Civ 2 Diplomacy question
Neil Radisch
it degenerated into a war game. The diplomacy was pretty
worthless, and without country borders it was impossible
to keep the peace unless you wanted the enemy stomping
all over your turf.
Does Civ 2 address this or does it too just degenerate into
a game of "kill the other guy"
Neil
Jason Uecker
Neil,
Civ 2 does, at least in my(albeit limited) experience with it, allow
for much greater depth in regard to diplomacy. In fact, I managed to
have a game the other night without engaging in a single war, even
temporarily! For me, that was almost unheard of in CIV I!
The diplomatic options have expanded greatly(one of the best features
of this new version, IMHO), and introduce the concept of "reputation", to
the game....simply put, attacking other empires without any provocation
and ruthlessly pummeling them intro nuclear ash, as well as breaking
peace treaties with impunity gets you in trouble, quick! =-) Of course,
a powerful player can shrug all this off and keep conquering...sometimes.
Jason
William Powers
>My biggest problem with the original civ was that
>it degenerated into a war game. The diplomacy was pretty
>worthless, and without country borders it was impossible
>to keep the peace unless you wanted the enemy stomping
>all over your turf.
>
>Does Civ 2 address this or does it too just degenerate into
>a game of "kill the other guy"
>
>Neil
Kill the other guy. But, you also get too piss off every
other country at the same time. They won't talk to you
for years.
I did do something really neat the other day though. I let the
Russians and the Indians have a war THROUGH my territory. I was
at peace with both, refused to back either side, and they just kept
sending units at each other - right through my land. I guess I had
6-7 cities at fair to high risk, but they never bothered any of
them. Of course, once they had beat up on each other, you know
what I did :-).
Will
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Robert K. Gresham
Uecker) writes:
>
>Neil Radisch <nrad...@dtd.com> wrote:
>>
>>My biggest problem with the original civ was that
>>it degenerated into a war game. The diplomacy was pretty
>>worthless, and without country borders it was impossible
>>to keep the peace unless you wanted the enemy stomping
>>all over your turf.
>>
>>Does Civ 2 address this or does it too just degenerate into
>>a game of "kill the other guy"
>>
>>Neil
>
>
> Civ 2 does, at least in my(albeit limited) experience with it,
allow
>for much greater depth in regard to diplomacy. In fact, I managed to
>have a game the other night without engaging in a single war, even
>temporarily! For me, that was almost unheard of in CIV I!
> The diplomatic options have expanded greatly(one of the best
features
>of this new version, IMHO), and introduce the concept of "reputation",
to
>the game....simply put, attacking other empires without any
provocation
>and ruthlessly pummeling them intro nuclear ash, as well as breaking
>peace treaties with impunity gets you in trouble, quick! =-) Of
course,
>a powerful player can shrug all this off and keep
conquering...sometimes.
One minor gripe I have about civ2's diplomacy is that I am forced into
an almost totally reactive role. My allies bully me, my enemies bully
me. In a democracy, my senate bullies me. This may be realistically
done, but it isn't very fun.
>
>
>
> Jason
>
>
Fuwah Chez
: One minor gripe I have about civ2's diplomacy is that I am forced into
: an almost totally reactive role. My allies bully me, my enemies bully
: me. In a democracy, my senate bullies me. This may be realistically
: done, but it isn't very fun.
Read the papers lately? :)
I think the Civ2 designers injected a dose of humor in the game: The
advisors, an obvious one. The government settings have some satire into
them - a president can ignore the senate in a democracy with good old
internal politics, the commies don't have corruption unlike a democracy,
the fanatics, with their reduced diplomatic penalty for terrorism, and
a HEFTY penalty on science. Good old fun.
--
-- fqc...@is2.nyu.edu -- wise...@smaug.res.cmu.edu
The above opinions are _opinions_, and are mine and mine alone. We have no
wish to offend, unless you're a twit.
freejack
: One minor gripe I have about civ2's diplomacy is that I am forced into
: an almost totally reactive role. My allies bully me, my enemies bully
: me. In a democracy, my senate bullies me. This may be realistically
: done, but it isn't very fun.
Bully back, demand tribute from those weaker than you are. And if they
resist by declaring war, blow them away.
That pesky senate bothering you? Shoot them as enemies of the state,
set up fundamentalist gov, crank out those units and let loose the hounds
of war. Your opponents will be happy to bow to you after losing a few
cities.
Not very realistically done, but it is a lot of fun. :)
Scott Rutter - free...@oo.com
PS: I've got a cure for that awesome fundamentalist gov. First, eliminate
all trade routes, no one wants to trade with madmen. Second, cut all
bonuses to taxes from banks and stock exchanges, that should curb the
extra money a bit. It should be enough that you don't need luxuries, and
can support 10 units per city for free.
Ken Fishkin
don't want to be in first place if you can help it. Instead, it's
best to "ride the draft", going along in 2nd or 3rd place until
you "slingshot" past at the end. At least, that's how I did it in MOO.
Is there any way to do something like this in Civ2? Unfortunately,
other civs are smart enough to see you oustripping them in inventions,
so you can't just quietly do research with no military, and hope they
won't notice. Any suggestions?
A side-note of relevance to this. While the AI does seem a lot
better in Civ2, the computer players still do a pretty poor job
of naval unit use in general, and naval offensives in particular.
If you're separated by an enemy by a body of water, you'll find the
defensive _far_ easier than the offensive.
--
Ken Fishkin fis...@acm.org
http://www.parc.xerox.com/fishkin
Robert K. Gresham
>
>Robert K. Gresham (r...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>: One minor gripe I have about civ2's diplomacy is that I am forced
into
>: an almost totally reactive role. My allies bully me, my enemies
bully
>: me. In a democracy, my senate bullies me. This may be realistically
>: done, but it isn't very fun.
>
> Bully back, demand tribute from those weaker than you are. And if
they
>resist by declaring war, blow them away.
> That pesky senate bothering you? Shoot them as enemies of the
state,
>set up fundamentalist gov, crank out those units and let loose the
hounds
>of war. Your opponents will be happy to bow to you after losing a few
>cities.
I tried fundamentalism last night. It is truly unbalancing. Was able to
get tech production to within 2 turns of what it was under Democracy
with a HUGE revenue bonus and large military. My point is that in a
game where I am absolutely dominant over every other civ, they
shouldn't be so quick to become "enraged" at me, nor to declare war
when I don't give them "foreign aid". After all, it just doesn't work
this way in the good ole USA.
> Not very realistically done, but it is a lot of fun. :)
>
> Scott Rutter - free...@oo.com
>
>PS: I've got a cure for that awesome fundamentalist gov. First,
eliminate
>all trade routes, no one wants to trade with madmen. Second, cut all
>bonuses to taxes from banks and stock exchanges, that should curb the
>extra money a bit. It should be enough that you don't need luxuries,
and
>can support 10 units per city for free.
Yeah, I agree; all trade routes should be eliminated, and all trade
that doesn't come from land or an ocean square with special resources
should be halved. Also, it would be nice to have a small percentage
chance that a city would revolt for religious freedom in any given
turn. Say 1%/turn.
>
Theodore Miller
I sent a spy to incite a revolt in a Babylonian city. I was successful,
but my government collapsed into anarchy because of the scandal. And not
only did the Babylonians declare war on me, so did their allies: the
Chinese, the Sioux, and the Russians. Fortunately, I did have MY allies
to declare war on them: the Greeks and the Egyptians. It was like the
beginning of World War 1, where one assassination plunged the whole
system of alliances into war.
"infonaut...@scorpio.lib.edu
in MoO, where you are permanently "penalized" for breaking a treaty with another
player because they "remember" you as treacherous. I rarely play CIV anymore
because, to give an example, I nuked Berlin once, sent in a diplomat (kind of
hoping to see Frederick surrounded by ashes, or something alike) and he was still
the same jerk! Just like Saddam Hussein, some people never learn!
Joseph I. Valenzuela
: Obviously the cruise missile & paratrooper trick does well (it's
: almost *too* easy to use :-) but I like the way the balance tips
: towards the attacker later in the game - makes the endgame rather
: more interesting.
Really? I found defense ridiculously easy, at least an order of
magnitude easier then in civ1. A veteran musketeer behind a city wall
is pretty much an immovable object until the manhatten project...
At least is takes the drudgery out of defending against barbarians.
One settler mining a hill is enough to stop a contingent of
horsemen...
--
Joseph I. Valenzuela -- tsao...@empirenet.com
http://www.empirenet.com/~tsaotsao
Oppose the ANTI-JOE. Just say no to the VOODOO GLOW SKULLS
Tim Chown
>
> A side-note of relevance to this. While the AI does seem a lot
> better in Civ2, the computer players still do a pretty poor job
> of naval unit use in general, and naval offensives in particular.
> If you're separated by an enemy by a body of water, you'll find the
> defensive _far_ easier than the offensive.
I think this is true in general (defence is easier), until you get
to the end game, when the units available are more suited to attack.
Obviously the cruise missile & paratrooper trick does well (it's
almost *too* easy to use :-) but I like the way the balance tips
towards the attacker later in the game - makes the endgame rather
more interesting.
The AI's main failing is its lack of memory - it will try the same
thing N times, not realising it's a non-starter. That said, it does
keep you on your toes (on Emperor at least!).
--
Tim Chown | GD Review http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview
t...@ecs.soton.ac.uk | - the games site written by gamers for gamers
Ken Fishkin
> for much greater depth in regard to diplomacy. In fact, I managed to
> have a game the other night without engaging in a single war, even
> temporarily!
How did you possibly manage this? In my experience, once you
start doing well, let alone start the space race, the other empires
will attack you no matter what you do, and no matter what your
reputation is. How did you get them to leave you alone?
Xemu22
midgame. If you get espionage fairly early, then your legions of spies
are the key to opening up any enemy city. They don't count as military
units, so you can set those vast hordes of small to middling cities to
just pumping them out every 6-8 turns or so, and under Communism their
"veteran"-ness means they stand a darn good chance of surviving a
non-directed mission.
There are few cities that can hold up under a relentless industrial
sabotage campaign. Once the barracks & city walls are gone, your
offensive units can start really wearing your foe down. For those really
hard nuts to crack, well, you can always poison them down to
insignificance......
Perhaps the best thing is that those legions of spies never grow obsolete,
and their tactics remain just as useful throughout the midgame well into
the endgame. Then they really come into their own once they can plant
nukes. A goodly number of spies (which you easily have by the endgame if
you pursue this strategy) can completely devastate an enemy civ that has
railroaded together all of their cities. Usually you can even do so in a
SINGLE TURN! After you've nuked a city, just stroll on through with your
next spy.....
Yeah, the world gets pissed at you, but if you're even vaguely winning by
the endgame it's you against the rest of the planet anyways....
-- Rob "Xemu" Fermier
xe...@lglass.com
Lee Cole
I think the effectiveness of diplomacy, depends upon the level. I have played
several games at the PRINCE and below, levels, that allowed me to be
unmolested. Usually, I am very, very aggressive early, taking out the first
two civilizations that I meet. After that, I usually 1) o the diplomatic
route and start making peace, but once you agree to peace, don't be the
one to break it. 2) Continue on the aggressive approach. Even on this
approach, I usually don't agree to peace. So even hear, my reputation stays
good.
At KING and DIETY levels, I think it is perhaps impossible to stay out of war.
Lee Cole
In article <3156D7...@parc.xerox.com>, Ken Fishkin
Lee Cole
lee...@nando.net
Mark Lemmon
>At KING and DIETY levels, I think it is perhaps impossible to stay out of war.
I'm finishing a game that, for the most part, has been the most peaceful
Civ game I've ever played -- King, bloodlust, Europe map. A few eras of war,
but the only major conquests were when I got gunpowder and took out France
(as England). Then, peace. More peace. Lots of tech trading (Great
Library would have been fun). Then, Howitzers. No peace. I probably set
a personal record for turns of complete peace, but now I'm having one of
the best Civ wars I've ever had -- pretty cool. Interesting item -- no one
would build Manhattan until, when it was clear the Romans would lose to
my armies, they started trying to build it as fast as they could. I'm trying
desparately to stop them, because I don't want a Nuke war with the Indians.
