Limiting Exploration

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Or you could just change the 'Random Goodies' back to Civ5's Ancient Ruins, remnants of a lost advanced prehistoric civilization that grant one-time bonuses to whoever discovers them first.

For those 'Tribal Villages' they should just function like Barbarian Camps, but without their default hostile stance. You should be able to trade with them, hire mercenaries, bribe them to attack a rival, demand tribute (gold and/or slaves), wipe them out if you're feeling genocidal... These Tribes/Villages could also have diplomatic relations with each other, so they could form Confederations and Leagues to counter major civs. Some Tribes/Villages could become powerful or daring enough to impose themselves on major civs, demanding danegeld, raiding and pillaging, etc.

Also to relate to what someone in another thread said about Angry Red Men, some of these Tribes/Villages would be more hostile than others, and take less kindly to your civ expanding into what they consider their lands. (Unlike that of major civs, Tribes/Villages might not be able to exclusively hold land, they would just consider some land territories to be 'theirs'.) So we can still have our Angry Red Men, but they wouldn't be Random Angry Red Men, just Motivated By In-game Factors Angry Red Men.

 

[Patine]

Or you could just change the 'Random Goodies' back to Civ5's Ancient Ruins, remnants of a lost advanced prehistoric civilization that grant one-time bonuses to whoever discovers them first.

But these sort of Ancient Ruins of lost prehistoric civilizations able to give discoveries were very rare in the real world, and most weren't discovered and identified until close to modern times when such discoveries would be academic.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

But I don't want to play in the "real world", let me have my fanciful fun

 

[Patine]

But I don't want to play in the "real world", let me have my fanciful fun

Well, there are extremes and compromises of game realism. And not everyone finds the Cold War pastische savoury - in fact, the number who do in the modern day iis notably declining. Civ5 was released, what, a decade or so ago?

 

[Patine]

Well, there are extremes and compromises of game realism. And not everyone finds the Cold War pastische savoury - in fact, the number who do in the modern day iis notably declining. Civ5 was released, what, a decade or so ago?

And I responded to the wrong, "realism," in the wrong, co-terminously going thread.

 

[GeneralZift]

The eternal battle between game designers and... in this case... historians?

 

[BuchiTaton]

A Barbarian Clan like interaction is the chance for players to have more agency over the randomly generated map. For example some ideas:
1- Early interaction with a Tribal Village. To cover the function of Goody Huts, when you contact a Tribal Village you have three interaction actions.

a) Assault, you get a relatively huge bonus and the village would migrate away from you. So at this point it works the same as Goody Huts (get immediate reward and vacate the tile) or harvest a bonus resource. But as expected that tribe would be now Belligerent.​

b) Bonding, you dont get any immediate reward but every new positive interaction with this tribe would be progressively more benefical.​

c) Negotiate, you pay a small amount of food/production/gold to set a tile were the village will relocate. The relation would still be neutral and add to their civilizing.​

2- Interaction with Belligerent tribes are the same as BC mode.

a) Bribe, pay to be let alone for some turns.​

b) Incite, attack a rival civ.​

c) Hire, optain militar units and add to civilizing the tribe.​

3- Actions after defeat a Belligerent tribe.

a) Pillage, get a huge amount of gold​

b) Expel, gain XP and the tribe fled away.​

c) Subjugate, can set a place in your territory for the tribe that also lose the belligerent status.​

4- Peacefull interactions have different chains of rewards like the current types in CIV6, each of these lead to the final transformation of the village into one of the types of City States. So this way you can both put the tribe exactly in the place you want additionally to select the type of City State they will turn into.

So we have a system that is basically the BC mode plus some few extras, allowing players to locate and select the CS they want as reward.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

But these sort of Ancient Ruins of lost prehistoric civilizations able to give discoveries were very rare in the real world, and most weren't discovered and identified until close to modern times when such discoveries would be academic.

I agree and always felt like exploring Ancient Ruins, when your civilization is even in the Ancient Era, kind of weird.

1- Early interaction with a Tribal Village. To cover the function of Goody Huts, when you contact a Tribal Village you have three interaction actions.
a) Assault, you get a relatively huge bonus and the village would migrate away from you. So at this point it works the same as Goody Huts (get immediate reward and vacate the tile) or harvest a bonus resource. But as expected that tribe would be now Belligerent.b) Bonding, you dont get any immediate reward but every new positive interaction with this tribe would be progressively more benefical.c) Negotiate, you pay a small amount of food/production/gold to set a tile were the village will relocate. The relation would still be neutral and add to their civilizing.

I feel like these are more in line with a potential neutral tribe, neither friendly nor aggressive to start off with.

 

[Patine]

The eternal battle between game designers and... in this case... historians?

Why do you assume it is solid conflict in this area? That makes little sense.

 

[FishFishFish]

They should limit exploration by adding attrition. You can no longer just venture your warrior across several continents because they'll starve to death!

 

[Patine]

They should limit exploration by adding attrition. You can no longer just venture your warrior across several continents because they'll starve to death!

But most scouts, warrior, horsemen, etc., back then could live off the land, quite effectively

 

[Marla_Singer]

But most scouts, warrior, horsemen, etc., back then could live off the land, quite effectively

That works only if they are on productive land though. That doesn't fit for desert or tundra. We could limit exploration in those by making units getting a 20% damage at each turn on them (unless they are served by water). Without killing units, that would weaken them and make them more vulnerable to wild animals. Ice could be impassable like mountains, and jungle without a river should also be impassable (but that would require rivers to be on tile).

