Let's create the Civilization 5 formula

Legal_My_Deagle

Warlord
Joined
Nov 9, 2002
Messages
215
BASIS - VERY IMPORTANT TO READ:
What I am basing this thread on is a quote I read a while back, where Sid was discussing how he likes to formulate new Civ games. He said that he likes to keep the concepts for the next installment in the series in "thirds". That is:

With THIS formula in mind, list 3 ideas for each catagory that you would like to see in Civ5:

1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best
a -
b -
c -
2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back
a -
b -
c -
3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a -
b -
c -


I will start:

1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best
a - Religion
b - Civics
c - Units appearing as groups of 3 (most of the time)
2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back
a - Settlers and Workers can join cities as population.
b - Palace
c - Units in Forts get pot shots at passing enemy units.
3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a - New border system, at least in relatively modern time
b - Rebalance nuclear weapons.
c - Hex grids
 
1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best

a - corporations and other ways that food and hammers can be made.

2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back

a - dont know, started with civ 4

3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts

a - Revamped combat so that it's not so time consuming in the late game. Domination should take similar real time as a space or cultural vic. Possibly some kind of stack attack.
 
1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best
a - Promotions for units
b - Great people points, instead of random generation
c - Unique buildings
2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back
a - The fanatic from civ2 (that is units dependent on having a particular government)
b - Settlers and workers could join cities
c - Golden age triggered from UU combat, or wonder combination
3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a - Unique land improvements
b - Unique civics
c - Possibility of playing a full game in turn terms in one or more eras.
 
3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a - New border system, at least in relatively modern time

Not :culture:, "Populations" is correct.
For instance;
1~5 pop of city has 3x3
6~10 pop of city has 5x5
11~15 pop of city has 7x7
16~20 pop of city has 9x9
 
1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best

a - Great People :old:
b - Events :deal:
c - Ability to gift units (was in CivII but not CivIII) :yup:

2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back

a - Bring back the editor from CivIII. That will make it easier for those who don't know how to program to mod the game. But should still release the core data to those who can work with them (so we can continue to get those great unofficial patch!! ;) )
b - Ability to bribe a unit with you spy like in CivII (though I always wonder how you diplomat managed to bribe a bomber in the sky :eek: )

3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts

a - Make the movement of unit/combat into realtime. This is not to say to change Civ into a realtime game. Game should still be paused when you select a city or a unit but otherwise every piece move in realtime so you/AI can change the path of a unit anytime during it's move which make combat more realistic and challenging

b - Make it so that combined arms can really be feel in combat. This would involve a above as only in realtime can a tank and infantry fight side by side and let you feel the impact of support.
 
a - Revamped combat so that it's not so time consuming in the late game. Domination should take similar real time as a space or cultural vic. Possibly some kind of stack attack.

there already is a stack attack --> options and select stack attack turn of amimation and stack battle take less than a second
 
Moderator Action: Civ 5 isn't BtS-related; thread moved to Civ4 General Discussions forum.
 
1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best
a - Great People (and their generation)
b - Civics
c - Overflow in production and tech (it's so obvious now that everyone forget it wasn't the case in previous incarnation of the game)
2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back
a - Ressources
b - Traits, UB, UU
c - The classic Food/production/commerce system
3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a - Change the map grid to a "pixel map" (no grid, RTS like map)
b - Give culture another bonus than just defence% and borders
c - A new technology (let's say corporation) lets you transfer food from cities to cities (mutualisation of the food) under a certain civic (say State Property)

I explain a little more this:
When you get corporation and are under state property, all the cities lacking food receive food from the cities in surplus automatickally.
If city 1 has a surplus of 5 food and city lack 2 food each turn, then city 1 add 3 food to its granary and city 2 have a zero surplus (since city 1 gave 2 food to city 2)
Of course cities must be connected to the commercial network to be subjected to that.

That would resemble a little the effect of communism and/or national help in case of starvation (urban communities lacking food will get food from the rural one and would balance the fact that only cities with active corporation can have additionnal food.) Well, that's an idea to developp balance and throw away if it isn't that interresting...
 
1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best
a - Great People
b - Religion/Corporations
c - Reduction in micromanagement
2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back
a - Stealing techs when capturing cities
b - Blocking enemy movement with well placed defensive units
c - Colonies (grabbing resources beyond Cultural borders)
3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a - Retain the UB and UU per Civ, but add a second UB/UU per leader
b - Cities can grow into surrounding tiles (1 tile city works 8 tiles, 5 tile city works 16 tiles, 9 tile city works 28 tiles), poss merge with other cities?
c - More involvement in trade. Perhaps if you swap/gift a resource/gold (or tech?) to a Civ you have to transport it to that Civ by caravan/truck/caravel/etc.. Also trade between cities and the ability to blockade other Civ's trade on land. A trade map would be nice.
 
