Rhye's Catapult

[Gunner]

 EGY    Pharao         Theocracy and Slavery since the beginning
 IND    Spirituality    No anarchy
 CHI    Numbers        2X train speed melee units
 GRE    Philosophy    Starts with a golden age
 -ROM    Limes        Foreign cities ask to flip
 PER    Satrapy        Vassallage available since the beginning
 JAP    Honor        Free Combat I promotion for melee units
 SPA    Discovery    All naval and gunpowder units get free sentry promotion
 ARA    Faith        Missionaries remove other religions
 -FRA    Entente        Convert barbarians
 ENG    Navy        Naval units 2X train speed
 GER    Blitzkrieg    No relocation of units on war declaration
 RUS    Motherland    Enemy units damaged in Russian territories
 MAL    Wealth        1 trade in plots with 2 trade
 INC    Agriculture    1 food in plots with 2 food / Mountains produce 2 food
 MON    Horde        Free pillage
 AZT    Sacrifice    Enslave ability
 AME    American Dream    Population migrates from other civs

Ok, I'm going to go through each of the powers that I think can be improved. If I don't mention it then I think its great as is


How useful would Theocracy be when the Egyptians usually don't found a religion themselves? Because of this their cities usually don't recieve a religion until they are somewhat into the game. My idea for a replacement would be "Power of the Nile" which would give +1 food on plots with 4 or more.

I agree that the Chinese bonus should be changed to 1.5X.

Persia's bonus is underpowered. Perhaps they should be allowed to conscript Immortals from the start? This could be in addition or in place of the current bonus.

Spain having all gunpowder units get sentry seems overpowered and makes no sense imho. Maybe instead give all mounted units sentry in addition to the naval units. It would just be ridiculous to have Spanish Riflemen or Infantry seeing so far.

I like the idea of the Arabian bonus, but what incentive is there to remove religions from your cities? Seems to me that the only one is to remove the line of sight they grant to others. The Arabians don't really expand to any areas usually where this would come into play significantly. I would replace it with a chance that for every battle the Arabians win, there is a chance tha the unit they defeat will convert over. Perhaps a 5% or 10% chance?

The ability for France is useless as well. Barbarians are pretty much gone by the time France appears, except for places like North America and such. Maybe replace it with some type of power (don't have a name) which would give the French a +1 or +2 dipolmatic bonus with everyone.

I think England's bonus should be toned down along the lines of China's to 1.5X.

I agree that the German ability seems overpowered. I like TGA's suggestion though.

The Incan ability is also way overpowered. First of all, I think it should be one or the other, either the overall food bonus or the mountain one. If you go for the overall food bonus then it should be +1 food in plots with either 3 or 4 food. I would lean towards the mountain one though since its more interesting and in keeping with a distinctive Incan flair. To the extent of my knowledge, the Incans weren't renowned for having huge crop surpluses when compared head on to other civs, rather that they were adept at farming from areas that other peoples were not (such as mountains in civ).

How exactly would the enslave ability work for the Aztecs? I like the general idea but it seems a bit hazy to me.

Is the American bonus going to integrate TheLopez's Immigration mod by chance? That would be cool if so.

 

[Elhoim]

I also like the idea of +1 happy face for Roman cities.

I think that would make them underpowered.

 

[dh_epic]

So, here's a list of 18 possible "powers" name and effect:

EGY	Pharao	 	Theocracy and Slavery since the beginning
IND	Spirituality	No anarchy
CHI	Numbers		2X train speed melee units
GRE	Philosophy	Starts with a golden age
ROM	Limes		Foreign cities ask to flip
PER	Satrapy		Vassallage available since the beginning
JAP	Honor		Free Combat I promotion for melee units
SPA	Discovery	All naval and gunpowder units get free sentry promotion
ARA	Faith		Missionaries remove other religions
FRA	Entente		Convert barbarians
ENG	Navy		Naval units 2X train speed
GER	Blitzkrieg	No relocation of units on war declaration
RUS	Motherland	Enemy units damaged in Russian territories
MAL	Wealth		1 trade in plots with 2 trade
INC	Agriculture	1 food in plots with 2 food / Mountains produce 2 food
MON	Horde		Free pillage
AZT	Sacrifice	Enslave ability
AME	American Dream	Population migrates from other civs

Some are obviously too powerful (China) and some too weak (Persia)
i'd be glad to hear better proposals

These are really cool ideas and sound like more fun than traits.

