30-01-2004 02:32									#1
	{ The List } - Nomads and Chiefdoms Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Here's the thread about ideas concerning the introdution of nomadism and chiefdoms in Civ4.

Currently, all Civs start with a structurated form of government suited for a sedentary empire. This thread is dedicated to starting the game before that, when all Civs are still nomadic chiefdoms confronted to the choice of sedentary or nomadic way of life.

This thread is also dedicated to all those who wish to give innovative ideas regarding settlers, the driving force behind nomadism.

	30-01-2004 03:05									#2
	Increase Your PM Length

Your initial unit could be a "Nomadic City" that generated production/commerce based on the tiles immediately adjacent like an initial city. Perhaps no ability to build settlers/workers from nomadic cities.

	30-01-2004 03:17									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

I'll begin with a few ideas:

1. Nomadic settlers are like mobile villages
I think a nomadic civilization should use its settlers in a very similar fashion than a sedentary Civ uses its cities. A settler would have a name (just like a small tribe), it would gather shields, food, gold and knowledge just like a town. It could produce units just like a town.
This way, nomadic Civilizations could discover techs, build military units, constitute a treasury etc even before they settle down.

2. Settlers do not have all the attributes of a town
OTOH, to compensate for the added bonus of mobility, nomadic settlers are limited, in that they can not build city improvements, their civ can not build roads or other tile improvements, and the population of a settler unit is capped.

OTOH, the first Settler should be the "palace", so that corruption can be calculated in a nomadic empire spanning on several settlers (One can also imagine that an early King unit can be used to build a palace in the city he pleases, and acts as the center of the empire until then).

Additionally, to prevent nomadic settlers from living in hostile terrain, they should not get the "flat" production a city enjoys in the city-tile. In Civ3, a newly found city will always enjoy at least 2 food, one shield, once commerce from its city-tile; a settler should only get the food / shields / commerce the tile normally produces. As such, if the settler stands on a mountain, the "city tile" doesn't produce any food.

3. Settlers produce another settler automatically once the population gap is reached.
This is the main reason why a Civ would want to remain nomadic despite the advantages of sedentary cities.
When the population cap is hit, the nomadic settler loses one-two citizens, and it spawns a new settler without having to pay the shield costs. The new settler will have to find grazelands somewhere else (either nearby or far away, just not on the same tile, as it would already be in use by its mother unit).

This gives nomadic Civs a great boost in territorial expansion at the beginning over their sedentarian counterparts, but at the cost of population growth, infrastructure, culture, and improvements.

4. Settlers and culture / borders
Settlers can not produce culture. And their borders can only span on the minimal radius. If a nomadic settler enters another Civ's territory, the offended Civ may go to war. Same if another Civ founds a city / pushes its nomadic settler in the nomad's territory.
Since nomadic Civs cannot produce culture, and if culture continues to become the driving force behind borders in Civ4, these civs will quickly be more and more pushed back by expanding sedentary cultures. Nomadic civs end up unable to defend their holdings, or only through war.

5. The shift to sedentarianism
The main idea is that all Civs start as "nomadic", and they all become sedentarian when they choose.

I think a Civ should become sedentarian when it founds its first city. The specific attributes of nomadic settlers disappear from then on, and will never come back. However, the remaining settlers act normally where they stand: they are not forced to settle on the spot, nor are they destroyed. They just move to find a good spot (if they hadn't found one already) just like they always moved in Civ series.

Also, it may be useful to restrict the ability to settle all at once. It may be a good idea to force the player to wait one turn before the foundation of each new city. This is a balance issue that has more to do with playtesting.

Lastly, it may be a good idea to require a tech (such as Alphabet or Masonry) before the settlers become able to found a city. This is also a question of playtesting.

I think the idea of nomadism is an interesting one in Civ, as it would bring some much needed variety. I oppose the fact that Civs should be ruled the very same way from the beginning to the end, only bigger and stronger.
I advocate changes in game, and I think nomadism would bring a more lively ancient era, with nomadic barbarians frightening the fledgling sedentarians, and, later, with advanced Civs punishing primitive nomadic Civs they'd have just discovered

Nomadism can not be enough to add variety during the whole game, but it can still raise the variety level of Civ quite a bit

	30-01-2004 04:03									#4
	Get a bigger avatar today!