1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best
a - UUs/UBs
b - Civics and religions
c - Maintenance system
d - Great People Points
e - Promotions
2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back
a - ZoC (not as powerful as in civII, but still, get a shot at passing units)
b - Ability to plunder techs from cities/caravans. See above poster
c - Tilebased, Turnbases, ofcourse!
3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a - New tile system - hex tiles.
b - Dimensions! Add lots of new units and upgrades To the techtree!
c - Easier system to add your own music as background songs (know it's not really gameplay issue), like a folder with the music files, and you could create your own folder, copy the tracks you find nice from the game AND from your own music folders.
 
1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best
- Great People
- Religion
- Random Events
2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back
- Settlers/workers can add population to a city
- Tech plunder from city capture
- Leader units. It was always fun knowing I was assassinating my rival in the form of a specific unit. (also, in conjunction with civil war idea below)
3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
- Negotiable borders rather than strictly determined by nearby cities. Something along the lines of "54'40 or fight"
- Nationalization/redistribution of food
- Civil wars. I'd like to see areas of different religion/ethnicity be more likely to break away, in addition to just creating new nations from colonization. Leader units could be able to undertake some political flavor of espionage, like creating an alternate source of authority or inciting a larger-than-one-city scale revolution.
 
1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best
a - Civics(Should be even more)
b - Random events
c - Unique things like UU, UB... I would like to see even more unique things.
2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back
a - Diplomacy, now it doesn't work, we have very poor diplo.
b - Engineers, like it was in civ2, can even transform terrain, they should require new technology - "explosives" what comes after chemistry/gunpowder. Transforming terrain should cost money and also takes time to be complete.
c - Entertainers, or Artist should give some happiness bonus.
3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a - Human Rights, what would be tied in civics. Each civic generates HRP(Human rights point)... *See below.
b - New Tech Tree system - you have basic tech tree, and also for example if you have mining, you can't research bronze working without having any mine.
c - Borders. Before Nationalism tech your borders expand via culture but after that you have to capture or settle it. Your military unit should stay there 1-2 turns and have settle mission. The further you go from city the more turns you need to settle. 3x3 you get automatically but 2 steps away would cost 1-2 turns, 3 steps away 4-5 turns, 4 steps 10-15 turns etc.

* Human Rights and Civics.
Despotism - 1 pts.
Hereditary Rule - 2 pts.
Representation - 4 pts.
Police State - O pts.
Universal Suffrage 5 pts.
--
Barbarism - 1 pts.
Vassalage - 2pts
Bureaucracy - 3pts
Nationalism - 3pts
Free Speech - 5pts
--
Tribalism - 1 pts.
Slavery - 0 pts.
Serfdom - 2 pts.
Caste System - 2 pts.
Emancipation - 5 pts.
--
Decentralization - 1 pts.
Mercantilism - 3 pts.
Free Market - 4 pts.
State Property - 2 pts.
Environmentalism - 5pts.
--
Paganism - 1 pts
Organized Religion - 2 pts
Theocrazy - 0 pts
Pacifism - 4 pts
Free Religion - 5pts
--

Now you sum them up and when you have 100, 200, 300... points you get a reward option. In anarcy you do not get points.
For example
1) People are very happy and gave you 100gc(Or more when empire is bigger), Requires Currency.
2) Same as above but you get +1 :) in each city.
3) Recieve a free tech, Requires Scientific Method.
4) Less maintance costs, Requires 1000pts or more.
etc.. etc.. That would make running a "poor civic" more profitable in long term.
 
1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best
a) Civics
b) Random events
c) Great people (but I don't really like the great general)

2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back
a) Resources outside borders via colonies
b) Leader units
c) Settlers/workers can join cities OR some other means to artificially manipulate cities' population.

3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a) Proper spherical map and getting rid of the grid system
b) Ability to conquer single tiles during war (remote tiles would defect very easily after war)
c) Overall faster moving from place to another, I mean, like in real world it didn't take too many years to cross seas even with primitive ships.
extra d) Completely revised global warming: from coal/oil pollution (factories, coal plants, cars (so cities with public transportation would pollute less), maybe planes) and not so much from nukes. Polluting much would also make other players angry.
 
