Thoughts on general Civ3 gameplay - and what Civ4 should do better

[Aussie_Lurker]

@Trade-Peror & DH_Epic: I sit somewhere between the both of you on this matter. I think we ALL agree that culture, though a good concept, does need a major overhaul to really bring 'building' style to at least a par with 'Warmongering'. I support the passive flow of culture from high to low, as I have suggested before, and also support the semi-active flow via immigration and trade. War-mongers can close their borders and increase nationalism as a means to reduce this, but this will hurt them economically, diplomatically and will make their 'military acquisitions' harder to hold on to (as the foreign population will remain much more volatile for a longer period of time). Basically, the xenophobic nation with lots of foreign territory in its hands might be able to 'assimilate' quicker, but they will also be much more unstable!
As for 'active' culture flow, I would prefer this to be an additional function of 'Covert Operations'. By putting funds into 'Civic/Cultural' Espionage and 'Sabotage', you can not only gauge the degree of 'sympathy' that others hold for your culture, but you can actively 'plant' cultural enclaves in other cities, and disseminate propaganda to undermine the local culture in favour of yours!
As for culture 'build up' I think that all culture points should build up side by side, the ratio of local to foreign culture within a city will then have an overriding impact on the citizens desire for war with that culture, and the possibility of a rebelling city going over to that culture! Also, if at the end of an age, two cultures achieve a roughly equal status within one city, then there should be the chance for a 'culture crunch', where the two cultures meld into a single new 'regional culture'. All new citizens in that city will bear the new culture, and any assimilation which occurs will be towards that new culture!
Anyway, forgive my rambling. When I have time, I will reiterate my model in point form!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

If even half of anything suggested in the UET were implemented I'd be a very happy man. And I'd go a step further, I'm not so chauvenistic that I think only my models have the right answers. But I don't want to go backwards, that's for sure. And I do want to approach more realism rather than less -- but with fun being the deciding factor of whether that realism is indeed good.

I think you, Trade Peror, and you, Aussie Lurker, are both on the right track. I'd be happy to eliminate units. I'd be happy to have units. Or I'd be happy to have some kind of unitless mechanism that lets you initiate culture flow even against someone else's wishes.

But I'd offer this in response to Sirian's "what about a counter". Genocide. Pardon me, let me euphamize that for Civilization, the same way they added "forced labor". Instead of genocide, let's call it "cultural cleansing". If sympathizers (good terminology, BTW) are becoming too much of a nuisance, and you're even worried that your province might secede, you can do a kind of cultural cleansing. This would scrub out foreign culture points in your cities, but drastically decrease happiness, reduce growth, maybe even increase corruption or reduce population. You'd be cutting off your nose to spite your face. An alternative, too, would be propaganda. Hit the foreign culture, but reduce happiness, reduce research, and blow lots of money.

Like you said, Sirian. The devil is in the details. But I'm confident that any snag that can be thrown into the model can be solved by a combination of creativity and trial and error. I'm convinced they can balance the impact of culture flow in Civ 4 better than they balanced simple culture-generation in Civ 3. The question is if at a high level, the idea is essentially a good one? Then you can argue about how units will work, if they exist at all, and so forth.

 

[Sirian]

Instead of genocide, let's call it "cultural cleansing".

We could call it propaganda. Wait, that's what it's already called in Civ3.

Espionage was the most neglected aspect of Civ3. Everyone can agree on this, yes? In terms of items that went into the game, I mean. Single die rolls determing the fate of actions that cost thousands of gold pieces?

I don't get the sense that espionage is a direction in which the franchise is moving. We're talking now about cultural espionage, in one form or another. If culture is something you can "do to" another civ, then in reality it's just another form of weapon, another form of attack, another form of warfare.

At least the Civ3 culture model is about building things. Too simplistic? Maybe. Or maybe it is pulling the wrong levers. The fact that culture is per city opens the ICS loophole. If that could be closed somehow, then maybe the "build culture in your cities" model could be advanced.

The thing is, the player needs to DO something interesting involving culture, and what should that be? There aren't enough trade-offs. Maybe Civ could stand to take a look at Tropico and introduce some options where you can have A or B but not both. In Civ, you can build everything, so past a certain point, there are no interesting choices left to make.

I believe that shifting culture to a bilateral form of diplomatic weaponry would be a fundamental design error. I think proposals of this sort are embracing too much realism and losing sight of the gameplay. My two bits.

I currently see Civ as, fundamentally, a war game rather than a builder game. This appears to be what you have mentioned as well (please correct me if I am wrong!), but this bothers me because there are already plenty of war games on the market, but few builder games.