Keith Rohrer
Mark Lemmon <lem...@curly.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote:
>In article <4j76v1$i...@e1.empirenet.com>,
>Joseph I. Valenzuela <tsao...@e2.empirenet.com> wrote:
>>Tim Chown (t...@ecs.soton.ac.uk) wrote:
>>
>>: Obviously the cruise missile & paratrooper trick does well (it's
>>: towards the attacker later in the game - makes the endgame rather
>>: more interesting.
>>
>>magnitude easier then in civ1. A veteran musketeer behind a city wall
>>is pretty much an immovable object until the manhatten project...
>
>memory, not to mention sheilds, once the enemy has howitzers. I've seen
>better orchestrated attacks (than in Civ1) too: instead of sending in
>a unit ASAP, the AI seems to hold back a little and attack in mass. An
>onslaught of 3 armor, 1 howitzer, a couple bombers, and a helicopter --
>all in one turn, against one city, that's the sort of thing I do to it.
>Of course, I would have used a spy to make sure I wasn't attacking the
>one city that could survive that sort of attack ...
Two Riflemen, a Barracks, City Walls, and a Legion/Dragoon/whatever
held a city of mine for ages and ages. They'd take their mounted
units and move them adjacent to my city, at which point I'd attack them;
on their turn my Riflemen would absorb what was left. Civ 1 used to
attack with mounted units from range 2 much more often...
Keith
--
Disclaimer: Do not taunt Happy Fun God.
Keith Rohrer
Joseph I. Valenzuela <tsao...@e2.empirenet.com> wrote:
>Tim Chown (t...@ecs.soton.ac.uk) wrote:
>
>: Obviously the cruise missile & paratrooper trick does well (it's
>: almost *too* easy to use :-) but I like the way the balance tips
>: towards the attacker later in the game - makes the endgame rather
>: more interesting.
>
>Really? I found defense ridiculously easy, at least an order of
>magnitude easier then in civ1. A veteran musketeer behind a city wall
>is pretty much an immovable object until the manhatten project...
sometimes about units with speed > 1. If the enemy city is 2 spaces
from mine (i.e. me, plains, them) why do they park their dragoons
next to me, then attack next turn if the dragoons are still alive?
I had a situation like this going for ages, Carthaginians to the east,
Japanese to the south...both at war with me, both parking their
fast units on my doorstep, instead of adjacent to my doorstep...
>At least is takes the drudgery out of defending against barbarians.
>One settler mining a hill is enough to stop a contingent of
>horsemen...
Settlers in open terrain win against my Riflemen some days...
Mark Lemmon
Joseph I. Valenzuela <tsao...@e2.empirenet.com> wrote:
>Tim Chown (t...@ecs.soton.ac.uk) wrote:
>
>: Obviously the cruise missile & paratrooper trick does well (it's
>: almost *too* easy to use :-) but I like the way the balance tips
>: towards the attacker later in the game - makes the endgame rather
>: more interesting.
>
>Really? I found defense ridiculously easy, at least an order of
>magnitude easier then in civ1. A veteran musketeer behind a city wall
>is pretty much an immovable object until the manhatten project...
A veteran musketeer (or even rifleman) behind city walls is a waste of
memory, not to mention sheilds, once the enemy has howitzers. I've seen
better orchestrated attacks (than in Civ1) too: instead of sending in
a unit ASAP, the AI seems to hold back a little and attack in mass. An
onslaught of 3 armor, 1 howitzer, a couple bombers, and a helicopter --
all in one turn, against one city, that's the sort of thing I do to it.
Of course, I would have used a spy to make sure I wasn't attacking the
one city that could survive that sort of attack ...
Mark
Mark Baker
<fis...@parc.xerox.com> wrote:
>Jason Uecker wrote:
>
>> for much greater depth in regard to diplomacy. In fact, I managed to
>> have a game the other night without engaging in a single war, even
>> temporarily!
>
>How did you possibly manage this? In my experience, once you
>start doing well, let alone start the space race, the other empires
>will attack you no matter what you do, and no matter what your
>reputation is. How did you get them to leave you alone?
Build the Great Wall early in the game and most of them will leave you
pretty much alone unless you've already established a bad rep for
yourself. Later get the United Nations...and the Eiffel tower helps
a lot also.
I played a game where I was at peace with everyone thru most of the
game. I used Fanaticism or whatever to take out one Civ. The
Germans and Sioux got ahead in tech while I was yaking them out. I
was playing at King level BTW. No ONE got close to even getting a got
start on building a spaceship, much less launching one. The
Germans did do a surprise attack once on me around 2005 but
immediately requested peace the next turn. I had to accept because
of the Senate, and plus because they had just discovered The
Manhatten Project and I was afraid of getting nuked.
Well I thought things were going okay. Cranked up my luxs and was
twiddling with everything so I could get a better score. The last few
years till 2020 I was only building things like cathedrals and things
to improve happiness and increase my population. Had my settlers
taking care of a pollution zone or two. Well the Germans, at year
2018, did a sneak attack and nuked 5 of my cities! I wasn't
expecting that or I would built some SDI's . My population went from
26,000,000 to 19,000,000! And worse when the game ended I, since I
had no time for clean up, I lost 120 points to pollution! I was
pissed. Only got a 40 % rating. I started to go back to 2000AD and
do the last twenty years over but I accepted it as a lesson learned.
Build SDIs!
--
Mark Baker
mba...@ix.netcom.com
Joseph Vigneau
Mark Baker <mba...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> I had to accept because
>of the Senate, and plus because they had just discovered The
>Manhatten Project and I was afraid of getting nuked.
The 'pedia says that all nations get nukes after the Manhattan Project is
built... Is this true? It seems there isn't much advantage to building
this (or do you need Rocketry/Fission first?)
--
jo...@wpi.edu WPI Computer Science '97 Linux!
Kief Morris
says...
>Library would have been fun). Then, Howitzers. No peace. I probably set
>a personal record for turns of complete peace, but now I'm having one of
>the best Civ wars I've ever had -- pretty cool. Interesting item -- no one
>would build Manhattan until, when it was clear the Romans would lose to
The Bloodlust option is great - in Civ1 high-tech wars were self
limiting, since *somebody* would build and launch the space ship.
I've (Vikings) been battling the Carthaginians, Romans, and Babylonians,
all of us having discovered all tech a century or more ago.
In this game, like yours, nobody built the MP for a pretty long time.
Back to diplomacy, once of the reasons my game has lasted so long is
alliances - I started attacking the Romans so I could my the entire
continent to myself, but their allies the Babylonians immediately
started pounding my coastal cities, forcing me to split my resources
on two fronts. I've started picking on the smaller fry instead,
especially those with no powerful allies.
Civ2 has a lot more wrinkles than Civ1, and I'm fighting off the
addiction like I haven't had to do since Civ first came out.
Kief
Mark Lemmon
Keith Rohrer <kwro...@cs.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>Two Riflemen, a Barracks, City Walls, and a Legion/Dragoon/whatever
>held a city of mine for ages and ages. They'd take their mounted
>units and move them adjacent to my city, at which point I'd attack them;
>on their turn my Riflemen would absorb what was left. Civ 1 used to
>attack with mounted units from range 2 much more often...
>
> Keith
Interesting. I've found that the computer uses armor and howitzers to
attack from range much, much more than in Civ1 (limited number of games,
though). In a particular hot spot, the computer was using it's own cities
as a staging ground, so I couldn't even see the attackers until they
came after me (well, sometimes my spy found them). Through a historical
accident (and a goody hut) I had an isolated city in the middle of six enemy
cities, connected by road and some rail to the enemy. This may have
contributed to the illusion that the computer is playing smarter, I suppose.
I have noticed that the computer (or at least some opponents) aren't too
fond of using an offensive unit with defensive units in cities -- makes my
game a lot easier, but a bit less fun.
Mark
Keith Rohrer
Mark Lemmon <lem...@curly.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote:
>In article <4j9uar$4...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
>Keith Rohrer <kwro...@cs.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>>Two Riflemen, a Barracks, City Walls, and a Legion/Dragoon/whatever
>>held a city of mine for ages and ages. They'd take their mounted
>>units and move them adjacent to my city, at which point I'd attack them;
>>on their turn my Riflemen would absorb what was left. Civ 1 used to
>>attack with mounted units from range 2 much more often...
>attack from range much, much more than in Civ1 (limited number of games,
>though).
it will move to your doorstep first. It never charges with only 2/3 of
a move left, even if that would be more effective than letting me kill
it...
Ken Fishkin
> Really? I found defense ridiculously easy, at least an order of
> magnitude easier then in civ1. A veteran musketeer behind a city wall
> is pretty much an immovable object until the manhatten project...
A howitzer should do the trick.
Tim Chown
>
> Tim Chown (t...@ecs.soton.ac.uk) wrote:
> : Obviously the cruise missile & paratrooper trick does well (it's
> : almost *too* easy to use :-) but I like the way the balance tips
> : towards the attacker later in the game - makes the endgame rather
> : more interesting.
>
> magnitude easier then in civ1. A veteran musketeer behind a city wall
> is pretty much an immovable object until the manhatten project...
You quoted me out of context there. I the line above what you cut out
I said defence is much easier. The attacker *is* favoured more
in the endgame (stealth stuff, cruise, nukes, etc).
But musketeers behind city walls are far from invulnerable. If you
think that then a shame there is no multiplayer Civ2 for me to show
you that :-)
What you will find is that there are "windows of opportunity"
as you get tech advances. If you're lucky enough to have both
Leonardo's and Sun Tzu then you can swarm the map with the most
up to date veteran units. Veteran riflemen/cannon will make
mincemeat of musketeers behind city walls, if attacking in numbers
(which the computer at the lower levels sadly does not do).
Other things you can do include buying out non-democratic cites,
camping outside them to cut off their food and/or shield supply.
Build railroad/fortresses outside their city (defend the settlers
if you do this). Obviously if you can sabotage their barracks or
city walls it's easier, but far from "an immovable object".
Also note at the lower levels you get a combat advantage (a x2
multiplier on Chieftain). Combat is "even" on King.
Bill Cranston
>The new Civ2 diplomatic model reminds me a lot of MOOs - you
>don't want to be in first place if you can help it. Instead, it's
>best to "ride the draft", going along in 2nd or 3rd place until
>you "slingshot" past at the end. At least, that's how I did it in MOO.
>Is there any way to do something like this in Civ2? Unfortunately,
>other civs are smart enough to see you oustripping them in inventions,
>so you can't just quietly do research with no military, and hope they
>won't notice. Any suggestions?
>A side-note of relevance to this. While the AI does seem a lot
>better in Civ2, the computer players still do a pretty poor job
>of naval unit use in general, and naval offensives in particular.
>If you're separated by an enemy by a body of water, you'll find the
>defensive _far_ easier than the offensive.
>--
>Ken Fishkin fis...@acm.org
>http://www.parc.xerox.com/fishkin
I don't have anything to add concerning taking advantage of the draft,
but one thing I noticed is that the AI still has a penchant for
building cities in terrible locations, like on one-square islands for
example. Also, they seem to build far too many units that do little
more than wander the countryside aimlessly.
Bill.
Marco Behrmann
>
>
> The 'pedia says that all nations get nukes after the Manhattan Project is
> built... Is this true? It seems there isn't much advantage to building
> this (or do you need Rocketry/Fission first?)
> --
A nation get the ability of building nukes when _one_ nation has Manhattan WoW and the nation i
question has Rocketry.
