23-11-2004 22:33									#1
	Major issue: territory = victory Support Apolyton

In Civ (and many other games), once you have more territory, it tends to be a matter of time to see you win. This is a problem, should it be for gameplay or make it more coherent.

Just think of the Ottoman empire. Big territory? What a mess... And I'm sure we can find lots of example of powerful and successful nations that have little territories (Europe is barely a peninsula if you did not noticed).

How can we viable find solutions? I went into it very broadly.

1- There are some disadvantages to bigger territories such as:
- People from MORE different places, thus more potential frictions among each other (espescially if they have a different past, even more if a part comes from elsewhere)
- You need good logistic when it's bigger...
- Others

2- There are some factors that have a role to play, other than territory such as:
- Trading (MAJOR: Some places are better, diplomacy plays, arrangements with bigger powers like Israel-US can serve...)
- Ressources (yes, great, it came in Civ3)
- You're bigger? It's a Risk game, so wait for others wishing to make you smaller.
- You're bigger? It may mean that you'll enter into competition, espescially with big ones (ex: Rome vs. Carthage)
- Ottomans got trouble because of a certain conservative structure. What formed their strength, later was truely an issue for them
- You can make some short term choices, or also some longer term ones. If you grew fast from short term choices, you should see the difference (fast expansions, then others around try to divide you as a pie).
- Europe-style advantages for being small and squeezed(competitivity, unrest between powers bringing problems but also pushing to go further...)


Anyway, youn see that there are many possibilities... which solutions would you have to this territory=winning asset problem?

	23-11-2004 23:02									#2
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I don't think this is such a big problem, but some may feel it does make the game a bit too straight forward.

As a small nation I can usually get a Diplomatic Victory if I want it, and if an enemy capitol gets destroyed I have a good shot at the Space Race too. Usually my strategy is to be the biggest though.

A few things already work against the big guys, corruption from distance and from a large number of cities too.

	23-11-2004 23:46									#3
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Simple: Count other things. Population, military strength, economic / financial power, scientific progress. Personally, I'd weight these aspects, giving science 40% and the others 20% each.

	24-11-2004 00:13									#4
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Sure... but look at how Israel is a major power in this world. It's really a major POWER, not "oh it's nice it brings science" or whattever. Power in the same sense as USA is powerful. Tutorages are pretty important, and so on.

	24-11-2004 00:23									#5
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Israel is NOT a mayor power- it is a regional power with limited power projection.

As for the OP, I think EU had a good system of making it so large did not immidiately equal unrivalled power- the way to do so is to have costs vary on size, so the bigger you are, the more things costs.

Wealth needs to have a greater role, and diplomacy needs to be improved, to allow a rich small state to buy friends and be powerful thusly. The influence of Trade also needs to be made stronger so a small power can become very rich.

	24-11-2004 02:44									#6
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Also with Israel, cut off all the foreign (mostly US, under teh "military aid" guise) aid it receives, and it would be barely 3rd world, and either have to cut back on military or starve.

As for Europe, check out the terrain. It is almost all high quality farming land. That's why the region is so successful. Food really does make the civ.

	24-11-2004 04:00									#7
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I think the key problem is the ability to project power.

Some system to limit the ability of a country to project military power to great distances should be implemented, and one that does not rely on building the biggest empire you can.

You should still be able to build a giant empire, and take over the world, but it should require serious strategy to do so. And, you should also be able to build a moderately-sized nation with an ability to project power out of all proportion to its size.

However, if you are very tiny your power projection should be quite limited.

I think the key here is logistics. To constrain power projection through several primary factors:

1. An infrastructure model which limits, but does not remove, infinite movement by rail.

2. A supply model which limits the number of units one can afford to have outside of one's border.

3. A trade system which requires true protection of trade routes.

4. Do away with corruption, and replace it with a system that models political challenges of large empires - insurgents and uprisings in disaffected regions.

	24-11-2004 13:16									#8
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Culture points was a way to measure how well you project in a number of areas. As for challenging large empires I'm still in favor of bringing back civil wars.

	24-11-2004 13:27									#9
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Culture points do not limit how well you may project military power very well. You don't get to use enemy roads, well, that really doesn't cut it down too much in the game. You can still send a huge fleet all the way across the world, or maintain a massive army deep within enemy borders indefinately.

	24-11-2004 14:22									#10
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I hate how long it takes for that cool fleet to get anywhere.

	24-11-2004 15:52									#11
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Well look at Israel's army. Not a major power?

Of course it comes from the US! But wherever it comes, it makes it a serious power. While if we look at the Ottoman empire, we can see that their territory is huge, but their structure is sclerosed and they have trouble associating "Occidental progress" with "Islamic moral progress".


