True Rise & Fall of civs

[Naokaukodem]

I think the first Civ6 expansion is kinda imposturous in its title. Indeed, there are been ideas in this forum that pushed the idea of Rise & Fall of civs much more higher.

One of them is the ability to continue to play the game when you have no more cities, for example.

Let's say you are a civ, but in the way of an entity that is organic. More like the sum of your people, your culture, and your government. If you lose one of them, you could continue to play with various elements, like units or diplomacy.

To obtain that, we would need something like a stability factor, but without governors. It is to say, nothing is eternal and you WILL turn into dust one day (turn) or the other.

Now, the era score of R&F is interesting here. It could mean that you can achieve something in a relative small amount of time. And be reminded in the future as a great civilization, if not the greater. (numbers would conclude it)

So my idea here is to have an ever-changing map when civs truly rise and fall, in front of the player, him included. That would require some chaotic factors, like less controllable "stability" or warfare, or more aggressive ones. Should we accept that by "chaotic", randomness could be a thing ? Maybe.

The global idea is to have players that are trying their best in order to achieve something great, be it in antiquity, classical era, middle age, renaissance, modern, atomic or information era. And maybe why not, by an extraordinary concur of circumtances, in two of them.

This doesn't mean you have to be dead in the other eras, you can be "revived" like Egypt, you can migrate and rule "emptied" places like Franks. (this means you can migrate and still be relevant), you can slowly grow in later eras like USA (that means means to grow in power rapidly, not only from the start to the end), and add any example to your convenience, pls. Thx.

P.-S. : I think this is a vast subject, and I don't feel I can cover it up all the way myself only.

 

[killmeplease]

yes it could be designed in a way that a civ inevitably collapses sooner or later, and that making great things would diminish its lifetime but give more victory points than just turtling for survival for as long as possible (or, surviving for long could be just one source of VP)

 

[Naokaukodem]

Exactly. An example for greatness for "turtling" would be China. This country, even if it has been conquered once by the mongols, have kept its culture. Keeping one's culture could be a great achievment, during a span of an entire game. Eventhough I have no idea how we could make it gameplay wise without too much obviousness. If any kind of victory is not obvious though, I wonder if the randomness wouldn't have too much impact. Like you play a game and having no control on it, praise the gods. I guess it could be middle-way, you have limited control so you have means to do your best at least. However, there's a problem with that, as difficulty levels. Higher levels could mean we have less control, or that the AI would have more. Unless we let aside the concept of difficulty level. Yeah, I like it !

But not to forget that in Rise & Fall, there is Fall, but Rise also. I think we should dedicate specific mechanics in growing up a civilization other than settlers, builders, conquests. I had an idea once, it was to give any tile on the map a cultural property, representing the nomads and hunter-gatherers everywhere. If you can't keep contact with your planted cities, then they convert to the strongest/closest culture. A good way of building up a true country, it is to say something with more than one city, could be to build them on the sides of the same river. Egypt made it (Nil), Mesopotamia did it. (Tigre & Euphrate) another way would be to have between cities high conductivity, it is to say tiles like grassland or sea (with the seafaring tech). Roads could play a great role too, by linking two cities. Caravans, same thing. (trade in general) Maybe introduce some new kind of trade, like international now but internal ? (goods, a la Civ2) I think we should be able to merge also two civs that are on the same river, to represent the cooperation needed in irrigating the land.

 

[dunkleosteus]

I think the Golden Era system should be changed a bit. Having an arbitrary threshold for Normal, Dark and Golden ages is dumb. I think getting a golden age should be based on how much better you are than those other civs you know. Whether your people feel prosperous should be relative to the state of the other states. There should also be a component of comparing yourself to the previous era. Even if you still produce the most era score, you also have to produce more era score than you did in the last era. This means that you can't just ride a golden age forever.