The term for believing that a man is a god, like a Pharoah, is Apotheosis. That would be pretty good flavor for Egypt.

Better than Philosophy for Greece would simply be the Socratic Method, or the Method of Elanchos.

China might be better with Legalism.

Just offering suggestions to look into.

 

[Blasphemous]

Rhye, I like the "powers" idea very much. I agree that the current list is imperfect. I think some powers should be limited to a certain period (number of turns or from tech A to tech B or from founding to tech X). I also have an idea for a good way to expand the system you proposed:
Each civ receives two "powers" - a climate adaptation, and an attitude ability.
The climate adaptations would be few and often reused. You'd have one for desert, one for rainforests, one for temperate areas, one for cold areas, etc. For this to be more sensible and useful, there should be some serious problems facing units in Desert, Tundra, and Jungle. I can't recall if there are any in cIV as it is. Anyhow, units spending too long in desert, tundra, or jungle should start losing power, and the rate at which this happens should be slower the more advanced the unit is (it can even just be slower the stronger the unit is.) Then some of the climate adaptations would cancel this out and perhaps add a small bonus - Egypt would do fine in the Desert and even get some combat bonuses there (I've probably said this before), Russia should have much less trouble with the Russian winter than others would, and the Inca would be much more adept at dealing with mountains. These adaptations could include food bonuses.
The powers on the other hand (should be called Unique Effects or something) will be absolutely unique. Many of the ideas on the initial list are great here. The Greeks starting with a golden age is right on target. Blitzkrieg for Germany is great as well but requires a new implementation. How about this: starting with some instrial-era tech Germany has a unique ability in diplomacy - to declare war with Blitzkrieg. This costs an immediate sum of twice the turn's military upkeep, and all cities lose any hammers produced this turn. For every additional Blitzkrieg declared in a given turn, the price in gold goes up by one turn's military upkeep (so the fifth Blitzkrieg costs six turns' upkeep) and half of each city's hammer output is removed from the already-collected production. In return, motorized units in the enemy's territory stay there (those directly adjacent a city move one tile away from it), and all your units get the movement costs halved in that enemy's territory for that one turn. This implementation allows Germany, at a modest cost, to drive deep into an enemy's territory immediately and effectively. It will require good planning and can result in total devastation for the economy and industry if it's overused, but it can give very effective immediate results. Rome's bonus should somehow reflect how effective the Roman Empire was in controlling a huge area of land. How about having each trade route besides the first in Roman cities give 1 happiness? Have this effect stop once two of the fall-of-Rome civs have spawned.
Speaking of which, the civs that supposedly rise out of the ashes of the Roman Empire should start with mostly, if not only, offensive units. Make their spawn a tragically devastating event for Rome. Make their survival as cultured nations unsure until they have time to settle in and kill everything around them.
Please note I'm physically and mentally exhausted as I write this post and I may be missing or forgetting details, and also keep in mind I've never yet played the mod and haven't as much as seen the cIV opening screen since March.

 

[Eddiit]

I like the idea but we need to be careful about blanacing these abilities. I'm not a fan of some abilities being temporary (like the greeks) and others permanent (like the incas). Either they all need to be temporary or all permanent. You cant penalize a civ for existing beyond it's death date.

 

[MrThing]

I was thinking a while ago about having broad civ traits, that is to say, traits that cover "groups" of Civs. The sort of changes here would really be for the big Mod, but I thought I would put them by you now.

