18-11-2002 19:42									#1
	Idea - more civ-specific attributes Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Okay, here is my brilliant idea, it's probably been discussed before, I don't know. It SHOULD have been in PTW, but it's too big a deal for a patch so I throw it out as an idea for the "second expansion" (If there is one!)

My idea is to create 2 or 3 more civ-specific attributes, and then give every civ 3 defining attributes instead of 2. If you had, say, 9 possible characteristics (instead of 6) and each civ had 3 (instead of 2), there would be WAY more possibile combinations than 24 (maybe someone can figure out the exact combinatorial on that)...

My three ideas for additional attributes are:

Diplomatic - gains a bonus during diplomacy - other civs offer better deals, essentially. (Could give to the so-called diplomatic races - Japan, France, etc.)

Espionage civs - bonus for spy operations - cheaper, essentially, or more probability of success (US, Russia, etc.)

Sea exploration - gains bonuses for sea exploration, could be that boats are safe in seas (not oceans) from start of game (give to the great sea exploring nations (Vikings, English, Spanish)

My idea for these comes from Alpha Centauri. There are other possible ones I'm sure.

I guess one problem is we may not know how good certain civs were at diplomacy or spying. But the main thing is to come up with a reasonable set of three attributes for each civ that makes each unique, which shouldn't be hard. (suggestions?)

I also realise there are always serious questions of game balance when you mess with the unique attributes, but somehow I don't think it would so hard to work this out - its mainly just figuring out how strong the bonus should be, plus the basic recoding to have the three attributes instead of two.