GeorgeWBushTRON
Chieftain
Gradual Resource Depletion:
Having played Civ 5 for quite a while now, I'm somewhat disappointed at how easy it is to have resources at all times. Worst case scenario you get some resource tiles pillaged, but it only takes one turn (two with fallout, but still) to repair them. Having seen amazing mods like "Cultural Diffusion" and "Revolutions", I thought that a complete overhaul of the resource system could add some serious depth to the game.
How it stands now:
· Tiles perpetually produce resources, so long as you own or are connected to them.
· Getting disconnected whilst using a resource will mean a 50% penalty to the combat effectiveness of your units.
· Resource maintenance is too easy. Even with the cultural mods, most players will have no trouble maintaining resource production behind their front line.
· Food is unlimited and farms have no penalties.
· Units only require turn by turn gold maintenance.
· Cities do not consume resources (except buildings).
What could change:
Resource management:
· Instead of perpetually giving a small amount of resources, each resource producing tile would start out with a very high amount of fixed resources. For example, instead of giving say 2-8 oil per turn, an oil well would instead start out with 10,000 barrels and continue producing until it runs out.
· Units would cost resources to build AND maintain. For example, a modern era tank would cost 10 oil and 5 aluminum, and then cost 2 oil per turn. The unit would also consume 1 aluminum per repair.
· If a player runs out of resources and cannot pay the turn by turn maintenance, then affected units would face penalties with increasing severity.
o "Low Resources": Defined by the player only having enough resources to maintain positive stores for a certain number of turns. Units receive a 5% damage penalty, -1 movement penalty, and take 1 turn longer than usual to repair, -2 range for aircraft.
o "Over Consumption": Defined by the player still having resources, but has less than he/she uses. This will obviously last one turn. 20% damage penalty, 50% movement penalty, -50% range for aircraft. Units can no longer repair.
o "Resource Drought": Defined by the player having zero of any required resource (luxuries don't count. Basically any resource that taxes you turn by turn). Affected units can move only 1 hex per turn, 30% damage penalty). Aircraft receive -90% range. Units not only can't repair, but suffer from gradual attrition.
· Side note for new unit: Engineer. This expensive, late game unit could combat attrition by repairing one affected unit at a time. The Engineer could slow, but not halt attrition. Eventually, without a mass amount of engineers (which are vulnerable), a "Drought" army would still die out.
· Cities now tax resources: Depending on your era, cities will now tax certain resources in addition to food. If a city is cut off from resources, it will enter starvation, experience decreased output across the board, and generate high amounts of unrest. Cities will register as receiving resources if either work a tile with the resource nearby, or are connected to the empire via a road or harbor.
· Examples of Era specific tax: Ancient era would have no tax, while information era would have a oil + aluminum tax.
Conclusion: With the introduction of a new, in depth resource system, there would be real consequences and advantages attached to high resource use. A large, warmongering player could go for broke and try to win an early victory with large amounts of cheap, rapidly resource consuming units, while a strong econ player could instead horde his resources and use them as leverage in trade or diplomacy. As player slowly ran out of resources in their eras or late-game, desperate wars could break out with border resources constantly trading hands. City states would also vastly increase in importance.
Farming Revamped:
The current farming system in Civ 5 is boring and inconsequential. Players can build incredibly self sustaining farmland far into the desert without having to worry about running out of food later on. My suggestion is to add a fixed amount of food production to farms, while making terrain based advantages much more pronounced.
What I would change:
· When a farm is first built, it would automatically have a set number of turns it could churn out food depending on its terrain. At the end of the set number of turns, the farm would stop producing, but can be "repaired" as tech levels go up to produce food again. Eventually however, a player will run out of tech to re-improve food storage, after which he/she will need to find tiles next to rivers (which would have no turn penalty).
· Just because a farm is no longer producing doesn't mean that cities nearby immediately go into starvation. Like the resource system, any food that isn't used is stockpiled, and can keep a society going for however long you have food left.
· In order to keep this new system from getting monotonous, a new farmer unit would be introduced that would auto-improve farms after they become decrepit. The farming unit would increase in efficiency with each era.
· Units and workers would also tax food. Running out of food will have similar consequences to those mentioned above for resources. In the event that you are low or out of BOTH, then the effects will stack. Effectively destroying your army/workforce. So you'll have to manage food/resources very carefully.
· Cities would obviously consume food based on their population.