Besides, to me it is not that a minor issue since it makes a section of the game partly pre-definite. It also brings the issue of sustainable diplomatical relations/alliances/etc. And it does not permit to be a little scum

Last edited by Trifna on 24-11-2004 at 16:25

	24-11-2004 17:07									#12
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If Israel could go to war with China, it would be a major power. It can't and so it is not. There is one, possibly two major powers in the world today: America, and perhaps China, as it would be capable, in the abscence of an American presence, of conquering and occupying most of Asia in very rapid time. Israel could at best smash its neighbours militaries, wreck their infrastructure, and wring some territorial concessions from them. Its doubtful that Israel would be able to consider an invasion and long-term occupation of, say, Pakistan, for instance, even given the political will to do so.

	24-11-2004 17:41									#13
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Ok, so now we're finished with the definition of "major" I hope. It's an adjective, and thus it is always **** COMPARED to. Go get the numbers on Israel army. It's quite an army. the country is little. It has this. This is something to notice as a good example for what I was talking about.

	24-11-2004 20:08									#14
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In Civ terms, it would be like having a small country with a medium sized army, but tons of air power. You could really knock a hole in your neighbours but expansion would be severely limited by the lack of ground units that would ensue from trying to hold any territory you captured.

If you want a really good study of a small country with true ability to project power and expansion potential, right now is a bad time to look. Technology in the last 20 years has made pacification really difficult, the abundance and availability of weapons like the RPG make it a real problem for most militaries.

Better to look a bit further in the past. Japan in WW2 is an incredible example of a tiny country with force projection rivalling that of the biggest nations of the world in its day.

	24-11-2004 21:55									#15
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But Japan had quite a big population that day...

And BTW, when I mentioned the importance of science, I didn't mean "oh it's nice it brings science" but that a better technology also means better units, faster communication and higher production (ok, you could science include indirectly too)

	24-11-2004 23:30									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Trifna Ok, so now we're finished with the definition of "major" I hope. It's an adjective, and thus it is always **** COMPARED to. Go get the numbers on Israel army. It's quite an army. the country is little. It has this. This is something to notice as a good example for what I was talking about.

In 1991 Iraq had the world's 4th largest army. Size of a military is not a particularly good measure os great power status- any small regional country can arm itself to the teeth-the question is the ability to project that power.

And by power one also means economic heft and diplomatic heft. A regional player like Israel has a small economy and little diplomatic power worldwide.

	24-11-2004 23:40									#17
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quote: Originally posted by frekk Better to look a bit further in the past. Japan in WW2 is an incredible example of a tiny country with force projection rivalling that of the biggest nations of the world in its day.

Japan's population was largers than Germany's in 1940. Lets not forget Japan had industrialized rapidly since 1854, in 1895 had beaten China and gained the island of Formosa (taiwan), then in 1904-05 defeated Russia and gained control of Korea soon after and great influence in Manchuria. Japan by 1940 was by all measures a great imperial power.

	25-11-2004 05:31									#18
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Well, then we're getting into what we mean when we say a "tiny" or a "large" country.

I was speaking in geographic terms, and this is one factor in Civ which models the real world very poorly - a geographically tiny civ is always always tiny in terms of its population as well. In the real world this isn't the case.

I guess that, more than anything else, goes to the root of the "territory=victory" problem.

There's no way in a civ game, as it currently stands, that a civ centered in Japan could be more powerful than a civ centered in, say, Australia, on any realistically scaled earth map.

	25-11-2004 16:54									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Vince278 Culture points was a way to measure how well you project in a number of areas. As for challenging large empires I'm still in favor of bringing back civil wars.

I miss this from CIV 2.

I like this idea

	25-11-2004 17:10									#20
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I did not wish to highjack my own thread by saying that Israel was the world leading power; I meant that it is a "power" with lots of "power", while it is small. Let's forget Israel, the example of Japan brought by some is better.


frekk resumes it well:

quote: There's no way in a civ game, as it currently stands, that a civ centered in Japan could be more powerful than a civ centered in, say, Australia, on any realistically scaled earth map.

The future is never drawn all that much from a strict and stable factor such as territory (but it's a very important factor of course). It's alot more fluid and maleable. There are many other strategies, ways to play around that are not tend to be pre-determined from the moment territory is taken.

	28-11-2004 09:06									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Vince278 Culture points was a way to measure how well you project in a number of areas. As for challenging large empires I'm still in favor of bringing back civil wars.

YES!

	28-11-2004 09:16									#22
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The power of civs in reality is based upon their resources. Included in those resources are things like food, minerals and people. The more resources you have the stronger you are. In Civ, the "land" resource is one of the most powerful because you can derive all other resources from it.

To bring Civ back towards the way reality works, it would require a model based more upon population than land area. By extension, having more land should not automatically mean more population.

The way to encourage larger cities is to make them more powerful. Give them higher support bonuses (Conquests started this, but it should be taken many steps further), perhaps give a bonus to production and commerce as a city's size increases... and so on. The key is to make building UP more important than building OUT. That's how you make a civ like Germany or Japan stronger than Russia.

	28-11-2004 17:20									#23
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Good post trip and I agree.

