Well, no matter how much they try a newly shipped in game cannot be anything near to a real world. Only gamers and not the programmers are well acquainted with the problems in civ. Just to quote a few problems:
1. Trading is nothing like it really happens in the real world.
2. Few prototype problems like big becomes bigger, wealthiest nations are always the biggest ones, outcomes of wars can be easily guessed, ...
3. Even in the modern age citizens behave like nuts, there is unhappiness due to luxury reource shortage - agreed, but it leads to riots? :confused:
4. Also there is no way in which one can control population of a town from growing to achieve a better standard for living - btw standard of living is something totally missing in the game.
5. Concepts like health etc. have been implemented in a very loose way and education & literacy models are missing. Whether a society is of bankers (switzerland) or technicians (Gernay) or primarily business corporations and mnc's (USA) - nothing is implemented.

There are so many things that one cannot expect the designers to include them all - but designers of civ 4 have given us a chance to actually include all this in: the moddabilty of civ 4. So let's make a wish list of what we wish to have modded in civ 4 - given that we are sure it's not gonna' be in the game - and how do we plan to do it.

This thread is a request to brilliant modders to consider our ideas while modding!! So start filling in. :king:

1]. First of all, a way to have s mall yet powerful country. Obviously, for thjis to happen the nation needs to be rich. i.e. wealthier implies mightier. Hence, to become powerful nation needs to generate wealth. Alas, the only way to do this in civ 3 is to become fatter. However, there are better ways to do this. The decision of having a capitalist/communist economy should have a prominent effect. Apparently this has already been implemented undeer the civics concept. My idea to do this is as follows:
a). Allow interactions with private corporations in a private economy.
b). MNC's should randomly pop up and dissolve back in various countries which allow private corporations. MNC's shud be controlled by computer and they shud have traits very much like various civs. Some mnc's favour their mother nation, some outsource (invest in other nations), some sell shares to other mnc's and nations and buys them as well.
c). Your attitude towards the private corporations in your nation shud encourage/discourage accordingly investments from other nation and mnc's. You shud be able to sell improvements - whole of them or shares to mnc's and other nations. You should be able to buy them as well.
d). Country with a lower standard of living and high population should attract mnc's investments due to cheap labour.
e). Unemplyment should result if you are not managing your economy properly. MNC's inur country generate wealth and employment. Private corporations in ur nations when outsource results in greater wealth but lesser employments.
f). If you decide to go communist all of a sudden then this should result in reputation loss as you confiscate all investments and shares. Also, such nations shud have a great difficulty in going capitalist again as investors would not trust them much with their money.
e). Governments should be able to contact the private sectors and request them to build improvements. Building a lot of banks in the nations and encouraging other nations, mnc's to invest in them or take loans from them increases the wealth of the country.
g). However, for economic model to be implemeted properly, time scale in modern era will have to be made more discrete.

2]. Treaties: following should be included:
a). Peace treaty: may be signed to end the war.
b). No war treaty: a variant of peace treaty to be signed with those nations with whom the relations are becoming increasingly strained. This shall prevent from an open war breaking out.
c). Military alliance: allows cheaper unit trading, lending and borrowing or renting of units, building bases in allies territories, sharing of colonies,.
d). Economic alliance: Huge economic benifits in the form of cheaper trading, laxation on imports/exports - or jopiing the 2 economies so that the nations can use each othe resources for free! and trade with other nations as if they were a single economy.
e). Treaty of protectorate: A wealer country declares it self to be a protectorate of a stronger country, with the latter's consent obviously, and pays some tribute in lieu.
f). Treay of independence: grants colonies independence to form a new nation or join mother nation in lieu of something.
g). Enviromental protection treaty: Lesser factories, less use of fur other luxury reources,etc.
h). Disarmamnet treaty
i). Cultural exchange treaties: provides tourism benifits to the nations involved and easier migration.
j). Formation of groups like G-8 inwhich the nations can sign combinations of the above proposed treaties.

3]. Intelligent citizens:
a). Population is not necessarily a direct function of food production or land area owned. Higher literacy rates should result in population just enough to run the nation, lower literacy rates in high population, etc.
b). War weariness - citizens don't oppose if you are defending your own borders.
c). Citizens become more productive with increased literacy, better standard of living, higher happiness rate and generate more wealth.
d). Once in a while some citizens can migrate to a metropolitan resulting in sudden increased pop's and slums in metropolitans which should result in a higher crime rate.

