Variable TIME SCALE

[Portuguese]

I find it weird, but after I get knights, I pass 85%+ of my time in WAR!

Is this not strange? Have you considered history?
Even the crazy Americans with so many "peace ensuring" missions abroad can't keep this pace!

So, what I propose is this (at least in Single Player... you can make suggestions for MP)

Whenever you are at war, time scale goes down from years to months (50 years > 50 months, 2 years > 2 months,...), with the adequated increase in turns to make researches, worker actions, and all non-military issues.

City productions not related with war mobilization would be 12 times slower, while military things would be done the quick way (making you abandoning all but Wonders, and sometimes delaying a war so you can build something trully important).

There would be Wonder Wars (in the last turn, you would declare war and send some armies to sabottage it's almost complete wonder)!

So, what do you think?

 

[sir_schwick]

How civ militaries and units worked would need a heavy overhaul, as well as adding in logistics and other such things. With that in mind, I would say yes. However that is a big if.

 

[JanSobieski]

I think this would be more realistic to have in the modern ages seeing as how alot of wars don't last more than a few weeks or months, maybe a few last a couple years or a couple dozen years if they're really long. In Civ, a war that lasts a couple of turns could end up being 20 years or more even in the modern ages. Also, I think that it's unrealistic for that amount of time to pass for ships to travel distances allowed in Civ3 but that's getting off topic.

 

[Corvex]

Well, considering that the second punic war between Rome and Carthage took twenty-seven years whereas the wars that I tend to fight in Ancient times regularly take more than five hundred, I am inclined to like this suggestion.

 

[thescaryworker]

Sounds great. But:
Will techs be researched at the same rate?
Will movement speeds stay the same per turn?

 

[DexterJ]

would this affect everyone or just the people at war? cos if the former slow time would probably be constant throughout the game, if the later you could go to war just to speed up your production

 

[Loppan Torkel]

You would probably have to zoom down to the specific area if you scale time, which would make it a new game more like Age of Wonders.

It's a nice idea but I don't think it's worth it, they have to change to much to make it work, they could just as well implement a realtime combatpart a la Rome: Total War.

 

[The Fjonis]

Naah, I'm not so sure. Let's face it - the whole time thing in civilization is kinda weird anyway. (reaching modern ages in 1500, units spending 750 years moving three tiles in the beginning of the game as opposed to 3 years late in the game (three turns = different amounts of years)) etc.

 

[Portuguese]

I think this would be more realistic to have in the modern ages seeing as how alot of wars don't last more than a few weeks or months, maybe a few last a couple years or a couple dozen years if they're really long. In Civ, a war that lasts a couple of turns could end up being 20 years or more even in the modern ages. Also, I think that it's unrealistic for that amount of time to pass for ships to travel distances allowed in Civ3 but that's getting off topic.

In ancients also. If a war take 20/30 turns, that is more than 1000 years!!!
A bit unrealistic, I say.

 

[Portuguese]

My suggestion:

Just Civs in war would move, other s would be "freezed", just keeping Diplo iniciatives (till they entered a war.)
If a war took 40 years and we are in a 20-year turn, the rest of the AIs would work in the 2 correspondent years in the normal time scale.
At any time we could visit other civs and ask them to get in.

Techs would be working like the other civs: juts in the "normal turns" years.
To avoid you enter a war when you research military tradition, and in the turn before the other does, the Civ2 "take city, take tech" would have a percentage of possibility (say 25%)

All non-military activities would wrk only in "normal-turn" years. Things you could do in a war time period (like the ones you can proclam after nationalism) would be produced in war turns (20x or so faster). This of course excludes any wonder: or this would become a Wonder-rush bug.

 

[Hyronymus]

Let's assume I play the dutch (as usual) and I declare war on Germany (no pun intended). Do only Germany and my nation get a slower time scale and do the other civilizations continue to have their normal time scale? If not, me going to war has an impact on non-war waging nations too because their time scale slows down too. 'No biggie' you might think but lets reverse the situation now: Germany declares war on Russia. Going by the above rule this would mean that my nation gets a slower time scale too just because Bismark can't help chasing Catherine.

All this is preventable by having the time scale slowdown for the fighting nations alone. But then you introduce a massive skewedness in the gameplay. And that's just the beginning IMO. Assume (again) I'm at war with Germany. Before I started the war all my cities were 2 turns away from finishing Swiss Mercenaries. It's 1250 AD which means 2 turns equal 10 years. With the war started my time scale slows down to 1 year per turn meaning my Swiss Mercenaries will be done in in 2 years instead of 10. Now that's a fine cheat unless you modify production to drop at the same rate. If you do that then there is absolutely no point left in slowing the time scale: production stays equal but now you're looking at your cities for 10 turns before they finish their Swiss Mercenaries instead of 2 turns. And I thought people wanted Civ4 to evolve quicker...

BTW: I voted no

 

[Kosez]

My suggestion:

Just Civs in war would move, other s would be "freezed", just keeping Diplo iniciatives (till they entered a war.)
If a war took 40 years and we are in a 20-year turn, the rest of the AIs would work in the 2 correspondent years in the normal time scale.
At any time we could visit other civs and ask them to get in.