Yes, we agree. My thought is that the solution lies in the diplomacy. Civ is not a war game for lack of peaceful options. Civ is a war game for lack of peaceful opponents who are competent at self-defense. Longasc's analysis to open this thread is spot on. There really are three phases: expansion, consolidation, and mop-up. The first two are fun, the last is enormously boring. Expansion is always about building, though, and consolidation is up to the player. I've said this before, but I'll repeat it here now anyway:

Civ1 and Civ2 had "gang up on the strongest" diplomacy. The games always devolved into Player vs The World. That's fun only up to a point. There's not much variety to the game under those conditions.

Civ3 discards the "gang on strongest" imperative and replaces it with "AI blindness". The AIs make no distinction between player and other AIs, and wars develop over dice rolls, mostly. Once any war breaks out, alliances form based on who has the cash to pay. As soon as player reaches first in territory, the game cannot be lost. At least I have never lost once I've taken the lead. There's a gargantuan mop-up phase from that point onward.

We need something in between these two extremes. We need it to be simple yet effective. The AI needs to cut the player some slack during the expansion phase, to pose obstacles but NOT dire threats to survival. Then in the consolidation phase, it's every nation for itself, until some fall and others grow strong. Then in the final phase, we need the AI to deliver some of both extremes: enough alliances to oppose the player and end the "first in territory, game over" model, yet enough fairness to avoid "Player vs The World" scenario. I think such a compromise should be possible, but it won't be easy to create.

If they fail to reform the diplomacy, nothing else is going to matter, folks. If we see a repeat of Civ3 diplomacy, then all the fancy proposals offered here will be overshadowed by the inevitability of victory once player is the strongest Civ on the planet. If they revert to Civ1 diplomacy, the player will crush all the AIs (if they are incompetent) or be crushed (if they are not).

Diplomacy trumps everything, because the force of entire civs turns on a dime with every diplomatic decision. Who aligns with whom, who attacks whom, and so forth. The rest only matters if they get the diplomacy right.

Offering players another weapon to exploit against the AI, in the form of cultural impact, with culture as weapon, would actually worsen the already troubled diplomatic system, making Civ even more of a war game. More complexity usually means more cracks in the game, more holes in the rules, more ways for the fun to be ruined or for aggressors to triumph. I'm not trying to be pessimistic here, but we should try to be honest about just how difficult it is to change a game like Civ and not break something.


- Sirian

 

[Trade-peror]

Well, Sirian, I can clearly see the logic of your thinking regarding the importance of getting the diplomatic system straightened out as the solution to Civ's war-game style, but I really am rather doubtful as to how this can be accomplished. Not only must the AI be programmed to avoid the extremes you mentioned, it would have to know when to use the alternatives in between. In other words, the AI would have to be able to think. It is entirely possible that by now AIs have the ability to think and plan, but I have yet to see any.

My solution to Civ's problems is to introduce a level of complexity that cannot possibly be controlled by the player to the extent that is possible in Civ.

If we see a repeat of Civ3 diplomacy, then all the fancy proposals offered here will be overshadowed by the inevitability of victory once player is the strongest Civ on the planet.

This is true, but only if the player can ever become the strongest Civ on the planet, and only if that actually matters enough to be able to crush other AIs at will. The complexity but general cohesiveness of the UET II means that it is very difficult to become the strongest because there are so many factors that need to be considered and dealt with, and a deficiency in any of them can easily lead to other problems due to the many interlocking factors and concepts. Furthermore, even if the human player did become the most powerful, it may not be possible to maintain that power for very long because of the many factors that would have to be controlled for that to happen, and the result is that it really does not matter that a human player can become the most powerful, because that hegemony is so fragile and precarious that it cannot be exploited to any significant extent.

Finally, I would say that the UET II's general approach to Civ is much more organic, and therefore the AI's inability to plan ahead is less detrimental, because it should be theoretically possible to just "turn on a civ and watch it grow" according to terrain and other conditions. In addition, the bulk of the complexity of the UET II lies in the many factors involved in every action, whose results may be a bit much for a human mind to predict, but much easier for an AI that will simply plug in all the numbers and come up with essentially the exact results, and perhaps even "calculate" its way ahead a few turns.

Of course, the player's involvement would be critical to effective development, due to the human ability to formulate actual long-range and strategic plans that may not seem immediately beneficial, so the UET II still requires human players to do more than just watch, especially if they are going to try to beat an AI that can take everything into account with a powerful CPU.

