Tribes; re-invented.

[Theov]

I watched a video

In short TL/DW: there is not much variety between the different civs. They have differences but in the end, they do the same thing.

So I wondered; what if I make the tribes (or Cultures) completely different from each other. E
Examples:
The Asians can't build any workers and settlers, but are great attackers and can take a lot of slaves. So they MUST go to war to survive.
Or.
The Americans can't build any culture.
Or the Europeans somehow have less income, so they will have to invade cities in order to maintain an army.

Wondering if you'd have any ideas on this, I was thinking about making the culture groups really different in play style.

 

[Blue Monkey]

More or less random:

Why not individual tribes instead of just culture groups?

Examples of techniques from existing mods/scenarios:

• EFZI does a pretty decent job of each tribe feeling unique. Mostly - just my impression - by having a great many unique units and upgrade lines. Vuldacon et al cleverly found a way to have land transports. Giving that tech / unit to only one tribe would definitely create a difference. The zombies also have quite different victory conditions from the other tribes.
  
• The Ancient Mediterranean mod gives each tribe a wonder that only they can build - with the exception of one which has three cultural traits instead.
• In Anno Domini: Different Dawn the Harrapan tribe's UU is a worker - they get an early boost to growth from that. But in the long run they have a big disadvantage because a UU that loses every combat can't trigger a golden age.
• Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire has very different development lines tribal groupings - at the cost of rigidly controlling research. Also, a whole era's tech tree is devoted to a linear timeline that drives access to most if not all of the things tribes can build.
• Several scenarios have experimented with some variation on a nature/animal tribe.

Some ideas I've brainstormed about but not developed to a playable state:

• Make UUs really unique: for example let only Romans have legions (armies). Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire had military units that could also do some worker actions. Maybe expand that into limiting who can build roads/railroads, or terraform.
  
• Extending the way the European tribes work in Rise & Fall of the Mughal Empire: Thalassocracy as a government form restricted to one tribe/group. Take advantage of being able to limit what can be built under only certain governments to give them access to ships with important advantages (earlier access to oceans, faster, more transport ability, better attack & defense). And start them on small islands with concentrated access to the resources needed. Let them be the only tribe with explorer and amphibious units. An Oceania scenario would be an extreme example - create a race to Easter Island where the only victory point is or limit space-race resources to specific islands.
  
• Diversity of whole unit lines or unit types: Have a UU in each era but only through upgrading pre-existing UUs. That might be one way to get around ADD's Harappan worker shortcomings. Another idea I'm experimenting with in a couple of mods: In the glacially slowly developing Ancient India mod I will limit aircraft (flying carpets, vimana, garudas) to just a couple of tribes. Dark Continent will have zeppelins being the only aircraft & limited to the Air Pirates tribe.
• Victory condition diversity: don't even know if this one is possible to this extent. Have victory points that only one tribe can use. give another the "capture the princess" way. A third the space race.
  
• A relatively simple idea that isn't very well thought out yet - a tribe with identical civ colors and similar unit types to the barbarians. Easy builds but limited techs. Keep the player guessing if they are attacking true barbarians or starting a war.
  
• Silk Road scenario - most tribes have good trade/tech abilities but limit their military to defensive units. Give others tradeable mercenary units. Then give the "Hordes" a very well-defended capital (immobile units auto-built from a wonder that requires the palace as a prerequisite is one way I've seen that done). But don't let them build settlers or workers - they have to capture other tribes' units & cities in order to expand.
• A radical idea discussed a long time ago: Nomads. Frequently changing resource locations to simulate seasonal plants and migrating herds. Very low cost palace balanced against limited city size & settlers costing enough pop to require city disbandment more often than not.

The fundamental issue is that the AI can't take advantage of a lot of the techniques that a human player can use effectively. So many of these ideas would only work realistically in a multiplayer scenario. Not a perfect solution but might be viable for a single-player game: give the player a selection limited to various "diversity" tribes and have most of the non-playable tribes of a more standard type which the AI can effectively use. Then there's the issue that a lot of the ideas mentioned above only work with pre-made maps (no random setups). I also wonder how badly the game engine will bog down if too many of the various techniques are crammed into one scenario.

 

[Quintillus]

A lot of good ideas there. I think the lack of diversity between civs is lamentable. It makes me think of Endless Legend, a 4X game which made a genuine effort to have significantly different races. I still need to play more of it, but there's certainly more difference than in Civ.

I suspect a challenge when implementing some of Blue Monkey's ideas, as well as your initial ones, will be balance. I ran into this in my Wrath of the AI story, where I gave each AI a unique and intended-to-be-fairly-strong bonus. It turned out one of them was vastly overpowered. I haven't finished the story yet, but the vastly overpowered civ has already overrun many of its neighbors, and is threatening to destroy me as well. Hindsight is 20:20, but at the time I started the story I didn't realize I'd created such an unbalanced civilization.

Or in other words, it's relatively easy to balance if civs are similar except for a unique unit or building. You can still get it wrong - Redcoats and Cossacks were lots of fun in Civ4 Vanilla 1.00, if you wanted a romp - but the consequences tend to be limited, in Civ's case usually to a specific part of the game. But if the entire mechanics are different, you might have it be unbalanced for the entirety of the game.

