Realizm mod

[Zippo]

I've been brainstorming on ways to make the game more realistic. Don't get me wrong; I love civ3, but I strongly disagree with the way the game clock works.

[RANT]
I don't care how small a civ is, it will never take 200+ years to make a warrior (4+ turns at the beginning of the game). Even when your civ has grown large it can still take 2 years (1 turn) to create a simple worker, warrior, scout, etc. A turn-based game that implements a time system should either be turn-oriented or time-oriented but never both. In other words, if everything is centered around turns, the game clock should always change by the same amount (i.e. 1 turn = 1 year OR 1 turn = 5 years OR 1 turn = 10 years). That number should NEVER change! If everything is centered around time, then instead of saying "Swordsman takes 5 turns to complete" it should say "Swordsman takes 50 years to complete."
[/RANT]

The problem I am addressing here is that in the beginning of the game a simple unit can take hundreds of years to produce, which is asinine for obvious reasons!

Another issue I have is the ability of weak units to destroy much stronger ones. Regardless of how good a spearman is, it should NEVER be able to destroy a tank! Tanks have ARMOR! Spears have little metal points and a shaft of wood... need I say more?

ANYWAY, I think a mod is needed to make the game more realistic, especially in the early parts of the game. My ideas so far include:
*Reducing required shields for early units to very low numbers (1 or 2).
*Reducing tech costs for the first 7-15 civ advances to low numbers (1-5?)
* Increasing the DEFENSE VALUE ONLY for the obviously advanced units (tanks, mech infantry, etc) to a significantly higher tier (increase by 20?)
* Decrease required shields for infantry-type units & mass-produced units such as cruize missiles to allow completion in 1-2 turns later in the game (nowadays even tanks & airplanes can be built in a few months. In fact, it only takes about 2 years to design, build, test & implement an entirely new piece of equipment.)

I have other ideas but I'm not sure they are plausible yet. Sorry for the rant. Let me know what you guys think.

 

[PepsiFizz]

Although I agree with your sentiment about the length of time it takes to produce something, I think the solution you are proposing is must be achieved without leading to the proliferation of such a high number of units that the computer becomes even slower to complete its turn, or that you are left to even greater levels of micromanagement.

One way to implement your idea, however, would be to reduce the shield cost of military units while increasing the population cost (the way that the worker and settler do now). So, to create a spearman can happen in one turn, but it costs one population, which it takes a while to grow. Later units may cost two population.

If you are going to lower the cost, and increase the attack and defend value of later units, I would recommend doing away with the upgrade function on units, and allow those units to rejoin the cities. That way, a pikeman can't turn in to a musketman, but he can rejoin the city and be available for the creation of a new musketman unit.

You can also limit the number of free units available under each form of government and set the cost of maintaining units very high. This would be a control to keep from having an unreasonable proliferation of units.

 

[Zippo]

You make a good point. While I don't mind the computer amassing an army of fighters, I HATE waiting for all the damn animation to finish between turns (my computer's fast, I just hate the principle of having to wait while my automated workers run around) and tons of units will certainly slow things down.

Your idea about having units cost in population is good because it will slow down the frequency with which we choose to create units, and it will also make food production a much bigger issue. I don't like the maintenece cost combined with population cost because it would be very very difficult to have an army. You would create a unit which costs, say, 5 gold to maintain AND lose a population which produces 2 gold; that's actually a loss of 7 gold PLUS whatever food and shield production your pop was making.

Also, I think units should still be upgradeable but not if the unit to which it upgrades would have a pop cost of 2. It would make sense that units could upgrade until they have to upgrade to mech infantry (or something similar) because generally tanks and those sorts of vehicles have at least 2 people, sometimes 3, manning them.

I like the idea of letting military units join cities.

 

[maestro156]

While you are free to do whatever kind of mod you want, your "rant" brings up a very important point for review.

Realism isn't fun, in and of itself. When making a game, you use realism as page guides but you should be free to create whatever is best for the game. A game requires balance, flow, and ease of use. Realism _usually_ counteracts all of these because real life is not balanced, does not flow smoothlly, and is inordinately complex.

