I'm sure it will never happen, but the story -easily ignored if you don't like that sort of thing, but value-added for a lot of us- is what made SMACX special above all else. I was talking about this for 6 back when Civ 5 was the Shiny New Thing.
Admittedly, I don't quite know how you do that with something as long and broad as the history of mankind being organized, but at least a lot more could be done with interludes between ages. The historical figures used as leaders could be far more in-character -Yang has an individual personality, and he's great that way, not that I can reconcile Gandhi leading India with ever being in a war- and --- my ideas are vagueish, and the creative difficulty level is higher because of scope and having to handwave immortal 6,000 year-old leaders, but I can't believe it can't be done...
You know, I'm problem they face is wanting to offend no one and rightly thinking that a non-trivial portion of the audience will come to the game with an attachment to certain factions from real life - the Americans alone, the conservative ones, would get torn all out of shape if it had Lincoln done realistically with his radicial liberalism and corresponding penalties for some play styles - likewise, the same crowd would burst veins if the US was set up to favor an imperialist bully style IF they made the connection with it might be saying something about real life that any Nicaraguan would tell you...
Yang, after all - was leader of the HIVE, not space-CHINA, not explicitly COMMUNIST (or even actually)... Some artistically-sensible things that would make the game better are just LOOKING for trouble and ratchet up the difficulty level - (though if they were any good at marketing, that's actually free publicity that could blow a niche game into the stratosphere of sales...)
Uno, what mythical ability would King Arthur have?
Uno, what mythical ability would King Arthur have?
Most everyone would understand taking the 2 Excalibur traits of the sword drawing blood with every stroke, and the scabbard healing, but that is more combat than map oriented (you list map abilities for the others). The more clandestine nature of the king is the land, the land is the king, I'm not sure how to represent. Production bonuses around the king, diminishing if he's wounded?
So in my vision of the game, you could make creative trades, such as mixtures of gold, resources, gold per turn, and techs, as long as you had enough credibility and likability. If you exploited such deals by backstabbing somebody- well, there goes your credibility. You may have trouble getting anybody to cooperate or trade with you the rest of the game in a Civ V we hate you because you're human kind of way. They may not even talk unless you have something they need.
or that matter, some realistic motivation and reward for helping out smaller nations would be nice. Give me a reason to save Civ X instead of dogpiling to grab as much land as I can. Traditionally the vassal state system just weakened your supposed vassal/ally so much as to make it worthless without 100% hands on support from you, and often more annoying than beneficial.
Anyway, the proposal was to be able to initiate proxy wars, hire mercenaries, and trade on a black market for horses or something denied to you. The downside is that they usually wanted military techs, which they would potentially broker to other civs which had or would establish diplomatic relations with them. Of course the black market is overpriced, but sometimes it's the only game in town. It doesn't trade food. Like spying or piracy, it's bad diplomacy when you get caught.
Anyway, the proposal was to be able to initiate proxy wars, hire mercenaries, and trade on a black market for horses or something denied to you. The downside is that they usually wanted military techs, which they would potentially broker to other civs which had or would establish diplomatic relations with them. Of course the black market is overpriced, but sometimes it's the only game in town. It doesn't trade food. Like spying or piracy, it's bad diplomacy when you get caught.
Don't suppose you ever crossed one of my Merc/Pirate teams?
Contract #0009
"War like any other racket, pays high dividends to the very few. The cost of operations is always transferred to the people who do not profit." -General Smedley Butler
Type: Reparations
Team: Sarantium
Details:
Team Sarantium attacked and killed a neutral Mercenary Chariot.
Team Mercenary shall remain at War with Team Sarantium untill reimburssed for the amount of 50.
Results:
- Team Sarantium offers explaination for their actions and makes suggestion to improve Mercenary Policies. Offered one time discount on reimbursement as credit for advice. Balance: 25 gold.
