LESS IS MORE: scrap the modern age!

[sir_schwick]

@MCHunter

I really like those ideas. It would carry the game into the early to mid twentieth century, ending things right as they developed in a modern world. Instead of pure victory condition, what about changing those to stop conditions.

Full Cold War:
There are enough nukes in enough nations to hit every town/city once and every metro twice in all late-industrial to modern era civ. Bonus points are awarded based on your nuclear advantage.

Advanced Democracy:
Once this, or the socialist version, emerges the game is effectively over for you. Now you get bonus points for having lead your people to greatness.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I have put forward the idea-previously-of having a slider for adjusting 'Private Sector Influence' (PSI). Increasing it will improve your nations overall wealth and overall trade (both intranational and international), but also reduces your level of direct control on the economy! This, along with religion, would represent the kinds of 'Transnational actors' who can influence not only YOUR nation, but also effect your neighbours as well!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Squirrel]

• There’s overproduction of food, and population size or growth is no longer related to it, as the economic value of a child has declined, and there’s wide access to contraceptives.

• 
  
  
  The developers have indicated that they will introduce a new "health" consept in Civ IV. Such a consept, if properly modelled, may address this.
  
  I strongly agree on your points on economics. Modern age economics is somewhat poorly modelled in Civ, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.
  
  Ever since the launch of the first version of Civ in 1991, the modern ages have been the least enjoyable stage of the game, in my opinion. Improve this, and the game is close to perfect.

 

[Yuri2356]

There could also be losing conditions such as.

Socialist Revolution: When you research Communism or Democratic Theory you pave a path for socialist revolutionarys. If these socialists gain massive support (That means if you neglect to use propaganda and promote nationalism or Democracy) they will overthrow your government and form a nation without a leader.

How is a socialist revolution a loosing condition? You do realize that this is a game where you can produce Communist/Socialist regimes at will, don't you?

 

[dh_epic]

To me, what makes for a great cold war is secret vassals.

It's one thing to invade a country and actively tear existing people and buildings down. (Basic Imperialism, a la Civ.)

It's another thing to march up to someone's palace and make their leader serve you, so they exploit their own people on your behalf. (Vassalage, almost like Feudalism.)

But it's something else to invade without destroying the people, and sending in a few governers to keep the people down while sucking up the economic benefits. (Colonialism)

And the "holy grail" of conquest is to secretly fund rebels who will overthrow their leader and exploit their people, all without anybody else knowing that they're doing it to help you. (Neo-Colonialism)

To me, I'd love to play a Cold War scenario where you're constantly overthrowing governments around the world. Or where they're battling an overthrow -- which you suspect one your enemies is meddling in -- and ask for your help. But why make it a scenario? Make it the essence of the Modern Age!

I'd love to see conquest EVOLVE (vassalage, colonialism, neo-colonialism) as the game goes on. To me that would make the game ten times more fun.

 

[MCHunter]

How is a socialist revolution a loosing condition? You do realize that this is a game where you can produce Communist/Socialist regimes at will, don't you?

Communism as we know it today isn't bad in the game, but Marxist communism where the entire nation throws the leader out and runs the nation without a leader is bad. Which is why it should be a losing condition for the game.

 

[Darwin420]

The modern age needs reworking, and the best idea presented (IMO) is the "evolving" game. That sounds like it would keep the faith with the franchise, but add such an improvement as the game progresses.

Oh, and while we're at it, bring in SMAC-type governments/societies

 

[sir_schwick]

No one seems to be playing Devil's advocate on my evolving gameplay idea, so I will take the role.

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As to model the modern era well, one would have to invent a completely new game system, the second best option seems to me to just limit Civilization to the pre-modern era.

How will gameplay evolve and how will you keep it balanced? Seriously, this would be uber-complicated. Even if gameplay balance was maintained, what about the learning curve? One of Civ's great strengths was how easy it was to learn to play. A game with changing interface, mechanics, etc. would be confusing to even the staunchest veteran.