How would you do it? Where would the "breaking points" be?

	29-11-2004 12:21									#24
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I tend to agree with all this, and that to some degree in the real world land does determine the success of a culture. The problem with civ is that there are not enough different kinds of terrain, and not enough difference between the kinds of terrain that exist. In the real world, its the quality of land, not the quantity.

The flipside of this is, of course, if terrain values had even greater disparity, then the blind luck of starting position would be even more important than it currently is.

	02-12-2004 06:01									#25
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quote: Originally posted by frekk 4. Do away with corruption, and replace it with a system that models political challenges of large empires - insurgents and uprisings in disaffected regions.

Exactly what needs to be done. Ethnic factions in large civs need to be volitile, there needs to be a real possibility of civil war within your civ.

My idea is that the game have some sort of way to recognize the relative strengths of your cities. Major cities in your empire must be appeased. If they go into revolt, there is a chance that the city will attempt to break off and start its own civilization, taking with it a few smaller neighboring cities that are under its influence. I'm going to start a thread on this for more discussion.

	05-12-2004 10:20									#26
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Having Ethnic factions being a problem is just going to force the player to ethnicly cleanse the region to have it not "culture flip" on him. They should be a problem, but it should be worth more to keep them alive then to kill them all. The Ottoman Turks for instance held control over the Arabs until the British came in and broke up their empire.

Having a large territory should be a problem, perhaps a certain amount of transportation infrastructure and other infrastructure in general should have to be present for you to maintain control over cities further away, and corruption should go up until you get to the point where you have no effective control over a city that is so far away that it is governmentally and culturally not linked to your civilization anymore.

	05-12-2004 11:30									#27
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Here are some thoughts:

1) More cities=more demand for resources=more chance of resources disappearing in large empires. This could leave the small nation, with 2-3 sources of a particular resource, in a fantastic position to leverage wealth from larger nations!

2) Make cities and terrain improvements COST. This means that larger empires with lots of connective infrastructure and/or small cities will be less well of than a small, compact nation! (I have actually done some rough calculations which show that, even though large nations still get a net benefit from roads and/or rails, it is often as much as HALF of that of a much smaller nation).

3) Perhaps tie wealth to city size and/or population. Also, the DEMOGRAPHICS of a city should be important too, so a city of merchants and civil servants should be wealthier than one of workers and farmers.

4) Make the benefits of trade networks (road/rail and or harbours etc) more dependant on both the size of the city they connect to AND the population/wealth of the cities it is connected into!

5) Large empires=large military to defend them=less money and shields for science, commerce and industry.

6) Large empires will benefit less from high central culture out towards its periphery. This means that cities close to a border will be subject to inreased 'regionalism', as your culture and foreign cultures mix-increasing the risk of seccession later in the game.

7) Increased size=decreased stability-again especially out towards the periphery. In fact, stability would be a great replacement for the current 'corruption'model (though 'corruption/crime' levels would play a role in stability), as it wouldn't adversely effect shields or wealth, but would simply increase the chance of a city breaking away and/or your government collapsing. Of course, there would be ways to increase both city and national stability levels!

Anyway, just a thought.

EDIT: Having read Trips post, I think he is REALLY onto something. My feeling is that a city might actually COST you money when you first build it, but slowly start to break even, then earn you money, as the population grows and the resources it gathers increases! If this were done, I feel that the current corruption model could be done away with completely, and changed into an abstract idea which, as I mentioned above, effects stability of the city and nation!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Last edited by The_Aussie_Lurker on 05-12-2004 at 12:02

	05-12-2004 17:56									#28
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quote: 7) Increased size=decreased stability-again especially out towards the periphery. In fact, stability would be a great replacement for the current 'corruption'model (though 'corruption/crime' levels would play a role in stability), as it wouldn't adversely effect shields or wealth, but would simply increase the chance of a city breaking away and/or your government collapsing. Of course, there would be ways to increase both city and national stability levels!

But, we should remember that the Civ3 way of limiting usefulness of large empires by corruption does not work, as when your remote cities produce 2 shields max, it simply stops being fun.

	05-12-2004 21:42									#29
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I don't believe corruption is necessarily the ONE thing that stops empire from being bigger. The problem with lots of people, and espescially lots of people with different background, is that it brings lots of possibilities for disagreement and conflict of interest.

To bring this in the game would mean to roughly gauge inhabitant groups compared to each other. And of course, having many different groups or a multi-ethnic society (as Russia, China, United States, Romans, etc.) can have many advantages (new blood ) but also potential tentions. How to modelize this easily? I have no complete thing right on my mind, and have to get back to some work

	05-12-2004 21:44									#30
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quote: I don't believe corruption is necessarily the ONE thing that stops empire from being bigger. The problem with lots of people, and espescially lots of people with different background, is that it brings lots of possibilities for disagreement and conflict of interest.

In Civ3, it was the only thing that was a disadvantage of a big empire, and it was still greatly outweighed by the advantages.