· Forgot to add fishing and food producing resources. They would all work the same way, with slight differences for each.
Faming conclusion: This revamped farming system would make land management in the early game very important, and force players to limit population growth or make players attack others to get more food tiles. Wars over fertile land near rivers could break out, and players with lots of food to give away could become very wealthy/diplomatically powerful.
Making the future more futuristic, and Nukes!
As of right now, I find myself having much more fun in the modern/atomic/information era in Civ 5 due to the ai/other players actually using units other than stealth bombers, nukes, or GDRs. The future era is simply devoid of new features and combat and I think that's a shame.
What I would change:
· Just add more units! The XCOM Squad is a good start, but we need more units like that.
· Allow players to send up rockets/spaceships in the information/future era that gives them more science or resources. The science victory could be changed to space colonization.
· Introduction of robot based infantry and units that can move farther, have stronger attacks, and total resistance to the effects of radiation/fallout (will explain this later). Cheap and easy to produce.
· New types of Nukes and higher consequences for using them!
o Tactical Nuke: Low yield, explosion range of one hex around target area.
o Current ICBM: Same yield as in-game, hence "current".
o High Yield: Absurd attack range and operational range. capable of crippling civilizations that are not prepared for conflict.
o Fallout will take much longer to scrub (around 10 turns?)
o Add MDS to cities and as a tile improvement. Doesn't completely nullify nukes, but has a fairly good percentage chance of shooting them down, just like how aircraft interception works now.
Conclusion to whole: Civ 5 is a great game and I have a lot of fun playing it, but I can't help but feel as though some parts are still missing. Gods and Kings was a huge improvement from vanilla, and I'm sure Brave New World did even better (notice I didn't include diplomatic and cultural ideas in this thread, since I think Cultural Diffusion, Revolutions, and the new diplomacy in BNW covers this), but there are still a few steps that need to be taken to make this game perfect. I want to have greater consequences for my actions and want the decisions players make to affect others in more ways than they currently do. Hopefully by forcing players to adapt to a new resource/food management system, games can become more dynamic and unpredictable, and lead to longer, more satisfying games.
Thoughts?
Having played Civ 5 for quite a while now, I'm somewhat disappointed at how easy it is to have resources at all times. Worst case scenario you get some resource tiles pillaged, but it only takes one turn (two with fallout, but still) to repair them. Having seen amazing mods like "Cultural Diffusion" and "Revolutions", I thought that a complete overhaul of the resource system could add some serious depth to the game.
How it stands now:
· Tiles perpetually produce resources, so long as you own or are connected to them.
· Getting disconnected whilst using a resource will mean a 50% penalty to the combat effectiveness of your units.
· Resource maintenance is too easy. Even with the cultural mods, most players will have no trouble maintaining resource production behind their front line.
· Food is unlimited and farms have no penalties.
· Units only require turn by turn gold maintenance.
· Cities do not consume resources (except buildings).
What could change:
Resource management:
· Instead of perpetually giving a small amount of resources, each resource producing tile would start out with a very high amount of fixed resources. For example, instead of giving say 2-8 oil per turn, an oil well would instead start out with 10,000 barrels and continue producing until it runs out.
· Units would cost resources to build AND maintain. For example, a modern era tank would cost 10 oil and 5 aluminum, and then cost 2 oil per turn. The unit would also consume 1 aluminum per repair.
· If a player runs out of resources and cannot pay the turn by turn maintenance, then affected units would face penalties with increasing severity.
o "Low Resources": Defined by the player only having enough resources to maintain positive stores for a certain number of turns. Units receive a 5% damage penalty, -1 movement penalty, and take 1 turn longer than usual to repair, -2 range for aircraft.
o "Over Consumption": Defined by the player still having resources, but has less than he/she uses. This will obviously last one turn. 20% damage penalty, 50% movement penalty, -50% range for aircraft. Units can no longer repair.
o "Resource Drought": Defined by the player having zero of any required resource (luxuries don't count. Basically any resource that taxes you turn by turn). Affected units can move only 1 hex per turn, 30% damage penalty). Aircraft receive -90% range. Units not only can't repair, but suffer from gradual attrition.
· Side note for new unit: Engineer. This expensive, late game unit could combat attrition by repairing one affected unit at a time. The Engineer could slow, but not halt attrition. Eventually, without a mass amount of engineers (which are vulnerable), a "Drought" army would still die out.