 

[Yuri2356]

Communism as we know it today isn't bad in the game, but Marxist communism where the entire nation throws the leader out and runs the nation without a leader is bad. Which is why it should be a losing condition for the game.

But wouldn't a Marxist Utopia be just as noble a goal as a full democracy? It could be some form of general "Domestic victory" in which your current government enters its ideal form. If wouldn't even need to be an endgame scenario, just a way to provide some amazing bonus to your government. It would be more difficult for larger nations to make the transition, (favoring the little guy) and would operate on the premise that once you have this new uber-gov, you're stuck with it.

 

[rhialto]

Hmm, a powerful government (in certain ways) form that you cannot revolt out of? Sounds like an interesting late game premise.

One of teh big issues with civ governments to me is that the system only allows you to mod them on teh war/peace axis. CTP had many more axes on which you could optimise a modded government.

 

[dh_epic]

I agree... no disagree... no agree with Sir Schwick.

There IS a danger in having a game that constantly evolves. If the game undergoes 3 shifts -- where some gameplay lick becomes obsolete and off limits, while a new gameplay lick opens up -- you might essentially end up with two games! One game at the beginning, and a totally different game at the end.

But I liken this to a game where you pick up a new tool or a new technique every once in a while. As quickly as a dialog box can tell you "press A to use your new tool. this tool can be used in this context to solve that problem", you can pick it up.

They key is that for every new tool that appears, an old tool has to disappear. It's not so much the learning curve as the overall complexity and tedium in the game.

 

[MCHunter]

The thing about a Marxist Utopia is that it would be near damn impossible to make a major decision without causing a civil war. There is no leader so there is no final decision! Who is going to represent the nation ? You can't fit 400 million some odd people into a room to discuss peace or war. What if 300,000 people want a war while 400,000 don't ? Do you think those 300,000 are going to sit back and say "oh well". No if those people believe strongly enough in a war they will ethier go to war alone or try to take the nation from the other 400,000 people.

 

[sir_schwick]

But I liken this to a game where you pick up a new tool or a new technique every once in a while. As quickly as a dialog box can tell you "press A to use your new tool. this tool can be used in this context to solve that problem", you can pick it up.

That expresses what I have been meaning to say better than anything I have said.

In a game with the scope of civ this kind of thing should happen, but at a huge scale. Really their should be enough switches that each era plays with elements of an earlier era, but lots of unique to that era elements. Ultimately the pre-antiquity and modern eras would have little in common besides the map.

"Oh I remember how inefficient doing 'x' was before 'advance Y'."

 

[dh_epic]

And vice versa, I remember how simple doing X was until the world got more complex. Oh how I long for simpler times.

As time goes on:
- Automate some of the stupid, trivial things... (e.g.: workers)
- And complicate other things with interesting challenges. (e.g.: moral obstacles to world domination)

 

[Yuri2356]

The thing about a Marxist Utopia is that it would be near damn impossible to make a major decision without causing a civil war. There is no leader so there is no final decision!

Marxist Utopias are governed by direct democracy. Each citizen would have a vote on any major, national decision. However, a Military would still need some form of Hiarchal command structure in order to operate effectively, so a player would most likley loose much control over civil issuses while remaining in power over the armed forces.

Who is going to represent the nation ? You can't fit 400 million some odd people into a room to discuss peace or war.

We don't have to bring them all together into one place. Theese days, we a livley litle thing called the "Internet". Before it, we had "Telephones", "Radios", "Railways", "Mail", the list goes on and on... They would only need to be there if they had an Idea which was unique from all other already proposed. You don't have to travel all the way to the capital just to say, "I'm with that guy. ->"

What if 300,000 people want a war while 400,000 don't ? Do you think those 300,000 are going to sit back and say "oh well". No if those people believe strongly enough in a war they will ethier go to war alone or try to take the nation from the other 400,000 people.

