Civ Add-on/Expansion Pack Ideas

The other thread regarding the Civ3 Add-on pack evolved into a flamewar. There were several good ideas but it'd be much better if we consolidated them so we can send them off to Firaxis.

So...post your ideas for the MP Add-on!

Here are the ones we have so far:

Ideas

• Set civ starting points in editor for each civ (so that you could put down an American starting point and the Americans would start there)
• Editor option to add and remove eras, as well as force an era to start at a certain date, independent of how technologically advanced a civ is
• Easy way to see how many cities you have, in one of the advisor screens
• Nuclear submarine bombardment (from a few spaces away, it could fire a torpedo)
• Two types of nuclear subs:
• Allow building of the Explorer unit earlier in the tech tree
• Lower espionage costs
• Change tone of diplomatic messages, i.e. "Gimme 50 gold or else" and "Gimme 50 gold and I'll be your best friend"
• Penalty if republics or democracies capture workers (killing innocent civilians)
• "Please build IMPROVEMENT in CITY" diplomatic option (useful for harbors, etc.)
• Add more effects to the Apollo and Manhattan projects so they are useful even in non-space race or non-diplomatic victory games
• Make Manhattan and Apollo Projects small wonders
• Allow allied units to stay on the same square
• Allow workers to build airbases/airstrips
• Steel strategic resource, allows Steel Mill (one per each iron + coal in the city strategic box) which increases production
• Give colonies a small cultural influence (maybe just one square)
• Naming of map regions on multi-player games (i.e. Northern Peninsula)
• Non-military great leaders (Einstein, Edison, etc.)
• More flexible map generator (so you can tell it "I want 3 continents with 2 people each, with plenty of resources for everyone")
• Let units fortified in cities at least attempt to quell the uprising in a city that will be culture flipped
• "Neutral", "Normal", and "Wartime" mobilization options; Neutral would give culture benefits (etc.), but would prevent any military units from being made
• Editor option to make bombardment lethal in some cases
• Every Civ2 scenario editor option and more
• Get rid of the dropdown menu on the "Sir, CITY has produced IMPROVEMENT. Shall we begin work on ______?"; offer an optional choice to show all possible building projects with radio buttons beside them
• By default, select the most recently-opened scenario in the Load Scenario filebox
• Commerce victory (+5,000 gold per turn, for example, might win you the game)
• Ability to view the trades, treaties, and agreements of a civ through the embassy or espionage
• More civs! (or, the ability to add more civs, with some generic leader heads)
• Creation of canals between bodies of water
• "Force peace treaty" diplomatic agreement, to force one civ into a peace treaty with another civ
• Ability to offer money/techs/luxuries/etc. to another civ even if they refuse to acknowledge your envoy
• Included scenarios
• Finer control of the barbarians; for example, they could have horsemen in ancient times, swordsmen in the middle ages, knights in the industrial age, and they could be cavalry in the modern age
• More modern age offensive units
• More bonus resources and luxuries
• More buildings and houses in the aerial city views
• Editor option to set whether or not the world is round
• Extra unit animations and sounds, natural resource images, etc. for mod makers to use
• More government types
• Choice of who to support if you have a mutual protection pact with two civs at war
• Scenario editor with scripting ("macro") language
• Ability to trade units
• Anti-nuclear treaties (and the ability to see what nuclear weapons a civ has via espionage)
• Nuke planting ability (through the espionage menu)
• More AI-initiated trading with the human player
• Ability to send food surplus between cities (like in Colonization)
• Gain deforestation shield bonus more than once, but without making the time for the forest to grow proportional to the number of workers (so you can't build a forest in 1 turn with 10 workers, for example)
• Numerical option for corruption in each gov type (so we can set it at, say, 0% if we hate corruption) in editor, but purely optional
• More precise science/luxury percentage sliders (not 10% intervals)
• Increase ship movement rates
• Additional zoom levels in both the game and the editor
• Units upgradable to a civ's SU (fighter -> F-15, for example) for that civ
• Foreign advisor should be able to have all 16 civs shown at once
• Enviromental penalties for chopping down forest and jungle
• Don't allow someone to start on a gov-specific city project then change govs and still be building it
• Less chance of huge battle upsets (i.e. spearman wins vs modern armor)
• Group movement
• Choice to unload units from army and/or upgrade units in army
• Ability to set treaties' length in turns (i.e. settable to 40 instead of the normal 20 turns)
• Ability to call off diplomatic deals before they expire if both sides agree
• Changeable time scale in the editor (to make the game from 6000 B.C. to 2300 A.D., or from September 30, 1996 to January 1, 2005)
• Colored world map; instead of just white, cities would reflect their status, i.e. blue for civil disorder, red for starving, white for growing, and yellow for not growing nor starving
• Terraformation of terrain, like plains -> grassland, late in the game

group movement. i know its been mention a ton of times, and mght even appear in the next patch. but i want it so bad...