The two main ones I had in mind, because it is where my knowledge lies, are between Indo-European traits and Ancient Near East traits.

The differences spring, first of all from geagraphy and secondly their basic social-political arrangement, which may well be traceable to geography.

A. 1) The Near Eastern Civs of Egypt and those of Mesopotimina (Persia picks up these traits) of course lie on rivers with flood plains. For this reason they were the first places in which big cities are possible.

This makes major centres of LAND trade but not sea trade. Why not sea, because only desperate people whose own land did not produce enough food and who were not independelty wealthy would try to make a living on the sea in ancient times.

These civs then have a "let them come to us" attidude. This results in wealth and cosmoploitian cities in which diverse peoples exchange goods and ideas but it is also very intraverted.

A.2) The big social-political difference is that the Priestly class is the ruling class as opposed to the Indo-European warrior class. This means that Ancient Theocracy is NOT good at war. The armies are not bult upon a ruling class of specialized soliders with high moral but a combination of slave armies and eliet guards (like the Immortals) but even the eliet guards are ultimatly no match agaisnt people who are fighting for their OWN lands and property.

The advantage of the Priest rulers, however, is that they are quite litterate, they are good city planers, they like eleberate religious ceramony and monuments. Ceramony requires poetry and art, monuments require archatecture and mathematics. The Priests have slaves, so they have enough free time to develop a litterature, astronomy, mathematics, etc.

Overall suggestons for Near East Civs (not including Arabia, which is Semitic and a different kind of Civ altogether):

+Land trade routs/city and +1 trade for land tiles already producing 2 or more trade.
-1 sea trade routs and -1 food and trade from sea tiles.
Double production speed of markets, grainery, monuments, and aquducts.
Half production speed of lighthouses, ports, and barracks.
+1 Priests per city
Priests produce 1 hammer, 1 culture, AND 1 research.
Cannot produce scientists until scientific method (the Priests are in charge of knowledge)
+1 happieness per city.
Can sacrafice slaves to hurry production and have chance of enslaving defeated enemy unites.
Cannot build explorers.
Only Civ specific units (the eleit core) receive any promotions until Nationalism is discovered, this includes the effects of barracks. But since these are slave armies, there is very little maintaince costs (eliet units should have double maintaince). Such that these empires can have large armies which do not perform well.
Increased inflation relative to European Civs (these civs sould usually begin strong but then tend to stagnate if they are not very carefull. Plus, they will be rich and have culture but not fight well against the Europeans.)

B. Indo-European culture is mostly in places in which the land is not sufficent to live (Greece/Italy) and as such they need to trade by sea to survive. This leads to a more extraverted culture but, since they "go there" rather than having people "come here" they are in fact less cosmopolitian than the Middle Eastern socities. The ruling class is the warrior class, beginning with collections of families until a King is required to provide unity, but the Nobles do not view the King as god-like but only higher along the same order as themselves.

+1 Sea trade routs/city, +1 trade from sea tiles already producing two or more trade.
-1 land trade routes/city.
Produce sea units 25% faster.
Double production of barracks, lighthouse, and ports.
All units receive one free promotion.
Cannot use slaves to hurry pruduction nor can they hurry by sacraficing population.
Receive one free scientist in each city after discovery of Philosophy. Since the ruling class has nothing much to do with theology and science, it is left to a class without direct ties to the state and to religion and so there is more room for a class of "pure thinkers" once certain ideas have arisen (which would have originated from the Near Eastern priest class).
In this way the European civs are weaker at science at the beginning as the Near Eastern Priests generate some science, but after philosophy the tables will beigin to turn in favor of the little European kingdoms.


This is all for now.

I do not know enough about Eastern culture/history to really say where the major divisions lie and what they are like.

The Arabs are really some sort of mix between the Indo-European and Anciet Near East in that the rulers are both Preists and Warriors. This moderates most of the differences some.