*Ahem* In your Total Democracy, what if 49% of the people want war, but 51% don't? If those people feel strongly enough they could overpower the government and take matters into their own hands. It's a fault in Democracy as a whole, nor Marxism (Which is more economic than political)

Besides, if people don't agree with the actions of the nation we just call them "unpatriotic". Or better yet, "Enemies of the state"! Let's see those discontented citizen try to rebel after a few years of forced labor!

 

[sir_schwick]

Marx plainly said that his system would never work in a political setting. He specifically set the scope of Communism as an economic system. This is why we need more SE oriented views of government. Governments are a combination of political, economic, and other adminstrative systems.

 

[JanSobieski]

I think I have a good idea for the modern age era without scraping it (this would also work well for the industrial era). I actually have two ideas, one for the economy and one for the governments. Tell me if you think this is too complicated but I was wondering if the economy and raw resources in Civilization IV could work in the same was as in Railroad Tycoon III.

The Economy in Civ IV​

In RR3, there are no tiles with a resource. I didn't like how a tile could have coal and nothing else, and this coal would supply an unlimited supply of iron, yet if it was exported non of the coal remained in the country exporting it. RR3 has things such as coal mines that would produce a certain amount of coal over a period of time, for example 3 tons a year. The raw resources would then use any avaliable means to transport themselves to where they were needed, like a power plant. So the resources could go along rough terrain ground very slowly, down a river to a city a little more quickly, or along a railroad extremely quickly. Also, depending on where the resources ended up, the profit would be different. For example, a power plant can only use so much coal per year so after a certain amount of coal, it would no longer be profitable, but another power plant somewhere else may still need coal and pay more for it. The civilization could tax goods being bought and sold and earn money this way.
It would provide an incentive for civs to promote infastructure and internal improvements. Other things that could be built would be canals, roads, or highways. Passengers and Military troops could also be transported in this way.

The Governments in Civ IV​

Another idea I had for improving the governments would be to have political parties as well. Different political parties could provide different benifits in addition to the governments. This could make gameplay more interesting. For example, in a Republic there could be the regular bonuses for that government plus if the player is the Socialist Party, there is less poverty so two unhappy citizens in every city are content. Or they could be the Whig party and it would cost less to build internal improvements such as railroads.

 

[dh_epic]

Marx wasn't a utopian. His ideals on socialism and communism were in spite of utopian theorists of his time, and that's one reason why his theories attracted such attention.

Nor is the idea of a utopian society without some kind of leadership or organization conceivably possible at this point.

Also, I'm not sure losing by random revolution would be fun.

Also, any revolution in Civ never throws you out -- this is because you're not the leader of your civilization but your civilization entirely. That's the way Civ has worked until now.

It would be neat, however, to have a utopian victory that isn't because of your political system or economic system... but to have a certain number of happy citizens, and a certain percentage of happy citizens. E.g.: if you can have at least 100 citizens and 90% are happy (and they're 95% literate, and your disease percentage is below 5%) and you maintain this for 20 turns, you should get a "utopian victory". Not because you're a true utopia, but because your nation is clearly a shining example of a society that really works.

 

[sir_schwick]

Only when humans can have a collective counciousness would any form of massive direct democracy be possible. A good model to look at would be the USRY(Post Wars).

As for the Utopian Victory, I like your idea dh_epic. To add to it, you would need a certain tech(lets say late-middle ages) so you couldn't get this victory by having one entertainer in your two pop civ. Also, each turn any player starts building towards this victory, all the other players are notified. This way they can gang up, making this a very hard victory unless you were king anyway.

 

[dh_epic]

Either it would be opened up by a tech...

Or it could be opened up by having a minimum number of people. E.g.: one city wouldn't be enough.

Or it could be opened up by lowering literacy and disease rates -- things not possible until the modern age anyway.

But a tech is cool, too, if they could find one.