 

[ThePrankMonkey]

i have an idea.

i automate my workers later in the game to "fill in the blanks" for railroad in my territory and to clean up pollution BUT...if i have a city not connected to my main empire but its on the same continent then they try to go to that city through other civs, but i dont want to do ROP deals. can we have it so if they are within our border they STAY in our borders???

i dont know how hard it would be but i get annoyed having to stop every last one of them because they're heading into other civ's territory and i dont want them too.

i DO think diplomacy should be more indepth or have more features added onto it, like being able to call a vote to end a war (and should msot civs vote yes to end a war between whoever that war has a certain chance of ending, not a guarantee, but would require the UN to do this)

i want to be able to buy cities, one should have to pay through the nose for a city (even more if it has a resource in it). and the ability to sell a city. or trade cities!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You know, I think that if they adopted a 'Birth of the Federation' style intelligence/covert operations system, then it should be possible to defeat your 'enemies' without ever having to send out any units-especially in the modern age.

As for diplomacy, I don't think that the AI needs to be THAT complicated. All you need is a relatively simple algorithm where the AI ranks the following factors:

1) What is the other party asking for, and what are they offering in return?

2) What Culture Group does the other party belong to?

3) What government does the other party have?

4) What is the other party's current international standing?

5) What Religion does the other party subscribe to?

6) What are the other party's 'characteristics'? (i.e. commercial, militaristic)

7) What TONE is the other party using (demanding, threatening, placatory?)

8) If a third party is involved, what is their culture group, government, religion, etc.?

How much weight the AI gives each factor will depend on its characteristics and its SE settings (which you will often not know), but if it comes out ABOVE a particular threshold then they will support your offer/demand, if its below the threshold then they will say NO! How much the AI is above the threshold will help to determine the degree of support for your proposal.

What is interesting in my model, is that your PEOPLE operate under the same factors, and if you go in a direction, diplomatically, in opposition to these factors, then you run the risk of increased unhappiness and possible revolution/civil war!

The other key issue, as I raised above, is decoupling empire size from empire power. For instance, a vast empire should be NO guarantee of either a vast military, great wealth OR technological advancement! In fact, the resource and monetary cost of merely maintaining a large empire (whether compact but with lots of cities or vast with fewer cities-or both) should detract substantially from said empires ability to invest in a large OFFENSIVE military force, or heavily invest into technology or espionage! Also, large empires, under my culture flow model, risk large amounts of 'cultural diffusion' in their outermost cities, thus increasing the risk of regionalism and civil war!
Lastly I DO support a more organic culture system, as you all know, and I agree with T-P's suggestion for a more deep and complex series of variables (beyond the players direct control) which will make it difficult-if not impossible-to exploit the rules!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Sirian]

Also, large empires, under my culture flow model, risk large amounts of 'cultural diffusion' in their outermost cities, thus increasing the risk of regionalism and civil war!

This model should apply to empires that are forged by conquest, as that of Alexander of Macedon, or the Romans, or the Mongols, or the Nazis. Despotism only extends to the effective reach of the despot himself. However, free societies do not labor under such restriction.


The following represents the thinking forwarded by Thomas Jefferson on the governable size of a Republic. I'll begin with the section from his second inaugural address, in which he defended the purchase of Louisiana.

"I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by some, from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its union. But who can limit the extent to which the federative principle may operate effectively? The larger our association, the less will it be shaken by local passions." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural, 1805. ME 3:377

"Our present federal limits are not too large for good government, nor will [an] increase of votes in Congress produce any ill effect. On the contrary, it will drown the little divisions at present existing there." --Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1786. ME 5:259

"I suspect that the doctrine, that small States alone are fitted to be republics, will be exploded by experience, with some other brilliant fallacies accredited by Montesquieu and other political writers. Perhaps it will be found that to obtain a just republic (and it is to secure our just rights that we resort to government at all) it must be so extensive as that local egoisms may never reach its greater part; that on every particular question a majority may be found in its councils free from particular interests and giving, therefore, a uniform prevalence to the principles of justice. The smaller the societies, the more violent and more convulsive their schisms." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois d'Ivernois, 1795. ME 9:299

"The character which our fellow-citizens have displayed... gives us everything to hope for the permanence of our government. Its extent has saved us. While some parts were laboring under the paroxysm of delusion, others retained their senses, and time was thus given to the affected parts to recover their health." --Thomas Jefferson to Gen. James Warren, 1801. ME 10:231

"Montesquieu's doctrine that a republic can be preserved only in a small territory [has been proved a falsehood]. The reverse is the truth. Had our territory been even a third only of what it is we were gone. But while frenzy and delusion like an epidemic gained certain parts, the residue remained sound and untouched, and held on till their brethren could recover from the temporary delusion; and that circumstance has given me great comfort." --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Niles, 1801. ME 10:232