- Sarantium denies offer. Balance: 50
- Team Sarantium obtains Masonry from the Horde, cancelling Contract #0004. Cost 142. Balance: 192
- Team Sarantium invades Mercenary lands, balance for Hammer differential on Contract # 0006 added to reparations. Cost 8. Balance: 200
- Team Sarantium pillages Mercenary Gems. Cost 60 Balance 260
- 2 Mercenary Horse Archers in Pre-emptive strike on invading Sarantium Forces. Cost 200 Balance: 460
- 2 Mercenary Horse Archers, 4 Mercenary Axes died in Battle of Anhinga. Cost 480 Balance 940
- Sarantium Cottage donates 4 gold towards Reparations. Balance 934
- Citizens of the Sarantium town of Anhinga have donated 10 gold to the reparations. Balance: 924
- Citizens of the Sarantium town of Port Tiberium have donated 90 gold to the reparations. Balance: 834
- 2 Sarantium Workers have volunteered their lives in Service of Team Mercenary as reparations. Credit 240 Balance: 594
- Hostilities paused to give Sarantium chance to make good payment.
http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/140419-A-Mercenary-Team-anyone (http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/140419-A-Mercenary-Team-anyone)
Team Merc version 3, I think.
The merc forum is open: http://apolyton.net/forumdisplay.php/279-C4DG-The-Mercenary-Team (http://apolyton.net/forumdisplay.php/279-C4DG-The-Mercenary-Team)
Contract history: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/162033-Merc-Contract-History (http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/162033-Merc-Contract-History)
Cliff notes version: We started on a continent with 2 other teams. Sarantium and Horde. Roughly Triangular continent/setup. Going into the game about the only team Sarantium hated more than the idea of team Merc was the Horde, from player feelings about a former game. I very well knew this as I kinda sorta used to keep psychological profiles of frequent demogame members.
Horde kill one of our settlers early (lucky 50-50 odd strike, iirc), thus we go to war to get paid, but only half-heartedly, hoping to involve Sarantium. Sarantium seizes the opportunity and pounces thinking they'll join in a dogpile. As suspected, Horde then makes peace with us and hires us to attack Sarantium. Sarantium now pissed off we bartered peace with Horde ALSO hires us to attack the Horde.
When each team finally finds out we're playing both sides (MERCS. DUH!) They both get pissed, and jointly concoct a plan to eliminate the Mercs, have us sacrifice the units they've hired on each other, and jointly invade along 2 fronts. WE FOLLOW THROUGH AND SACRIFICE OUR UNITS TRUE TO OUR WORD EVEN THOUGH IT'S OBVIOUSLY JUST TO WEAKEN US. Simultaneously someone took advantage of team Merc policies of everyone being allowed in, created a DL, joined team Merc and sabotaged a turn, whipping recklessly in all cities, and moving the army out of position. (verified with administration, I won't name names, it was kept hush hush for the better of the community and I'm not entirely sure what name they may go by these days)
In a particularly satisfying moment, we still beat back both invading armies, had a choke on the Horde and had broken and invaded Sarantium, all the while trying to sue for peace as all we wanted was the gold.
High points of our victory involve the unorthodox ;) philosophy of defending against horsemen with horsemen of our own (Spears were REALLY BAD in Vanilla Civ IV when you do the math, actually) and ignoring the obvious choke point to force Sarantium to split their defenses (Hiked our army around their stack of doom, daring them to attack us on the hills, once outflanked, our force was more mobile).
A bilateral compensation was drafted with a Horde/Sarantium alliance forming and agreeing to pay us off. I don't know if they ever would have followed completely through as about this time, it was discovered one civ had emerged as the sole survivor of the other 4 civ continent and garnered an insurmountable lead, so the game stalled.
Sarantium, particularly come away with hard feelings, thinking I purposely manipulated them for my own amusement. The bone of contention is they thought an agreement to trade them a tech on turn Y meant they would have peace from now until Y. When the Horde hired us for 10 turns that would have ended before Y, Mercs saw no problem following the money. They say I lie and or misrepresented how the contracts work. It's all in public, I stand by my interpretation.
New Topic-
Civ I had a customizable palace that was built piece by piece by your subjects when they were happy with you.
III had a trophy room at the end of the game, with the vanquished leader's heads sticking through the wall.
Civ Rev had a Throne Room. I understand that one of the versions of II had something similar.
I wish that they would bring something like that back. For the sake of glory and story.