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I think that when you play the game you feel alone in your Civilization. I think that like happened in History you need people to help you in the building of you nation. I propose:

1) Generals: If a General is very skilled then the Units should have more power. But you have to be careful with the General Loyalty, he could lead a Revolution against you. You can also have Generals that lead several units, but each unit should have a General

2) Governor: If you have an excellent man in charge of a city, that city should increase his production, wealth or happiness depending of the skills of that man. Bu be careful, a man who is very popular could be a serios threat to your Gov.

3) Ministers: The same like Governors, Each minister has different skills, as an example your economic minister could be an excellent business man that could encrease the money your receive from trade, but a man who lacks knowledge about indutry, that will cause that your cities loose productivity.

4) etc:

Each character should have diferent skills:

Example for a General:

Loyalty: 50%
Popularity: 10%
Ground attack: 110%
Ground Deffence: 100%
Air Attack: 70%
Air Deffence: 30%
Naval Attack: 10%
Naval Defense: 60%
Amph: 110%

That means that the General is suitable for leading ground Units or an Army of several ground Units. He can also be a leader for Amph Assault. The Loyalty shows that he is not very loyal but his poor popularity shows that he will not be followed by his Army if he wants to start a revellion. But if he wins many battles and specially if he conquest many cities....that General popularity will increase. Ist important that the Loyalty level...most of the time should be Unknown, only when the character has been in the game for a long time that % should be shown (or if your intelligence department provides the information abour his loyalty)

I hope you comment this article

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Argentinian CIV lover


GRAPHICS
By TINOMan
August 11, 2001

I've been playing civ and civ2 for quite some time now, and they are the best games that I have ever played. These games are the kind of games that meet my style of strategy gaming. There are some other strategy games that I play, but none of them meet my style of playing as much as the civ series. But, there are some people who don't like this style of game. If they don't like this type of game, then so be it, they don't have to enjoy it like I do, but that's not what my topic is for this column.

I've got some friends who have games from the civ series, mostly civ2, and some other friends who don't have any of the games. Most of them don't like the game. I talk to my friends, and they say things like "Civ2?!? That's a terrible game, how can you play that, it's awful". I go on to tell them that it's actually a really fun game if played correctly, but they refuse to listen. Then, I invite them over to my house, and I force them to try it, with my advice and help. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I'm pretty good at that game. For the ones who have never played it before, they love it, they love the strategy, and they thank me for showing them the game. As for the ones who already own the game, they say to me that they never really knew how to play before, but they now really enjoy the game and now play it daily.

This makes me a little confused. They do on and on about how it's an awful and terrible, then an hour later on my comp, they absolutely love it. Well, I lied a bit, it made me confused, until I asked them why they hated it then, but love it now. They say to me "It's got such bad graphics that I guess I didn't give it a chance, and never learned how", and then I realize the problem with most game playing people: GRAPHICS.

So many people judge a book by its cover, or in this case, a game by its graphics. I find so many people buying games due only to the graphics, and manufacturers feeding their needs. This leads to people having a new favorite game every week, and storing the oldies in some drawer.

I never am this way, I buy games after reading reviews, talking to people, and hoping that they don't waste all the energy on the graphics. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather have a great game with black and white color, then buy most of these new games that are just a pretty face. I still enjoy playing a certain shareware game, called castle, in which you have to find your way out of a castle, but battle ogres, demos, vampires, etc. It's black and white, and all of the characters are typeface symbols. It's one of the most enjoyable games that I've ever played, and it's one of those huge discs!

So, in conclusion, I sincerely hope that the people at Firaxis realize that making a great game has little to do with the graphics. I just hope that they fix the problems that were in previous games, make it fun, and I'll buy a copy.

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Webmaster of dissandahalf.com, a plave for anyone to speak their mind about anything.

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