Things I miss from CivI that I'd like to see in CivV

[fortydayweekend]

1) Pictures of individual hammers, gold, food, beakers etc in the city display, not just numbers.. bringing a coal mine online for a 5-hammer overflow used to be satisfying, cos you could actually see your production grow. Same for population - I want to see all the little happy, content and unhappy people in a row. Not just numbers.

2) Control over trade routes - not the micromanagement of I (or even worse, II) but some kind of decision-making. Opening 3 +10 trade routes in a city (and again, seeing those trade arrows multiply) was awesome. Civ IV trade is boring and too much in the background for what should be an important part of the game.

3) City view.

4) Truly random, unbalanced maps for single player. Interesting, random continents and islands to discover, and strong and weak starting positions. Every game was different because your opponents strengths were different each time. Civ IV is way too balanced - everyone is roughly the same size, same resources, same land etc.

5) The ability to play virtually without building an army. CivI fortresses, zone of control and the AI made defense really easy for a human, so you could play a pacifist strategy with a tiny military. Civ IV you have to build dozens of units no matter what, and move them around a lot when you're attacked. Hopefully CivV will make a static, no micromanagement defense line possible again.

6) Civil wars

7) And finally optional really, really low graphics settings so I don't have to buy a new computer

That's just my two cents. Feel free to disagree or add to the list!

[Malchar]

It would be kind of nice to at least have the option of playing a map setting with unbalanced resources and unbalanced starting positions.
In Civ 4 it's kind of weird knowing that there must be either horse, copper, or iron within a certain radius of your capital. The only problem is that the AI will need to properly team up against whichever civ lucks out with the good start. Either way, it would be an interesting game mode.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by fortydayweekend

4) Truly random, unbalanced maps for single player. Interesting, random continents and islands to discover, and strong and weak starting positions. Every game was different because your opponents strengths were different each time. Civ IV is way too balanced - everyone is roughly the same size, same resources, same land etc.

Did you try the various map scripts? I made tectonics specifically in order to get random results for instance. A 60 or 70% water start can provide very random maps.

[Kyriakos]

Civ2 trade was amazing. It would be great if it can return, mixed with the new trade elements as well.

[Ben Music]

It sounds like zones of control will be in. I know I've missed ZOC too.