--
Regards
-Marco "NetSpider!" Behrmann
-SWEDEN
----------------------------------------------------------
-Professional rpg-developer, student of informatics, small
-arms expert, computer fanatic and master of cynicism
---
Email: ma...@tripnet.se
---
"Assumptions is the mother of all fuck-ups"
Mark Lemmon
switched the production in both. At the end of turn, I checked city
status (F1) and found that I had 254 paratroopers in production (and
255 coloseums because of another city). So, an 8-bit counter is used,
and it reacts whenever you change production, but not when you capture a
city. Seems easy enough to fix when you have a spare moment.
Mark
BTW, great game -- my wife and I are constantly fighting over who gets to
play.
Drew Fudenberg
>
> Ken Fishkin <fis...@parc.xerox.com> wrote:
>
> >The new Civ2 diplomatic model reminds me a lot of MOOs - you
> >don't want to be in first place if you can help it. Instead, it's
> >best to "ride the draft", going along in 2nd or 3rd place until
> >you "slingshot" past at the end. At least, that's how I did it in MOO.
-know- who is in first place? We get no info at all on othe rcivs unless
we have an embassy with them, and even then we dont see their pop
and manufcaturing unless they're first in that category. (BTW, I think
embassies ought to provide taht info.) Thus if a CP is second in both
pop and mfg, it might well be ahead, but we wouldnt know.
My suspicion is that the CP's get to see (at least) the power graph- does
any one have information on this?
Kief Morris
>
>I think people are going to need to specify what level they are playing at.
>I think the effectiveness of diplomacy, depends upon the level. I have played
>several games at the PRINCE and below, levels, that allowed me to be
>unmolested. Usually, I am very, very aggressive early, taking out the first
>two civilizations that I meet. After that, I usually 1) o the diplomatic
>route and start making peace, but once you agree to peace, don't be the
>one to break it. 2) Continue on the aggressive approach. Even on this
>approach, I usually don't agree to peace. So even hear, my reputation stays
>good.
I don't know, I've been playing an Emporer game, and although the
Aztecs were pretty agressive for a while, they made peace and I
haven't gotten into any fights for quite a while since - I've even
got cities intermingled with English cities, our units traipsing
acrossing one another. The Aztecs and Persians are bigger than me
(not big enough that the human brain won't be able to make up for
the difference, though!) and constantly nearby.
So far I've found it pretty rare for a computer civ to actually
break a peace treaty, although I've had them do the "sneak attack"
once or twice in a previous game at a lower level.
Kief
Tim Chown
>
> In article <4j92th$l...@dfw-ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>,
> Mark Baker <mba...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > I had to accept because
> >of the Senate, and plus because they had just discovered The
> >Manhatten Project and I was afraid of getting nuked.
>
> built... Is this true? It seems there isn't much advantage to building
> this (or do you need Rocketry/Fission first?)
The Manhatten Project is something you should probably only build
if you're losing a game. There's little point going nuclear if
you're well ahead. If you are ahead and someone else builds it,
you should be able to outproduce missiles, and you should be more
capable of pputting SDI in place.
Tim Chown
>
> I don't have anything to add concerning taking advantage of the draft,
> but one thing I noticed is that the AI still has a penchant for
> building cities in terrible locations, like on one-square islands for
> example. Also, they seem to build far too many units that do little
> more than wander the countryside aimlessly.
One square islands are excellent if you put a harbour and off-shore
platform improvement to them. Units wandering around may be scouting
out land, much as you would do I guess?
mo...@hal-pc.org
>Ken Fishkin <fis...@parc.xerox.com> wrote:
>>The new Civ2 diplomatic model reminds me a lot of MOOs - you
>>don't want to be in first place if you can help it. Instead, it's
>>best to "ride the draft", going along in 2nd or 3rd place until
>>you "slingshot" past at the end. At least, that's how I did it in MOO.
>>Is there any way to do something like this in Civ2? Unfortunately,
>>other civs are smart enough to see you oustripping them in inventions,
>>so you can't just quietly do research with no military, and hope they
>>won't notice. Any suggestions?
>>A side-note of relevance to this. While the AI does seem a lot
>>better in Civ2, the computer players still do a pretty poor job
>>of naval unit use in general, and naval offensives in particular.
>>If you're separated by an enemy by a body of water, you'll find the
>>defensive _far_ easier than the offensive.
>>--
>>Ken Fishkin fis...@acm.org
>>http://www.parc.xerox.com/fishkin
>I don't have anything to add concerning taking advantage of the draft,
>but one thing I noticed is that the AI still has a penchant for
>building cities in terrible locations, like on one-square islands for
>example. Also, they seem to build far too many units that do little
>more than wander the countryside aimlessly.
*I* build cities on one-square islands. With the Harbor and Offshore platform, this
becomes a *very* profitable, productive city that is able to grow enough to fill all those
squares (especially if you have a whale or fish there). If the island happens to be off
the coast of an enemy continent, it can become a great base for launching attacks. If the
island is only one square, then your city can only be attacked by marines. A few fighters
and/or bombers flying patrol should be enough to be certain that no transports get close
enough to bring those damn marines.
Andy Frederick
: This new "reputation" factor in CIV2 sounds a lot like the "Oath Breaker" penalty
: player because they "remember" you as treacherous.
I became annoyed last night when I was trying to make nice with all
the countries with whom I was formerly at war. I met with them,
signed peace agreements, then gave them gifts of knowledge until they
were worshipful. (They refused to enter into a permanent alliance
with me, of course, but they remained worshipful even so.) However,
as soon as I concluded my meeting with them (and I'm talking about
three separate civs here, mind you -- I met with all three and gave them
enough stuff to make them worshipful) I consulted my foreign
advisor... and all three civs were ICY!!! How can they go from
worshipful to icy when not even a single turn has passed? Shouldn't
all these gifts I've given them have more of a lasting effect than
that? It seems that if you EVER piss off any civs, there's no way to
make up with them. They will always hold you in contempt, no matter
how many gifts you give them.
Mark Kundinger
>I became annoyed last night when I was trying to make nice with all
>the countries with whom I was formerly at war. I met with them,
>signed peace agreements, then gave them gifts of knowledge until they
>were worshipful. (They refused to enter into a permanent alliance
>with me, of course, but they remained worshipful even so.) However,
>as soon as I concluded my meeting with them (and I'm talking about
>three separate civs here, mind you -- I met with all three and gave them
>enough stuff to make them worshipful) I consulted my foreign
>advisor... and all three civs were ICY!!! How can they go from
>worshipful to icy when not even a single turn has passed? Shouldn't
Personally, I've found that some civilizations will remain worshipful
to you even if you dick them around, while others will dick you around, even
if you're allied with them AND they're worshipful.
I think it depends on the personality type a lot. For instance, don't
even bother trying to get Stalin on your good side.
Mark
-----------------------------------------------------------
Windows 95: from the same people who brought you EDLIN!
m...@owlnet.rice.edu http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~mtk
Ben Giordano
wrote:
>I became annoyed last night when I was trying to make nice with all
>the countries with whom I was formerly at war. I met with them,
>signed peace agreements, then gave them gifts of knowledge until they
>were worshipful. (They refused to enter into a permanent alliance
>with me, of course, but they remained worshipful even so.) However,
>as soon as I concluded my meeting with them (and I'm talking about
>three separate civs here, mind you -- I met with all three and gave them
>enough stuff to make them worshipful) I consulted my foreign
>advisor... and all three civs were ICY!!! How can they go from
>worshipful to icy when not even a single turn has passed? Shouldn't
>all these gifts I've given them have more of a lasting effect than
>that? It seems that if you EVER piss off any civs, there's no way to
>make up with them. They will always hold you in contempt, no matter
>how many gifts you give them.
What was your power level? If your power is Supreme, Mighty, or
Strong, they will always be jealous and contemptuous of you. The more
powerful you are, the cooler the relationship between you and the
other civilizations.
Andy Frederick
: What was your power level? If your power is Supreme, Mighty, or
: Strong, they will always be jealous and contemptuous of you. The more
: powerful you are, the cooler the relationship between you and the
: other civilizations.
I don't know what my power level was. I suppose I'd better start
paying attention to that, so I don't give away precious knowledge to
enemies who'll instantly turn from worshipful to icy as soon as I'm
done talking to them.
If that's really how it works (the bigger you are, the more the other
civs hate you), I must say I don't like it. The U.S. is one of the
most powerful country (some would say THE most powerful country, now
that the Soviet Union is no more, but I can't agree -- China's
obviously one of the top countries, or we wouldn't be so tolerant of
their civil rights violations), but not all countries hate us.
Actually, it seems like all the big countries will hate each other,
and all the little countries will hate or love according to the
feelings of the one big country they're most allied with. (There you
have it -- foreign relations in a nutshell.) So I see room for
improvement in that area of Civ II diplomacy.
Joel Adams
<a...@unlinfo.unl.edu> writes
>
>I don't know what my power level was. I suppose I'd better start
>paying attention to that, so I don't give away precious knowledge to
>enemies who'll instantly turn from worshipful to icy as soon as I'm
>done talking to them.
>
>If that's really how it works (the bigger you are, the more the other
>civs hate you), I must say I don't like it. The U.S. is one of the
>most powerful country (some would say THE most powerful country, now
>that the Soviet Union is no more, but I can't agree -- China's
>obviously one of the top countries, or we wouldn't be so tolerant of
>their civil rights violations), but not all countries hate us.
>Actually, it seems like all the big countries will hate each other,
>and all the little countries will hate or love according to the
>feelings of the one big country they're most allied with. (There you
>have it -- foreign relations in a nutshell.) So I see room for
>improvement in that area of Civ II diplomacy.
Little countries often dislike more powerfull ones even if they are
allies. Some European countries resent the power of the Americans. Here
in Britain you somtimes get anti-american feeling. France blocked
Britains membership of the European communnity back in the sixties
because they thought the British were too friendly with the Americans
and the French president disliked this. Look at the European dislike of
America telling us what to do in Bosnia. You Americans are not as
popular as you seem to think - you are just needed for the security of
Europe. :)
I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
--
Joel Adams
Turnpike evaluation. For Turnpike information, mailto:in...@turnpike.com
Nai-Chi Lee
Joel Adams <Jo...@adamsfam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <4k9dnk$7...@crcnis3.unl.edu>, Andy Frederick
><a...@unlinfo.unl.edu> writes
>>civs hate you), I must say I don't like it. The U.S. is one of the
Although not many countries dare to say that they "hate" the U.S., it is
quite clear that the U.S. is not exactly worshiped by most third-world
countries.
>Little countries often dislike more powerfull ones even if they are
>allies. Some European countries resent the power of the Americans. ...
There is an African proverb which says something like:
"When two elephants fight, the grasses are in trouble.
When two elephants make love, the grasses are still in trouble."
But let's get back to the game. Civilization II is basically a world-
conquering war game, not a building and construction game like SimCity.
Therefore, the designers probably worked hard to ensure that you don't
get a peaceful (read: boring) game. Imagine this: you became the most
powerfull nation on earth by 1AD, all other leaders love you, there is
no excuse for war, the game still has another two thousand years to go...
Great fun, isn't it? ;-)
>I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
>powerful.
In the real world, when a nation becomes too powerful for too long, it
tends to corrupt from inside and break up by itself. Perhaps we need
some mechanism in Civ II to account for this. Hey Brian, how about
adding a few new units such as "Freemen" or "Unabomber"? ;-)
--
Nai-Chi
=============================================================================
"Not-Quite-Prime-Time-News" April 3, 1996:
... President Clinton announced that he is canceling all appointments and
will depart immediately to examine Ron Brown's file cabinets. Mean while,
Hillary denied playing any role in the incident, saying she merely made a
few phone calls to express her concern over Brown's safety...
=============================================================================
Ken Chiu
> tends to corrupt from inside and break up by itself. Perhaps we need
> some mechanism in Civ II to account for this. Hey Brian, how about
> adding a few new units such as "Freemen" or "Unabomber"? ;-)
- ADVancement that's called "Human Rights" that generates unrest in the
Democracy/Republic countries. But it's required for UN wonder.
- Running a country with less than 60% of Literacy in Democracy will
bring in 2 more unrest/city ...etc.