Thanks, I'm going to add everything suggested to the list in my first post. Once we've covered everything, I'll send it to Firaxis. I expect that they would take note of it, since they are a pretty cool company (they have to be to make Civ3), but if not, we have a list of things they didn't add to the add-on that we can complain about.

:soldier: :crazyeyes

I'm not sure what you mean by "Force peace treaty diplomatic agreement "

The one thing I really want in diplomacy (one of the best things that they could have brought over from SMAC) is "Please call off your war against my friend, the ...." Of course, they can say No, or they can demand a price to call off the war, etc....

It would make MPPs much more useful.

Here are moine copied directly from the other thread - and firstly can I make a heart felt plea - use this thread for suggestions and responses to suggestions only - no arguments on politics or anything, If any mod would be so good please remove such posts from this thread

I know this seems a lot but its not really if an x-pack is coming out anyhow we need new stuff

I think scenario editor + Macro language is a must - if this is just Mp there is no way i will buy it.

I also suggest increasing ship rates (yeah ive done it with the ed but everyone should be able to enjoy it)

Make it possibloe to add more civs

Give us at least 6 new civs - another 16 would be great though

Improve damn diplo victory

Reduce corruption some more on larger maps

Make arms dealing a diplomatic option

Make i9t possible to demand an enemy sign a peace treaty with someone (I really want this - its so annoying when your two best friend civs go to war with one another and you have to join a side)

Make it so that if you have MP pacts with two warring powers you can decide whihc to support

Let spyts plant nukes

Diplo screen with 16y civs on - i really hate not knowing if such and such is trading with such and such just because i met them last

Diplomatic agreements screen which would let you see what arrangments/trades you have with civs and if you have spies what agreements/trades other civs have and HOW LONG THEY LAST FOR

Fascism as a government type - im sure firaxis could make a much better fascism than we could with that crummy editor

Make the units/improvments depedent on gov type be disbanded/not work on swithc of government - when I tried making some if found there was no point because of this.

Reintroduce firepower, or what the hec, just triple the a/d stats of modern units - no tanks die to legions even if its an army

Better AI in mod times - now here I dont like to criticise because the AI is very, very good, but I would like it to be a teeny bit harder in mod times.

More AI prposasls to player - the Ai trade so presumably they must approach each other, have you ever been asked for a trade agreement by a comp player?

moving troops through country when they have benn told to leave should allow player to declare war legit (same applies for the other way round of course)

and units should be allowed to upgrade to SU - My fix of making the civs being able to build the equiv of their unit is not exactly satisfactory for obvious reasons - possibly their should be two things each unit can upgrade into, and if you were, say the russians the unit would auto upgrade to cossack cos it couldnt upgrade to cavalry (make sense? if not read it again and wonder)

Also I think that cavalry should be allowed to upgrade into tanks (now I know that is very small and piddling and so easily changed with the editor but if we are gonna have a multi player I'd like a standardised game)


OKAY PEOPLE GET POSTING - IF WE WANT FIRAXIS TO MAKE A DECENT X-PACk WE GOT TELL THEM WHAT A DECENT X-PACK WOULD BE (power to the people and all that)

It is a shame that the other thread descended into a flame war, I guess people failed to consider that MP might only be part of the add-on. All that this means is that MP should be ready by that time and being a good company they are going to include all the fixes/improvements with the expansion.