4] Intelligent cities:
a). Having more than required number of power station should result in faster development of the city and selling of power to neighbouring cities.
b). Concept of central power grid, central food distribution, central reource distribution, etc. should be implemented.
c). Standard of living = (wealth used in maintenance/population) + (city area/population) + some points for hospitals, schools, etc..

5]. A difference in leadership and godship:
a). A parameter to determine how easily you can implement you decisions. Depends upon how popular leader you are. In a democratic country this shud result in turns when you have lost the elections and hence AI controls your nation for those turns. To get back to power - you need propganda, etc.... But obviously, losing should not happen very often else it turns out that you are a mere spectator and AI fishes the whole game for. :D

6]. Better military system
a). Training the units instead of just increasing their number
b). Increasing war mongering should be followed by a difficulty in recruting soldiers to the army.
c). Allowance for the maintainence of army - higher allowance implies more easy to get units in army.

7]. Better modelling for research
a). Researches do fail once in a while
b). Asking for aid fomr a technically-developed nation in form of decreased research costs, lesser times.
c). A parameter to indicate the level of reserachers in a nation. This parameter decides how efficient your researchers are and hence how much money and time they need to complete a research succesfully. This parameter should in turn depend upon literacy rates, grants to academic institutes, etc.

8]. Tourism and culture:
a). First of all tourism is directly proportional to culture, borders are not. Culture flips are more likely to happen in ancient eras, not modern eras.
b). Outdated structures generate wealth to tourism.
c). Higher standard of living should result in stronger culture.

9]. Slide bars to decide governments grants to following:
a). Science and research
b). Military maintenance
c). Education
d). Culture
e). Entertainment
f). Improvements

Kinda early to be making a modding wishlist, don't ya' think?

'Sides:

1) Not bad ideas, but not quite right for the scope of Civ. Try SuperPower - it goes into a more nitty-gritty aspect like all that.

2) We know that diplomacy is being completely reworked... who knows what new kinds of treaties we'll be able to have? We know we'll be able to start and stop wars between the AI...

3) Since when does High Literacy defeat overpopulation? Also, crime/corruption/literacy are all abstracted into Health, to help with keeping Civ a Strategy game. If you want to manage those specifics, play SimCity4 (which is a really awesome game).

4) I actually like the idea of a power grid, for the later parts of the game, but again, I think it's the wrong scope for a strategy game.

5) At this time, we know our Civ will have a leader, and that leader could get really cranky with us if we don't appease him/her...

6) Our units will have promotions.

7) Given the time frame for the game, I don't think it would be much fun to fail research. Having scientific treaties to boost research would be cool, though.

8) Tourism is already implemented in C3C, and I'm sure it will be implemented in cIV.

9) Science/Tax/Culture are probably going to be the standard sliders. Military maintenance determined by money on hand and probably Civics options. Entertainment will probably tie into culture. Improvements will still be city level.

All in all, I think you're looking for a game that is not civ... I'd recommend SuperPower, you might like it. A little tedious, but you get a lot of the options you're looking for.

Only gamers and not the programmers are well acquainted with the problems in civ.

You seem to think that the programmers aren't gamers. I can't think of one game programmer I know that isn't an avid gamer.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo :(
I want it all and I want it in civ 4!!

warpstrom I meant that they don't play as much as we do. They have to design and then play. We have to play and only play :goodjob:

Most of your ideas are great, but I just want to know why would you accept an environmental treaty?

Most of your ideas are great, but I just want to know why would you accept an environmental treaty?

If global warming is in there, then that would be the only reason to accept such a thing.

Lobby groups are the only reason to accept environmental treaties. But seriously, environmentalism is not just about crazy tree huggers, it is about sustained prosperity. That is why nations are willing to sign the Kyoto Protocal, because everyoen suffers if someone does not make a balance between human development and ecological impact.

You seem to think that the programmers aren't gamers. I can't think of one game programmer I know that isn't an avid gamer.

I think if anything, programmers know their game better than anyone else. Fans could not fix or do certain things with the game that programmers can. Also true is vice versa where fans will spot problems programmers are blinded too because of how they have to play and develope the game. Cooperation between both groups is necessary. This is an area that I feel Firaxis has really tried to work with the game community on.