Greater Immersion is needed for Civ 5- some ideas welcome.

There are immersion qualities missing from Civ 5 that I think ought to be in to help bring the game more to life. The realistic Leaders are good and a great touch (despite those who say the game has nothing to do with realism), but it needs more...

For instance:

1. When important news reports pop up, they should be like a Newspaper headline. If one Civ goes to war with another Civ we should get a ` GERMANY DECLARES WAR WITH POLYNESIA` headline. Not the almost missable side thing that pops by. If the tech does not allow for newspaper put it on scrawled papyrus or even have it as a simple written scroll handed to you to read. The first flying aircraft, nuclear weapons and other such news should be handled this way.

2. Following the newspaper theme, all other reports should be gathered at the end of each turn and presented as ARTICLES that you can read. Requests from City states and new discoveries should be as an article that you can click on to deal with that News. And they should be called `News or requests`, not `quests`.

3. Similarly when you deal with a Leader AI, news reports should explain the theory behind a Leader AI`s (hinting to the Player what the Leader may be thinking) actions like, " Catherine the Great of Russia was pleased when Elizabeth of England agreed to go to war with Polynesia. however, inside sources suggest that catherine`s true opinion of Elizabeth has dropped due to Elizabeth`s apparent disregard for the fact that Polynesia and England had declared Friendship.`

4. Denouncements should be set up as public messages by letter or scrolls, then later by Newspaper and TV broadcasts.

5. Any secret stuff from your spies should be zipped onto the screen as a `TOP SECRET` pamplet or scroll with the written information pertaining to whatever your spy may have discovered.

6. Also some messages from Leaders, good or bad should not require the entire Leader to appear unless as part of some major negotiation. If a leader likes what you`ve done it could be something as simple as a messgae sent by courier or a letter or phonecall (simulated). Insults could eb simualted the same way or even publicly like a denouncement.

7. Get rid of `Unknown Player` term when playing in Single Player games. Make it `Unknown Civ or Unknown Civilization`. The constant use of the `Player` term screws with immersion.

8. make the bar at the bottom that shows status of Civs and CS` toggleable OFF.

9. (waiting for YOUR ideas!)


Y`see, I play games for immersion, not just for the boring numbers or I might as well be in a maths classroom. Please, add any ideas you may have to add immersion.

Any easy one- dont play in strategy view. Strategic view is unimmersive, bland,and ugly. The default view is very easy to see, navigate, and understand once you get a feel
For how the tiles are shaped.

Udey1 said:

Any easy one- dont play in strategy view. Strategic view is unimmersive, bland,and ugly. The default view is very easy to see, navigate, and understand once you get a feel
For how the tiles are shaped.

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Do some players actually play in that view? I don't even use it for strategy; I use it sometimes if I'm not clear on tile placement, but that is rare.

As for immersion measures, I wish that random events would come back, leaders would change costumes and backgrounds to reflect the era and that Great People would do the same (I know that Great People change, but only one time), that units would have different skin tones and clothing depending on the race and cultural aesthetics of the civilization (for instance, an English swordsman should look at least slightly different to an Indian swordsman in armor and weapon style), and I wish that the map was a bit more "alive," meaning it would be fun to see the roads change from dirt to stone to concrete and to see foot traffic, then carts, then cars on the roads and trains on the train tracks. I wish towns would come back and replace the stupid trading posts; they served a nice immersion function of serving as minor cities within your civilization.

Stop Gandhi from nuking me. It's just not right.

ferretbacon said:

As for immersion measures, I wish that random events would come back, leaders would change costumes and backgrounds to reflect the era

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YESSSS!!! I so want to see Washington in furs, with a club over his shoulder. Slinkier summertime furs for Catherine and Isabella, of course...

There are many little flavour dettails that can be added without needing to put too much of a strain into the Firaxis's staff:

- Civ specific quotes when dealing with diplomacy. A better writting could do wonders for the inmersion, specially when dealing with dennouncements / declarations of friendship from another civs. Say, Isabella yelling "Now every God fearing nation knows that you are a heathen and will burn in hell!", or Hiawata offering you to smoke the peace pipe with him.

- Bring back a Top 10 cities of the world ranking, pretty please. I want to see my 4 monster cities crushing my enemies

And now, for a personal idea of mine:

One more turn, the aftermath of victory. Rather than a simple video sequence, a bit of a meta - narration within the game's tools regarding your victory, that is, watching its aftermath. For example:

- Cultural victory. Gain 999 happiness, each turn every single rival city looses popullation that resettles into your cities (no food cap either!), enemy units deflects to your side once they enter into your territory, all of these accompanied by messages such as "XX citizens have joined your civilization today, attracted by your wondrous utopia"

- Diplomatic victory. Every single civilization offers you an alliance, even longtime enemies. You can decide on the diplomatic window "force peace" or "force treaty break" in order to play with the AI's as if they were your puppets, shaping the world's balance as you may please.