I agree with you that wars last too long. But your concept is maybe too complicated. I woul suggest instead more turns for units. At least 3 for infantry units, 5 for ships. And less turns for completeing units.

 

[rhialto]

I don't want variable time scales when you go to war.

The important point is that you don't need a precise reflection of reality. What you need is something that gives the feel of reality. This is why the idea that turns are 20 years (or however long) doesn't really matter. Once immersed in the game, people think in turns, not years.

 

[sealman]

The years have no bearing at all on the game. They are just there to help the player realize the passing of time.

And I would not want "my" turn to freeze while two or three AI civs go at it.

 

[Darwin420]

Given that "years" is nothing more than an abstraction put there to give a flavor of passing time to the game, and that in reality all that matters is the turns, then I would say this is unworkable. Since Civ traditionally works in the manner of classic board game play (turn-based strategy), the year/month/day moniker doesn't matter, as long as turn-by-turn things run smoothly.

I don't want any real-time elements in Civ - I think that would ruin the entire flavor of the game, and destroy the trust we board-gamers have for the franchise! Civ is probably the only title left that keeps the old feel of a strategy board game. Keep it pure from RTS (because there are plenty of RTS titles out there).

I echo sealman - I don't want my turns to, in effect, freeze when the AI is at war with each other.

Plainly, I think it's just unworkable.

Just my 2 copper pieces.

 

[dh_epic]

I echo rhialto, sealman, and Darwin420. People obsessed with timeline realism have their priorities out of wack. Sometimes I wish they'd get rid of the year counter just so people would learn not to obsess with "why does it take a Roman Legion 100 years to cross Rome?!" or "Why is my Warrior still alive after 3000 years?! They should naturally reproduce, and have baby warriors, which grow up, and thus lose the experience advantage of the original warrior!"

Asking the game to freeze for 90% of the players so two other players can experience timeline realism is ... well... a little too much???

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yeah, when I first saw the thread I wondered if it was asking about abolishing the variable Time scale that Civ already has (making the game a few thousand turns long) [which I would prefer as a way of making ancient ages just as interesting as later ones..but which would require the game to Really speed up turns]

Adding in this might be a nice idea, but the problem is the impact on the non-warring Civs (especially late game, some computers have problems just handling one turn of AI movement, forget 10-20)

 

[Justy]

It pretty obvious that there are some wierd time issues in Civ. Wars should not range in the hundreds and thousands of years. I think that time is not so much the issue. The issue is the speed at which units move.

1. Ships must move faster.

2. When horseback riding is discovered all units should gain a speed bonus.

3. Units in a stack should gain the ability to form a column. This is not the same as an army. A column would gain an additional speed bonus. This bonus would be because of the existence of logistical units such as wagon trains, jeeps, dueceandahalfs, humvees, etc. If these units are wiped out in the ensuing battle then the column would revert to an ordinary stack of units.

3. You should also be able use an enemies roads and railroads.

4. River transit should be available up and down stream when tech allows.

5. Since it would unfair for the defenders to have attacking units speed in without a chance to respond I would grant defenders a chance to auto-intercept attackers. These defenders if in this mode would have a 2 or 3 square surveying radius. If an attacker were detected the unit would move immediately adjacent to the attackers and respond. The result of this combat would be a normal attack vs. defence encounter. I would also give the defender a percentage to ambush the attackers in which their defence is doubled. Fortified units would lose this ability.

Wars should be quick and decisive. To put a buffer against this increased speed actually inflating wars I would suggest increasing the monetary and social cost of war. Wars contrary to belief are not good for an economy. The more units involved the greater the drain on the economy. I would also allow defecit spending. You could prolong the war and press on but you would put yourself further into red ink. The farther you sink the worse your economy gets.

I think these proposals would speed up wars and make them more realistic. It would also make planning for war more important. Also without wars taking up so much time in gameplay it would allow other interactions between civs to become more important. I understand that those who see Civ solely as a wargame will disagree, but I would like to see other avenues explored. I do enjoy the war aspect of Civ and I could always play Civ 3 or Civ 2 or Civ 1. Civ 4 should offer a little more.

 

[Hyronymus]

Wars did last long before conscription became common. With the average skill of the mercenaries you could drag 10.000 to a battlefield to fight 1000 peasents and still loose (check Flanders history). Also, the Dutch waged an 80 year war against Spain. It didn't really last 80 years but more 80 springs & summers. In the winter and autumn there were hardly no hostilities because the poor terrain conditions for both sides.

I still don't get that people complain about the timeline according to wars btw. If you think waging war takes too long you could do several things to end it. You can either sign a peace treaty, build a larger army to have some sort of Blitzkrieg or wage war in stages. But let's be honest: how many people play Civ for the fun of building cities, Wonders and workers? Don't we all play Civ to build military units and defeat our enemies on the battlefield? If you have 'short wars', what will you be doing in all the turns that don't need you as Chief of State? Looking at your belly button bores quickly.

 

[Kosez]

Don't we all play Civ to build military units and defeat our enemies on the battlefield?

But the problem is, that before you raise an army large enough to wage blizkrieg, you and your opponent discover tech which makes your army obsolete.
Some people, as I understand, are trying to convince us, armies should be raised quicker and move faster. Or technologies should be researched slower. Anything that would make you sometimes feel more like a field commander than a Pentagon clerk.