There should also be harsher penalties for dark ages. Like extreme loyalty penalties. The dark age policy cards should be designed to provide loyalty with a penalty. Imagine if instead of 0.8 loyalty per citizen in a dark age, you had 0 loyalty per citizen. You'd have to use dark age policy cards to get the loyalty back. Maybe if you had a theocracy, you could use a policy card that would generate a ton of loyalty from religious followers. It would mean you'd have to go HAM on keeping your religious followers as high as possible. Maybe you'd take a few other penalties from it. Of the medieval era governments, I think Merchant Republic should be the hardest to get loyalty from during a dark age (maybe you can get loyalty from trade routes or something). Monarchy and Theocracy should be slightly easier, but different. There should be more than one way to generate loyalty with each government based on the dark age policy cards.

Later, Democracy is the most difficult to survive a dark age with. It should be possible under special circumstances, but otherwise it should be hard. I imagine the failings of the government leading to revolt and a dictator or communist leader taking over in its place. Switching back to an old government after a dark age shouldn't give penalties, but switching to an old government outside of an ending dark age still should.

 

[killmeplease]

randomness may come from uncertainty of undertaking.
e.g. the player sets a formal goal, if failed -- it cripples the civ alot. can get out of trouble by setting another goal but if failed again consequences are much worse..
it can be loyalty or enthusiasm or something like that, a credit given the player by its people

achieving civs can attract people from other civs (or tribes, adding them to the civ peacefully), so the players taking the risk are rewarded and those playing safe lose their people..
in this scheme random things like climate change wouldn't be unwanted (like now in civ games) as those would provide opportunities for the player (as a leader)
hard times welcome!

 

[dunkleosteus]

To clarify my earlier post, I think the Age system should work like this:

Before you meet other civs, you will almost always be in normal ages. If in an era you achieve significantly more era score than the previous era, you can enter a golden age. If you achieve significantly less, you may enter a dark age. If you achieve a little less or a little more, you're in a normal age.

Once you meet other civs, you can achieve golden or dark ages based on your standing compared to them. If your relative standing in this era is low compared to other civs and lower than your standing in the last era, you can enter a dark age. If your score is significantly better than your previous era, you can enter a golden age. If your score is significantly better than your previous era and you get the best standing in this age, you can enter a heroic age.

So basically, if you're in a Dark age (low) and you achieve enough so that you're roughly average, you can enter a golden age from a dark age. If you're in a dark age and you achieve the best standing in an era, that's the only way you can get a heroic age.

The point of a system like this is so that the top X% of civs are in a golden age and the bottom X% are in a dark age in every era. A civ shouldn't be able to ride golden ages through the whole game, so the threshold for the next golden age should be relative to your previous state.

Dark ages are also designed to be punishing. When the era score goal moves with the average of all players, it's a lot more intense. You can't just reach the score and coast to victory from there. The higher you make your era score, the better for you and the worse for your enemies.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Here is what I wrote previously to this thread, in an answer to another :

Firstable, I think that mechanics introduced in Rise & Fall are interesting, if not VERY interesting, unfortunatelly they do not seem to be used to half their potential. For example, the era system with points only serves a mere dark/normal/Golden/heroic age, with mere bonuses to pick up that are still SO shy, it's such a shame. BUT, this system could be used to implement a system of victory based on eras. The points are perfect.

For example, there could be a winner for each era, a second and a third, and depending on your place on the podium you would get Prestige Points. At the end of the game, whenever it ends and in whatever maneer, the guy with the best prestige wins. For example, if you are the Roman and win the antiquity era, you could be in good position to win the game. Same if you are USA (for modern era).

Even if you "lose" the game totally at some point, you could still win at the end if no one outmatches you. For example, you rule the world during 1000 years, and your culture influences and is admired long after you're dead as an empire. (Rome) Or you are a superpower of the XXth century and you snowball into ruling the future. (USA) The battle between the two is interesting. Which empire deserves the victory ? Which is the most popular, the most known or admired ?