- Space race victory. A new small additional map appears. You control the Alpha centauri settlement. Every single of your cities gain insane science and gold bonuses for each settler in your Alpha Centauri colony as well as for each resource collected.

- Conquest victory. Each and every single civ offers you vassallage, their unit turns into yours, stablishing a truthly global empire.


All of these are just post victory scenarios that would allow you to bask into your victory with utterly broken rules to reflect the amoung of pwnage that you unleashed into a world that was initially so hard to master.

As for immersion measures, I wish that random events would come back, leaders would change costumes and backgrounds to reflect the era

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Also this, 2000 times this!

bring back CREATING YOUR OWN CUSTOM CIVILIZATION!

by
-choosing a name for your civ
-choosing a leader
-or naming one
-choosing your flag
-choosing your colors
-choosing your cultural art style



WHY ISN'T THIS IN CIV V???????????????

Let me get this straight. Seeing who is friends with whom and which ones that are at war with are currently very easy to do...and now you want to be bombarded with even more messages that repeats that same information?? They are already trying to reduce the number of side messages (e.g., coupe attempts) so the focus is on gameplay, which is the point of immersion - trying to build and win with an effective civilization by various conditions on various maps.

Ikael said:

There are many little flavour dettails that can be added without needing to put too much of a strain into the Firaxis's staff:

- Civ specific quotes when dealing with diplomacy. A better writting could do wonders for the inmersion, specially when dealing with dennouncements / declarations of friendship from another civs. Say, Isabella yelling "Now every God fearing nation knows that you are a heathen and will burn in hell!", or Hiawata offering you to smoke the peace pipe with him.

- Bring back a Top 10 cities of the world ranking, pretty please. I want to see my 4 monster cities crushing my enemies

And now, for a personal idea of mine:

One more turn, the aftermath of victory. Rather than a simple video sequence, a bit of a meta - narration within the game's tools regarding your victory, that is, watching its aftermath. For example:

- Cultural victory. Gain 999 happiness, each turn every single rival city looses popullation that resettles into your cities (no food cap either!), enemy units deflects to your side once they enter into your territory, all of these accompanied by messages such as "XX citizens have joined your civilization today, attracted by your wondrous utopia"

- Diplomatic victory. Every single civilization offers you an alliance, even longtime enemies. You can decide on the diplomatic window "force peace" or "force treaty break" in order to play with the AI's as if they were your puppets, shaping the world's balance as you may please.

- Space race victory. A new small additional map appears. You control the Alpha centauri settlement. Every single of your cities gain insane science and gold bonuses for each settler in your Alpha Centauri colony as well as for each resource collected.

- Conquest victory. Each and every single civ offers you vassallage, their unit turns into yours, stablishing a truthly global empire.


All of these are just post victory scenarios that would allow you to bask into your victory with utterly broken rules to reflect the amoung of pwnage that you unleashed into a world that was initially so hard to master.




Also this, 2000 times this!

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This is a fantastic idea! It would give me a much greater reason to actually "finish" the game when I've won-as opposed to just quitting when you know you've won.

Although I agree with many of the immersion measures, but they're purely aesthetic. I'd rather see them pump out new functional things rather than eye candy personally.

Buccaneer said:

Let me get this straight. Seeing who is friends with whom and which ones that are at war with are currently very easy to do...and now you want to be bombarded with even more messages that repeats that same information?? They are already trying to reduce the number of side messages (e.g., coupe attempts) so the focus is on gameplay, which is the point of immersion - trying to build and win with an effective civilization by various conditions on various maps.

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I'm with buccaneer on this one. This seems like such a long winded and superflous way of saying "Elizibeth has become hostile" that I would really begin to get annoyed. It is allready annoying enough to see "I see the vermin are breeding, now I have to deal with you and _____?" everytime an enemy becomes hostile that having to read through a newsreport saying "Grand pious Elizibeth of london says 'I grow tired of Napoleons wanton aggression' more on this development at 11." would be damn near maddening. I agree with an increase in those random little events, like food shortages, hurricanes, and forrest growth/ deforestation, but having to read through my royal mail and listen to what gossip Montezuma has on Dido is like having to file my kingly taxes, namely Tedious and overcomplicated. Also, I like immersion as much as anyone, and base a lot of what I do in civ on a fun little fake history in my head, not on logical strategy, but at some point, you have to draw the line and say "If I do this it's not a game anymore, it's a frustrating simulation that isn't fair or enjoyable to any party."

I would only want that newsreel idea if it was something I could turn off. It might be fun the first couple of times to see a television news report of world events, but eventually I would get bored or annoyed with it. I like to keep my games as short as possible, because I know I'm not very likely to finish a long game. Having to sift through all those news articles would make every turn take an eternity.

Leaders should have more than one Request line. That way they won't sound like robots, and immersion will be increased.

