Regarding "minor civs"

[Darwin420]

I like the idea of not necessarily knowing what civs are your competitors early in the game. Say you meet the Romans, Greeks and Mongols... each of them has 4 cities (same as you), roughly same tech/military, etc. Which one is a minor civ? And which is playing to "win"?? I would like that to be something that isn't revealed until the equivalent "middle age", because expansion SHOULD be much slower.

I'm happy that Firaxis is starting from scratch on code, because they can do anything with it. I hope that the fundamentals of the game get more in depth, because in order for minor civs to work, you need to broaden economics, culture, diplomacy, religion, technology.

 

[mhIdA]

ivanof
Your ideas is quite similar to mine i minor civs matter.
In present game if politically a civ loose totally the area it control, then it disappear. To solve that one is if Estonia is a goody hut captured then trought the times it can remain the main ethinic of a city and also by the times spread their ethnicity and culture to other cities, then by civil wars it could regain independence and late appear as a new civ, minor or major under the requirements.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I really think minor civs need to be set by power position.

So at the beginning of the game all 'starting minor civs' have a starting disadvantage

Any time an AI Civ is at a strong disadvantage it reverts to a simpler AI based on survival and score maximization (willingly taking on Vassal positions, or going on desperate rampages against civilizations that are distracted, to possibly gain bargaining position, etc.) (Essentially the AI routines used should depend on the power position of the AI)

Any time a Civ only has culture in one city and only controls one city, Its culture is changed to 'Local'. Only when a Civ has some control over more than one city will it generate 'named' culture points (ie there is no English culture until the English found or capture a second city... if they lose that city there is still an English culture until it vanishes from all cities outside London.. at that point, all English Culture becomes 'Local' (so you don't have Babylonian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Ur, Ashur, etc. cultures wandering around until one of those cities gets itself an empire...the others just stay 'Local' playing a Resistance role only.

 

[dh_epic]

I've got mixed feelings on hiding the minor civs versus making the minor civs known right from the start. On one hand, hiding them does add a challenge.

But I think there's a lot of strategy from knowing who's a minor civ from the outset. For example, you'd never be able to offer a whole pile of money (or some other incentive) to a competitive civ to become a vassal under you. But a minor Civ would do so gladly, because they're not trying to win.

If minor civs are explicit, then there are immediate ways to expand your territory without conquest.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

In the matter of Minor Civs, I say KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid !)
That is, each culture group has a list of civs, from which a player/AI can select the Civ he/she wishes to play. Then, depending on the amount of minor civs you have selected, the computer will randomly select an appropriate number of minor civs for each culture group. So, if you have 4 players (computer and human) and 3 have selected Western European civs, then the game will also be heavily dominated by Western European minor civs as well-scattered relatively evenly across the map. As 'space-filler', though, I also think that occasionally minor civs should be selected from non-represented culture groups-and used to 'fill-in' parts of the map not currently occupied by any other civs. So, to use the example above, even if there are no major civs from the Central Asian culture group in the game, the computer may still choose 1 or 2, from the list, to 'make up the numbers'.
I really don't think the system would need to be any more complex than that-other than the ability for 'minor civs' to form later in the game as a result of seccessions from major civ empires!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Darwin420]

I've got mixed feelings on hiding the minor civs versus making the minor civs known right from the start. On one hand, hiding them does add a challenge.

But I think there's a lot of strategy from knowing who's a minor civ from the outset.

I think that there is plenty of strategy involved in figuring out who is a minor civ and who isn't... "Know thy enemy" ... well, to know your enemy, you need to gather information, so it reasons that you wouldn't know eveyrhting about a civ from the first meeting, and even from establishing an embassy. BUT, given some time, you should know for a fact who is major and who is minor.

 

[dh_epic]

Yep, those were the challenges I was talking about if you hid them.

But when I imagine a minor Civ...

Imagine you find a pseudo-barbarian (since they replace barbarians) city in the tundra outside my growing nation in 3000 BC. Imagine that instead of conquering them, you open up a negotiation. You say "hey, if we give you 50 gold and the power of some of our technologies, how would you like to call yourselves Romans? The light of Rome can feed you, clothe you, eradicate disease." This is how many city states became early powerful nations.

Or imagine a barbaric minor Civ finding YOU, and harassing you with powerful berzerkers. Heck, he may even take a city. But you invest a lot into spreading your culture to his cities, and then gradually assimilate his culture into yours. This is how the Vikings were "Christianized" and thus "Europeanized", despite terrorizing the countryside.

Those are things that a minor Civ offers that you couldn't do with a "true player" Civ.

Would hiding the minor civs prevent those strategies I talked about? I don't know. But it IS a concern.

 

[Commander Bello]

[...]
Would hiding the minor civs prevent those strategies I talked about? I don't know. But it IS a concern.