I want to be able to have nomadic units throughout the game, either exclusively or in addition to real cities. If my all cities get conquered, I want to be able to continue on as nomads, perhaps migrating a long way, even by ship, and building new cities. Maybe AI civs would automatically be tolerant of nomadic units within their territory.

I like the idea of requiring a technology in order to found your first city.

Nomadic units should be able to live in hostile terrain.

	30-01-2004 05:16									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I think nomads should get faster units - either +1 move or double move.

	30-01-2004 05:36									#6
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I'd be interested in seeing nomadic bands of "barbarians" settling down to become new Civs, but I don't think it's a good idea to give the player the option.

Don't like your starting position? No worries, produce on the go while you search out fertile land!


The resources that would need to be put into developing and balancing such a thing don't seem worth it to me.

	30-01-2004 05:38									#7
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Well there would have to be production negatives for remaining Nomadic. Say the inability to build Workers and tile improvements.

	30-01-2004 05:43									#8
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by GhengisFarb Well there would have to be production negatives for remaining Nomadic. Say the inability to build Workers and tile improvements.

Agreed, but I think you'd either make nomadic too restrictive to be a viable option, or make the flexibility it gives too powerful.

I will remain open minded if someone can develop a good model, but I am content playing as though my people spent the previous 6000 years deciding that the starting spot is a good place to settle (and I can move a space or two, of course, if I think they were off their rockers!).

	30-01-2004 08:15									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I like this idea.

I would like to see nomadic and sedentary civs be able to coexist (maybe through diplomatic options) so you could have situtations like they settling of Germanic nations within Roman borders, or the Jewish diaspora.

Allowing nomadic civs will require big changes to the way culture works (already needed anyway IMO). Maybe nomadic and sedentary culture can "overlap" so that both can make use of the same tiles... the conflict would come in when the settled civ makes tile improvements that the nomads don't like. For example, nomadic civs could get bonuses for unimproved tiles. When someone else plops down a mine or "fences in" the land for agricultural improvements, it drives away all the game and reduces the nomadic grazing lands.

jon.

	31-01-2004 02:37									#10
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

this is really interesting... few ideas of mine -

nomadic settlers produce higher food/shields in certain squares(tundra, steppe, etc) than cities but need to move around constantly so not to deplete renewable resources(like how nomads stayed in different places in each season). ideally you want nomads lasting a long time(just like in real life) in steppe areas while cities would spring up in fertile areas. so on the map of earth civs would do best to go straight to sedentary cities in areas like the indus valley while others areas would stay nomad cities longer(iran, germany, etc?), and places like siberia would have nomads for a very long time. nomads should definately be a more powerful civ type in certain environments especially if they are located next to a sedentary civ they can raid.

	01-02-2004 10:27									#11
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

I too like this idea, although it seems to me it would be a kind of add-on to the main game rather than a new element integral to it. I would prefer the developers to spend their time making the overall game richer than adding an extra bit to the start - after all, this is *Civilisation* and therefore concerns itself with the development of settled conurbations.

But if it can be done in an interesting way that doesn't feel like a gimmick or an add-on, I'm all for it. Spiffor has some very good ideas here, I think.

	01-02-2004 12:36									#12
	Suffering from ads?

And just to make life intereesting you could have the tropical fruit, game, fish and whales randomly 'migrating' too.

	01-02-2004 21:28									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by rendelnep And just to make life intereesting you could have the tropical fruit, game, fish and whales randomly 'migrating' too.

I can understand the fish, game and whales. But haven't seen tropical fruit trees get up and walk somewhere except in the LotR movie.

	02-02-2004 05:30									#14
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Don't make the trees move, just expand the areas where they are, like natural irrrigation, desertification, planting forests, and cutting them down.

	02-02-2004 13:06									#15
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Well actually I was thinking of a vague reference to monty python involving coconuts so just ignore the tropical fruit....

	28-03-2004 02:44									#16
	Increase Your PM Length

I like it. but what about this change, each nomadic settler acts as a cityworker and you can stack them for increased production. that would make it easier since a settler with 3 population points would be confusing. Instead, just have 3 settlers walking together, producing together and feeding eachother. Then you just cap the number of nomadic settlers you can have in one square. If there are 4 nomadic settlers in an area and they reach the max food no new settler is made until the group splits. nomads wont grow over a certain point.
historially the mongols were nomads and they wooped sedentary far more advanced civilizations' butts bigtime.
I assume nomads wouldnt need to support their units since they are hunter/gatherers...
this would be good for the warmongers as they could stay nomadic in nomansland a long time and then suddenly explode and conquer enemy cities with their vast, but horse-smelling troops
How would that be handled? if a nomadic civ took over a city would they automatically become sedentary or would they be forced to raze the city? I dont like any of those options
a nomad on a banana should gain free techs and units every turn

	29-03-2004 21:02									#17
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

What about semi-settled peoples? It shouldn't be and binary thing, rather a continuum.

