New Civ Attributes Needed

What shall they be? After PTW the only thing that matters most is the UU not which attribute a Civ has because there are a lot of Civs that have the same attributes. That was the goal of Civ to make each Civ different from another. Now, some of them are only different because mostly of their UU.
I was kind of thinking of an attribute that made some Civs build certain wonders faster.
Only one new attribute is not going to do though...

Hmmm. Darned good question. Ummm, with minimal thought, here are the first few that come to mind:

Diplomatic - Receive bonuses in diplomacy obviously And maybe decreased costs for bulding embassies and performing various embassy screen actions (although this could result in Diplomatic becoming Spy King).

Stealthy - Any units view range is reduced by 1 when it comes to being able to see units from a Stealthy culture.

I can't think of a name for it, but something that means they are easily lead / respond well to governments and gives bonuses of decreased corruption (but not the other bonuses of commercial) and war weariness (and maybe decreased anarchy time between government switches (but still an anarchy period, not like Religious) or decreased costs for courthouses and police stations).

Content - 1 fewer unhappy person per city size 1-5, two for 6-11, three for 12+.

I'm sure there are tons of other possibilities too - the difficulty is in keeping everything balanced.

Not sure whether new attributes are needed, but I agree that each civ needs to be a bit more unique.

One way would be to introduce a unique improvement for each civ or a unique trait. By trait I mean something small such eg the Mongols gain +1 shield from every mountain tile etc. I would prefer more unique apsects for each civ also, as I feel it will further improve the replay value of the game and make it more interesting in general.

I understand it would be hard to balance such things however.

Indeed, it would be very hard to balance them but it could be done. As you said the Civs need to be more unique.

How about each civ having a unique Wonder of the World? Alternatively, you could ensure that all Wonders have a trait (ie commercial, expansionist) and make it so that only civs that also carry that trait can build it, eg only commercial civs could build Colossus.
I believe a lot of Wonders already have traits, but I'm not sure if they all do.

As well as each civ having a UU, you could make unique culture-specific units as well.

I think that the wonders idea would be awesome. I dont think any other game has done that. Very original.

Well I guess this is the right place to post this. I think too many countrys are expansionist. Of course most of the nations on the game had an empire that is why they are included.

The great wall should ugrade to the magnoit line.

Originally posted by immortal_empire
The great wall should ugrade to the magnoit line.

Click to expand...

Why? The Great Wall actually kept people OUT.

DyP goes someway towards answering the first question, how to make them more Unique. Firstly the UU's and traits are not all the same as Civ3 and PTW. There are trait specific unts/improvements and there are cultural flavour units.
Try it out.

No Genghis Khan conqered China and had to pass the Great Wall

even if someone thinks it's offensive, there could be a bad trait for each civ...
IE : mongolia could have 1 less happy citizen...

Then it must also have a positive side to balance things out.

I completely agree that there should be new traits, and a while back I posted some ideas on what they should be.

I like the diplomatic idea that someone mentioned above, but not stealthy. What is a stealthy civ? I can't imagine any particular nation in history being any ore decidedly stealthy than another.

First of all I would change expansionist and commercial slightly (the other civ traits are fine)

Commercial
1) extra gold in city center (as is now)
2) half price commercial buildings (marketplace, bank, stock exchange)

This would make commercial a powerful trait, up there with religious and industrious

Expansionist
1) get rid of scouts; change the explorer unit to be available to expansionist civs only, available from the start, cost 20 shields, move 1, all terrain as roads
2) longer GA, 30 turns instead of 20

Thus expansionists do NOT get better results from goody huts (something I've never really understood), but do have a special unit that can explore the map very quickly, and a longer GA is very powerful.

New ideas:

Artistic (eg Greece, France)
1) non-wonder culture improvements generate 1 extra culture per turn (masterpieces)
2) wonders cost fewer shields to build (80% cost?)

Patriotic
1) one extra citizen born content in each city
2) reduced chance of culture flips (related to number of citizens, say each native citizen reduces culture flip chance by x %)

Civil (can't think of a better name)
1) reduced corruption formula (that commercial now has)
2) half price civil buildings (courthouse, police station, collosseum even)

You have some awesome and realistic ideas there! I like them all!

I agree most about what you said should be changed for a Commercial Civ.

Cultural:
- 1 more culture point for building that already have it.
- Less chance of you losing a city to flip and more chance of gaining via flip.
Agricultural:
- extra food in city center, like commercial and ind.
- cheaper food building, granaries

you could add...

Mercantile
Get extra benefits with trading e.g preferential rates / higher beneftis from luxuries (making different from commercial), extra income from wall street (say 6% rather than 5%)


Naval
Sort of expansionist but in relationship to naval units - perhaps naval units get extra hit points or movement point (or a better naval UU) - could also get extra benefits from harbours and working sea tiles.

Fanatical
Less penalty for pop rushing & drafting, corruption evened out over cities (like communism gov) , greater chance of leader , greater spy mission success , greater effect for military police units - special UU (fanatic sim to civ2 unit...)


I like the idea of wonders more linked to civ traits - perhaps this could be extended to city improvements - perhpas each civ could have a unique improvement as well as a unique unit.

I totally agree with this. Something has to be done to keep 10 civs from all sharing the Industrial/Scientific trait & the only thing separating them being the UU.

I also like the idea of a strength/weakness for each Civ. It would go along way in making each Civ unique. Some examples:

1. India- Str: 25% bonus when trading. Weak: War weariness increased 20%.
2. England- Str:25% decrease in costs to naval units & they have 1 extra movement point. Weak: Cities 25% more resistant to flipping/propaganda.
3. France: Str: The smell of cheese makes invading armies turn around & run for the border. Weak: All defending units recieve a 75% chance of waving the white flag & all peace treaty must be accepted regardless of how lopsided towards Germany.

J/K about the french thing

Or we can go even deeper with this. If the new Civs in Conquests have new attributes then great, but if they don’t then I would wish that the Incas can have the ability to build cities on mountains.
We can also let each Civ experience cretin benefits or weaknesses while in a particular government. That would be nice as well.

Originally posted by civrules
We can also let each Civ experience cretin benefits or weaknesses while in a particular government. That would be nice as well.

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Hmmm........ That would be nice to but I think thats asking a little too much. Some improvement is needed before they rewrite the whole game IMO

It is a possibility though. We are just giving away ideas so who cares if they are going to make it in Conquests or even in Civ 4.

A lot of the ideas here are going to be very difficult to implement because of stability issues.