Lets take examples in Civ3.

If we were to make turns = 1 year, then you'll be waiting 10000 turns before you reach the modern age. Or if you make it 50 years, you'll be fine in the ancient ages, but when you reach the industrial age, you'll get steam power and it'll be obsolete in 3 turns (150 years). Technology, society, and culture develop on an exponential scale, so it makes sense to simulate that with exponential turns.

If we were to follow "fair" combat, then if a player was just a bit behind in technology, they'll be permanently screwed as the tanks (or for that matter cavalry) roll over them. One of the best changes they made was to make it where older units in large numbers can beat a smaller high-tech force. While this doesn't make realistic sense, it keeps all players in the game and makes it playable even if you aren't winning throughout the entire game.

Pepsifuzz's ideas are rather interesting, however. I find the idea of early military using population to be rather interesting. It would make it harder to properly expand and conquer (specifically do both) in the first 3000 years or so, but the idea has merit.

Sorry if I come across harshly, but it seems to me that you just didn't think this one out. When making a mod you must consider not only how something appears (ie 50 years for a worker) but how it will affect gameplay. Gameplay should _always_ be considered above reality.

 

[Zippo]

On the contrary! I have thought about this quite a bit. Obviously the game clock will not change barring some editor patch from the Firaxians. Like I said, don't get me wrong! I like civ3. I only wish THE CREATION OF UNITS and RESEARCH were more realistic in that they don't take 200 years to create/discover.

As far as unit realism is concerned, I still think it would make sense to up the defense. I don't think it will create an unfair advantage because the other civ's shouldn't be THAT far behind and it DOES cost to upgrade and build units. This goes double if the unit population cost is implemented.

 

[Kino]

I do personally think it would be nice if the editor allowed us to change the pace of the gameplay clock.

 

[PatriarchTheoni]

Zippo brings up some good points about it taking 200 years for a warrior to be completed. It would be more realistic if it would be improved some way but maestro156 makes a good point as well...so, I will stick with the good ole Civ method of turns and time.

 

[maestro156]

I personally think that it is critical that the turn structure be available for manipulation. It would be rather ridiculous for a mod set in the italian city-states (for example) to have exponential growth. I only defend the concept of exponential growth with regard to the simulation of an entire civilization, from ancient times to the space age.

 

[Ewingum]

Well, remember that in some scenarios of Civ2 one turn was a month? I think it's a very good solution, for the MODERN AGE (not the ancient/middle ages). The question is if it's possible to do this, as in Civ2... I just LOVED this method...

 

[ComradeRed]

you are missing the most important flaw of the timeclock....... when you start out you can move a chariot across the continent in lets say 10 turns (hypothetical) that's 200 years. Then the same chariot can do it in 10 years in 1900..... why? The chariot is no more advanced, and we're assuming no new roads.

 

[Zippo]

ComradeRed makes an excellent point!

 

[sween32]

I think the timeclock is perfect. It shows how fast things actually happened in our real history.

It took a long time for civilizations that far back in history to get on their feet and start gaining technologies and their own culture.

Do you really want to wait thousands of turns to do something of importance? It would take you forever to discover just Bronze working. As technology gets more in depth and advanced, the faster things happen that you WANT to do.

If the entire game was 2 years per turn and completely realistic, you would only just be figuring out how to domesticate dogs when you could be discovering the atom bomb with the other timeclock in the same span of HOA TIME (hours on your ass).

Although creating a warrior would not take 200 years, discovering that you NEED a warrior to protect yourself from other civilizations would. Your civ would be too busy surviving it's natural surroundings. But, that only sticks up for the FIRST warrior you create. The units are the only flaw in the timeclock if you ask me, and I don't even consider it a flaw. If you were allowed to build a bunch of units in the beginning, that too would be unrealistic.

If Civilizations grew overnight, it would have to be a long night.

 

[Zippo]

I'm OK with the game clock being the way it is... I certainly don't want to play each of the 4000 B.C. years... I just wish the REST of the game were in tune with the clock! Like ComradeRed said, it takes 200 years to move X squares in the beginning, but only 10 to move the same X squares later on... Maybe Firaxis will patch the editor to give us control over that.

