"A Big Vision for Civilization 4"

Hey Civ fans.

This is a project undertaken by me and a few other Civilization fans. We'd been playing with it for a while, but it was only completed recently. It all started with discussions on this board and with a few Civ-playing friends of mine. We happened to have some free time and decided to chip away at this vision document. (Don't tell my boss.)

This document was not created for ego or glory or even with the belief that Firaxis will use it as their vision for Civilization 4. It was strictly a labor of love, and something we hoped the rest of the community would enjoy.

We looked at the transition from Civ 2 to Civ 3, we looked at other strategy games, and we looked at the many suggestions from many fans... and we ultimately tried to find a big vision that tied many suggestions together, but still had a respect for Civilization's core game play, and added the most to the game.

You won't agree with everything. But hopefully you will agree with the general idea, and add your own thoughts about where you want to see the Civilization series evolve. Most of all, we hope it provokes some positive discussion.

Worst case, it's something to read while you wait for Civ 4

Enjoy,

- dh_epic (The Editor)

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Note: this document is in .pdf format and requires a pdf reader. For a free .pdf reader, you can go to the Adobe Acrobat Download site. at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Feel free to post discussion here.
Or email us at civ4vision@gmail.com if you'd like. We'd love your feedback.

A few other quick notes:

- I hope I didn't offend anyone. Maybe you feel your idea was ignored, or uncredited. Or maybe you just don't like what the document has to say. At any rate, we apologize, and respect your opinion.

- I'm also trying to get this thread stickied, if it doesn't inferfere with anything else, or set a dangerous precedent.

- Lots and lots and lots of thanks to all the people here. Especially a particular few -- you probably know who you are.

- There's a good compilation of features from the Apolyton site, administrated by a person by the name of DarkCloud. It's HUGE and a long read. It's interesting, though, for fans who are curious how wide and varied the suggestions can be. I figure I'll post it here, because they'd want it to spread around.

"The only people who like infinite movement are either against change, or want
timeline realism (in a game with a slippery timeline)."

I do like infinite movement, and it has nothing to do with being against change ; it has to do with thinking that the lack of it (or its alternate, Extra-fast-almost-instant-movement) make the game too slow at the later stages.

Beyond that little unnecessarily insulting phrasing (for which I note there'S a preemptive apology), great document. I love the game you've dreamed up (almost sounds like a "Civilization Universalis"), too bad there's little chance of C4 being like that.

Nice job dh_epic, and all those involved. There's enough material you guys have wrote to debate until Civilization 5 comes out . I agree with Nobunaga on movement because any unit could travel the entire globe in one year. They need to rework the timeline perhaps.

I hope Firaxis reads this. There are so many good ideas.

Downloaded. I'll read it later (really!)

dh_epic said:

Production bonuses are boring.

Click to expand...

Yep. Jack them up high enough and the only way to compete is via exploits.

Got to be careful with "underdogs dragging down the leader", though. Anything that sets a form of predestiny in to stone will grow old sooner rather than later.


Very organized report. My writings tend to be disorganized -- or at least less obviously organized. I tend to let the content dictate the form, rather than the other way around. The ten-ten-ten-ten thing... good discipline. I tend not to count, though. "Here, this is what is wrong, fix it." If the list is three items, it's three. If it's three hundred, I may break it in to a few chunks, but surely not thirty perfectly balanced chunks of ten each.

DH's writings are always a good read. Thanks.


- Sirian

Wow, I guess I feel honoured to be credited as a writer of this document, even though I didn't know it at the time. Good job.

Hey guys. Thanks for the positivity. We appreciate it.

Oda, as I was giving that document one last proofread last night, I remembered your objection and said "wait! only is a little heavy handed. those are most, but not all." I notice that the one other sentence I changed at the last minute was not changed either, so I probably uploaded the wrong version. Anyway, I'll apologize directly, because your objection to finite-movement rails was quite fair, and I recognized that particular sentence was kind of "harsh".

Good thing that little slip is minor enough that it's not "game breaking".

And Sirian, the 10,10,10 thing was the only way I could prevent myself from letting this document get REALLY bloated. There were more than 10 for all of them. But on a few subway rides with a sheet or two of notes, I looked at the relationship between all the points, and settled on those.

Thanks again guys. We'll see how many people check this thing out and enjoy it.

