Variation of an old Question

[Grey Randall]

We've talked about unit wishes, additional civs, ADM mods.

I'm curious, what other things would you alter in Civ 3 once you get the ability?


The aggression levels and culture types are a couple... for instance, there are times when I thing the aggression level for the Indians is way off... or I think to myself "Religious? Nah, those folks were more industrious than religious!"

As I've mentioned in past threads there have been a few scenarios I've created where I made things fit in more with how I understand them... for instance allowing irrigation on hills (hillside/terraced gardening, which had been around B.C.), or actually gave explorers attack capabilities, changed the ADMs of some units based upon things I've either read, or experienced first hand while in the Navy. I've even made adjustments to some of the resource requirements and wonders

Someone in another thread commented that "historically accurate" was not a term that could be applied to Civ. I've noticed that with the editor, that actually can apply, just depends on how much time and effort you want to put into it.

I'm just curious to see what everyone else has planned.

 

[dojoboy]

Hmmm,.....

(1) Special Forces Unit (6/8/2) w/ the ability to retreat to pillage more enemy improvements. It'd be nice to have a cloaked capability.

(2) Intelligence Agency small wonder allows one to steal a tech after capturing an enemy civ. This is probably not capable within the games coding.

(3) United Nations great wonder acts as a third palace re: corruption. To be useful, it'll need to be built strategically within your empire, meaning a Great Leader may be needed to rush it, due to the city's corruption rate.

(4) Unique-unit mod for every civ; no more identical units w/ different colors.

 

[Grey Randall]

Hmmm..

from what I've seen with the editor on my kids' windows machine #1 and #2 might not be and are not (in order) possible (Brad, is that correct?)

#3, yup, can be done. in fact that's something I did on one of my mods. However, I think that certain government types shouldn't get the corruption loss if their civ has the UN.. just my skewed view of the way things are, I suupose.

#4 very possible.. just bloody tedious in doing!

 

[Txurce]

I look forward to other players' scenarios, but if I screw around with the editor, it will be to create some killer civs. Apart from adjusting aggression ratios (4 is probably most dangerous), I would also stress offensive units over defensive ones, and marketplaces as soon as possible. I'll be more specific when I actually have an editor, and can see what changes are possible.

 

[heikeott]

Not sure whether to post this here or in one of the corruption threads, but here goes. Here are some things I've thought about as options for dealing with what I (and apparently some others as well) perceive as excessive corruption.

1) City Improvement - Prison. Must have courthouse to build, advance req. is Democracy. Cost 100 sh. Reduces corruption by a percentage OR reduces corruption to a max level (40 or 50%) making it an unnecessary improvement for cities that are not terribly corrupted. Also prevents anarchy and destruction of city improvements during civil disorder (still no production in disorder, just nothing gets destroyed and you can't be thrown into anarchy.)

2) Quasi-military unit "policeman" or "city auditor." Costs same as swordsman or pikeman. No A/D/M, but reduces corruption & waste by 10% when garrisoned in city. No effect during anarchy, max of 1 effective under despotism & communism, 2 under monarchy, 3 under republic & democracy.

3) Small wonder (called Capitalism, or maybe Labor Unions? ) that cuts shield loss due to corruption (I think that's right, or is it waste?) in half in all cities.

4) Small wonder called the IRS that turns 40% of waste in all cities into tax revenue, but makes 10% of populace unhappy. (i.e. in cities pop 10 or more 1 unhappy citizen, cities of 20+ 2 unhappy citizens, cities of 30+ 3 unhappy citizens.) So you could get more gold from those far-flung cities but you'd have to work a little harder at keeping your happiness levels up .. ew, maybe that's a liittle too close to reality for CivIII! (taxation without representation, anyone?)

5) Ability to build one FP for each 12 cities. IE if your civ gets to 24 cities you could build a second FP, and a third if you get more than 36 cities, etc.

Just some ideas that have been taking up space in my head. I feel better now that they're out!

 

[Grey Randall]

Don't think the multiple FPs is doable with the editor... However, I do like the idea about the IRS... Just one question about prison. why would Democracy be a requirement? Prisons, in one form or another exist or existed in almost every culture regardless of government type. I do agree that a courthouse should be required.. but democracy? Tower of London existed under a monarchy, the Bastille as well... not to mention all those prisoners under the roman empire that became gladiators.

