More occasion for small and tiny nation!!!

[Kidsmart1981]

In Civ3, i hate the thing is "everything has done in Middle Age"...The big nation will be strong and stronger; the small nation will be weak and weakness...then go to destroy after some turn of war...
My idea for Civ4 is: make more occasion for small nation in time line, like same some "strong points of small nation" ----only small nation get it; and make more problems for big nation( more difficult to manage the big nation). It will bring some occasion to "fight back" for the small nation in any time of game-line if player( or Civ-leader) can "play well".=====> IT IS MY IDEA

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The problem of 'Snowballing' that you raise is one that is felt by many others here at this site (if other threads are any indication).

I think the best solution to this problem is twofold. Firstly the larger the nation, the more inherently unstable it becomes-thus the more prone to civil war it is-this could give a neighouring state(s) a sudden influx of new cities seeking to break away from you, or the formation of a new independant 'player' on your borders. Of course, size wouldn't be the ONLY factor in stablity, but it would be a pretty big one.
Secondly, with a better system for unit maintainance costs, you could also make larger nations incur the REAL financial burden of maintaining an army big enough to defend those huge borders-which would allow smaller nations to become more economically powerful!

Additional ways to combat snowballing might be greater emphasis on 'quality' over quantity with cities (i.e. less cities, but with bigger population should yield greater benefits over lots and lots of low population cities!) and more 'intriguing' resource distribution models!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rysingsun]

this could be good. for one thing its realistic in a way. nations do become prone to civil war when they expand to quickly. and overly militaristic nations do manage to bankrupt themselves if they keep the militaristic outlook for too long. of course culture would be the antidote right? to put it another way a nation which just acquired a lot of territory would need to disarm and work on culture for a nice long time. this will get rid of the temptation to abandon reputation to acquire that snowballing kingdom.

 

[Philips beard]

This is why they need to keep the corruption/waste in the game too! I really hope they don't removes it because some noobies think it's boring!

 

[Senturion]

Do you think that "snowballing" is a gameplay problem (imbalance) or a realism one? Or both? I love Civilization but it is pretty unrealistic in the way that a state starts (a long time ago) and just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It works pretty well though in scenarios where even the small states are Civs. So I hope that in Civ 4 there is more out there than just empty space.

 

[Bluetooth]

I’m a builder and I love to see my nation grow into a great power. I can accept that my nation face some problems related to the nation’s size but at the same time it must be possible to handle the problems. That’s why I hate the corruption system in Civilization III, in Civ II you could manage corruption but in Civ III you can’t and that’s not very realistic and definitely not fun.

 

[rhialto]

I think the simple solution to corruption would be to:

1 - provide a deeper variety of corruption reducing buildings
2 - make the anti-corruption police officer city specialist actually do something. Currently, it is almost always more effective to make him some other specialist.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm not opposed to the underlying principle of building large empires, I just don't like the way it all sort of 'feeds in on itself' such that big empires can get ever more large and powerful BECAUSE of their sheer size. Instead, having a small nation-by choice or neccesity-should be a viable option for victory!
My idea for inherent stability and having an accurate cost for unit maintainance should help this (without preventing people from persuing larger empires). Also, I think that certain government types should be better at maintaining larger nations than others! Another possibility might be to make the cost of a city dependant on its 'relative' distance (as determined by tech level) from the nations 'core'. Also, you could give each city a 'cost' determined by a 'flat base cost+cost due to size. This might give greater incentive for players to focus on building just a handful of much BIGGER cities!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Kidsmart1981]

...More realastic is way Civ4 should be do to get more and more civfanatics. Has 2 kind of Civ-play(i'm not sure! ), civing for fun and civing for get a realastic-life( the life of leader...). The game that you need play only 50% of time-line for sure you will win...is game for kids . The result of compare how many kids(are civing) vs how many realastic-civing is point to Civ4 will be: more realastic or more...fun.
Improve the maintance cost system is a good idea to get more realastic(includer rechance unit-support's cost, like same 1gold/infantry, 2gold/tank....)
And final worlds: I'm a realastic- civfanatic!

 

[Bluetooth]

Good ideas from rhialto and Aussie Lurker. I think a good strategy game makes you face problems on many levels but also give you the instruments to solve the problems.

As for Kidsmart1981, I’m not opposed to give small nations an opportunity to win the game and I think the way big nations black mail small nations in Civilization 3 is not very realistic. After all big and small nations have existed side by side throughout history.