--
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| ********* | Kenneth S. Chiu Internet: ksc...@zadall.com |
| ** *** | |
| *** | Zadall Systems Group, Inc. |
| *** ** | 4400 Dominion Street, 5th Floor |
| ********* | Burnaby, BC, Canada V5G 4G3 |
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Liberty Joyce
>
> In article <4k9dnk$7...@crcnis3.unl.edu>, Andy Frederick
> <a...@unlinfo.unl.edu> writes
**SNIP**
> I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
> powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
> are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
> are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
> should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
> --
> Joel Adams
Actually I think this is a great feature. As a democracy I need other
countries to declare war on me because of the damn fool congress (hmmmm,
maybe this game IS realistic...)! It is better when you have a chance
to grind the other civilizations to a pulp, except of course for that
one puny city you let live so that the game doesn't end before your
spaceship arrives (but you have to be careful to keep diplomats in the
area to buy any units that come out of it before they can attack and
ruin your peace bonus....).
LIB
Marc Evensen
break peace in 3000 BC and some other country (which for all I
know didn't even exist in 3000 BC) calls me on it in 1700 AD.
Talk about long and unforgiving memories...
Shouldn't their be some limitation on the memory and grudge factor
after a few hundred years? I mean even the French and English (not
to mention English and Americans) are friends now (or at least at
peace).
-- Marc
George vlad
>
> Joel Adams wrote:
> >
> > In article <4k9dnk$7...@crcnis3.unl.edu>, Andy Frederick
> > <a...@unlinfo.unl.edu> writes
>
> **SNIP**
>
> > I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
> > powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
> > are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
> > are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
> > should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
> > --
> > Joel Adams
Yeeah! i always bash heads with everyone by the end of the game. I
sucks. They totally cooperate between themselves, with those "X Pacts
against the Y aggression" crap, but they seem reluctant to stay allied
with you for too long. What kinda o game is that when you have a war
WITH EVERY NATION ON EARTH at least once in your history! It's cool
that this wouold allow the concept of world wars in the game, but it's
usually me against the rest of teh world! IT SUCKS!! CHANGE IT!!
George
Richard Arnesen
: George
I thought so at first too...
However think if there were ONE superpower in the world and they did
NOT send out aid to other countries...ie just cared about themselves
like a typical civ player does :). They would get quite jealous
and formulate plots against said power...Actually i kindof like it..
Try ON PURPOSE making yourself a mid range power and then go around to
everyone ane have them knock out the big guy...
--
--
//////////////////////////////////+\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
|| Richard Arnesen || Senior Software Technician with PSW Technologies||
\\ rdar...@bnr.ca || The opinions expressed above are yada yada et al||
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\+////////////////////////////////////
\\ What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security //
\\ team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad//
\\ of Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of //
\\ planet? -- Tom Galloway //
------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Seurer
|> I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
|> powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
|> are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
|> are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
|> should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
Exactly! In the game I finished Monday I had destroyed the two remaining
civs down to 2 and 3 cities. The one with 3 did a sneak attack with one
of their Partisans a few turns after forcing peace on me. This was
utterly stupid and I crushed them in two more turns. They should have
been begging me for mercy. Of course, given that THEY broke the
first 10 or 15 treaties that we had I still would have crushed them like
the bugs they were.
That's another thing I'd like to see, civs that stand by their treaties.
--
- Bill Seurer ID Tools and Compiler Development IBM Rochester, MN
Business: BillS...@vnet.ibm.com Home: BillS...@aol.com
Mark Hanson
>
> Liberty Joyce wrote:
> >
> > Joel Adams wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <4k9dnk$7...@crcnis3.unl.edu>, Andy Frederick
> > > <a...@unlinfo.unl.edu> writes
> >
> > **SNIP**
> >
> > > powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
> > > are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
> > > are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
> > > should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
> > > Joel Adams
>
> Yeeah! i always bash heads with everyone by the end of the game. I
> sucks. They totally cooperate between themselves, with those "X Pacts
> against the Y aggression" crap, but they seem reluctant to stay allied
> with you for too long. What kinda o game is that when you have a war
> WITH EVERY NATION ON EARTH at least once in your history! It's cool
> that this wouold allow the concept of world wars in the game, but it's
> usually me against the rest of teh world! IT SUCKS!! CHANGE IT!!
scale throughout most of the game. In that game I had other nations
allying with me against the most powerfull nation (the Russians). I
believe the game gangs up against the top civ wheather it is a human
player or not.
Also, how often do you trade tech to your allies or give them gifts?
This, IMHO, plays a large part in keeping your allies happy.
Mark Hanson
Ben Giordano
wrote:
>Ben Giordano (gior...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>: What was your power level? If your power is Supreme, Mighty, or
>: Strong, they will always be jealous and contemptuous of you. The more
>: powerful you are, the cooler the relationship between you and the
>: other civilizations.
>
>I don't know what my power level was. I suppose I'd better start
>paying attention to that, so I don't give away precious knowledge to
>enemies who'll instantly turn from worshipful to icy as soon as I'm
>done talking to them.
>
>If that's really how it works (the bigger you are, the more the other
>civs hate you), I must say I don't like it. The U.S. is one of the
>most powerful country (some would say THE most powerful country, now
>that the Soviet Union is no more, but I can't agree -- China's
>obviously one of the top countries, or we wouldn't be so tolerant of
>their civil rights violations), but not all countries hate us.
>Actually, it seems like all the big countries will hate each other,
>and all the little countries will hate or love according to the
>feelings of the one big country they're most allied with. (There you
>have it -- foreign relations in a nutshell.) So I see room for
>improvement in that area of Civ II diplomacy.
That aspect of Civilization II diplomacy isn't so unrealistic. Small
Third-World countries resent our power and influence. EXAMPLE: Cuba.
I have to disagree with you when you say that he U.S. is not the most
powerful nation in the world. I believe that it IS the most powerful
country in the world, in both economic and military terms. China is
indeed a first-rate power BUT that's only because it has the world's
largest armed forces and the biggest population. Its armed forces are
still equipped with largely vintage weapons of the 1950s and 1960s.
William Powers
negative point modifiers, etc. is that the CP doesn't seem to keep
tabs on each other. I have been at war with the entire world forever
now, and each CP continues to backstab me one turn into every peace
agreement; yet, all of their allies continue to stand behind them.
The Germans alone have broken at least 6 agreements. According to the
system, every other race should be hateful of them and not be allied.
I can't buy a friend, and they can't lose one. This doesn't seem
fair. BTW, I have not broken an agreement for centuries.
I'm done whining now, I'm off to kill the Germans,
Will
-----------------------------------------------------------------
___ ___ __ __ __ William Powers
/ / / / /_// // / wpo...@nortel.ca
/ /___/ / __ / // /_ ____ _ __ Nortel Products
/ / / / / / // // . // / / / __/ 35 Davis Drive
\___/\___/ /_//_//___/ \__/ /_/ P.O. Box 13478
================================= Research Triangle Park, NC
27709
Nortel Products is not affiliated with any thoughts, original
or not, that I may have mentioned above.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Neil Radisch
with a civ, and are willing to fight by their side you can keep
them as worshipful allies for the entire game.
I spent 100 years at war with the Sioux. It took another 100 to
heal our relationship. After that, generosity and military
assistance kept them as close, reliable allies for the rest
of the game.
I've found that if you are stingy and keep to yourself, you'll
have no friends and eventually find yourself pitted against
all the other civs.
You can also build the Great Wall/ United Nations to keep
everyone else at bay.
Neil
George vlad wrote:
>
> Liberty Joyce wrote:
> >
> > Joel Adams wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <4k9dnk$7...@crcnis3.unl.edu>, Andy Frederick
> > > <a...@unlinfo.unl.edu> writes
> >
> > **SNIP**
> >
> > > I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
> > > powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
> > > are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
> > > are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
> > > should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
> > > --
> > > Joel Adams
>
> Yeeah! i always bash heads with everyone by the end of the game. I
> sucks. They totally cooperate between themselves, with those "X Pacts
> against the Y aggression" crap, but they seem reluctant to stay allied
> with you for too long. What kinda o game is that when you have a war
> WITH EVERY NATION ON EARTH at least once in your history! It's cool
> that this wouold allow the concept of world wars in the game, but it's
> usually me against the rest of teh world! IT SUCKS!! CHANGE IT!!
>
> George
Andy Frederick
: "When two elephants fight, the grasses are in trouble.
Cool proverb.
: Imagine this: you became the most
: powerfull nation on earth by 1AD, all other leaders love you, there is
: no excuse for war, the game still has another two thousand years to go...
: Great fun, isn't it? ;-)
I would not be happy with either extreme. As it is, when I'm the most
powerful civ, all other civs hate me. (Though they pretend to worship
me when I'm giving them stuff.) I'm not saying that all civs should
love me. I'm saying that some should hate me, some should love me. (Or
at least pretend to love me, and be allied with me.) Back when there
were two super-powers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, each had their
allies. Even should the U.S. become clearly THE most powerful nation
in the world (and no, even with the breakup of the Soviet Union, I
don't think we've obtained that status -- and probably never will), we
will still have our allies.
Timothy M. Helbing
>In article <4k9dnk$7...@crcnis3.unl.edu>, Andy Frederick
><a...@unlinfo.unl.edu> writes
>Little countries often dislike more powerfull ones even if they are
>in Britain you somtimes get anti-american feeling. France blocked
>Britains membership of the European communnity back in the sixties
>because they thought the British were too friendly with the Americans
>and the French president disliked this. Look at the European dislike of
>America telling us what to do in Bosnia. You Americans are not as
>popular as you seem to think - you are just needed for the security of
>Europe. :)
>
shows we'd have to come back again to knock heads together and get
everybody (i.e. france, germany, russia maybe.) to play nice.:) We
aren't providing security out the kindness of our hearts.
Anyway, nuff said there.
>I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
>powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
>are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
>are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
>should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
Are you kidding? Look at Mexico. Until recently they were very
antagonistic but not crazy enough to do anything that would really piss
us off. Only in the last ten years or so have things started to become
more cordial.
I think CivII has it partly right. They should know better than to
attack but they don't have to be nice.
Tim
Andy Frederick
: You Americans are not as
: popular as you seem to think - you are just needed for the security of
: Europe. :)
Now hold on! 8-) I don't think we're THAT popular. (We Americans
are not as naive as you Brits seem to think -- well, at least one or
two of us aren't.) I know a lot of the world can't stand us.
However, my point is this -- in Civ II, I can give another civ a
buttload of technological advances, which will make it worshipful.
But the instant my emissary bids adieu, they hate my stinking guts.
(They're "icy" to be precise.) I just think if they DO despise me,
they should never become worshipful to begin with. On the other hand,
I can understand that some civs might be two-faced -- they gush with
excitement at the gifts I bestow upon them, but as soon as my back is
turned, they start calling me a self-righteous, condescending pig.
But note I said "some". That ALL civs would behave this way is what I
find unrealistic. In the game I'm refering to, I met with all the
other civs (four or five of them, I believe), gave them enough stuff
to make them worshipful, and then they went right back to icy.
: I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
: powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
: are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
: are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
: should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
Yes! Agreed! In the real world, very few leaders are as pompous and
delusional as Saddam Hussein -- claiming to have won even after
they've lost. (Or insisting that you're a coward for running away,
though you've just cut off both their arms and both their legs.) When
my civ is the strongest, and I have a bad reputation for turning on my
friends, there should still be one or two small civs that will always
be willing to be my allies, simply because they're afraid of me.
(Hell, sometimes I'm willing to accept any cease fire or peace
agreement or alliance that's thrown my way, if the civ throwing it has
just kicked my butt from north pole to south.) Fear should definately
be part of the equation.
Timothy Burke
> Not true. If you are generous (ie willing to share/give-away tech)
> with a civ, and are willing to fight by their side you can keep
> them as worshipful allies for the entire game.