 

[Blasphemous]

I like the idea but we need to be careful about blanacing these abilities. I'm not a fan of some abilities being temporary (like the greeks) and others permanent (like the incas). Either they all need to be temporary or all permanent. You cant penalize a civ for existing beyond it's death date.

I disagree, but not completely. I think it's most reflective of reality to have each civ receive a climate-related trait that's either permanent or equally permanent for all civs, along with a more unique trait that is limited to the time when it's relevant for that civ. For some civs (I'm too tired to work on examples) this may mean a mild bonus that lasts the whole game, for others a specific (Blitzkrieg) or general (golden age) boost lasting a certain amount of time and intended to allow the civ to go in the direction that's historically correct for it. These traits should probably end up not lasting the entire game because most nations change greatly over time.

 

[pap1723]

I have been lurking on this thread for a pretty long time until I finally got my new computer and was able to play CiV once again. I downloaded this MOD and I love it. I will try not to repeat what others have said, but here are a few of my ideas...

*I think that all nations should have the attrition ability similar to the power you mentioned for Russia. It should be something that needs to be researched first. It can be tied to various techs that are already in the MOD.
Similar to Rise of Nations
Allegiance = 1st step of attrition = .05 damage per turn
Oath of Fealty = 2nd step of attrition = .1 damage per turn
Patriotism = 3rd step of attrition = .15 damage per turn
Nationalism = 4th step of attrition = .2 damage per turn

*Russia / Soviet Union has all of those values doubled as their nation Power so:
Allegiance = .1 per turn
Oath of Fealty = .2 per turn
Patriotism = .3 per turn
Nationalism = .4 per turn

*Egypt = Free Granary in every city

*Chinese = Cities start with 2 or 3 citizens

*Greeks = Cities start with culture at size 2

*Persians = No Capital Distance Maintenance Costs

*Aztecs = Receive Gold for every unit killed

*Arabaia = New cities start with State Religion

*England = Naval units train at 1.5x

*Germany = Use roads in enemy territory

Just a few ideas.

 

[Brave Jay]

I have been lurking on this thread for a pretty long time until I finally got my new computer and was able to play CiV once again. I downloaded this MOD and I love it. I will try not to repeat what others have said, but here are a few of my ideas...

*I think that all nations should have the attrition ability similar to the power you mentioned for Russia. It should be something that needs to be researched first. It can be tied to various techs that are already in the MOD.
Similar to Rise of Nations
Allegiance = 1st step of attrition = .05 damage per turn
Oath of Fealty = 2nd step of attrition = .1 damage per turn
Patriotism = 3rd step of attrition = .15 damage per turn
Nationalism = 4th step of attrition = .2 damage per turn

*Russia / Soviet Union has all of those values doubled as their nation Power so:
Allegiance = .1 per turn
Oath of Fealty = .2 per turn
Patriotism = .3 per turn
Nationalism = .4 per turn

*Egypt = Free Granary in every city

*Chinese = Cities start with 2 or 3 citizens

*Greeks = Cities start with culture at size 2

*Persians = No Capital Distance Maintenance Costs

*Aztecs = Receive Gold for every unit killed

*Arabaia = New cities start with State Religion

*England = Naval units train at 1.5x

*Germany = Use roads in enemy territory

Just a few ideas.

I think these are very good, and nicely balanced ideas.

 

[Brave Jay]

The Incan ability is also way overpowered. First of all, I think it should be one or the other, either the overall food bonus or the mountain one. If you go for the overall food bonus then it should be +1 food in plots with either 3 or 4 food. I would lean towards the mountain one though since its more interesting and in keeping with a distinctive Incan flair. To the extent of my knowledge, the Incans weren't renowned for having huge crop surpluses when compared head on to other civs, rather that they were adept at farming from areas that other peoples were not (such as mountains in civ).