 

[sween32]

maps are alot more detailed and people know more about land in general. i'm sure riding a chariot across a large mass of unpopulated land was alot more time consuming in ancient times then in modern times... well, maybe not... i'm not sure anybody in modern times knows HOW to ride a chariot...

Just an excuse...

 

[Marla_Singer]

Truthfully and realistically, people have waited 1492 to land in America, the XIXth century to explore Africa. Romans didn't know accurately how was the world in "Germania". Chinese people didn't really exist for europeans before Marco Polo's trip.
If your units weren't slower in ancient times, you would explore Antartica in 2000 BC.

I totally agree about the fact that history and civilization devellopment is accelerating with the time. Just think that in 1900, most people were still using horses as a transport.
Do you think they were such a difference between 4000 BC and 3900 BC ?

The only trick is war. Well, it's true that wars are becoming shorter with time too... but still, it's true that a war can take a millenium in civ3. Anyway, is that really important?

 

[Zippo]

I completely agree about the exponential growth of modern times vs. ancient times. I gripe because it never seems like I can never research enough techs before the looming 2050 date sneaks up on me, and the time I DID research a ton the computer was so far behind me that I had Mech Infantry when only a few rival civs had musketmen!

AND that spearmen can kill my tanks...

 

[toodrunk2wlk]

yeeeeeeeees......... good plan.

though it would be also very helpful to have one or two wrriors as starting units per civ. along with reduced cost in early units and improvements.

I have already done something like this with the editor and it works like a charm and im too lazy to make a complete mod. so with those final thoughts just try it out

 

[rikhis]

I do like the idea of a realistic historical simulator, but please keep in mind that the entire concept of Civ is unrealistic.

No real world civilization has even come close to the 4000BC to 2050AD survival record that is standard for most civs in the game. Even the Chinese only lasted from say 1000BC and they spent a good portion of the following 3000 years either in anarchy or being totally occupied by barbarians.

In reality, the uncivilized world was not empty but populated with barbarians, bandits, nomads, and other less advanced tribes. In Civ, a chariot unit starting in Rome could explore most of Europe by 1000BC. In reality, it would be ambushed or racked by starvation by the time it reached the Alps. And even if it did miraculously survive, it would be unlikely to ever be able to report back its findings.

Incidentally, spearmen can kill tank crews by ambushing them, climbing aboard the tank, and entering through the hatch. As Civ3 doesn't have an option for arms dealing, I suppose you can also assume that each group of spearmen has been supplied with some more modern weaponry from some arms dealers somewhere. At least over the past 200 years, arms dealers have ensured that developing countries are equipped with much more advanced weapons than they themselves can produce.

Still, I wish Civ3 had an option for arms dealing

 

[Scipio Africanu]

Well in my opinion this has a lot of good points throughout. Now though we all enjoy the gameplay CivIII provides (or any Civ for that matter) you cannot say realism doesn't have an effect on how we precieve the game. I myself am always pushing for a more realistic game without compromising the gameplay itself. Here are some of my htoughts on how to expand realism without potentially destroying it. Of course im sure to leave a few loop holes in here which will be pointed out shortly after .


Rate of Turn to Year

I agree that we simply couldn't play each year throughout the B.C. era, progress would be to slow for any gamer, even those who like realism. However I do think the ancient age is cut a little to short as it did span over half of our existence on this world. So to expand these times without making them overwhelming, how about making the starting year say 2000 B.C. (I think its safe to say the first 3000 years of recorded history didn't provide much in advancement or civilzation that we wouldn't see in 2000 B.C.) and to make each turn 10 years. Now I know this may sound like a lot of turns but you may be surprised how quickly it passes in the game (total of 200 turns). I find the Medievel era to be fairly on track with the rate of turns to years, however the industrial/modern age's move a little to quickly for how things can progress in this era. Perhaps breaking these down to seasons (hence 4 turns per year) and capping how quickly advancement occurs can solve this problem.