As far as I see it the unsureness about if your new contact would be minor or major would add tension and therefore, fun to the game.
So at least until they really got a certain size by their own, the behaviour of minor or major nations shouldn't differ.
You would just have to be cautious how to deal with them. Don't pay too much, as they could turn out to be a (not yet) "major" nation and then could turn your own gold against them. Don't pay too less, as somebody else could turn them on his side and you are going empty-handed....

 

[Darwin420]

As Commander Bello says, it would definitely add a new tension to the early stages of the game. And, I think, vastly more interesting.

And, perhaps, once people have played cIV enough, they will more than likely be able to spot the "minor" civs as soon as they meet them.

 

[mhIdA]

The reason I understand that a minor civ system should be dinamic is because the expansion and growth of a civ in early times is mainly related to geography, resources/luxuries and neighbors. So, the strategies and choices that an AI civ do, take it to side of major or minor civ, therefore the answer is not antecipate but given during the gameplay, and vary the civs on one side or other.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Those are things that a minor Civ offers that you couldn't do with a "true player" Civ.

Would hiding the minor civs prevent those strategies I talked about? I don't know. But it IS a concern.

You should be able to do BOTH of those to a "Major Civ"

I pay you money/techs you agree to become my Vassal (I get certain rights in all of your cities ie use of production, stationing troops, use of your trade, etc.) [you agree to do this because a..you might revolt later or b..if fully absorbed you get a fraction of my victory points, and you figure that is better that the 0 you'd get otherwise]

I'm at war with X, soon one of our cultures overwhelms the other and our people don't want to be at war anymore.

This is why I am VERY opposed to the idea of Minor Civs as a seperate "Type" of Civ.. the AI might (should) work differently when it is weak, but all Civs should be trying to maximize their eventual points, whether that involves merging with the big guy on the block or attacking him to get an edge.

If this is done right , then the Human Player could (for additional difficulty) elect to start as a "Minor Civ" ie a Civ in a weak starting position...OR (for a lower difficulty) have 0 "Major Civ" opponents. (eventually the Minor Civs scattered around would grow to be just as powerful as you if you didn't expand and they did)

 

[dh_epic]

My problem if you make all the AIs act the same...

There's not much incentive to do a lot of "realistic" things. The game of Civ is nihilistic, but history is full of people motivated by things other than nihilism. Civilizations in the game are blindly competitive and all about winning. In history, people measure success by more than the amount of land or population they have.

A minor Civ isn't an important addition because they're small. They're an important addition because they're historical. They hold grudges, instead of shrugging it off to get a few tech trades in. They hold loyalties, instead of backstabbing the second their conquest goals go after them.

Major Civs play competitively. The only way to keep up with the player is to be a back-stabbing, two-faced, opportunistic, and keep your eyes on victory at all times.

In other words:

Major civs play to win, knowing Civilization is a game.
Minor civs "role play", without aspirations of victory.

Edit: Added something for more debate about why minor civs should have fundamentally different AI.

Spoiler Archived Thread about Two Kinds of AI :

Not to dig too deep, but I found this archived thread. Before I really understood what people meant by "Minor Civs", I talked about why two different kinds of AI are important.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-101196.html

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think the problem comes in the fact that the game is not structured so that playing to win encourages 'role playing'

The biggest issue with this is the Civ3 UN..it is TOTALLY pointless in a game with Players who are all playing to win.. The point is there should be Some reason for all players to want to merge into a world government (or continental government) ala EU.

The point to be made is that Winning needs to be more than an all or nothing thing. Those countries that join the EU, or states that joined the US, etc. do so because they feel their people will be better for it, that the leaders will be remembered well, etc. and so forth.

By reflecting that in the 'points' that a player gets at the end of the game, or rather accumulates each turn...
ie (the French 'player' gets points each turn even though the French 'civ' no longer exists and the only human player involved (the former Italian 'player') is actually running the EU..that 'player' also doesn't get points for the whole EU but only for Italy's fraction)....
If that happened and AI's were programmed to maximize their ranking (not necessarily to shoot for #1 but to get the best rank they think they can get) then there would be a reason to act 'historically'.

Human players might still shoot for Total Solo Domination, but as that got harder and harder at different difficulty levels, they might go for being Italy joining the EU knowing They won't win (Italy's fraction of EU points being smaller than France's), but that They can a) keep playing as a major power and b) guarantee themselves a top rank when the EU wins the Space Race, which Italy alone could never do.

I feel that with some game based incentive for 'mergers' and more 'civs' (which increases diplomacy, because when there are 100 civs that means that 'public opinion' is worth listening too since a super power probably only controls ~20% of the economy) would make the game more 'historical'

a 'Minor Civ' would be any Civ down on its luck.. the AI algorithms would be the same, but because the input would be drastically different, the behavior would be drastically different. so Persia or Greece would switch from being a 'Minor' to a 'major' civ depending on the circumstances, when Minor the goal is to avoid elimination, when Major the Goal is to get ready to win