Quite simple to implement--Firaxis already has the multiple Request lines recorded (they aren't in the game files though). They'd simply have to add those extra lines in (and the variants for the upset/happy AI).

Religions should get their own religion-specific missionary. Tengriists should look like Mongolian shamen, Jewish missionaries should be bearded, hooded and carrying the Torah....just like in Civ IV!

Civs should get their own region-specific graphics for generic units Again, like in Civ IV: BtS, where the Mongolian swordsmen appeared to be from the East. I will concede that Civ V settlers already have their own region-specific graphics. But we want more. We also want them to speak their own language (yes it's nice that the leaders speak, but you never hear your own civ's language by playing as that leader).

You want immersion?

Add more tactical hex rules such as supply and retreat.

Have each civ's great generals be named for generals that actually fought for that civ at some point in its history.

Extend diplomacy, religion, and espionage. There are a million ways this can be done.

Have aircraft actually perform a reconaissance role. Bridges, roads, railways, and other improvements should also be able to be bombed.

Let me think on it some more. I am busy watching Sniper at the moment. A movie I admit I have not seen before. And I've seen em all.

nokmirt said:

Have each civ's great generals be named for generals that actually fought for that civ at some point in its history.

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Not just great generals but great artists, engineers, etc.

Some nice ideas there, especially about the backgrounds and costtumes changing with era. I would also add that backgrounds could also reflect the state of the CIV. If it is under attack with its last city left, it could have the background of that burning castle that that black leader has (I forget name) or whatever the background is, make it look worn and battered- That would simply take doing some new artwork over the existing.

Of course. All the news media immersion aspects I mentioned would of course be optional (you could turn it off if you don`t want it and just have the standard unimmersive stuff) - It goes without saying, although of course, this being the net, I guess I have to say it!

Can't say I agree with this one - I am in the Buccaneer camp here. Too many messages as is.

And yes, I prefer strategic view over actual view. I am sure I am not the only one - I grew up playing games with poor graphic quality so maybe its why I don't care much at all about how pretty the background is. Anyways, unique great people per civ [Ie like the developers did with spies] would be pretty cool.
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Also anyone want to perhaps bring back the great spy, with espionage experience earned from rigging/coups/stealing techs/defense? Perhaps the Great Spy could offer a 1-2 use effect/set of moves like poisoning water/sabotage production/ferment unrest etc. that way these effects won't happen often or bombard a player so it can't be broken, but could add another layer of intrigue to espionage again.

It's a balance act to throw in more different unit graphics, more notifications et cetera. There is a risk for making it difficult to tell which unit is which, to be overwhelmed by information and so on. I think the support for modding that's already there is good enough. Everyone can adapt the game to their taste.

I my opinion a smarter AI would be the most important thing to improve immersion. The AI should be tactically smarter in battles but also have distinct strategic flavours for the different civs and actually execute them in a way that the moment you feel that the gave is won is postponed closer to the turn you actually win the game. The last 50-60 turns when you know the game is won already and you're just shuffling the pieces around to fulfill the conditions can never be immersive for me at least.

I know there are a lot of people who play the game as some kind of role playing or history simulation and that's another story.

Gucumatz said:

And yes, I prefer strategic view over actual view. I am sure I am not the only one - I grew up playing games with poor graphic quality so maybe its why I don't care much at all about how pretty the background is.

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Whatever floats your boat, though the more visually appealing of the two views also happens to be the easiest to comprehend; the strategy view has way too many icons going on.

I've been playing games since my 8-bit Nintendo... as graphics have improved, I've never looked back. Not to say that I don't appreciate the gameplay of the classics and not to say that I can't appreciate their graphics for what they were at the time and Not to mention I think early 3D games were hideous when compared with well done 2D graphics.

Gucumatz said:

Can't say I agree with this one - I am in the Buccaneer camp here. Too many messages as is.

And yes, I prefer strategic view over actual view. I am sure I am not the only one - I grew up playing games with poor graphic quality so maybe its why I don't care much at all about how pretty the background is. Anyways, unique great people per civ [Ie like the developers did with spies] would be pretty cool.
=======

Also anyone want to perhaps bring back the great spy, with espionage experience earned from rigging/coups/stealing techs/defense? Perhaps the Great Spy could offer a 1-2 use effect/set of moves like poisoning water/sabotage production/ferment unrest etc. that way these effects won't happen often or bombard a player so it can't be broken, but could add another layer of intrigue to espionage again.

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Yeah it would be optional anyway. I might enjoy a few interesting messages here and there, but I would not want to be overwhelmed by them. The thing is who would? It would have to be balanced properly.

I can say one thing. This game is vastly simple compare to Hearts of Iron III. If you folks can't handle CiV, don't try that one. Even with upteen immersion, CiV would be a breeze compared to that game.

what about trading world maps? The entire world has done it for centuries and Civ 5 doesnt do this!!!!!!!!!