 

[Grey Randall]

say, that brings up another city improvement

(Sorry, got the Buccaneers on the brain. T minus 4 days and counting!!!!!!!)

SPORTS FRANCHISE!!!!!

Hmm.. wonder if we should come up with a laundry list for Sid and the folks at Firaxis for Civ IV? like sort of a "side quest" a-la Square Soft's Final Fantasy series... Happiness in your cities not only grows shrinks depending on your improvements, but on how much you invest in them... you can build a stadium, sure.. but if you're not throwing enough entertainment resources into your town, or something like that, your sports franchise will pack up and move elsewhere... Kinda like the Colts skulking out of Maryland, or the Oilers leaving Texas, the Browns going to B'more... The Cardinals leaving St. Louis for Arizona, etc.

eh.. maybe it'll be too much to juggle.

Defecting scientists from other civ's would be rather interesting... an effective propaganda campaign could cause scientists to defect... bringing their up to date research on a technology with them!... or in the case of a war, capturing their scientists and taking their resarch up to date and adding it to your own (Rocketry from the Germans post WWII, for example)

Gonna have to crack open the editor tonight and see what I can get away with, and what I can't.

 

[heikeott]

Grey Randall asked:

Why would Democracy be a requirement?

Well, I dunno. I was just trying to come up with something at least marginally relevant that didn't come way too early in the game like monarchy or code of laws. It's a prison, not a dungeon!
Think of a better one!

Heike

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Originally posted by Grey Randall
Don't think the multiple FPs is doable with the editor...

Oh, it's definately doable. Just make another city improvement, make it a small wonder, and give it the same flags as forbidden palace. Ta da. Give it a creative name, civilopedia entries.... And you're done. Only thing is, it will pop up the same time as the original FP, since that pops up when you have 1/2 OCN.

 

[dojoboy]

Since we're tossing stuff around, I'd like to see periodic elections where 2 - 3 political factions form based on how you're running the "country." If you lose, power is shared w/ a coalition, sort of like Civ2's Senate. In many ways, I liked the Senate.

 

[Grey Randall]

I used to get so bloody frustrated when the senate would overrule me on stuff

 

[dcaint]

I think most of these folks are right on the money on the corruption issue. I mean, really- are we to believe that Honolulu is less productive than Baltimore solely because of where it is?

That second FP idea could work- just set the tech flag to later in the game, which would keep it from popping up at the same time as the first one. This could not be tied to # of cities, but might as well be- who would want to spend the time building more than one too close to each other?

Another thing I liked from CivII was the idea that civs can be fractured- that is, if you capture the capital there is a chance that the whole civ collapses and becomes 2 new ones. This could add an intriguing element, especially on those huge maps.

 

[jpalacino]

As far as the prison goes, what about the police station? It seems to me that that improvement serves a similar function -- although I wouldn't be averse to decreasing corruption further by adding it as an additional controlling factor -- it would also be nice to bridge the long gap in time between Code of Laws and Communism.

If it is linked to Democracy that puts it in the intermediate "time frame", although at the end of the Middle Ages, with Communism potentially following rapidly in the early Industrial Ages.

I agree that there should be differences in the corruption rates -- I would think that Democracy would be better over long distances than Communism (just look at those far Eastern provinces in the former Soviet Union -- it is amazing to me that they didn't totally drift back to the stone ages). I think that Democracy should have the same rate of corruption across all cities (like the current Communism setup), but the corruption levels should be significantly lower.

There's my 2 cents, now back to the game!

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Originally posted by dcaint
Another thing I liked from CivII was the idea that civs can be fractured- that is, if you capture the capital there is a chance that the whole civ collapses and becomes 2 new ones. This could add an intriguing element, especially on those huge maps.

Ahh, yes, I loved that. I was recently thinking about different ways that cities can break off and form a new civ. One way, of course, is the capture of the capital of a large civ. Another could be sort of like a culture flip, only without the influence of an outside civ. Say you have some far away colonies ( a designated amount of spaces from the capitol), experiencing massive corruption/unhappiness/civil disorder, and have little/no culture. They could, if something provokes them ( war weariness, bribe, barbarians, etc ) just break off, and set up a new civ.

