New 'two-mode' game

Baccus

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 26, 2001
Messages
39
Location
UK
What I've always found unrealistic and unsatisfying about Civ is the length of time it takes to fight a war. You can have a war lasting hundreds (even thousands) of years - it can sometimes even take a few hundred years to get your troops to enemy territory.


My idea is fairly simple, but would add quite a bit to the game. It goes like this - there are two modes for the game, macro and micro. On macro, you do all the stuff such as city building, improvements, diplomacy, etc. On the micro level, you can deal with unit movements. The time scale on the macro level is the normal civ one, but on the micro level you advance one month at a time.

You could have an 'auto' mode for the micro level, so when war is declared (either by you or on you) you can specify military objectives (e.g. defend Veii at all costs, take London by hook or by crook) and your military adviser will go off and do the best he can with whatever 'military strengh' you have (a level of money set by you to build/maintain military power). Alternatively, you switch to micro-management mode and take control of the units yourself, just like classic civ, but you don't worry about city improvements because you're fighting a war and controlling the units and time is only advancing one month at a time.

Exploration could also occur automatically, with you giving general directions but the specifics left up to your advisers. I think this would make the game more fun.
 
So the game would automatically simulate over 600 turns of gameplay during a single Ancient Age turn? Ouch. ("Great One, Arabia has declared war on us!" one turn later "WE ARE DISGRACED! You have suffered a humiliating Conquest loss. Incidentally, Arabia also proceeded to destroy every other Civilization on Earth during the interturn period.")
 
perhaps the units could only move in 'explored' areas, can not build extra units etc?

the time scale thing is annoying, but perhaps something we have to live with ...
 
Mewtarthio said:
So the game would automatically simulate over 600 turns of gameplay during a single Ancient Age turn? Ouch. ("Great One, Arabia has declared war on us!" one turn later "WE ARE DISGRACED! You have suffered a humiliating Conquest loss. Incidentally, Arabia also proceeded to destroy every other Civilization on Earth during the interturn period.")

Well, obviously not. The cost of war, and war weariness, could then be increased. I.E. You can't fight for 600 turns, your empire would totally exhaust itself and be completely vulnerable. What I'm saying is 'aim towards a more realistic simulation of warfare'. You'd have to be careful to suck up to powerful neighbours, but you could crush weaker nations unless they sucked up to you. Also, the more you extend, the thinner stretched your forces become - you can't just build 200 cavalry to compensate. With other ideas on logistics, I think this would work.

Furthermore, I'm not advocating a change to a 'Total War' or battle simulation game. Stick with what Civ has always done - broad strategic development. You do things in battle mode such as 'send 3 units of infantry and a unit of cavalry to harry them from our terrain' or 'send a large force to take city x'
 
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