What can CIV learn from Crusader Kings?

Hey guys,

I finally found a game to steal away my attention from many months of Civfanaticism.

I'm sure many of you have heard of Crusader Kings 2, which is similar to the Europa Universalis series. It's one of the most unique strategy/simulation games I've ever played, and while it has some setbacks, I would really like to see CIV 6 have some of these Crusader King-esqe features:

CASUS BELLI- Reasons for going to war. There can be many, such as 'aquire territory (taking over some tiles)', 'capture city' (specifying which city you want), or even 'Install New Government (you capture an enemies capital, you don't take it, but instead make them your allies for an era). Many other ideas here as well.

LEVY ARMIES- Instead of having countless 1-U-P-T just sitting around, they should disappear if not needed and at the click of a button, come back to life again during war.

GROUP FIGHTING- Wars should also be fought more tactically. If I engage a unit through melee, an archer should automatically fire and vice versa. That makes a large group better than a skilled few.


I can name several others. You guys have any ideas?

No thank you! Civ is civ, CK2 is CK2, total war is total war.

Glassmage said:

No thank you! Civ is civ, CK2 is CK2, total war is total war.

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This.

CiV was the major combat development in the series from what i can establish.

I'd like to see a real development of the economy in CVI, maybe add some capacity for cyber warfare in the later eras too.

True_Candyman said:

CiV was the major combat development in the series from what i can establish.

I'd like to see a real development of the economy in CVI, maybe add some capacity for cyber warfare in the later eras too.

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I actually want to see them bring back some things in call to power like ages beyond the future, and also cities in the ocean. I'd also like global warming to be brought back.

Glassmage said:

No thank you! Civ is civ, CK2 is CK2, total war is total war.

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Disagree. If everyone thought like that, Civ wouldn't have hexes and tactical combat, Total War wouldn't have a strategy layer, and Crusader Kings wouldn't have a tech tree.

There is nothing wrong with taking good ideas from good games and using them to make your game good.

I do like some of the ideas - Cassus Belli and limited wars in particular. It seems dumb to have wars that literally last thousands of years when in reality a war is of far more limited length and scope.

Look at World War 1. France defeats Germany, takes a tiny fraction of its territory and a gold-per-turn agreement. In Civ, France would still be in control of every city in Germany and well on the way to a space victory.

But video games borrow from each other... I mean, is not the Social Policy setup the same as in most RPGs where you 'level-up' your character in different ways? And wasn't that an incredible improvement to the customization aspect of the game?

I think newer and better ways of going to war, especially having reasons to go to war, could make it more strategic and fun. Nah' mean?

the only things i want to be added to civ to make the experience better would be established civilization mechanics that were in previous civ games otherwise i really dont like levy armies because you can abuse that in civ while casus belli seems fine but it just doesnt work for civ really.Group fighting is meh

El Caballerion said:

CASUS BELLI- Reasons for going to war. There can be many, such as 'aquire territory (taking over some tiles)', 'capture city' (specifying which city you want), or even 'Install New Government (you capture an enemies capital, you don't take it, but instead make them your allies for an era). Many other ideas here as well.

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OK, but only if you get rid of the Latin. I hate Latin. I'm actually starting to hate the idea, too, since so many players are constantly requesting it. But, I do get annoyed when the AI leaders declare me a war-monger for going to war with good reason.

LEVY ARMIES- Instead of having countless 1-U-P-T just sitting around, they should disappear if not needed and at the click of a button, come back to life again during war.

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No, thanks. I like to be able to see enemy forces and I'd imagine that they like being able to see mine, too. Also, I'd constantly have to keep checking a menu somewhere to see which units I have available if they weren't just sitting there on the screen all the time.

GROUP FIGHTING- Wars should also be fought more tactically. If I engage a unit through melee, an archer should automatically fire and vice versa. That makes a large group better than a skilled few.