>
> I spent 100 years at war with the Sioux. It took another 100 to
> heal our relationship. After that, generosity and military
> assistance kept them as close, reliable allies for the rest
> of the game.
>
> I've found that if you are stingy and keep to yourself, you'll
> have no friends and eventually find yourself pitted against
> all the other civs.
>
> You can also build the Great Wall/ United Nations to keep
> everyone else at bay.
The big problem with keeping an ally--which I admit can be useful--is that
if you share tech with them, they often share that tech liberally with
everyone else within 5-10 turns. So don't give an ally tech that you don't
want your worst enemy to have. Of course, if you won't give them tech,
eventually you won't keep them as allies, but them's the breaks.
Andy Frederick
: However think if there were ONE superpower in the world and they did
: NOT send out aid to other countries...ie just cared about themselves
: like a typical civ player does :). They would get quite jealous
: and formulate plots against said power...Actually i kindof like it..
Except that my original complaint (and people are going to get fed
up with me soon -- if they haven't already -- because I've whined
about this so much) was that I DID send aid to other countries; I gave
each country enough knowledge to make them worshipful, but they
immediately resumed being icy as soon as I was done meeting with them.
I agree with you -- if you do nothing, and you're the most powerful,
they should get pissed. But if I then make them happy, I'd like at
least a few to REMAIN happy for longer than the blink of an eye.
Dennis Brennan
Ben Giordano <gior...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>On 7 Apr 1996 21:57:08 GMT, a...@unlinfo.unl.edu (Andy Frederick)
>wrote:
>>civs hate you), I must say I don't like it. The U.S. is one of the
>>most powerful country (some would say THE most powerful country, now
>>that the Soviet Union is no more, but I can't agree -- China's
>>obviously one of the top countries, or we wouldn't be so tolerant of
>>their civil rights violations), but not all countries hate us.
>I have to disagree with you when you say that he U.S. is not the most
>powerful nation in the world. I believe that it IS the most powerful
>country in the world, in both economic and military terms. China is
>indeed a first-rate power BUT that's only because it has the world's
>largest armed forces and the biggest population. Its armed forces are
>still equipped with largely vintage weapons of the 1950s and 1960s.
Ben is right. The United States is the most powerful country in the
world. This does not mean that the United States can unilaterally
overpower any other country in the world.
Being number one doesn't mean that numbers two, three and four can't
gang up and take you down.
--
Dennis Brennan------------------...@midway.uchicago.edu
infonaut
>> >
>> > In article <4k9dnk$7...@crcnis3.unl.edu>, Andy Frederick
>> > <a...@unlinfo.unl.edu> writes
>>
>>
>> > I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
>> > powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
>> > are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
>> > are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
>> > should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
>> > Joel Adams
>
>Yeeah! i always bash heads with everyone by the end of the game. I
>sucks. They totally cooperate between themselves, with those "X Pacts
>against the Y aggression" crap, but they seem reluctant to stay allied
>with you for too long. What kinda o game is that when you have a war
>WITH EVERY NATION ON EARTH at least once in your history! It's cool
>that this wouold allow the concept of world wars in the game, but it's
>usually me against the rest of teh world! IT SUCKS!! CHANGE IT!!
>
>George
This is my MAIN COMPLAINT about CIV!!!! They declare war cuase you're bigger, smaller, more advanced, less advanced...Screw that! =
It's because YOU EXIST!!! You have an embassy somewhere, watch your Intel advisor...within 5 turns of your "laughing at their hollo=
w threats," they will be at WAR with you. If you are on another continent, watch as that sail or frigate comes up to your coast...n=
o don't....SINK it!!! It does not matter if you sink half their navy or have subs prowling their coast, or blast a few cities with =
your battleships. They will still be a#@holes.
Eric Scheirer
George Vlad wrote:
> Yeeah! i always bash heads with everyone by the end of the game. I
> sucks. They totally cooperate between themselves, with those "X Pacts
> against the Y aggression" crap, but they seem reluctant to stay allied
> with you for too long. What kinda o game is that when you have a war
> WITH EVERY NATION ON EARTH at least once in your history! It's cool
> that this wouold allow the concept of world wars in the game, but it's
> usually me against the rest of teh world! IT SUCKS!! CHANGE IT!!
This might have been true in Civ I, but it assuredly isn't in Civ II.
If you're reasonably small, non-expansionist, and friendly (ie,
willing to share tech), the other civilizations can be quite nice to
you.
I'm playing a game now with 7 civs, small world, Diety level. My
starting position sucked, nothing but rocks and jungle in my whole
corner of the world. I could only get five cities founded before
running into the Greeks to the north, the Romans to the west, and the
Babylonians on the next island over.
To summarize the last 5948 years of play, well, the Greeks have been
continual assholes for the whole game, and they're about to get wiped
out 'cause we're all sick of them. But I've been allied with the
Romans, Aztecs, and Americans for as long as I've known them, had
continual peace with the Germans, and only one little border skirmish
with the Babylonians. Everyone is Enthusiastic or Worshipful, and
we're all sort of co-researching science -- as soon as anyone gets
something, it's all shared.
Everyone's cities are well-defended, and no one really has the
production base to build a big enough army to take out anyone else.
It'll be interesting to see if the space race spurs unfriendliness (no
one has built Manhattan Project yet), or if someone will just quietly
win the game with a spaceship.
Might be dull to some, I suppose, but I find it gratifying that the
game can go this way now, too. I'm pretty sure if there wasn't an
"ending" with a space-race, we'd all just go on peacefully coexisting
like this forever. Not that I'd want all my games to be like this,
but it makes a nice trifecta for my three games on Diety level: one
world conquest, one spaceship landing, one all love and butterflies
:).
It would be cool if when you had really good allies at the end of the
game, you could collaboratively build a spaceship, and "win" the game
together that way. Then the ultimate "diplomatic" goal would be to
have all the civilizations working together in peace and harmony.
and launch a single world-owned ship.
Unless there were Zulus. I'd kick their scrawny asses up and down
twice before letting those bastards work on a spaceship with me.
--
+-------------------+
| Eric Scheirer | Bbmaj7 | Ab-7 Db7 | Gbmaj7 | E-7 A7 |
| e...@media.mit.edu | < http://sound.media.mit.edu/~eds >
| 617 253 0116 | Dmaj7 | Ab-7 Db7 | Gbmaj7 | G-7 C7 |
+-------------------+
Trevor Barrie
>But let's get back to the game. Civilization II is basically a world-
>conquering war game, not a building and construction game like SimCity.
They should have come up with a better name, then.
>Therefore, the designers probably worked hard to ensure that you don't
>get a peaceful (read: boring) game. Imagine this: you became the most
>powerfull nation on earth by 1AD, all other leaders love you, there is
>no excuse for war, the game still has another two thousand years to go...
>Great fun, isn't it? ;-)
It would be, yes, but MicroProse seems to have some sort of compulsion
to reduce potentially interesting strategic games into boring war
games where, as you say, peace is effectively impossible.
Mark Lemmon
infonaut <info...@scorpio.lib.iup.edu> wrote:
>George vlad <gb...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>>
>>Yeeah! i always bash heads with everyone by the end of the game. I
>>sucks. They totally cooperate between themselves, with those "X Pacts
>>against the Y aggression" crap, but they seem reluctant to stay allied
>>with you for too long. What kinda o game is that when you have a war
>>WITH EVERY NATION ON EARTH at least once in your history! It's cool
(Not that it matters, but) A realistic one??? More importantly, whatever
kind of game it is, Civ2 is also a fun one.
>>that this wouold allow the concept of world wars in the game, but it's
>>usually me against the rest of teh world! IT SUCKS!! CHANGE IT!!
>>
>
>This is my MAIN COMPLAINT about CIV!!!! They declare war cuase you're
>bigger, smaller, more advanced, less advanced...Screw that! =
>It's because YOU EXIST!!! You have an embassy somewhere, watch your
>Intel advisor...within 5 turns of your "laughing at their hollo=
>w threats," they will be at WAR with you. If you are on another
>continent, watch as that sail or frigate comes up to your coast...n=
>o don't....SINK it!!! It does not matter if you sink half their
>navy or have subs prowling their coast, or blast a few cities with =
>your battleships. They will still be a#@holes.
>
I, like many others, have used the diplomacy in a rather positive way. It
is possible to have a long peace, with even an "aggressive, expansionistic"
nation, whether you are the most powerful or the least, and whether they are
the most or least powerful. Of course the other civs don't play exactly
the way that would help you the most -- it would be a pretty boring
game then. Civ2 diplomacy, for a diplomacy that relies on AI, is
pretty darn good. It has its weaknesses, but those come with the
AI territory. It greatly expands the range and enjoyability of play
for people who enjoy _strategy_ games. Your complaint is with the way
you play (no, I have no idea what that is) -- civ2 diplomacy has much
more depth than you depict, and I personally enjoy that aspect of the
game, and the game as a whole, quite a bit, thank you very much.
infonaut
>Not true. If you are generous (ie willing to share/give-away tech)
>with a civ, and are willing to fight by their side you can keep
>them as worshipful allies for the entire game.
>
>I spent 100 years at war with the Sioux. It took another 100 to
>heal our relationship. After that, generosity and military
>assistance kept them as close, reliable allies for the rest
>of the game.
>
at leat in Civ1, they demand your highest and best tech, such as
nukes. Would we give nukes to Iraq if they promise to be best buds
with us????
>I've found that if you are stingy and keep to yourself, you'll
>have no friends and eventually find yourself pitted against
>all the other civs.
>
>You can also build the Great Wall/ United Nations to keep
>everyone else at bay.
>
>Neil
>
>
>George vlad wrote:
>>
>> Liberty Joyce wrote:
>> >
>> > Joel Adams wrote:
>> > >
>> > > In article <4k9dnk$7...@crcnis3.unl.edu>, Andy Frederick
>> > > <a...@unlinfo.unl.edu> writes
>> >
>> > **SNIP**
>> >
>> > > I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
>> > > powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
>> > > are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
>> > > are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
>> > > should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
>> > > --
>> > > Joel Adams
>>
>> Yeeah! i always bash heads with everyone by the end of the game. I
>> sucks. They totally cooperate between themselves, with those "X Pacts
>> against the Y aggression" crap, but they seem reluctant to stay allied
>> with you for too long. What kinda o game is that when you have a war
>> WITH EVERY NATION ON EARTH at least once in your history! It's cool
>> that this wouold allow the concept of world wars in the game, but it's
>> usually me against the rest of teh world! IT SUCKS!! CHANGE IT!!
>>
>> George
infonaut
>In article <1996Apr11....@news.iup.edu>,
>infonaut <info...@scorpio.lib.iup.edu> wrote:
>>George vlad <gb...@cornell.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>sucks. They totally cooperate between themselves, with those "X Pacts
>>>against the Y aggression" crap, but they seem reluctant to stay allied
>>>with you for too long. What kinda o game is that when you have a war
>>>WITH EVERY NATION ON EARTH at least once in your history! It's cool
>
>kind of game it is, Civ2 is also a fun one.
>
>>>usually me against the rest of teh world! IT SUCKS!! CHANGE IT!!
>>>
>>
>>bigger, smaller, more advanced, less advanced...Screw that! =
>>It's because YOU EXIST!!! You have an embassy somewhere, watch your
>>Intel advisor...within 5 turns of your "laughing at their hollo=
>>w threats," they will be at WAR with you. If you are on another
>>continent, watch as that sail or frigate comes up to your coast...n=
>>o don't....SINK it!!! It does not matter if you sink half their
>>navy or have subs prowling their coast, or blast a few cities with =
>>your battleships. They will still be a#@holes.