· Cities now tax resources: Depending on your era, cities will now tax certain resources in addition to food. If a city is cut off from resources, it will enter starvation, experience decreased output across the board, and generate high amounts of unrest. Cities will register as receiving resources if either work a tile with the resource nearby, or are connected to the empire via a road or harbor.
· Examples of Era specific tax: Ancient era would have no tax, while information era would have a oil + aluminum tax.
Conclusion: With the introduction of a new, in depth resource system, there would be real consequences and advantages attached to high resource use. A large, warmongering player could go for broke and try to win an early victory with large amounts of cheap, rapidly resource consuming units, while a strong econ player could instead horde his resources and use them as leverage in trade or diplomacy. As player slowly ran out of resources in their eras or late-game, desperate wars could break out with border resources constantly trading hands. City states would also vastly increase in importance.
Farming Revamped:
The current farming system in Civ 5 is boring and inconsequential. Players can build incredibly self sustaining farmland far into the desert without having to worry about running out of food later on. My suggestion is to add a fixed amount of food production to farms, while making terrain based advantages much more pronounced.
What I would change:
· When a farm is first built, it would automatically have a set number of turns it could churn out food depending on its terrain. At the end of the set number of turns, the farm would stop producing, but can be "repaired" as tech levels go up to produce food again. Eventually however, a player will run out of tech to re-improve food storage, after which he/she will need to find tiles next to rivers (which would have no turn penalty).
· Just because a farm is no longer producing doesn't mean that cities nearby immediately go into starvation. Like the resource system, any food that isn't used is stockpiled, and can keep a society going for however long you have food left.
· In order to keep this new system from getting monotonous, a new farmer unit would be introduced that would auto-improve farms after they become decrepit. The farming unit would increase in efficiency with each era.
· Units and workers would also tax food. Running out of food will have similar consequences to those mentioned above for resources. In the event that you are low or out of BOTH, then the effects will stack. Effectively destroying your army/workforce. So you'll have to manage food/resources very carefully.
· Cities would obviously consume food based on their population.
· Forgot to add fishing and food producing resources. They would all work the same way, with slight differences for each.
Faming conclusion: This revamped farming system would make land management in the early game very important, and force players to limit population growth or make players attack others to get more food tiles. Wars over fertile land near rivers could break out, and players with lots of food to give away could become very wealthy/diplomatically powerful.
Making the future more futuristic, and Nukes!
As of right now, I find myself having much more fun in the modern/atomic/information era in Civ 5 due to the ai/other players actually using units other than stealth bombers, nukes, or GDRs. The future era is simply devoid of new features and combat and I think that's a shame.
What I would change:
· Just add more units! The XCOM Squad is a good start, but we need more units like that.
· Allow players to send up rockets/spaceships in the information/future era that gives them more science or resources. The science victory could be changed to space colonization.
· Introduction of robot based infantry and units that can move farther, have stronger attacks, and total resistance to the effects of radiation/fallout (will explain this later). Cheap and easy to produce.
· New types of Nukes and higher consequences for using them!
o Tactical Nuke: Low yield, explosion range of one hex around target area.
o Current ICBM: Same yield as in-game, hence "current".
o High Yield: Absurd attack range and operational range. capable of crippling civilizations that are not prepared for conflict.
o Fallout will take much longer to scrub (around 10 turns?)
o Add MDS to cities and as a tile improvement. Doesn't completely nullify nukes, but has a fairly good percentage chance of shooting them down, just like how aircraft interception works now.
o The range of nukes would be increased so that it's now possible to hit Civs in other continents, making MAD a consequence that one Civ will have to think of when considering the use of nuclear weapons. This would add a new dynamic to the use of nukes that is missing from the game atm. Conclusion to whole: Civ 5 is a great game and I have a lot of fun playing it, but I can't help but feel as though some parts are still missing. Gods and Kings was a huge improvement from vanilla, and I'm sure Brave New World did even better (notice I didn't include diplomatic and cultural ideas in this thread, since I think Cultural Diffusion, Revolutions, and the new diplomacy in BNW covers this), but there are still a few steps that need to be taken to make this game perfect. I want to have greater consequences for my actions and want the decisions players make to affect others in more ways than they currently do. Hopefully by forcing players to adapt to a new resource/food management system, games can become more dynamic and unpredictable, and lead to longer, more satisfying games.
Thoughts?