I also think this is a good idea

 

[Eddiit]

Another thing we need to be careful of is what I call "Historical Outcome" syndrome. We dont want things to turn out historically all the time...trust me it gets pretty boring...the thing about civ that makes it unique is that people like the egyptians and romans CAN survive and even thrive long past their historical demise. So while we make these traits we have to keep a what-if attitude. What if the greeks had survived? What-if china had completeley fallen? What if the aztecs had overrun the colonists?

 

[Serga]

>>Germany = Use roads in enemy territory
I think these are very good, and nicely balanced ideas.

i dont think soo. As someone said they should use enemys roads just first turn after they self declaring war.

 

[dh_epic]

I definitely agree with Eddiit that we want to draw on history, but still offer the versatility of 'what if'. The key is to use broad strokes that are not too context sensitive. It would be crappy to be Egypt with some kind of desert bonus, but you find your empire stretching into the tundra. It would be crappy if the Russians received a bonus in communism, and you might want to play more democratically. You want to lift the player up and give them some fun, but not pigeonhole them and force them to play a certain way.

 

[Arkaeyn]

I think the point of a historical game should be to create a situation where it is theoretically possible for the game to accurately model history, if it is run on its own.

It doesn't HAVE to happen, ever. But it should have the potential to happen. If there is that potential, then any change which does occur can be seen not as ahistorical, but rather, as a fun alternate history.

I'll use the Arabs as an example, since I'm reading a book on the Abbisad Caliphate right now, and their trait seemed both unhistorical (they've gone through phases of tolerance and repression as much as any Civ - give that one to the Spanish!) and does not make it more likely to achieve a historical outcome. The dominant feature of the "Arab" civilization (as separate from the Turkish civilization) was the speed with which they spread militarily and culturally.

Therefore it seems perfectly logical to me that an Arab trait be something along the lines of military units being cheaper for the first 50 turns in cities with State Religion.

This is certainly a bit deterministic, but no more so than the current balance of starting location+military units when a Civ enters the fray. Another good one I've noticed, playing China, is that the Chinese can be a bit crippled in terms of making money, because there's such room for cities but a long time before courthouses. So why not knock down the "corruption" cost for cities for the Chinese? That's your numbers right there.

 

[cece84]

hey what about this????

MONGOLS Horde Free pillage, +100%(50?) pillage income!

RUS why the territory does damage??? i think could be more realistic that enemy can't heal well in russian territory! We need to simulate the russian big wastes....... 2 ways:

1)
realizing the refueling(lol i don't if this is the right word... maybe supplies?) lines. these lines are the WINNING factor of most wars... if an army can't be supplied then it simply fall... russian big distances request to an army a big cost to be well supplied (maybe +1 unit support cost while in russian territory?)
(i think this is the most realistic idea!)

2)
(it would be cool implements seasons .. so russian territory will be full of snow -> -50% enemy movement rate (while russian people and other nordic tribes does not suffer this!))


the rest:
i like this

*Egypt = Free Granary in every city

*Chinese = Cities start with 2 or 3 citizens

*Greeks = Cities start with culture at size 2

*Persians = No Capital Distance Maintenance Costs (maybe too strong?)

*Aztecs = Receive Gold for every unit killed //?? they sacrifice people to gods.. why not give an happy bonus? the idea is that under a certain religion trait (theocracy? don't know) sacrificing a slave to the gods give bonuses (experience?,gold?, happiness?)

*Arabaia = New cities start with State Religion

*England = Naval units train at 1.5x (love this)

*Germany = Use roads in enemy territory

 

[Rhye]

Hey nice to see you here dh_epic!

Thanks anyway to everyone - I'm collecting all your proposals and adjusting my list.
That said, I may not respect that list and change something if I realize that some powers are impossible or too hard for me to implement.

The only thing I can decline since right now is Blasphemous's proposals, as he seems fond of ultra complications. Blasph, what happened to you this year round?

At any rate, I've more free time from now on (done an exam today with a disappointing 24/30, oh well) for a while. So I'll post an updated list soon.