"It seems that the smaller the society the bitterer the dissensions into which it breaks... I believe ours is to owe its permanence to its great extent, and the smaller portion comparatively which can ever be convulsed at one time by local passions." --Thomas Jefferson to Robert Williams, 1807. ME 11:390

"I see our safety in the extent of our confederacy, and in the probability that in the proportion of that the sound parts will always be sufficient to crush local poisons." --Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:120

"A government by representation is capable of extension over a greater surface of country than one of any other form." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816. ME 14:491

"Where the citizens cannot meet to transact their business in person, they alone have the right to choose the agents who shall transact it; and... in this way a republican or popular government... may be exercised over any extent of country." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1816. ME 15:65

"Every nation is liable to be under whatever bubble, design, or delusion may puff up in moments when off their guard." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:381

"I have much confidence that we shall proceed successfully for ages to come, and that, contrary to the principle of Montesquieu, it will be seen that the larger the extent of country, the more firm its republican structure, if founded, not on conquest, but in principles of compact and equality." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois de Marbois, 1817. ME 15:130

"My hope of [this country's] duration is built much on the enlargement of the resources of life going hand in hand with the enlargement of territory, and the belief that men are disposed to live honestly if the means of doing so are open to them." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois de Marbois, 1817. ME 15:131


Source:

The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (ME)
Memorial Edition (Lipscomb and Bergh, editors)
20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04.

- Sirian

 

[dh_epic]

Sirian, I agree with many of the things you said about the AI.

The funny thing is that when I advocate an AI system where some agents play ruthlessly (Civ 1 and Civ 2 style) and other agents play with stability, maybe even realism, a lot of people suggest I'm putting a bandaid on a bad situation. That the real problem is gameplay. That the goal of the game shouldn't be to force 80% of the AIs to play realistically, and 20% to play competitively, but to make realism competitive.

Then when I suggest gameplay mechanisms based on reality (but not with realism as the primary goal), I get supporters, but immediately get assaulted on the inadequacy of the AI to handle a new system. The idea behind the culture system is to create a tension between cooperation and competition, rather than solve all the problems in the game. As it stands now, there is little reason to cooperate. The culture flow system changes the game so that cooperation is a road to successful competition, and to isolate ones' self is to experience immense amounts of setbacks. But still, people argue that it will just be one more way for the player to exploit the AI and work as a detriment to gameplay more than add to it.

I ask why not both? Why not make cooperation more profitable so it becomes a tool to win competition... while also improving the AI and rethinking their ultimate game winning strategy, away from "gang up" or "blind" strategies?

 

[Spatula]

Thanks TP - I did glance at your UET2 thread a while back but it was too much. I'll have another stab at it some time.

For me gameplay can be made better by:
-Both lowering the AI stupidity and making them fairer (asking for stupid deals and letting their troops wander all over your territory)
-Stacked combat
-Increasing the value of peace, not decreasing the value of war
-Improved culture

 

[Albow]

perhaps the problem lies in the fact that the only way to 'win' the game at the moment is pretty much about conquest and size. If instead you had different victory conditions, like Aussies idea of 'legendary actions', or perhaps new civil victories (like Utopia, everyone is happy in your civ),then the types of competition in diplomacy would change. No longer would you have the two models of Player vs The world or Blind AI - instead, different AIs would try to win in different ways.

I would really like to see diplomacy and spying become much more in-depth and central to the game. Thru diplomacy, smaller countries add more weight than they normally can against the land rich superpowers (and world opinion needs to affect your citizens happiness, esp in democratic govts)

I would also like to see diplomacy and spying being something that is like a tool-box that increase thru techs, but also not every civ has the same tools. Just think about the new gameplay aspects if only the Babs had the 'know-how' for making multilateral peace, or the english were better at increasing unrest in enemy civs (divide and conquer) ...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Thanks for the compliment, Albow, but Legendary actions was DH_Epic's idea, not mine. My idea was for 'Osmotic flow' of passive culture and an algorithm to help determine the chance of the AI accepting diplomatic proposals.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hmmm, actually, speaking of the AI 'algorithm' for diplomacy, I just thought I would give you a nice 'in-game' example of how I would envisage it working.

Say the human player is playing the English (Commercial, seafaring civ from the West European culture group). They have been engaged in a war for several turns against the Persians (a Middle Eastern Culture group). In order to 'justify' the war, the English player has ramped up his nations 'Nationalism' levels to almost maximum-in order to reduce war weariness. In spite of this, though, the player decides he wants to recruit some extra help in the conflict.

