checks how many libraries / universities etc. this empire has per city. If there aren't enough, then the player is notified that due to his lacking interest in science, his civilization has fallen into a dark age. (Effects may include a penalty for research.)

These random events could spice up the game by adding a lot of variety to it. But because you can prevent them, players shouldn't feel shoved around by the RNG when a catastrophe hits them.

 

[lysander]

I think it would be interesting if the game threw more challenging features at you as you went up in difficulty level. For instance, instead of giving the AI civs bonus production etc, higher difficulties would mean you have to deal with things such as plagues, civil wars, dark ages, and other things that are hard to deal with. This would be a more fun way of making the game more challenging, but players who would get annoyed that they have to deal with problems would not be forced to do this.

Plagues should spread around trade routes somewhat like religion but much faster. You would have a choice to quarentine the city, which would drastically reduce its income etc. And AIs that didn't have the plague would probably close their borders with you, meaning that it would cost you a lot. They could also add a function for spies to introduce plague in a target city. There are a lot of fun things they could do with this.

 

[Venger]

Here's a question - what the bloody hell ever happened to Civ1 events? Floods, fires, famines, hurricanes, plagues, good grief, why the sterile atmosphere in Civ4 (and earlier)?

Even Civ3 had the occassional unit death or population hit from being in flood plains or jungle.

Random events play great roles in history, storms sink fleets, plagues render towns defenseless, strike down great leaders, ravage armies, affect the balance of power... left out...

Venger