Suggestions and Requests

[cmakk1012]

A bit for the future, but it probably makes more sense to have them be part as a general (and sorely missing) Eastern Iranian civ that encompasses everything from the Indo-Scythians to the Kushans to the Hephthalites, who all were all doing the same thing invading Afghanistan and India from the north and west.

Instead of a whole new civ, what about reworking the Mughals to start early and cover these civs? Then they can “become” the Ghorid Sultanate and follow the Mughals’ route when they convert to Islam.

This is also my preferred idea because the Mughals are kiiiinda lacking in their UHVs right now IMO

 

[Leoreth]

Hmm Poland is kinda boring right now too, why not combine them with the Huns? That should spice things up, somehow

 

[cmakk1012]

Hmm Poland is kinda boring right now too, why not combine them with the Huns? That should spice things up, somehow

Maybe it’s just that Culture goals suck

(because I’m bad at them)

(also because the idea of lowering my science slider to invest in culture physically repels me)

 

[Leoreth]

That's valid.

 

[Oblivionyx]

let me just crash into this nicely coherent train of ideas with a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT thing..

a while ago i suggested negative and abysmal "wonders"..like the Berlin Wall/Iron Curtain, The Great Firewall of China, Stalinist Purges, The Killing Fields/Holodomor/Cultural Revolution, Fake News (Project Mockingbird), Industrial scale organ harvesting...(...)...and maybe (causing a declaration of war by all democratic governments upon completion) Auschwitz. It would only be possible to build these under certain civ slot choices (dictatorships with state party, ideology and so forth) making them more interesting for the human player to chose. as of now, if you chose democracy and capitalism, you just steam right through the game. i wanna be able to play a totalitarian hellhole with thought control and concentration camps (well, not really, but it would be a nice change of gameplay) AND free enterprise (like the PR China..which is trying hard right now to out-Orwell Black Mirror).

admittedly, that's all VERY grim and bleak...but history is no disney cartoon, and maybe this could be reflected by those horror "wonders". they should also be free to be built by any player and multiple times.
imagine: a civ turns fascist. builds a negative wonder. gets a boost...war happens. gov changes. democracy....the immersion this would bring!

so...again, i'd love your input on that. leo, you think this is too much? i am no coder, so you guys tell me if this is even feasible to implement.

The negative wonders would have to have very powerful effects to be worth building.

 

[Leoreth]

I have spoken about this before I think. And while it's easy to get into debates about degrees and whataboutisms when I say that, but there are certain events in history - and I am specifically talking about large scale state organised industrial genocide and ethnic cleansing here - that happened that could be represented but in my opinion could and should not be part of a game. My reasoning here comes down to the question of would you actually want to do these things as a player and if so why. If it's role play, why would you want to role play that. I cannot find any reasonable answer to this question that would make it a good idea for me to facilitate or worse, encourage that (wonders have ingame advantages, right?) in a game that I make.

(Just to be clear, I am not talking about you specifically here of course, and don't want to imply that's the spirit in which you made the suggestion.)

I know that you could muster an argument about moral equivalence with, I don't know, population rushing, Mongol massacres or the transatlantic slave trade, which are all reprehensible historical events that happened in history and are in the game. Please consider the good faith reasons why there is a difference here without requiring me to restate them.

I do want to make a distinction between some of the things you suggested though. For example, I could see something like the Great Firewall as a project, and I think we can all agree that it does not inhabit the same moral space as the holocaust.

 

[Leoreth]

It does not only look bad. It feels bad to be the one making that.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I unironically support the Berlin Wall. Wir sind die Mauer, das Volk muss weg!

 

[Leoreth]

Das Volk wollte weg, doesn't work.

 

[freethink]

*cough chinese solution *cough
(Honecker admired the CP in china for their ...efficient way of handling the protests. makes me hate him so much more.)
anyway, the "Mauer" could be an ambivalent wonder. effective opression on the one end, and maybe a nice "Mauerfall"-event on the other?

Also, leo, you like the Great Firewall? It could also become a "don't steal my tech"-wonder, counterbalancing the "Internet"-wonder effects (getting free techs from other civs).