That system would make for a true RISE & FALL of civs, with sharper edges for obliteration, less controllable than they are with gouvernors now. You could choose to go all military, so that your fall may never come, but in doing that you may not win any era, because you would not have build infrastructure or wonders (Egypt). Although, conquests are a great matter of admiration. But they should come with a side effect, like now with influence but without gouvernors. Or by being harder, even artificially. (for example conquest would be nothing without culture, because otherwise your conquests would remain with their former culture and you would be kicked out)

So, you can choose to bright like the Sun, for a small period and knowing you will fall later, but hoping that these achievments would be enough to warrant you the final victory. Or you could turtle more and be the inventor of agriculture first, so that people in the XXIst century would remind you as the craddle of civilization. You could build wonders, so that one of them could still be admired in the future, like Egypt with Pyramids. (Pyramids should definitely have a special status, like Agriculture, conquests, infrastructure, prosperity, etc.)

Every edge to victory should have its side effects. If you turtle too much into prosperity, for example if you have in mind to remain from the start of the game to its end, you would attract barbarians or other civs in conquering you aggressively, and of course, having sacrified military, you would succomb pretty quickly. The idea there is that you can go for maximum two domains plainfully, BUT at the cost of neglecting others. Now in Civ it's a little like this also, but you still can do well in more than two domains.

Firstable, the military aspect is pretty much trivial and you will conquer your enemies pretty easily with a couple of units that wander and gain experience while you are doing something else. It should not be that way. For example, what if units should be constantly supported by a part of the construction capacity of a city ? Same for upgrading, it would cost hammers instead of gold, or maybe both. And/or we could bring back the food maintenance cost of units.

...To be continued ?...

P.-S. : another mean to "bright and fall" would be to overexploit the land and then deplete its resources so you find yourself in a poor country. Like sawmills VS chopping forests, but more significant and within all types of production.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

This view was possible as a simple option in civ 3, respawn civ, with it on, a new settler would have spawned somewhere, if off, if you had a settler, or possibly one scout, that could enter some ancient site and convert them to a new city (Expansionist civilizations especially had that ability), untill uour last settler or scout was killed, your civ would have lived. If it could hide in a boat, it would mean it could theoretically keep war at your civ forever. This can be done.

On a wider optic, there's an equalization process that is not beneficial to gameplay. This is largely because of the bottleneck problem. There can not be 10 civ in the game, and every capital the size of 10 by the same timeline. There must be a limit. Medicines and agriculture should get an entire tech tree of its own. Rome was 1 MIllion by 0 AD, Alexandria 1 MIllion, but they had medicines, acqueducts, thermae. You can't have a Nomad population build acqueducts. Mongol empire could move their centers. Like cities on water in Civ BE. Have huge territory and army without have a single city, rather living on occupied Chinese territories. They live off rivers and lakes, and open Tenger.

River changing course can disrupt a city. A Longer acqueduct may be needed. Rome has in fact 5 famous acqueducts. Not Just one. No maintainence of the acqueducts, and city will stop growing. Kill the acqeuducts, the siege could end with the total kill of a civ. Dark age, acqueduct were badly pillaged. for 1500 years was unable to raise from the dust and not untill 1900 pass the 1 million mark. Cities in India and China where perhaps 6 to 10 millions during their golden ages, around Marco Polo trip.

Fascism in civ 3 also had a relevant mechanic, you could not spread culture untill the majority of the pop. would have been assimilated. You had to start over gaining territory. Plant a spy in, and support the rebel cause, and your dead civ could get back ingame. So why not allow a ghost civ to survive in the Spy/rebel section?

 

[Naokaukodem]

@ Lazy sweeper

Yeah, this is the option that let you survive even if you still have a worker or something. I think it's still in Civ5. The problem with that is that rebuilding, if possible (aka you have a settler left), would be useless because you would have to begin it all over. As you say, cities size and civs power are exponential, or linear in that way of view. There should be possibilities for a civ to reborn and earn back some of its power, you should be able to plant cities later with more pop and infrastructure (not just for mods), massive migration like the railroads allowed deeply in industrial era should be reproduced, and last but not least, population shouldn't evolve linearily, but chaotically and brutally. Examples : You plant Roma in Italy and call for people to join it through all the peninsula. At turn 3, you pop is 8 or 10. There's a plague in the middle age, your pop is divided by 3 in a single turn. There's a war, same thing. You enter a golden age, you pop jump to x2. Etc. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.