He turns to the Babylonians (another Middle Eastern civ), who are also currently a dictatorship, seeking a military alliance. Now, because the English nationalism is so high, the culture group of the Babylonians is going to be a MAJOR issue (and a fairly large negative to boot). Worse still, Babylon is a dictatorship, which is one of Englands most shunned government types. Also, adding to the mix, is that the Babylonians are currently militaristic AND have a 'socialist' ecnomy-both of which are inimical to the commercial mindset!

When all of these factors are taken into account, the English people are well below the threshold, for this turn, needed to 'accept' the deal. If the player goes ahead and makes the deal anyway, then the English people will become increasingly unhappy, and if they are currently quite democratic, they may even try to annul the deal behind the players back!!! The player can reinitiate the deal, but this will simply make the English even MORE unhappy-possibly leading to a 'constitutional crisis' (i.e. civil war or revolution).

As for the Babylonian AI, well they already have a firm dislike for the Persians, and feel very threatened by them. The English are also much more culturally and militarily powerful than the Babylonians are AND the English are offering a lot in return for the Alliance. This means that there is a VERY good chance that they will be above the threshold needed to accept the deal. How much will determine both how happy they sound about it, and how likely they might be to stab the English in the back at a later date !

Hope that all makes sense !

EDIT: Oh, on another note. I do agree with you, Sirrian, that Government type should impact the rate of cultural diffusion, as should your nations level of centralization and nationalism!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Albow]

ops, well, sorry DH_Epic. I gotta say I'd love to see something like what you are talking about Aussie, to be implemented. It really isn't even that difficult, as its all happening in the back ground.

This idea also adds a new possible dimension. A tech called 'polling' or 'national survey' or something, which would indicate to you what your poeple would think of any deal (whereas before, you would have to use your intuition)...

I Really like the idea of the people actually having some imput into Civ more than just Happy/Sad! If there were power blocks within the empire (and more the bigger it is) we get rid of Superpower syndrome, a new game element to play with (exploiting enemies within your rivals empire etc) - it could have so much play potential!

You could have power blocks for around the clergy, the military, and commercial interests ... later on, with labour unions and then finally, with later tech, you would have civil movements like green groups!! It might actually make the Modern Age intersting to play!!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Actually Albow, its funny you should mention 'power-blocks', as I think that might be what Sirrian was referring to in his mention of Tropico. Though I have never played it, I get the impression that your nation is comprised of different factions, who must be 'appeased' in different ways. I could see there being a 'mercantile', 'religious', 'military', 'labourer', 'middle class', 'scientific' and 'wealthy elite' faction, each of whom would have a different degree of influence, depending on what improvements you built, which governments you choose and what social engineering you perform. How much influence each faction has would then decide the degree of placation they would need in order to keep your nation from rising against you!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

Man, I'd love to see factions within an empire... to me, that would be instrumental in new diplomacy. The number of times nations have meddled in each others' affairs, "liberated" one group to put them in power over another group they dislike, or just generally keep a powerful foe divided...

Frankly, the best way to do this, in my experience, has been culture.

I like the osmotic flow based on proximity, but I would still consider the impact of trading luxuries and the movement of cultural units (philosophers, missionaries, artists) between cities. Again, the key is for two nations to cooperate and boost each others' culture, while leaving those who barbarically feud in the stone age.

But in the long run, if a region were divided enough by different culture (e.g.: the more german influenced part of the roman empire), let alone geography, quality of life, or history, it could start causing problems. And I'd love to be there to fuel the fire with espionage -- secret weapons deals, propaganda, sabotaging those buildings that keep the people in order.

And thanks Albow and Aussie -- I think that rewarding "good guy" behavior would make the game more interesting, even if the definition of "good guy" behavior is kind of hardwired into the game. Right now you can win the game being a Hitler, but nobody has won the game being a Churchill or FDR.

 

[Spatula]

I certainly like the idea of a flow of culture - but how much it flows should be determined by government (if the bigger culture is in a shunned government then it will have little effect because they want nothing to do with them), culture group (more effect if you are from same), and traits (having two traits the same increases flow, having both traits [and it can happen, certainly in Vanilla] the same has double the effect of that).

you can win the game being a Hitler, but nobody has won the game being a Churchill

I have won games with large amounts of alcohol in my bloodstream, but am quite unable to do so with a bushy narrow moustache (mainly because I can't grow one)

 

[dh_epic]

HAHAHA, oh man, I didn't expect that one.

But yes, I think a culture flow model should take into account government type. But like I said, the details are something that can be worked out to bring balance, fun, and fairness to the game. I more care for the essence of the idea -- I think just that in itself would lead to huge improvements in Civ.