Modifying Advancment to Meet the Change in Turns

The expansion of ancient times may create a problem in how civilizations advance. To supliment this perhaps expanding or lessening the rate in which ancient technologies are discovered, or perhaps to simply expand what technologies a civilization will start with can keep the rate of advancement on course. If Industrial/Modern age's are expanded as well into seasons, advancements will assuradly have to be capped so as to slow progress. I feel the medievel age is on track with advancement and rate of turn to year.


Unit Production

Unit production presents a bit of a problem. I feel lowering shield cost for units all around should be completes (200 years is way to long for a spearman) but that it should also have an additional determinal effect to try and cap you or the AI from taking adavantage of this. However I think removing an entire population (1 citizen) or even expanding it to 2 is unreasonable. Imagine what it would require to simply defend your cities if this were the case! However I do like capping the expansion of your cities if producing units, so here is my solution.

Have units require food in your storage to be produced. You cna without a doubt produce whatever unit you want in a single turn (ancient/medievel age's only) but by doing so you run the risk of depleting your cities food storage (hence no expansion) or by causing starvation and reducing your cities population. This i think would do well for Ancient/Medievel units to have proper production rates while compromising a civilizations ability to produce massive armies with repercussions. In the Modern age I think units should have a decreased amount of food removed from their storage but an increased shield requirment for production. This is to represent that production becomes much more complex as technology advances but requires less manpower. The industrial age should require the same amount of food storage as medievel units but more production time to represent the still massive armies of these age's but with more complex weapons.

One last point, modern weapons take over 9 years to be developed in almost all modern nations. the F-22 has been on the design table for over 6 years now (started in 1995) and wont actually start production to late 2002. They are scheduled for finishing production by 2005, over 10 years if you count conceptual design time. Same story with the Euro fighter and Dessault fighter. The F-15 took over 12 years! (started in 1962) to be completed by Boeing and finish its mass production for U.S. military forces. However these were fleets of over 9 wings! (120 fighters) so production should be at least a year if not more for modern weapons. The m1a1 and t-80 tanks took 8 years to complete design alone, the m2a2 bradley took over 20 (no joke, watch the movie Pentagon Wars for the entire and surprisingly true story).


Combat

This is a tough course to crack here as to how to balance out combat without completly destroying the capabilities of past units. Lets remember that many nations have suffered defeats at the hand of less progressive militaries. The defeat of British forces by the Zulu's is only one example but is a shinning one. However a spearman beating a Modern tank is laughable at best. I agree in expanding the abilities of units as they progress but not by as drastic a means as Zippo wishes. Simply adding say two numbers to each unit specialty (be it defense or attack) in the medievel era, 4 in the industrial, and 6 in the modern would suffice. This would still make units such as the infantrymen effective against Modern armor but would certienly phase out many of the older units whose ability to wage war is obviously long gone. I have no problem with past units being able to defend themselves but their is a point in which i believe it becomes rediculious. Obviously someone would have to tinker with the number i posted to get the right outcome but I think my estimate is in the ballpark range of nominal combat.


Exploration

Yes Rome had problems mapping the Germania region, and yes i think exploration can and should be capped, if turn rate is expanded. But how? In my opinion this is a backburner issue. AS it is now I usually can get a feel for where ever one is situated in a 16 player Huge map in little time due to how closely I start to them, the prolifiration of communications, and through trading maps by 1500 B.C. so to say that to simply pass up all the possibilites that can enchance this game simply to ensure we don't discover antartica till 1689 is a little superflorous in my opinion.


Other then that I hope someone finds this usefull and can tkae the time to test or even create such a CivIII mod. I know I don't have the time, heck I was running out of it when I was writing this, but I agree that we can still make this game a lot more realistic without actually compromising gameplay but actually enchancing it.


Scipio Africanus

I think I should publish it, this is so long wheeew

 

[ghostrider]

I must agree.

My first encounter with weird non-logic warfare was when i used my favorite com/ind(French) and i was way ahead of the others, but i didnt have rubber to make my tanks, so i decided that i would conquer a few of my rival cities with my marines.

Guess my amezment when by marines where sloughtered my Knights in shiny armour.


one uses a horse and a stick, and the other a machine gun and kevlar.