How about make the Great Firewall protect techs that not just you have, but anyone that is joined with you in a defense pact?

 

[merijn_v1]

Make it the opposite of the Internet. -1 commerce per specialist.

 

[freethink]

Make it the opposite of the Internet. -1 commerce per specialist.

The positive effects would have to be powerful. haha

 

[Dominus the Mentat]

I suggest change Kongo pagan religion name to Kilundu, and its temple renamed to Kiteki

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kongo_people#/Religion

 

[Enyavar]

[Edit: Sorry to return to the debate of the previous page, I hadn't seen that this next page had already left.the slavery.debate again.]

I'm saying it again, slave units should be possible to use anywhere in the world, but have their big benefits under slavery and colonialism civics only.

Slave mines (spend one slave to build) could gIve another +1 hammer or commerce in addition to the regular slavery bonus, but have no benefits if you're not running slavery.
Slave specialists would get a big debuff unless you run them under slavery or colonialism.

Limiting slavery only to the Americas is weird.


[Edit: On the horrible effects of dictatorships, every player can still run a dictatorship and mass-sacrifice people for buildings and units. No need to adress that via a wonder. And if you look closer, the benefits of running despotism in the global era are not outweighing the bad effects it has on the civ, so it's already both covered by the current game AND discouraged]

 

[cmakk1012]

Case in point for the above idea: the Arab slave trade, which was absolutely gigantic and forms an important part of Mideastern and East African history.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Wouldn't the early chinese game more interesting if there would be some native/independent cities to conquer instead of just settling all of China? ("Seven Warring States period.")

 

[DC123456789]

Wouldn't the early chinese game more interesting if there would be some native/independent cities to conquer instead of just settling all of China? ("Seven Warring States period.")

China spawns before the Warring States, but independent cities to represent the Yue might be interesting.

 

[Leoreth]

Here we go again ...

 

[FraggleJock]

Reading the Mapped cities thread, had a thought about moving capitals and a reason to do it.
Having the the Culture of your capital city provide a contribution to your stability and running a check on this for AI civs when they enter a new Age (renaissance->industrial etc)

 

[Publicola]

I agree that there absolutely should be some incentive to change your empire's capital, at least for some civs. I mean, Rome is Rome, but even they changed their capital to Constantinople (centuries before most historians consider the ERE to be Byzantine). Even in the Western Roman Empire you get regular capital changes to Ravenna and Milan, etc. And that's not to mention how many times China's center of government has moved over the millennia.

Perhaps there could be a bonus attached to certain governmental civics for moving your capital? Something like a bonus to or in the new capital for a certain number of turns, or a significant reduction to maintenance. Once the bonus elapses (after lasting 10-20 turns), each civ would have an incentive to build a new palace to restore the bonus. (Perhaps that could be a bonus attached to a civic like Bureaucracy?

I'd also suggest that the 'Palace' wonder be less expensive, so the production costs are less of a hindrance to moving your capital around.


One other possible incentive for moving your capital, might be wonders that have the palace as their prerequisite. There are quite a few wonders that might qualify, especially any royal tombs (Pyramids, Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, Taj Mahal, etc.) If such wonders were limited so only one could be built per palace, we might incentive moving the palace to clear up a fresh 'slot' for a new wonder.

Just spitballing here, but this might be part of a much more ambitious proposal, to expand the current Palace into an entire 'upgrade tree' -- adding quasi-national wonders like 'royal mint' ('national bank' for democratic civs), 'royal gardens' ('national mall'), 'royal tombs' ('national cemetery'), etc. Each building would be unlocked by certain techs, with more advanced buildings giving better benefits but being more expensive to build. When a new palace is built somewhere else, the new capital would be able to build any of the palace upgrades, but the old ones would remain and continue providing benefits to their city. This would provide an incentive to move the capital, while also providing a competing reason to keep it in a single city. It would also encourage civs to not move their capitals once they hit the modern age, since they'd need to keep the palace in the same spot until they can finish the upgrade tree.