Oda, because I'm such a perfectionist, I actually found the GOOD .pdf in My Documents (as opposed to the one from 5 minutes earlier on My Desktop) and re-uploaded it. Again, the changes are minor, so there's no need to read it again if you've already read it. Here are the two changes, as far as I can remember:

5.6. Improve Rails: “Railroad Teleporting” kills the strategy of troop positions. Most people who like infinite movement are either against change, or want timeline realism (in a game with a slippery timeline). Regardless, any change will do, so long as it’s a mathematical change, not a user-interface change.

Click to expand...

And...

6.7. Terrorism: Allowing “Terrorists” to be built by players reflects a childish world view. But terrorists as modern barbarians would just be a nuisance. Other ideas for implementing terrorism were promising, but very complex. Perhaps as a scenario or mod…

Click to expand...

Great work on this, DH_Epic and everyone else that was involved!
There are a lot of good ideas there. I hope Firaxis looks into it!

Wow. Amazing ideas. I really hope someone in firaxis sees this.

I agree with most of your premises and ideas on this. I might have a more thruough post in a couple days.

I just looked more in-depth. There are a lot of wise suggestions there, both ideas for the game, and just general suggestions.
However there's one thing. It's about AI Cheating. I never liked AI cheating. And I think it can be done so the AI does not cheat at all. It was just done with Empire Earth II, and the devs say it's "a very smart AI that involves 0 cheating. There are no unfair advantages." The AI is pretty smart indeed when I tried out the demo.
I think the same can be done with Civ IV's AI. Limit cheating as much as possible, not saying that it has to be totally eliminated.
Some people can disagree, of course.

My deep respect, dh_epic (and whoever you had direct contact to)!

This document - although I don't share EACH point [but a lot of them]- should be set books for Firaxis.
Not, because they should adopt each and every idea in there - but they should adopt the way of thinking and the very clear and well-articulated approach. They didn't for Civ3 - now it is their great chance not only to give to the "community" but to receive.

At last, I feel deeply honoured to be mentioned, as my contribution was just a small one, if at all.
However, you for sure have marked a new appex in the history of this sub-forum, and CFC-wide I would guess the competition not to be very numerous.

Very, very good job!

dh_epic said:

Oda, because I'm such a perfectionist, I actually found the GOOD .pdf in My Documents (as opposed to the one from 5 minutes earlier on My Desktop) and re-uploaded it. Again, the changes are minor, so there's no need to read it again if you've already read it. Here are the two changes, as far as I can remember:

Click to expand...

Thanks for the change. It make a document I agreed 99% with into a document I pretty much agree 100% with :-D.

CivRules said:

I think it can be done so the AI does not cheat at all. It was just done with Empire Earth II, and the devs say it's "a very smart AI that involves 0 cheating. There are no unfair advantages."

Click to expand...

That's a bold claim. Maybe it's true this time, but I've heard the claim before, so forgive me if I'm from Missouri on that one.

Civ3's AI pulls its punches by design. It wasn't aimed at the top players, but a single AI aimed at the Warlord and Regent level players, that was slapped with some production advantages to prevent stronger players from becoming bored too quickly.

I would expect Civ4's AI to work a bit differently.

Asking for zero AI cheats in a game like Civ is asking for yet another AI who cannot give top players a run for their money. We've seen enough of that, eh?


- Sirian

Yep, it can't be totally eliminated in Civ.
As for EE2, I don't know if they are trying to get more people by claiming it's "the smartest AI out there."
However when that game's released we would know the truth.

Wow... that was such a great read. Good work to all those involved.... I am actually nervous that I am going to be dissappointed with cIV after reading through all these great ideas. I so much want a game like this, Civilization not Militarization..

Nice Job!!! It did seem a little vauge in section 2 (do the same, but better!), but it was still really good. I especially liked 2.5 (anyone need a beta-tester , if one choice is always the best, tehre is no choice ). 3.5 had a good point too, can't kill an exploit? embrance it. Aparently the current rallying cry is simplify simplify simplify, i wish this would become their new one. 4.2 & 4.3 are brilliant, especially the examples they provide. 4.5 is very well unified. 4.6 is interesting, can't say agree or diagree, but i really like the idea of automatically being grouped by culture, it will lead to complete and utter disaster and seriously could ruihn the game if it goes wrong though. I like 4.8.5's idea of winning by controlling by poxy. I have no idea what you're talking about in 5.4.

Great Job!!!!

A lot of good ideas - I will definately use some ideas from this document for my Civ type game http://members.optusnet.com.au/hotw/