 

[Vishaing]

I think I know why Greece seems to die out quickly, because when I helped them in my last game they survived, prospered, conquered the Black Sea and became one of the more powerful civs.

Essentially its the 'fall' code. The requirements say that if 1/3 of the civs cities fall to barbarians, the civ is destroyed. What about hwen a civ only has 3 cities, like Greece often times when the first barbarian invasion hits and sometimes Rome at the second? Then all Greece has to do is lose 1 city and they're completelky destroyed.

I think the requirement should be to:
Lose 1/3 of a civs cities, but must lose a minimum of 2.

Thus the minimum number of cities a civ can lose and fall is 2, and that will help out smaller civs in the very beginning, which is generally when they seem to fall.

As for what happens in a fall, I think the civ should just be reduced to their capital city, and then get a heavy minus to really hurt them. This way you could make it happen to the player too, without completely ending the game. And you could get some cool Underdog situations.

As for the traits, I like the climate traits idea, even if it is complicated, as i think it could realistically simulate history.

For instance, Germany decides to invade Russia. Because Russia is good with tundra and Germany is not, Germany can take up to Moscow, but after that is roughly where the tundra starts, and they have a hard time taking it, get bogged down without supplies, push too far in, and then Russia retaliates with a brutal series of victories in "The Motherland", eventually pushing Germany's now devestated army back all the way to Berlin. This is essentially what happened in WW2 if memory serves, the same thing also happened to our old friend Napoleon.

The other taits:

Germany: I would give them the use of enemy roads, but only for either armored units, or their UU the Panzer, that would restrict their Blitzkreig to roughly the World Wars era, which I think is the only real time they used it, but I haven't really studied German history.

Russia: I like attrition damage, but I would suggest that it operates more on a 'half life' principile, so the unit cannot actually be destroyed by the attrition, but it can be weakened to the point that a tank could be pushed over by a warrior.
I would say it should give unit's health a half life of around 5 turns, so after 5 turns a 10 strength knight would be at 5, after 10 turns it would be at 2.5, and so on.

England: I think they should get reduced Maintanence based on the presence of luxury resources, thus giving them incentive to colonize.

France: I have no idea, at least, none that aren't really jokes.

Spain: "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!!"

Rome: Reduced Maintenance per each trade route is my idea. That gives them the ability to create an impresive empire, even larger than the one I just created as them, and My Empire covered almost all of France, Germany, and all of Italy, with the Carthage area and a city near the entrance ot the Mediterraneanm, and I still had a good tech pace.

Greece: Golden age type thing sounds good, but I would make it longer than a normal Golden Age, I'm not sure if that's possible, perhaps a succession of Golden Ages so long as Athennai stands?

Egypt: something with floodplains might encourage them to not move away from theri area.

India: No clue.

Mongolia: Pillage bonus sounds good, and encourages Mongolia to be a raider race, perhaps free pillage in addition to double, or maybe higher pillage rates?

China: Something to represent just how many of them there are? Perhaps bonus health and happiness?

Japan: I like it, perhaps we could also give them an exdperience bonus to melee units to represent how integral the samurai caste was to their society.

Persia: Vassalage is a powerful civic when used right, but for this game its available pretty early as it is, at least in my oppinion. I like the idea of conscripting Immortals.

Arabia: Idea, give them free camel archers in each city they conquer, this can represent them converting people and throwing them into warfare, and can also be an incentive to keep conquering after they've taken a city or two.

America: Immigrants sounds good once they have a way of travelling over water.

Inca: I like mountains, but I think we might need to do some heavy work with what a mountain is as far as the game is concerned, because i think Impassible terrain is unworkable right now. I'm not sure thoguh.

Aztec: Enslave a unit, and then give that slave an ability to be sacrificed at a city to give a few turns, probably 3-5 of no unhappiness. Maybe the sacrifice should also provide a permanent but small amount of culture like it did in Rhye's of Civ.