>>
>
>I, like many others, have used the diplomacy in a rather positive way. It
>is possible to have a long peace, with even an "aggressive, expansionistic"
>nation, whether you are the most powerful or the least, and whether they are
>the most or least powerful. Of course the other civs don't play exactly
>the way that would help you the most -- it would be a pretty boring
>game then. Civ2 diplomacy, for a diplomacy that relies on AI, is
>pretty darn good. It has its weaknesses, but those come with the
>AI territory. It greatly expands the range and enjoyability of play
>for people who enjoy _strategy_ games. Your complaint is with the way
>you play (no, I have no idea what that is) -- civ2 diplomacy has much
>more depth than you depict, and I personally enjoy that aspect of the
>game, and the game as a whole, quite a bit, thank you very much.
How do you do this? Do you kowtow to their demands? My complaint was largely about the way the AI acted; you nuke a city, and they =
wouldn't cower; the only time I ever successfully got an enemy civ to pay tribute was when I was in Communism and had a couple battl=
eships and subs trailing their fleet (it was the Babylonians.) Then Hammurabi seemed to think "Oh, crap. There's no Senate to stop=
him...I better cower." But a few turns later they again landed on my coast, attacked me, and I had to obliterate them with Armor.
Neil Radisch
don't develop their continent very well. While war with them
is gratifying, I found buying up half their empire was more
practical.
Neil
RA LEE
: Ben is right. The United States is the most powerful country in the
: world. This does not mean that the United States can unilaterally
: overpower any other country in the world.
: Being number one doesn't mean that numbers two, three and four can't
: gang up and take you down.
Absolutely agree with you, there is an excellent book by Tom Clancy
(Rising Sun I think) where Japan (technological and industrial power),
gets together with India and China (large populations, strong industrial
base) and cripples the U.S. economy and navy in sneak attacks. Pretty
tricky stuff, but it could happen. Oh yes it could.
Richard Lee. U/G in history at Bradford University.
Matt McLeod
>How do you do this? Do you kowtow to their demands? My complaint was largely about the way the AI acted; you nuke a city, and they =
>wouldn't cower; the only time I ever successfully got an enemy civ to pay tribute was when I was in Communism and had a couple battl=
>eships and subs trailing their fleet (it was the Babylonians.) Then Hammurabi seemed to think "Oh, crap. There's no Senate to stop=
> him...I better cower." But a few turns later they again landed on my coast, attacked me, and I had to obliterate them with Armor.
Strangely, I haven't had any sneak attacks from anyone, unless I'd already
been trying to kill them. If you've got a Spotless reputation, and you're
on good terms with 'em, they generally don't attack.
Which gives them a bit of a nasty shock when they suddenly realise that all
of their major cities are being hit by nukes, and there are paras dropping
straight into 'em... :-)
matt
Ben Giordano
I have to disagree; militarily, the United States is unmatched and
absolutely #1. Without using nuclear weapons, the United States can
destroy the three mentioned countries' militaries. Of all those three
countries, the only one that can perhaps match the United States in
technology is Japan. But we already employ those technologies and the
weapons in place. Japan simply can't match the U.S.'s military
(remember World War II?). We have twice its population and economy.
Heavy air strikes will easily cripple India's and China's backward
industrial capabilities.
Todd Short
Fourty years have passed since WWII. Then, the Japanese were as powerful
as the U.S. was militarily. It had a navy as big, or bigger, and a large
army. Their technology was good for the time. They had been at war with
China for 8 years before Pearl Harbor was attacked. They were ready for
war, and we weren't. Only our natural resources, our industries and our
population (all of which were greater than Japans), allowed us to catch
up (militarily) and defeat Japan.
China has the largest army in the world. India has the second largest population
(behind China).
Don't forget the Vietnam and Korean conflicts. The U.S. pulled out of Vietnam
without victory (i.e. the U.S. lost), even though it had better technology and
industrial capacity. Technically, there is still a state of war between North
and South Korea (it's been a 40 year cease-fire), that is why Clinton wants
the U.S., China and North and South Korea to get together and talk about a peace
settlement.
In the early part of the Police action in Korea, the U.S. was able to march into
South Korea, through North Korea, and almost reached the Chinese border. Then the
Chinese used their reinforcements, and the U.S. was almost pushed off of the Korean
Peninsula!
In both these conflicts (Vietnam and Korea), Guerilla warfare was used. In WWII, WWI
and the Persian Gulf, it was "traditional" warface. Not a whole lot of guerilla warfare
(relatively speaking, of course). Guerilla warfare is a useful tactic, and typically
wins. The American Colonials (in the Revolutionary War) used guerilla warfare, and
thus, the U.S. won the American Revolution.
Remember, we once thought that the Soviet Army was as good, or better than ours.
(The "evil empire" according to Reagan.) Look at how it's doing in Chechnya.
Also, if we were "unmatched", why did we need all those allies in the Persian Gulf war?
--
-Todd Short
// tsh...@baynetworks.com
// "One if by land, two if by sea, three if by the internet".
infonaut
History lesson time. Alexander leads the Greeks. What did Alexander historically do? Conquer the known world from Greece to wester=
n India. Hence he is an aggressive, annoying dude.
---"Alexander wept, for he had no more worlds to conquer"----
infonaut
>Dennis Brennan (dj...@woodlawn.uchicago.edu) wrote:
>
>: Ben is right. The United States is the most powerful country in the
>: world. This does not mean that the United States can unilaterally
>: overpower any other country in the world.
>
>: Being number one doesn't mean that numbers two, three and four can't
>: gang up and take you down.
>Absolutely agree with you, there is an excellent book by Tom Clancy
>(Rising Sun I think) where Japan (technological and industrial power),
>gets together with India and China (large populations, strong industrial
>base) and cripples the U.S. economy and navy in sneak attacks. Pretty
>tricky stuff, but it could happen. Oh yes it could.
>Richard Lee. U/G in history at Bradford University.
Wasn't that one of his most recent works, Debt of Honor?
Michael Omotayo Akinde
>Liberty Joyce wrote:
>> > I do agree though that Civilisation penalises you too much for being
>> > powerful. I am currently at war with thw whole world just because they
>> > are jealous of me. There should be an element of fear as well - if you
>> > are the neigbour of the worlds most powerfull civ then perhaps you
>> > should be very nice to it not rude - that would be more realistic.
>> > --
>> > Joel Adams
>sucks. They totally cooperate between themselves, with those "X Pacts
>against the Y aggression" crap, but they seem reluctant to stay allied
>with you for too long. What kinda o game is that when you have a war
>WITH EVERY NATION ON EARTH at least once in your history! It's cool
>usually me against the rest of teh world! IT SUCKS!! CHANGE IT!!
Do you want a challenging game or one which is easy to beat? Stop whining -
if you find fighting everyone too hard go and play on King level or such.
In my last game I made an alliance with the Carthagians around year
1650 - and it held it for the rest of the game. (Emperor level I was biggest
and Carthago was number 3 - though by the end they had become number two.)
I never gave them anything - but I did support them well in all their wars.
(Why doesn't the game have an option allowing you to declare war at the same
time as your allies do? :-)
It would be nice if absurbly small nations didn't provoke you without cause
though - having the americans - with 1 pop 6 city being abusive isn't
conducive to their survival. It is much improved though - when I alone had
Nuclear weapons - I was unable to provoke a war! :-)
Regards
Michael.
freejack
: Yeeah! i always bash heads with everyone by the end of the game. I
: sucks. They totally cooperate between themselves, with those "X Pacts
: against the Y aggression" crap, but they seem reluctant to stay allied
: with you for too long. What kinda o game is that when you have a war
: WITH EVERY NATION ON EARTH at least once in your history! It's cool
: that this wouold allow the concept of world wars in the game, but it's
: usually me against the rest of teh world! IT SUCKS!! CHANGE IT!!
Why change it, they are just doing what you would do in thier place. If
you saw one nation way out in front, you would probably make alliances
against them too. Besides, if you are that far in front, just smash them
flat.
1.07 really toned down the cruise missiles (good thing too), I just had
a veteran Ageis cruiser survive 8 cruise missile attacks in a single turn,
and 3 more the next, with about 30% of its hit points left.
: George
Scott Rutter - free...@oo.com
freejack
: - Running a country with less than 60% of Literacy in Democracy will
: bring in 2 more unrest/city ...etc.
Heh, I've been at 100% literacy since 1AD on my current game on king
level. It's just a side effect of my technology push. :)
Perhaps taxes should make citizens unhappy in Democracy or Republic.
Say 2 citizens per 10%, half that in a Republic. Better yet, make one
citizen unhappy per 10% of revenue not dedicated to luxuries. :)
Scott Rutter - free...@oo.com
freejack
: Now wait a minute...that may be a good way to keep them friends, but
: nukes. Would we give nukes to Iraq if they promise to be best buds
: with us????
Heh, that is an interesting example. We were shipping military supplies
to Iraq back when they were at war with Iran. And Iraq was building its
own nuclear reactor and we didn't lift a finger against them.
Scott Rutter - free...@oo.com
pa...@helmich.demon.co.uk
Right on !!! I have been more and more annoyed the last week or so
with all these postings by Americans saying they are the best nation
on the planet and nobody can/should fuck with them.
I might start a flame war here (so be it) but generally I dislike the
American attitude in general on Usenet. So I was happy to read your
post where you, being an american yourself, corrected that other guy.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Paul Helmich
E-mail: pa...@helmich.demon.co.uk
Member of UDIC, Caribbean Dragon.
PGP Key fingerprint: 6C 3A C1 72 A4 2A 9E A1 DC D1 16 E9 70
All warranties expire upon payment of invoice. (Microsoft)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
pa...@helmich.demon.co.uk
wrote:
Yeah... I read all of Clancy's books and AFAIK he never wrote
something called Rising Sun at all... that was a different author.
Matt McLeod
> I have to disagree; militarily, the United States is unmatched and
> absolutely #1. Without using nuclear weapons, the United States can
> destroy the three mentioned countries' militaries. Of all those three
> countries, the only one that can perhaps match the United States in
> technology is Japan. But we already employ those technologies and the
> weapons in place. Japan simply can't match the U.S.'s military
> (remember World War II?). We have twice its population and economy.
> Heavy air strikes will easily cripple India's and China's backward
> industrial capabilities.
Ah, but could you really? Indeed, could the US manage to invade
and conquer Australia (much, much smaller military)? Maybe if reality
was like Civ, and the US could switch to Fundamentalism.
Hang on a minute. Scratch the above para. I completely forgot.
The US is heading towards Fundamentalism already... :-)
Matt
Matt McLeod
> Also, if we were "unmatched", why did we need all those allies in the
> Persian Gulf war?
Mostly to avoid it looking like a unilateral action. The US vs Iraq
looks like a bully picking on a little guy. The UN vs Iraq looks
like the world telling Iraq to bugger off.
Matt
Andy Frederick
: Right on !!! I have been more and more annoyed the last week or so
: with all these postings by Americans saying they are the best nation
: on the planet and nobody can/should fuck with them.
: I might start a flame war here (so be it) but generally I dislike the
: American attitude in general on Usenet. So I was happy to read your
: post where you, being an american yourself, corrected that other guy.
There is no "American attitude." The U.S. (as are most countries) is
made up of individuals. In every country there are those who feel
that their country is without a doubt the best in every way. But
there are also those who have a more realistic view of the world. I
don't care how many idiots brag about how great America is; if you
think for a second that they speak for all of us, you're just as wrong
as they are.
Danno
> There is no "American attitude." The U.S. (as are most countries) is
> made up of individuals. In every country there are those who feel
> that their country is without a doubt the best in every way. But
> there are also those who have a more realistic view of the world. I
> don't care how many idiots brag about how great America is; if you
> think for a second that they speak for all of us, you're just as wrong
> as they are.
I don't know what happened in the previous posts, Andy, but I have to
differ with you for a moment. Regarding an "American attitude", I
believe we are talking about 'national pride', which is not
nation-specific. Each person has his/her own beliefs on why they love
the country in which they live. There are too many factors to count when
dealing with what makes an individual happy (money, fame, friends,
family, food, computer games, etc.. the list goes on), so to analyze
actual data would be fruitless.