	24-06-2004 23:34									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

we are all nomads... are any of you a fruit?

	25-06-2004 01:33									#19
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

My ideas on this are in my population proposal.

Nomadism should be a possible choice- it should not be a different type of civ, but a choice a civ could make.

	28-09-2004 19:57									#20
	Remove this text

Big
for nomads.
It's silly to have to have cities where nomads were wandering.
(wondering? hm...). Like in my scenario under construction in civ2, I had to make some cities that didn't exist at the time, to make proper civs enough strong.
And still it is not correct. You could not defeat nomads by just taking some city. Nomadic tribes were much harder to handle.
Anyway - yay for nomads.

	28-09-2004 20:06									#21
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

perhaps a civ can become sedentary only after a certain amount of settlers have been generated ?

for instance : egypt starting on floodplains can become sedentary much earlier than the celts who inhabit forrested areas.

the advantages of sedentary civs are clear : more population, culture, building of improvements

but which advantages can be given to the nomad civilizations ?

	28-09-2004 20:08									#22
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Faster and stronger units, in general.
A nomadic civ could settler - or conquer a sedentary civ.

	30-09-2004 03:33									#23
	Increase Your PM Length

Some fascinating ideas here. My concern is that if the settler age isn't available at the beginning if there is too big a variance on the discovery of settler technology, it could be a game breaker.

	23-12-2004 21:02									#24
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Nomadic civs could "convert" into a permanent civ - especially when confronting the issues Joncha suggested.

A nomadic settler, could have many of the same properties a city has, but when the conversion to permanent civ takes place, the city gets planted permanently at that location. As available land were to decrease this could be an easy decision for the nomadic civ as they are being pressed on all sides.

	24-12-2004 07:59									#25
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I'd like to see pastoralists (nomads) since it would give another big strategic possibility to the player. And as has been noted, some of the most important civs in pre-modern history were in that mold: Mongols, Huns, etc.

There are a lot of good ideas here. On the transition to a "normal" civ. . . Certainly one of the best ways historically for a nomad civ to convert to a sedentary one is to conquer somebody else's. Once you start taking over cities as a nomad you'd have to decide whether to go the settled route or stay nomadic. You could spin off conquered cities as a "protectorate" if you wanted to stay nomad. And for the big strategic choice -- If you wait too long to settle, and there are gunpowder empires around you, Bang, you're dead!

	24-12-2004 08:14									#26
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Nomads are groups of people who don't have argiculture. Thus, they should only be a lead into the formal time frame. Normads don't have much culture or civilization to speak of, because they spend all their time looking after the herds and moving around.

Without argiculture they could never grow big.

	24-12-2004 08:47									#27
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Without argiculture they could never grow big.

Hi UR:

Maybe I don't understand your point, but it seems quite clear. I beg to differ. Paraphrasing you.. .

The Mongols couldn't grow "big" b/c they didn't have agriculture? Ask about 100M Chinese from a ways back. Sure pastoralists are a bit parasitic on settled civs with respect to many technologies, but they can play an important part up to the dawn of the modern age (say 1500 or so). Now whether this belongs in the civilization game is certainly anyone's guess, but I think pastoralist civilizations certainly pass the historical relevance test.

-Mark

	24-12-2004 09:32									#28
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

The Mongols never existed, remember?

	24-12-2004 12:38									#29
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by GhengisFarb I can understand the fish, game and whales. But haven't seen tropical fruit trees get up and walk somewhere except in the LotR movie.

"it could grip it by the haft!"

	24-12-2004 14:56									#30
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson The Mongols couldn't grow "big" b/c they didn't have agriculture? Ask about 100M Chinese from a ways back.

They certainly weren't big in terms of population.

quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson Sure pastoralists are a bit parasitic on settled civs with respect to many technologies, but they can play an important part up to the dawn of the modern age (say 1500 or so).

Certainly, they could have major impacts on world history, as, well, the world history shows.