Another thing that doesn't feel right are sailing ships navigating indefinitely in the deep ocean. Maybe they could also get a strength penalty after a certain number of turns on the ocean (I won't give a rule, that would require to be properly balanced).

 

[Patine]

That works only if they are on productive land though. That doesn't fit for desert or tundra. We could limit exploration in those by making units getting a 20% damage at each turn on them (unless they are served by water). Without killing units, that would weaken them and make them more vulnerable to wild animals. Ice could be impassable like mountains, and jungle without a river should also be impassable (but that would require rivers to be on tile).

Another thing that doesn't feel right are sailing ships navigating indefinitely in the deep ocean. Maybe they could also get a strength penalty after a certain number of turns on the ocean (I won't give a rule, that would require to be properly balanced).

Unproductive is not unable to feed a small foraging scout party, only a permanant settlement. The scale is very different.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Unproductive is not unable to feed a small foraging scout party, only a permanant settlement. The scale is very different.

Do you think it's a matter of size? Without water, no one can resist the desert. Are you okay with the idea that a lone scout casually travels the whole Sahara? Personally I've always found that weird. Maybe you could add a special camel-mounted unit for that.

Anyway, the point is that harshness of land is hardly pictured in the game. Nature can be very hostile, even to a well-trained scout.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Another thing that doesn't feel right are sailing ships navigating indefinitely in the deep ocean. Maybe they could also get a strength penalty after a certain number of turns on the ocean (I won't give a rule, that would require to be properly balanced).

The further you go into the ocean the greater the chance should be for your vessel to flounder

 

[Marla_Singer]

The further you go into the ocean the greater the chance should be for your vessel to flounder

That's what was done with trireme untill Civ 3. The problem when you make of it a matter of probability is that Civilization is a game that you can save at each turn. It's pretty easy for a player to exploit that in order to reload each time things turned wrong.

Beyond that point, it's not really how things worked anyway. Celestial navigation was developed very early, but only allowed to position your latitude and your direction, not your longitude. The Portuguese developed techniques allowing them to position their longitude and therefore they couldn't get lost any longer in the wide ocean. The way it's done in Civ, making the ocean navigable only after the caravel, seems a simple and efficient rule to me. The problem is that after a while in the ocean, you have no food any longer. And requiring food to survive is an absolute certainty.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Anyway, the point is that harshness of land is hardly pictured in the game. Nature can be very hostile, even to a well-trained scout.

They added the idea of the land dealing damage in the Outback Tycoon Scenario. The devs could look at that for inspiration for the main game.

 

[Evie]

Do you think it's a matter of size? Without water, no one can resist the desert. Are you okay with the idea that a lone scout casually travels the whole Sahara? Personally I've always found that weird. Maybe you could add a special camel-mounted unit for that.

Anyway, the point is that harshness of land is hardly pictured in the game. Nature can be very hostile, even to a well-trained scout.

As others have observed, even if we don't interact with them in game, most regions would have inhabitants even early in the game, who can provide a wanderer with guides from one tile to the next, or direct you toward the next watering hole in the direction you're looking for, the next stopping point, etc. Historically, explorers who explored the desert were not specially trained camel riders ; they were people who talked to the locals and hitched rides with caravans going in the direction that interested them.

There's a case to be made that certain desert tiles should be impassable, because even locals knew to avoid them and even modern technology largely still does, but that's a wholly separate matters than the idea that scouts should die in the desert unless they're special camel-trained units because they're alone.

They never were alone.

 

[Marla_Singer]

As others have observed, even if we don't interact with them in game, most regions would have inhabitants even early in the game, who can provide a wanderer with guides from one tile to the next, or direct you toward the next watering hole in the direction you're looking for, the next stopping point, etc. Historically, explorers who explored the desert were not specially trained camel riders ; they were people who talked to the locals and hitched rides with caravans going in the direction that interested them.

There's a case to be made that certain desert tiles should be impassable, because even locals knew to avoid them and even modern technology largely still does, but that's a wholly separate matters than the idea that scouts should die in the desert unless they're special camel-trained units because they're alone.

They never were alone.

My concern is more that during Ancient times, the Sahara desert was largely unexplored. None of Egyptians, Carthaginians, Greeks or Romans really ventured far within desertic lands. Egypt never had to protect itself of ennemies coming from the desert. From what I know, domesticated camels emerged pretty late (in the Sahara, it started during the 3rd century according to Wikipedia). There wasn't any regular trans-Saharan trade before the 7th or 8th century (same source). Having gigantic deserts entirely mapped in 1,000 BC, as it's possible in Civ, feels wrong to me.

 

[Evie]

I mean, quoting from your very article:

"Though this trade began in prehistoric times"
"To the east, three ancient routes connected the south to the Mediterranean. The herdsmen of the Fezzan of Libya, known as the Garamantes, controlled these routes as early as 1500 BCE."
"Founded c. 800 BCE, Carthage became one terminus for West African gold, ivory, and slaves. West Africa received salt, cloth, beads, and metal goods."
"Although there are Classical references to direct travel from the Mediterranean to West Africa (Daniels, p. 22f), most of this trade was conducted through middlemen, inhabiting the area and aware of passages through the drying lands."

All of that sounds suspiciously before any domestication of camels or regular trans-Saharan routes. These stabilized and facilitated things, and allowed for larger trade volumes, but the Sahara was not in fact an unknown blank wasteland with no human presence nor means to cross it before that. It's been inhabited by humans forever, and they knew the safe routes long before the camel trade became established.