Mali:Something involving trade, maybe double or triple the commerce gained from a trade route? I'm thinking of Mansa Musa's pilgrimage that lowered the world's price of gold here.


And finally, something I've noticed.

Okay, in a game not too long ago, Barbarians managed to capture, but didn't raze, the city of Roma from the Romans. This made a city in the Naples area the Roman Capitol. (And gave them a pretty cool looking Empire too, since they expanded largely into north Africa and the Greece/Byzantium Area. But the problem is this, they captured Roma back a few turns later. And then did nothing with it. They never relocated their capitol back to Roma. I think we should try and code in a 'favored capitol' feature, where if a city on a spot where is owned by a civ, but is not its Capitol, they will try to build a Palace There.

Thank you for reading my Novel
-JC

 

[Gunner]

Looks like you've got a lot of good ideas to sort through there Rhye.

I'm just checking in to tell you that I'm going to be gone on vacation for the next two weeks. Keep up the great work

 

[Wilhelm II]

What about civ-specific buildings that give certain effects like the Wisemen in DyP? That would be an easy way of letting some effects expire - like the normal wonders do, once you've researched a certain technology. You could also add some addenda/upgrades to a base building. Let's say you give the Capitol to Rome as the base building with the same effect as Pyramids, so that the Romans can have their Roman Republic in ancient times and NOT after constitution. Once you've build the Capitol, you can build build some addenda/upgrades that speed up workers (like Hagia Sophia), grant a certain building in every city (like barracks), whatever you want. That would add flavour as well as strategic choices, as each civ can't build all addenda/upgrades, but only certain ones and of course only a limit 2 or three addenda/upgrades. So the addenda/upgrades work in a way like "chosen traits". That makes 18 base buildings, a pool of about 20 addenda/upgrades, out of which each civ can choose 2 or 3 out of 4 or 5 ones.
What do you think about it?

 

[Blasphemous]

The only thing I can decline since right now is Blasphemous's proposals, as he seems fond of ultra complications. Blasph, what happened to you this year round?

I think I'm just still high on the expanded moddability...
Anyhow, the only idea that was really important this time is the spitting of the traits into terrain adaptations and unique attitude/style traits. The seperate existance of terrain adaptations I think is a good way to reflect an important facet of history. An ill-prepared invader has often failed disastrously because of unfamiliarity with tough terrain. This is true all through history - it was even an issue in Vietnam (and in World War II, obviously). Perhaps the right way to do it would be a more dynamic (and complex ) way based on the terrain around your cities in the last 30 turns... It's unrealistic that any nation can easily and naturall occupy any kind of terrain.

It would be crappy to be Egypt with some kind of desert bonus, but you find your empire stretching into the tundra. It would be crappy if the Russians received a bonus in communism, and you might want to play more democratically. You want to lift the player up and give them some fun, but not pigeonhole them and force them to play a certain way.

You're right that bonuses shouldn't limit your playing style too much (through focussed encouragement) but I don't see how not having trouble with your native tough terrain ruins your free choice. Obviously Civics-dependant bonuses are too deterministic, but simply allowing a civ to manage easily in the tough terrain it hails from is just plain common sense.

Another thing we need to be careful of is what I call "Historical Outcome" syndrome. We dont want things to turn out historically all the time...trust me it gets pretty boring...the thing about civ that makes it unique is that people like the egyptians and romans CAN survive and even thrive long past their historical demise. So while we make these traits we have to keep a what-if attitude. What if the greeks had survived? What-if china had completeley fallen? What if the aztecs had overrun the colonists?

The important thing is that the game reaches historical crossroads. The outcome is not as important. If Rome is suddenly surrounded by angry "barbarians" and begins to collapse but then regroups and expands even beyond the territory that those angry barbarians occupied, that's good alternative historical simulation. If Rome is just too strong and stable to even begin to collapse, that's not nearly as fun or as interesting (or as historical).