 

[Theov]

More or less random:

Why not individual tribes instead of just culture groups?

.

Because i want the different tribes to have a totally different feel to how you play with them.
Like given in my examples above.
But i am afraid it is impossible to do in civ3.

 

[Nanuk]

This is one of the things I've tailored civs with my upcoming mod, AGON:E. I will say this after some playtesting. The AI is not always the best at dealing with these limits. A lot of the times, for a civ that can't build settlers/workers, for example, they will just not do much at all until their one city is conquered. Another issue was with placing too many restrictions, and again the civs would just wait to die. And like Quin said, the opposite effect is you will also run into overpowered civs that will just wipe the map clean.

You have to experiment with it to get it close to what you want.

 

[nick0515]

In the fantasy mod I've been working on for years I have 8 civs. I've tried to make them all play somewhat differently. Orcs are the inly civ who can mobilise. Humans are the only civ who can build barricades. Dwarves have a unique resource that gives them more powerful buildings and units. Only the Elves can plant forrests and the forrests as I kind if defense that slows their enemies (the AI will use this with the right settings), vampires enslave sieleton warriors. Been so long since I modded it I can't quite remember the other advantgaes. Have also given them quite different units lines.

 

[Plotinus]

Because i want the different tribes to have a totally different feel to how you play with them.
Like given in my examples above.
But i am afraid it is impossible to do in civ3.

Without false modesty, I'd say I more or less managed it at least in my African scenario. But Quintillus is right - it's very, very difficult to do this kind of thing in such a way as to keep the game balanced. And as Solborn says, you are constantly battling with an AI that wasn't designed to do whatever it is you want it to do.

 

[Vuldacon]

Interesting thread here...

Tribes, Civs or Factions having a different feel in game play is basically accomplished by providing each with different Improvements, Wonders, Units and "Power Positions" that occur at different periods during the game.
If you have a game where the Human Player can play as other Factions in the game that are otherwise played by the AI, generally, the Human Player can play stronger than the AI. Because the Human Player can take advantage of things such as Lethal Land Bombardment (Lethal Shooting), Use Land Transports, Use Rebase for Land Units, etc... that the AI is not programed to use, this provides the Human Player with those different strengths. Therefore the AI should be compensated to contend with those strengths.

The problem is how to compensate the AI when a Human Player can play as the other Factions that are otherwise played by the AI. If we add compensation for the AI and then the Human Player plays that Faction, the Human Player has even more Strengths.
I think it is easier to set up basically equal but different strengths for each Faction that are played by the AI and the Human Player then have a Main Antagonist or Antagonists AI Player or Players that is or are compensated with more extreme Strengths to be able to contend with the Human Player. This is not only more powerful Units but more of them as well as providing more moves and or long airdrop distances for the AI. No matter what Faction The Human Player plays, the Human Player will have to help the other AI Factions of they will fall to the Main AI Antagonist or Antagonists. The AI will play like the AI is programed to play no matter what we provide it, so the key is What we provide it. So when compensating the AI Antagonist, we must ask ourselves 'What am I compensating for"? If the Human Player has Lethal Land Bombardment (Lethal Land Shooting) with Units and can sit back, Shoot and Kill AI Units without being Hurt then the AI needs compensation such as Many more Units and many that are far more powerful when directly fighting. Example: If the Human Player has 20 Units that can lethal Land Shoot and they have Blitz with 3 Moves each that would be a total of 60 Shots. Now what if the AI Antagonist sends 100+ more Powerful Units to attack? ...at least 40 Powerful AI Units would take a toll on the 20 Units played by the Human Player.

One of the most difficult areas to adjust is when adjusting and compensating the AI Civs that can also be played by the Human Player. This always requires a Great deal of game testing and adjustments.

There are many ways to obtain Variety between the Tribes, Civs, or Factions so they will have a different feel while being basically equal in strengths but Main Antagonists are easier to adjust and compensate if only playable by the AI.

In EFZI2, The Zombies are the Main Antagonist and although each other Faction can be played by the AI or Human Player, each have differences. As a Human Player, I can beat All AI Human Factions when playing as the Zombies within 32 turns to win the game. This is because I can take advantage of what the AI cannot. The Zombies are not meant to be played by Human Players but I allowed it for the sake of better understanding the AI Zombies and novelty.

Some of the Most Powerful abilities we can provide the AI is the ability to have more Units, the direct power of those Units and the ability to reach the Human Player's "Cities" and Units faster.

Rather than "beating your head against a wall" trying to have the AI build the Units you want them to build at any given time, take more control of the AI with Wonders and Improvements that Auto-produce Units when and how many you want the AI to have. By doing this, the AI is free to directly build the other Units they can. This creates more variety rather than the AI ONLY building Hordes of the same Units and not building others we want them to build as well.

The differences and "Feel" to each Tribe, Civ or Faction comes not only from Graphic differences in Units, there are Unit sounds and Music as well and although these differences are only sensory differences, they do change the "Feel". The direct strengths that we provide the AI is what really makes each Tribe, Civ or Faction more unique in Game Play, regardless of the AI programing. "Thinking Out of the Box".

...The thing about "Game Balance" is, there Must be imbalances within the game that varies between Civs throughout the game or there will be No Balance... Only stalemate.