Folks in the UK believe that their country is the best (and they'd be
fools to think otherwise) just as we think OURS is best (ditto). This is
an _opinion_ and not is printed, qualified, quantified or documented in
any literature or "World News Tonight" headlines. It's just an opinion.
Opinions are never wrong. (In my opinion, chocolate is better than
vanilla. You may disagree. And we'd both be right.)
Remember, opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one and it usually
stinks. <g>
Stand up for what you believe in!!
Danno
pa...@helmich.demon.co.uk
wrote:
>pa...@helmich.demon.co.uk wrote:
>: Right on !!! I have been more and more annoyed the last week or so
>: with all these postings by Americans saying they are the best nation
>: on the planet and nobody can/should fuck with them.
>: I might start a flame war here (so be it) but generally I dislike the
>: American attitude in general on Usenet. So I was happy to read your
>: post where you, being an american yourself, corrected that other guy.
>
>
>There is no "American attitude." The U.S. (as are most countries) is
>made up of individuals. In every country there are those who feel
>that their country is without a doubt the best in every way. But
>there are also those who have a more realistic view of the world. I
>don't care how many idiots brag about how great America is; if you
>think for a second that they speak for all of us, you're just as wrong
>as they are.
>
Obviously I cannot generalise Americans, or anybody else for that
matter. And there is nothing wrong with national pride. If somebody's
postings are along the lines of "I am proud of the great country I
live in" then that's fine by me. But if they are along the lines of
"We are the best so fuck the rest" then that pisses me off, and
probably many other non-americans with me.
Anyone's postings and opinions are individual. OK. But I still notice
a that *many* americans online tend to behave with an air of
superiority, in a negative way by looking down on others.
And it is my *opinion* that Americans tend to this more than any other
nationality.
Why? I think it's an attitude, it's in the national culture.
Before you tell me I'm generalising again: When you say "he is evil,
he is german, therefore all germans are evil" that is clearly a wrong
generalization. But I think it's ok to say that *in general* the
French tend to have certain cultural characteristics, or the Germans,
or the English, or the Americans.
I could cite countless examples to argue my point about the American's
attitude, but I'll give one small one on usenet a while back which
annoyed me.
An American (yes, just one) started flaming other people for posting
things in incorrect English. He said that if they could'nt even spell
properly then their posts weren't worth reading at all.
This, till someone else pointed out to him that Usenet is
*international* and many people on it don't speak english as a mother
language. He agreed and stopped flaming. What amazed me was that he
hadn't realized something so obvious.
At the time I just thought it was a single incident, but after seeing
many similar incidents happen (not only on Internet) I started to
believe, as I still do, that Americans have an attitude of being the
best and everyone else should be like them. Unfortunately many
americans are also pretty ignorant about other countries and cultures,
so I guess that's a factor too.
Well, thanks for reading through all of my opinion.
Comments are welcome.
Paul Helmich
alex chesser
pa...@helmich.demon.co.uk wrote:
[shorten]
> An American (yes, just one) started flaming other people for posting
> things in incorrect English. He said that if they could'nt even spell
> properly then their posts weren't worth reading at all.
> This, till someone else pointed out to him that Usenet is
> *international* and many people on it don't speak english as a mother
> language. He agreed and stopped flaming. What amazed me was that he
> hadn't realized something so obvious.
> At the time I just thought it was a single incident, but after seeing
> many similar incidents happen (not only on Internet) I started to
> believe, as I still do, that Americans have an attitude of being the
> best and everyone else should be like them. Unfortunately many
> americans are also pretty ignorant about other countries and cultures,
> so I guess that's a factor too.
> Well, thanks for reading through all of my opinion.
> Comments are welcome.
yeah, i'm in canada and have many buddies who agree that in general
americans are obnoxious (like the french :) and even my dad who is from
albany NY but has lived here since vietnam had recently gone on a trip to
the states and remarked at how glad he was that he lived in canada rather
than the US cause of the tacky people there
but on the other hand there are a LOT of good things about america (well a
lot of bad things too) like a really impressive standard of living
(ranking 6th in the world behind whossat? CANADA at number one then japan
.. oh ... (tee hee :) (just kidding around :)
nahh, americans on the net are no big deal ... i've met a few that are
really nice ... like one chick in san fransisco and another in north
carolina ... i think it's just a couple a jerks ruining it for the whole
crew (i mean with 250 million people you're BOUND to have a handfull of
loud, ignorant, self-absorbed, jerks)
check ya'll later and BTW this whole message is just for the sake of
kidding around ... i don't really dislike anyone :)
peace
-chesser
Mike Lemon
>Why? I think it's an attitude, it's in the national culture.
>Before you tell me I'm generalising again: When you say "he is evil,
>he is german, therefore all germans are evil" that is clearly a wrong
>generalization. But I think it's ok to say that *in general* the
>French tend to have certain cultural characteristics, or the Germans,
>or the English, or the Americans.
>I could cite countless examples to argue my point about the American's
>attitude, but I'll give one small one on usenet a while back which
>annoyed me.
As an American, I'm afraid I have to agree. I think it is worthwhile
to point out the difference in reasoning methods between your two
generalizations--something lost upon our logically barren educational
system here. "He is evil. He is German. Germans are evil." is a
poor example of _deductive_ reasoning. Deductive reasoning deals with
finite premises and conclusions drawn from them, while inductive
reasoning accumulates examples supporting and rebutting the hypothesis
until reasonable proof or disproof is arrived at. Inductive reasoning
is citing a multitude of examples supporting the conclusion that
Americans seem overly obnoxious/arrogant.
>Unfortunately many americans are also pretty ignorant about other
>countries and cultures, so I guess that's a factor too.
I'm less concerned about the lack of knowledge of other cultures as
the simple lack of knowledge of history. Nations rise and fall in a
seemingly endless cycle, but we seem to have taken the opinion that
such cycles are useless knowledge, and can do nothing to help the
individual deal with life. Foolishness, of course, but it is
extremely difficult to convince someone who's life is comfortable and
happy that it wasn't always that way, and won't always be that way.
America is a great country, though arguably one whose day has passed.
It saddens me that we have already lost our youthful zeal for
exploration and knowledge, and have become introspective and pedantic.
Every nation has it's century of dominance, and we are coming to end
of ours.
Mike Lemon
m...@interpath.com
Nigel Tzeng
<pa...@helmich.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On 22 Apr 1996 15:39:11 GMT, a...@unlinfo.unl.edu (Andy Frederick)
>wrote:
>
>>pa...@helmich.demon.co.uk wrote:
>>: Right on !!! I have been more and more annoyed the last week or so
>>: with all these postings by Americans saying they are the best nation
>>: on the planet and nobody can/should fuck with them.
Well, it comes with the territory of being the biggest nastiest kid on
the block. I believe that the British were guilty of that particular
sin until they lost that status.
In time, when some other nation is dominant, we'll whine about it too.
At least we don't have wog in our vocabulary. Yet.
>Well, thanks for reading through all of my opinion.
>Comments are welcome.
You're upset because you think we're just uppity colonials. :)
>Paul Helmich
Nigel
Richard Arnesen
: Distribution:
: yeah, i'm in canada and have many buddies who agree that in general
: americans are obnoxious (like the french :) and even my dad who is from
: albany NY but has lived here since vietnam had recently gone on a trip to
Well theres the problem....He lived in New York....You know once you get
past the mason-dixon line everyone becomes rude in America ;)
*extra flame retardent suit on*
*ducks*
--
//////////////////////////////////+\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
|| Richard Arnesen || Senior Software Technician with PSW Technologies||
\\ rdar...@bnr.ca || The opinions expressed above are yada yada et al||
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\+////////////////////////////////////
\\ What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security //
\\ team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad//
\\ of Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of //
\\ planet? -- Tom Galloway //
------------------------------------------------------------
SDFFE306
>Every nation has it's century of dominance, and we are coming to end
>of ours.
Oooh. Not sure about that. Rome lasted nearly 2000 years - and for at least 1000
years it was dominant.
The British Empire was dominant for about a century. I expect we'll see periods of
dominace by any one country grow shorter and shorter. Mainly due to technology.
Edward
SDFFE306
>
>Well, it comes with the territory of being the biggest nastiest kid on
>the block. I believe that the British were guilty of that particular
>sin until they lost that status.
That is not true. England saw its Empire as being a force for good (certainly in the Victorian era)
and when that stopped being true and effectively we lost the morale mandate
we withdrew. Compare India, Cyprus, Canada, Australia and many others with
comparable examples of French withdrawal from empire: French Indo-China (Vietnam)
for example, or Algeria.
>
>In time, when some other nation is dominant, we'll whine about it too.
>At least we don't have wog in our vocabulary. Yet.
>
Nope, just nigger and kike and other charming phrases.
>You're upset because you think we're just uppity colonials. :)
Don't be ridiculous ! You're all a bunch of reprobates we were glad to be rid of.
We just fought a war over it so we wouldn't hurt your feelings :)
Edward
Dennis Brennan
>At the time I just thought it was a single incident, but after seeing
>many similar incidents happen (not only on Internet) I started to
>believe, as I still do, that Americans have an attitude of being the
>best and everyone else should be like them. Unfortunately many
>americans are also pretty ignorant about other countries and cultures,
>so I guess that's a factor too.
>Well, thanks for reading through all of my opinion.
>Comments are welcome.
>
>Paul Helmich
This attitude is probably to some extent caused by the fact that the
United States is basically a continent-sized country which generates
most of its own media, whereas European countries are smaller and
international trade constitutes a much larger part of their economy.
If Americans are going to pick on any other culture, Britain is a
particularly bad choice because we have so much in common.
--
Dennis Brennan------------------...@midway.uchicago.edu
Dennis Brennan
>>You're upset because you think we're just uppity colonials. :)
>
>Don't be ridiculous ! You're all a bunch of reprobates we were glad to be rid of.
>We just fought a war over it so we wouldn't hurt your feelings :)
>
>Edward
Then you English fought us in a _second_ war, burned down our capital and
kicked our butts, and then still let us have our country back.
Whatever you say about the British, you can't fault their sportsmanlike
conduct.
--
Dennis Brennan------------------...@midway.uchicago.edu
Joseph I. Valenzuela
: In <4lji0d$i...@news.interpath.net>, m...@interpath.com (Mike Lemon) writes:
: >Every nation has it's century of dominance, and we are coming to end
: >of ours.
: Oooh. Not sure about that. Rome lasted nearly 2000 years - and for at least 1000
: years it was dominant.
2000 years? I'm not sure where you got that, unless, of course, you
arr including the Byzantine empire. I think including the Byzantine
empire is somewhat intellectually dishonest, as one must (by extension)
include the Hly Roman Empire and extend the life-span of the Roman
Empire to at least the fall of the Hapsburg!
1000 years of dominance seems a little long as well.
That being said, there are empires in the East (Zhong Guo) that
have experienced long periods of cultural/political/economic/military
dominance without wualification, but the nature of Western geo-
politics --- many small, politically significant nation-states
fighting amoungst themselves --- is hardly conducive to absolute
dominance.
: The British Empire was dominant for about a century.
Much longer then that! I'd say from the battle at Waterloo to
the building of the Panama canal, Perfidious Albion was the sole
power of contention in the Western world.
: I expect we'll see periods of
: dominace by any one country grow shorter and shorter. Mainly due to technology.
I think we'll see the political death of the nation stae. Multi-
lateral corporations such as IBM are making the relative
import of countries small.
--
Joseph I. Valenzuela -- tsao...@empirenet.com
http://www.empirenet.com/~tsaotsao
Oppose the ANTI-JOE. Just say no to the VOODOO GLOW SKULLS
br...@minmet.lan.mcgill.ca
> On 22 Apr 1996 15:39:11 GMT, a...@unlinfo.unl.edu (Andy Frederick)
> wrote:
>
> >pa...@helmich.demon.co.uk wrote:
> >: Right on !!! I have been more and more annoyed the last week or so
> >: with all these postings by Americans saying they are the best nation
> >: on the planet and nobody can/should fuck with them.