For both of the above ways, they would have the same advances as the previous civ. All the people in the new cities would become citizens of the new civ. They would get a modern defender (as resources/techs permit), so that they can't be reclaimed too easily by the "mother country." And, let's not be silly. China would not be able to split into "China" and "France" ( In civ 2, I believe I once split the Greeks into the Greeks and Iroqouis ).

EDIT: More stuff I remembered:

Expanding a bit more on the "breaking off." If that civ had previously conquered another civ completely, as in totally whiped them off the map, they should be able to somehow stage an "uprising" against the conquering civ, and possible reclaim their former territory. Of course, this might just get more annoying than useful, since you would probably just re-conquer them in the next few turns. But, if implemented properly, I would love to have it.

 

[heikeott]

What I really want to change is the way pollution is handled. the terrain keeps changing on me due to global warming, and Egypt (that's me) is not even producing any pollution yet, except for 2 or 3 units in 2 cities that have factories and hydro plants.

I think it is not fair that I have to suffer for the AI's lack of concern about pollution and there is nothing I can do about it! They should either make pollution a higher priority to the AI or give us something like the Civ II solar plant that we can build to mitigate it.

I'm 3 turns from building United Nations and the building city just went into starvation because 1/3 of it changed to desert!!!

Are there any threads around here that discuss AI idiosyncracies, idiocies, anecdotes, etc.? I'm not a warmonger but I'm about ready to build me up a military and go after England just to wipe that supercilious smirk off of Elizabeth's face. Yes, I know, it's just a game, but if she tells me "England already knows more about the world than you do" one more time....:saiyan:

Heike

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Yes, something really needs to be done about pollution. In a way, it does represent the way pollution is handled in the real world. A couple of the nations of the world are producing most of the pollution, and it affects the whole world. Now, one thing that is not correctly represent is a way to tell nations to cut down on their pollution.

Btw: there ARE solar plants, recycling plants, mass transit, etc, that help to reduce pollution. The AI just doesn't build them... Perhaps if there was a way to force the AI's, through diplomacy, to build them, then maybe I'd be happy.

 

[heikeott]

Has anyone else ever, when trying to win by SR or diplomacy in a long game, gotten an ROP and sent workers the AI civ's territory to clean up the pollution?

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Well, I haven't sent them in to clean up pollution.. but I did send them in and changed all their irrigation to mines and mines to irrigation... I usually don't get too much pollution, so it doesn't bother me too much. A maximum of 5 of my squares get transformed per game, and I'm ok with that. My workers are usually pretty busy tending to my own pollution, unless I have a small empire.

 

[heikeott]

This came up in the newbie thread, and I was told that if I wanted any discussion on it, I needed to post it somewhere else... so, here it is FWIW..

I think that the amount of money each city makes each turn (over and above that city's maint. cost) should be assumed to be in that city, and the rest should be assumed to have been moved to the capital each turn. Don't "excess" funds get paid in as taxes each year or five, or at the very least get stored in the federal reserve bank, or Fort Knox?

So for example, if Alexandria has a positive cash flow of 5gpt and gets sacked, the barbs should only get 5g, since last turn's 5g has already been shipped to Thebes. If they sack the capital I'm in big trouble... but then again, who's ever let their capital get sacked, unless it's in the first few game turns...?

This would prevent the player from having to micromanage one more thing that could get rather annoying, but would also prevent barbarian uprisings in backward provinces from making off with an unreasonable % of the national treasury.

 

[frunobulax]

I'd like to be able to expand the diplomacy options, so that you could introduce nuclear weapons treaties, non-aggression pacts and UN resolutions - with the latter, I guess you'd have to modify the fact that building the UN and getting elected wins you the game, unless UN resolutions are an option that only come into play if you've set the game up with the 'UN Election Win' option switched off.

Also like a third Forbidden Palace - or equivalent. this would be especially useful after conquering big swathes of enemy territory - maybe a "Cultural Centre" or something.

Also like the idea of certain wonders becoming World Heritage Sites after a few hundred/thousand years - so if that city is attacked by an enemy it causes third parties to intervene and declare war

And finally, more trade options - a few more commodities would be nice, alongside the option of being able to sell arms abroad !