Random disasters: THE VOTE.

[Yuri2356]

I just thought I'd throw in my Idea on the disease Issue. Over the course of time different terrain would have a risk of causing disease in nearby cities as it does now. But rather than killing the citizen instantly, they would first become "infected". While infected the citizen only requires 1 food and can not work. Infected citizens have a chance of surviving the disease which can be increaced with the discovery of medicine/sanitation/building hospitals. For every citizen that survives a disease, the chance of future infection lowers to reflect natural resistance/immmunity and improvements in medicine. The effect would at first only effect the infected city unless it was connected to the rest of the empire so it can share its knowlage. Eventually, you people would become completley immune to that specific disease, but each disease producing are on a continent would have a different strain of the disease, and require more time to immunize. Certain diseases would be impossible to destroy ie. Influenza 'the flu'.

The ability to spread a disease that exists only on your continent to others (like what happent to the native Ammericans with smallpox) could be implemented, While your people would infect the locals with your ailments, they would also be vulnerable to local plagues. In later ages as medicine and communication improve problems like this could be stoped by giving you the ability to sell of give cures to various diseases.

Think of the Diplomacy:
"We the Zulu People demand 500 gold, bronze working, and the cure for cholera. Submit or we shall- - crush your pathetic race!"

 

[Pariah]

Nice thinking on the disease front, Yuri - perhaps you're over-complicating it, however.
Mild, everday, endemic diseases shouldn't be important enough to represent in Civ 4. Big, catasrophic plagues, like the Black Death, would come along now and again just like earthquakes or floods, and their geographical spread would depend on the density of settlement & infrastructure as you suggested.

I agree that plagues should automatically be less frequent, and less severe, as technology advances. As for using them tactically against first-contact tribes: no. Unless the risk of a plague were added as another goody-hut option.

If genetic engineering &/or bacteriological warfare are included as modern-age advances, they could introduce the threat of a GM super-virus being accidentally unleashed. That would be another one-off event with worldwide consequences.