> >: American attitude in general on Usenet. So I was happy to read your
> >: post where you, being an american yourself, corrected that other guy.
> >
> >
> >There is no "American attitude." The U.S. (as are most countries) is
> >made up of individuals. In every country there are those who feel
> >that their country is without a doubt the best in every way. But
> >there are also those who have a more realistic view of the world. I
> >don't care how many idiots brag about how great America is; if you
> >think for a second that they speak for all of us, you're just as wrong
> >as they are.
> >
> Obviously I cannot generalise Americans, or anybody else for that
> matter. And there is nothing wrong with national pride. If somebody's
> postings are along the lines of "I am proud of the great country I
> live in" then that's fine by me. But if they are along the lines of
> "We are the best so fuck the rest" then that pisses me off, and
> probably many other non-americans with me.
>
> Anyone's postings and opinions are individual. OK. But I still notice
> a that *many* americans online tend to behave with an air of
> superiority, in a negative way by looking down on others.
> And it is my *opinion* that Americans tend to this more than any other
> nationality.
>
> Before you tell me I'm generalising again: When you say "he is evil,
> he is german, therefore all germans are evil" that is clearly a wrong
> generalization. But I think it's ok to say that *in general* the
> French tend to have certain cultural characteristics, or the Germans,
> or the English, or the Americans.
> I could cite countless examples to argue my point about the American's
> attitude, but I'll give one small one on usenet a while back which
> annoyed me.
>
> things in incorrect English. He said that if they could'nt even spell
> properly then their posts weren't worth reading at all.
> This, till someone else pointed out to him that Usenet is
> *international* and many people on it don't speak english as a mother
> language. He agreed and stopped flaming. What amazed me was that he
> hadn't realized something so obvious.
> many similar incidents happen (not only on Internet) I started to
> believe, as I still do, that Americans have an attitude of being the
> best and everyone else should be like them. Unfortunately many
> americans are also pretty ignorant about other countries and cultures,
> so I guess that's a factor too.
> Well, thanks for reading through all of my opinion.
> Comments are welcome.
>
> Paul Helmich
>
> Paul Helmich
> E-mail: pa...@helmich.demon.co.uk
> Member of UDIC, Caribbean Dragon.
> PGP Key fingerprint: 6C 3A C1 72 A4 2A 9E A1 DC D1 16 E9 70
>
> All warranties expire upon payment of invoice. (Microsoft)
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
>>>>
lack of worldliness or sophistication. First of all, unlike Europe where one can drive 10 hours and travel
from Brest to the German-Polish border (passing through about 5 countries), I can drive from Pittsburgh to
the west coast in a week and, while seeing varieties of American culture, not really be exposed to any
foreign culture. This means that Americans have little opportunity to experience the breadth and depth of
the world. The consequence of this is that one tends to become a bit isolated and xenophobic. Second,
the world media is dominated by the US. Music, TV, movies, and news all orginate mainly from the US.
Europeans benefit (?) by being able to see how we view ourselves from Baywatch to Apocalypse Now.
While the EU countries produce quality movies, Americans don't/won't go to watch them in large numbers.
TV from Europe is basically a wash and the UK has always supplied tons of music. I guess my point is that
we only tend to see ourselves in the media, which further limits our perspective. This fact is strangely
underreported. Are Americans genetically inferior because we don't know the Canadian Prime Minister?
Or is it a function of the Canadian PM hardly ever making Nightline while Clinton is on the news every night
at 11 here (Canada). One could argue that Americans should make an effort to learn more about the world
(a view I heartily endorse), John Q. Public sees no reason why he should invest the time. This is the
problem of being a self-sufficient, net exporting media center. The flow of knowledge tends to go one way
and not being able to make it back upstream. It would be like a Civ2 game with your caravans only
exporting knowledge and cash one way (NOT LITERALLY!).
If anything, the bad attitudes are not arising from a view of superiority or hatred, but just a lack of info and
effort.
Ian
Christain
>
> Distribution:
>
> peace
> -chesserJust remember that its always the loudest, bigest jerks that get the most
attention! They dont represent the silent majority. I know America
bahsing is popular abroad, especially in France or Austrailia. "If the
U.S. didnt exist the world be be a paradise." Yeah right, keep
dreaming....Personaly I like Canada a lot but would never live there.
That Socialist system has just got to go. People think the U.S. debt is
big, its nothing compared to Canada's
Joel Wawrzon
<br...@minmet.lan.mcgill.ca> wrote:
[mega-snip]
1~
>the world. The consequence of this is that one tends to become a bit
>isolated and xenophobic.
Good observation.
>the world media is dominated by the US. Music, TV, movies, and news all
>orginate mainly from the US.
You're kidding, right? You obviously have never lived outside of
North America. I think your observation at the top could be a good
explanation as to why you would make such an enormously erroneous
statement. The assumption is understandable, but the reality is
really quite different (quite!). It's a big world.
Joel
-------------------------------------------
Joel Wawrzon
Univ. of Wisc. Dept. of Computer Sciences
waw...@cs.wisc.edu
-------------------------------------------
Dearmad
>
> In article <4lm0r8$q...@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca>,
> <br...@minmet.lan.mcgill.ca> wrote:
>
> [mega-snip]
> 1~
> >isolated and xenophobic.
>
>
> >the world media is dominated by the US. Music, TV, movies, and news all
> >orginate mainly from the US.
>
> North America. I think your observation at the top could be a good
> explanation as to why you would make such an enormously erroneous
> statement. The assumption is understandable, but the reality is
> really quite different (quite!). It's a big world.
>
> Joel
>
Perhaps it was the wording used in the above. As I have travelled and
lived abroad, I noticed a deep penetration into other cultures of
American media and glitz, which is unprecedented; no other single
country has as much effect on the foreign media as the U.S. appears to.
Taken altogether though, I quite agree that the U.S. effect is much
less than "dominating."
Joel Wawrzon
Dearmad <dea...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Joel Wawrzon wrote:
>> In article <4lm0r8$q...@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca>,
>> <br...@minmet.lan.mcgill.ca> wrote:
>> [mega-snip]
>> >isolated and xenophobic.
>>
>>
>> >the world media is dominated by the US. Music, TV, movies, and news all
>> >orginate mainly from the US.
>>
>> North America. I think your observation at the top could be a good
>> explanation as to why you would make such an enormously erroneous
>> statement. The assumption is understandable, but the reality is
>> really quite different (quite!). It's a big world.
>
>lived abroad, I noticed a deep penetration into other cultures of
>American media and glitz, which is unprecedented; no other single
>country has as much effect on the foreign media as the U.S. appears to.
> Taken altogether though, I quite agree that the U.S. effect is much
>less than "dominating."
Your point about the U.S. having more of an effect on foreign media than
most countries or more of an effect than other countries appear to have
on us is well taken. But foreign organizations like the BBC and national
media orgs have, by far, the greatest impact. The U.S. has always been
very enclosed socially, economically, and culturally, so like a one-way mirror
we only see only ourselves and our own sources, oblivious to all the world has
to offer while the world sees theirs _and_ ours. It's a one-way transfer.
It takes forever for anything to get here to the States, if it ever does,
but things go the other way with very little delay. It would be reasonable
to assume, living in the States, that the States sets the trends and
provides the media for the entire world. There's very little exposure here
to what exists on the rest of the globe.
Just an observation from an American born and raised on the other side of the
moat.
br...@minmet.lan.mcgill.ca
> In article <4lm0r8$q...@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca>,
> <br...@minmet.lan.mcgill.ca> wrote:
>
> [mega-snip]
> >the world. The consequence of this is that one tends to become a bit
> >isolated and xenophobic.
>
> Good observation.
>
> >the world media is dominated by the US. Music, TV, movies, and news all
> >orginate mainly from the US.
>
> You're kidding, right? You obviously have never lived outside of
> North America. I think your observation at the top could be a good
> explanation as to why you would make such an enormously erroneous
> statement. The assumption is understandable, but the reality is
> really quite different (quite!). It's a big world.
>
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Joel Wawrzon
> Univ. of Wisc. Dept. of Computer Sciences
> waw...@cs.wisc.edu
> -------------------------------------------
>
>>>>
of how I am wrong? I would be happy to be corrected (seriously).
Ian
Edward Kenworthy
> Then you English fought us in a _second_ war, burned down our capital
> and kicked our butts, and then still let us have our country back.
Well you were being a bit naughty trying to attack those nice Canadians.
In any case - without that you'd never have had your Whitehouse.
Edward
an...@ix.netcom.com
In article <4llihf$l...@grimsel.zurich.ibm.com>, SDFFE306@ wrote:
>In <4ljpae$m...@access1.digex.net>, ni...@access1.digex.net (Nigel Tzeng)
writes:
>>
>>Well, it comes with the territory of being the biggest nastiest kid on
>>the block. I believe that the British were guilty of that particular
>>sin until they lost that status.
>
>That is not true. England saw its Empire as being a force for good (certainly
in the Victorian era)
>and when that stopped being true and effectively we lost the morale mandate
>we withdrew. Compare India, Cyprus, Canada, Australia and many others with
>comparable examples of French withdrawal from empire: French Indo-China
(Vietnam)
>for example, or Algeria.
That's simply a matter of perspective. The average American does indeed see
America as a force for good, even though it often turns out that we screw up
when we mess in foreign affairs. The British Empire did exactly the same
thing during the period of it's supremacy, and fucked up just as much as we
have (if not more). Britain by no means has any right to assume a moral
superiority over America - such an attitude would be arrogant nonsense.
Fact is, empires are empires are empires. Empires are good when they're yours
and bad when they're not. Britain's day passed a long time ago and right now
America is riding high - there ain't anyone anymore who can screw with us.
Unfortunately, we don't have a damned clue what to do with ourselves now that
there isn't an enemy who can give us a serious run for our money. Maybe when
the last of the WW2 generation dies off and the Boomers get too old to gum up
the works anymore we Gen X'ers will find a new purpose for all this power at
our disposal.
Like...like...world conquest! Yeehaw! ;-)
Andry
"A man about to speak the truth should keep
one foot in the stirrup." - old Mongolian proverb
Tommy Fong
In message <317BEE...@interserv.com> - Danno <dan...@interserv.com>Mon, 22
Apr 1996 20:40:30 GMT writes:
:-()Remember, opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one and it usually
stinks. <g>
Can't resist it.... <VBG> Can I make it my tagline? :>
Yours,
Tommy Fong
mailto : tom...@hk.super.net
*** Brought to you by NeoLogic News under OS/2 Warp ***
Richard Mercer
In <4ll8nf$g...@brtph500.bnr.ca> Richard Arnesen wrote:
> You know once you get
> past the mason-dixon line everyone becomes rude in America ;)
>
> *extra flame retardent suit on*
> *ducks*
Nonsense; I think everyone will agree with you on that one.
What they may not agree with is which WAY
you go past the Mason-Dixon line to get rudeness...
------
Richard Mercer
ric...@seuss.math.wright.edu
"I meant what I said and I said what I meant,
An elephant's faithful, one hundred per cent."
David Peterschmidt
It sounds to me like ignorance is the ONLY factor here. The guy simply
didn't know this was an international forum. As you say, when pointed
out that other peoples use other spellings, he shut up. Where is the
attitude? Ignorance explains this scenario very nicely.
In spite of your claims, I *DO* think you're wrong in characterizing an
"American" attitude. If there is such an attitude, I would say it's
more like "ignore the rest of the world" than it is "screw the rest of
the world". And if I was going to characterize foreigners, it would
probably be along the lines of paranoia about America. What difference
does it make to you if there is or isn't some "attitude" on the part of
Americans? Are you *that* concerned with with we think of you that
you start whining when you perceive you are being looked down upon?
Grow up a bit, my friend. As we say here in the US, "sticks and stones
may break my bones, but names can never harm me". Every 5 year old here
knows this by heart. You'd do well to think about it.
Peace.
Dave Peterschmidt