1) 1/3 of the newest ideas or concepts from the most recent Civ game that worked out best
a - Civics(Should be even more)
b - Random events
c - Unique things like UU, UB... I would like to see even more unique things.
2) 1/3 of the unique ideas or concepts from PAST Civ games that were good enough to bring back
a - Diplomacy, now it doesn't work, we have very poor diplo.
b - Engineers, like it was in civ2, can even transform terrain, they should require new technology - "explosives" what comes after chemistry/gunpowder. Transforming terrain should cost money and also takes time to be complete.
c - Entertainers, or Artist should give some happiness bonus.
3) And finally, 1/3 NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a - Human Rights, what would be tied in civics. Each civic generates HRP(Human rights point)... *See below.
b - New Tech Tree system - you have basic tech tree, and also for example if you have mining, you can't research bronze working without having any mine.
c - Borders. Before Nationalism tech your borders expand via culture but after that you have to capture or settle it. Your military unit should stay there 1-2 turns and have settle mission. The further you go from city the more turns you need to settle. 3x3 you get automatically but 2 steps away would cost 1-2 turns, 3 steps away 4-5 turns, 4 steps 10-15 turns etc.

* Human Rights and Civics.
Despotism - 1 pts.
Hereditary Rule - 2 pts.
Representation - 4 pts.
Police State - O pts.
Universal Suffrage 5 pts.
--
Barbarism - 1 pts.
Vassalage - 2pts
Bureaucracy - 3pts
Nationalism - 3pts
Free Speech - 5pts
--
Tribalism - 1 pts.
Slavery - 0 pts.
Serfdom - 2 pts.
Caste System - 2 pts.
Emancipation - 5 pts.
--
Decentralization - 1 pts.
Mercantilism - 3 pts.
Free Market - 4 pts.
State Property - 2 pts.
Environmentalism - 5pts.
--
Paganism - 1 pts
Organized Religion - 2 pts
Theocrazy - 0 pts
Pacifism - 4 pts
Free Religion - 5pts
--

Now you sum them up and when you have 100, 200, 300... points you get a reward option. In anarcy you do not get points.
For example
1) People are very happy and gave you 100gc(Or more when empire is bigger), Requires Currency.
2) Same as above but you get +1 :) in each city.
3) Recieve a free tech, Requires Scientific Method.
4) Less maintance costs, Requires 1000pts or more.
etc.. etc.. That would make running a "poor civic" more profitable in long term.
@Fox Isn't that a bit biased?
 
the what to keep and what to bring back are basically dealt with, so
3) And finally, NEW, fresh ideas or concepts
a)immigration, emigration and refugees
b)have different technologies dictate how research happens, say, you cannot directly choose what to research before scientific method, instead research points are gained through what you build, how you improve your terrain, how you wage war etc.
c)improve combined arms, perhaps include some planning of individual battles or can save battle plans to make the battles go quicker
d)being able to conquer territory without taking cities
 
Maybe instead of stealing techs outright, it could depend on how big the city was that was captured. If it's a big enough city, you get a free tech, but if it's a small city, you just get science flasks, representing you have further knowledge that something is possible. After all, you would be more likely to learn the secrets of the entire tech in a big city than in a small city. In short, the size of the tech reward would depend on the size of the city.
 
Maybe instead of stealing techs outright, it could depend on how big the city was that was captured. If it's a big enough city, you get a free tech, but if it's a small city, you just get science flasks, representing you have further knowledge that something is possible. After all, you would be more likely to learn the secrets of the entire tech in a big city than in a small city. In short, the size of the tech reward would depend on the size of the city.

I like this, but would expand on the concept even further:
- if you encounter (in your borders, say, or pass at sea) a unit that has a certain tech you don't know as a prerequisite, you gain a few beakers towards that tech.
- if you meet a unit in battle that is that has an unknown tech as a prerequisite, you gain a few more beakers towards that tech.
- if you defeat such a unit in battle, even more beakers... etc.

Ditto for passing through a city that has buildings you don't know how to build in it (Another reason to close borders), although this concept overlaps a bit with the espionage system.

Having said all that, I would hope that such a system would have a research cap of, say, 1/4 or 1/3 of the beakers towards a particular tech. Otherwise, there'd be too much temptation to forego research in favour of invading and stealing technology.
 