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I don't understand this point. You can already do this in Civ V? Attack with a melee unit, then attack with a ranged unit that's standing behind the melee unit. Do you just want more automation or something?

Personally I quite like how simplistic CiV is in contrast to CK2. I have and play both games and the differences between them make me appreciate the other more. This for me applies especially to the combat mechanics in CiV, which I think are perfect as they are, although it's a shame the AI isn't as good at making use of them as the human player.

However, CiV diplomacy I still think is awful and I would welcome a bit more complexity brought in from games like Total War and CK2. The Casus Belli idea isn't a bad one. I'd also quite like Allied City-States (especially Militaristic ones) to behave a bit more like vassals during wars - there could be a 'recruit vassal army' option which would allow them to actually send you some of their units which become player-controlled for the duration of the war. With some tweaking, this could also be implemented with major Civs that you have a DoF or Defensive Pact with.

total war is total war.

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p.s. The Crusdaer Kings etc games are really not Total War at all - try 'Victoria' for the real height of the series - it is a micro management paradise.

I guess I want most of all, the AI to have better reasons for declaring war and vice versa instead of constant negative factors that make them 'hate you' to the point of declaring war.

For instance, I would love for an Expansionist AI to ask if they can buy 3 tiles from me (maybe they have a resource they want). If I say no, they eventually start demanding it. If I continue to say no, they declare war. If they can then successfully hold onto those 3 tiles for 10-20 turns (or whatever), the war will be over and they would have won those tiles.

This will make wars more specific with more victory conditions instead of just war for wars sake. I would even like to see more things being given upon winning/losing a war such as slaves (workers), cities converting to the winner's religion, winner capturing an enemies citadel, etc.

Doesn't have to be like CK2 at all, holmes...

Another great idea out of another game (I saw it in Endless Space, can't say who originated it) is more diplomatic states than just war and peace. In that game they add a third state "cold war" where you can fight their units outside their borders and invade their colonies, but if you want to take the war into their territory you have to declare war. It works very well at toning down the land grab phase of the game which I have long hated in civ and is one of the great unrealisms of the game IMO.

Casus Belli seems like it could be a very interesting addition as part of a general boost to the complexity of diplomacy (which I think would actually make diplomacy easier at the end of the day).

Levy armies would be nice for fixing the ridiculous clog of units that tends to fill AI territory, but I'd rather see them fix that by having the AI organize its units better and ease up some of the rules for passing through enemy armies and beyond that it just seems cosmetic. Group fighting is basically already the way it works.

Casus beli is a good idea just as an antidote to some of the major failings of the current Civ formula anyways, not to mention a potentially flavorful and fun additional layer of strategy. Especially if it could be used to mitigate the problems we have now, like AI who re-DoW constantly across hundreds of turns and don't learn that they can't win. It could also mean snap-DoW's of opportunity are harder or impossible if there's a mandatory preparation phase. Although I have to say I have no idea why someone would say "scrap the Latin" about it. That's a common English idiom. It's like saying "I get angry when people say 'bacteria'. Call them 'germs'."

Good points Tyboy and Lyoncet. I just get tired of having an ally backstab me constantly. It just seems illogical. Plus, it's even weirder when an enemy goes to war with you, and once peace is declared, wants to be all buddy, buddy with you. I think religion should be more of a defining factor in the first part of the game, and would even like to see more civil war action take place.

But alas... hopefully CIV 6 will implement better diplomacy. I feel that while many aspects of the game improved from CIV 4, the diplomacy in CIV 5 took a step back. I would LOVE a better game with better diplomacy over a game with cheesy leader graphics that get old rather quickly.

Priorities Firaxis... c'mon.

Casus Belli and Crown Authority are the two things I'd like to see in Civ, especially Crown Authority. Because in most civ games bigger country = bigger army, and you can easily roll over any opponents (Yes I agree that the culture growth part of Civ5 is a good implementation, but I would like to see a small solid country exceeds a big weak country in military part also, which happened many times historically.)