Realistic Starting Nations

[hzm]

Originally posted by Marzipan
Wow, fascinating thread! Makes me glad I picked up Civ III last weekend, even though I am now suffering from sleep deprivation . . .


Anyway, Paul's original comments spurred me to think that way the civilization -> nation -> government model is currently setup would need to be changed to have the game play be more like reality. A civilization can be only one nation and can have only one form of government in the game, but in reality, while a civilization begins that way, it evolves into multiple nations with potentially different types of governments. It would be nice if we could have for a model:

civilization
|-> nation -> government
|-> nation -> government
|-> nation -> governemnt
|-> etc.

As players, we would control all nations within our civilization. My limited understanding of the game so far leads me to think this is not something that can be made possible by a mod or patch.

What would determine when a civilization splits into two nations? One possibility would be to say that the farther a city is from the capital and the less contact there is with the civ, the more likely it is to split off and form another nation with its own capital, but still belonging to the same player (civilization). If multiple types of governments are "available" it may or may not choose the same type as it originally had. It might make things a bit more interesting and realistic if the player had the option of taking a few cities from the civilization, and splitting them into a different nation with a different form of government and capital that could act independently from the other nation in the civ, but still with both under the players control. Maybe this could be another one of the possibilities if you have a great leader "start a new nation" without it causing any civil unrest.

What sort of government the new nation initially picks should reflect the civilizations characteristics. So if your civilization is religious the nation might be more probable to be a fundamentalist government.

 

[Paul Saunders]

Originally posted by Marzipan
Anyway, Paul's original comments spurred me to think that way the civilization -> nation -> government model is currently setup would need to be changed to have the game play be more like reality. A civilization can be only one nation and can have only one form of government in the game, but in reality, while a civilization begins that way, it evolves into multiple nations with potentially different types of governments. It would be nice if we could have for a model:

civilization
|-> nation -> government
|-> nation -> government
|-> nation -> governemnt
|-> etc.

As players, we would control all nations within our civilization. My limited understanding of the game so far leads me to think this is not something that can be made possible by a mod or patch.

What would determine when a civilization splits into two nations? One possibility would be to say that the farther a city is from the capital and the less contact there is with the civ, the more likely it is to split off and form another nation

No, this is certainly not possible, but it's a great idea though.

There's a boardgame called History of the World (available on computer too) which is much simpler than Civ, but actually represents world history much better, with no less than 56 different empires in the game.

The game is played in epochs. There are just seven turns in the game, and each turn is a different epoch. During each epoch the players get a different empire to play. Although the empires are different, the same colour markers are used so they all belong to the same player. At the end of each turn points are awarded for areas, cities and monuments controlled, including previous empires that may still exist, although gradually the older empires are wiped out by the newer ones.

Applying this idea to Civ, and the evolution of nations concept, one way of doing it could be this.

Civ goes through four ages. At the beginning of each new age, existing empires *might* split into new empires. This could be based on geographical area controlled, distance from capital, happiness, corruption etc.

So as an example, during Ancient Times the Germans colonise Britain. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Britain splits from the empire and they become the British. The British then colonise America. When the Industrial Ages begin, they split again and become the Americans.

As you say, all nations would still be controlled by the same player, but they'd be managed as different empires. They could take their turns separately, have different governments and have different diplomatic states with other nations. The British may be at war with the French but the Americans might not. Naturally all your different nations would be allies with all the benefits of trade between one another, and you could even pool your science and commerce.

I doubt such a modification could be made to the existing game though.

Paul

 

[mrtn]

History of the World is a quite nice game. One idea I've had is to make a civ3map like the map in HotW. This map looks weird, as the Midddle East is much bigger than in the usual maps, and america much smaller and turned 90 degrees.

north
south america
america northern eurasian steppes
europe china
southern
europe middle east s.e. asia
northern africa india

subsaharan africa australia

the map looks approximately likes this, and is nicer to the middle eastern civs.
someone (possibly me) should make this map.

mrtn

 

[Lee]

This would all be much easier if it were so some civs started earlier/later than others.Maybe germany could start at about 800A.D. and Rome start 500B.C.