Ideas from CivIV that worked out well
1. Religion. It's not ideal, certainly, with all religions being equal and Buddhism and Hinduism almost always dominating, but it's a start. A few changes I'd make: Instead of having cities with multiple religions contributing 1/3 Hindu, 1/3 Muslim, and 1/3 Confucion, for example, in the % of total, have each citizen in the city have a religion (a size 12 city could be 7/12 Hindu, 4/12 Muslim, and 1/12 Confucion, for example). Religions aren't entirely identical, for instance, instead of giving +1 :health:, cows give cities in Hindu countries with the state religion + 1 :).
2. UN Resolutions. The UN didn't have much purpose when all it could do was elect a Secretary-General.
3. Cultural percentages. It was always cool to see a city that was 41% English, 27% French, 22% German, and 10% Norwegian. This really allowed you to focus your efforts in the culture wars.

Ideas from Past Civ games to Bring Back
1. Diplomatic System from CivIII. Seriously, what's with not being able to trade gold per turn or resources for technologies? If India has oil and coal, and Greece has Nationalism and Industrialism and a war that they need oil and rails for, it makes perfect sense for Greece to trade Nationalism and Industrialism for oil and coal. Sure, India might backstab them, but that's why CivIII had reputations be forever trashed if that happened. Diplomacy is much, much less fun in CivIV than CivIII.
2. The Artillery/Bombardment System from CivIII. What's with artillery and bombers not being able to destroy city buildings? Why can't artillery or ships shell tile improvements or units? Offshore naval bombardment and artillery bombardment to destroy terrain improvements and weaken troops has long been a part of warfare. And come on, it's not realistic or nearly as fun a game if city improvements are "invincible" to bombing. I'm sure Dresden and Tokyo thought city buildings were invicible to bombing after World War II.
3. The score system from Civilization III. One of the great things about CivIII was that being great in the Ancient and Medieval times was as important score-wise as being strong in 2050 (provided, of course, you were still alive). In CivIV, you can have a great score just by conquering most of the world in 2049 if you plan it right. But is capturing lots of land in a short time the measure of a great civilization? No - otherwise the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great and the Mongol Empire of Temujin would have been thought of at their times as the greatest civilizations ever - and they were not, at least not universally. The importance of every turn in CivIII's score was a great idea. Further, the increased value of happy citizens over content ones in score in CivIII gave reason to being a benevolent dictator rather than one entirely focused on military conquest.

New, Fresh Ideas
1. A civics system that works like a table of laws that you can enact or not enact. Right now you must choose one of five options in each category, and frankly, that's still fairly constaining. Why can't my civilization have both Nationalism and Vassalage? I don't think that's a mutually exclusive set. And certainly both State Property and Environmentalism can be achieved. How about a Hereditary Rule Police State? Or a Guild System with Slavery? A Bureaucracy with Free Speech? I mean, that's what the United States is, isn't it? Why not a Pacifist Theocracy? Setting up Civics as a set of laws that you could choose to have enacted or not after certain technology was discovered, with consequences resulting from each law enacted, would create a much more realistic and fun civics system. There would have to be some laws that could only be enacted when others weren't - you couldn't for example have Slavery and Emancipation or Despotism and Democracy at the same time, but it would allow for a more interesting Civics system than the current model.
Note that this would also have more Civics - perhaps Hanging is a civic, or Conscription. I'm sure the CivIV mods give a plethora of choices for this.
Some games, such as The Guild and Tropico, have already implemented a system similar to the one I just described.
2. Perhaps instead of a Unique Building replacing a current one, it is an additional building? For example, I believe the English have a Stock Exchange in Warlords that replaces the Bank. Why can't you have both a Stock Exchange and a Bank? Seems a novel idea, doesn't it?
3. I've always thought it would be cool to have the option of playing a Civ game that goes beyond the starting planet and has intergalactic Star Wars. So instead of a Space Race victory, if two civs get spaceships sent to Alpha Centauri, they can duke it out in space and between different star systems, building cities on other planets just like on the first one (only with better technology), all the while keeping up their cities on the home planet. It would be the most epic form of Civ, essentially combining Civilization and Galactic Civilizations/Alpha Centauri. True, it would make your empire take even more time to manage in the Space Age, and thus would have to be an option, but I've always thought it would be a great option.

I'd also like to cast a vote against removing the tile system. If it ain't broke, why break it? The tile system works well for Civ. Hex tiles would be fine (or maybe triangles?), but taking them away entirely I can't see as working in a TBS environment.
 
Maybe with the religions, the last two to be founded could get 2 free missionaries instead of one to compensate for the fact they take so long to be founded.
 
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