As to what I would like to see be the real elements of the expansion:

Some scenarios (with a full fledge editor as well if possible)
More government types (ideally expanded to something like what was with SMAC)
A future tech age (and maybe associated victory conditions if you decided to stay on teh planet, of course the end date will have to be extended)
More civs

For things to included on teh next patch:
stack movement abilities
improvements to the city flipping (maybe a loyalty screen like the happiness one and not loosing the whole garrison)

An animated unit database. Not for use in actual game (unless you desire) but for modmakers/scenariomakers (eventually ) to have some premade, animated units to insert.

ie: More planes, more ships, partisans, commando-types...basically take every age and go into detail as far as what units were used in reality.

I'm on it graeme

HEY - YO CRAZY PACHYDERM, you may have noticed im back in town (though with a terrible net connection, i am tryting to get the rabbits to run faster but what can you do?)

Okay I say no to future tech - the game is long enough already and works well with modern being the end.

I say yes to your database idea

I say yes to the idea about group movement
Yes - scenarios definetley
No to more gov types apart from fascism (that but be enough0 but yes to AC type of government as an alternative. (you could play with the standard govs or Ac kind - it would be an option)

Yes to setting corruption levels by % or whatever (did i mention I want corruption reduced on bigger maps, oh yeah I think I did but I've typed it now so what the heck oh SHUT up Graeme your whittering now)



I think citys flip at about the right time however I want to see it improved so you dont lose your units - I think a revolting city should have to fight the units garrisoned in it (it would have a dif attack based on city size and age)
For instance - you have two riflemen in a city size 11, whose civ is in industrial age, when the city revolts a unit attacks 1 rifleman (no combat shown as it does not make sense, possibly just the rifleman firing for you graphics lovers). The unit I envisage would have 3 hit points as standard, 4 attack for being in industrial age and 1/2 an attack point for each citizen. Therefore the unit which would attack the rifleman in this case would have 9 attack. In the comat city walls and size would not affect rifleman strength.
Say the first rifleman was beaten, but the next beat the revolt but had only 1 hitpoint left.
This meant the revolt would not completley destroy your units or take back the city but would cause damage to them.
If however both riflemen were defeated then the city would be taken back in the usual fashion and the revolt 'unit' disappear.

Now, would that satisfy everyone? - I knows it's very different from what we have at the minute however if it goes in an x-pack it could be hardcoded- hey can someone from firaxis post here and tell me what they think?

OKAY and now a small thing - when you disband an army you should have the option to convert it to shield or 'split' it i.e the army disappears but the constituent units remain - this would stop the problem of obsolete armys.


WOOOOOOOOPPPHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

THEY BETTER PUT THESE IDEAS IN THE X-PACK OTHERWISE ILL FEEL LIKE A FOOL FOR WRITING THEM

*Okay IGOR were going to post the message now, crank up the rabbits*

Great ideas, everyone. I've added them, we've got a nice list going. If they incorporate all of our ideas then Civ3 will be awesome!!

I wasn't so sure about a future tech age. For two reasons. One, CTP has a future tech age, and CTP is bad, so a future tech age must be bad. Two, what would it have? Cyber-nano-giga-tanks that are 50/30/10? What does everyone else think about this one?

Oh, Graeme -- I skipped over Civ2 for the most part, so pardon my ignorance, but what's firepower? I added essentially what you said but I'm just curious.

They definetly need to add scenarios and not let archers kill my tanks. I liked the Alpha Centauri thing with the abiltiy to ask a side to stop going to war with another side. Great ideas people, lets just hope Firaxis gets its **** together and pays attention. A lot of customers are very unhappy.

I agree that we don't need future tech. Good Civ games (i.e., not CTP) just go up to our current time. When I want good future tech, I can play SMAC. With an improved scenario editor, some of you smart modders can come up with some futuristic scenarios. Okay, maybe add just a few future techs, things in our own foreseeable future: fusion power, orbital space station, etc.

Macro Language/Events Editor. IMHO, this was one of the coolest things about Civ2 Gold Ed scenarios. It allowed things like the Pearl Harbor attack at the start of "East Wind, Rain", the creation of special units like J.E.B Stuart and U.S. Grant in "The Civil War", and terrain-changing dust storms in "Mars Now!"

Food Convoys. I love the new trade system, and I don't miss the Caravan unit, but I want a way to send food from high-agricuture cities on grasslands to cities in less fertile areas. After all, we CAN do that in real life. How else can they get all those huge buffets in Las Vegas?

Tree Farms. Give us back the ability get the shield bonus more than once from chopping down a forest tile. Before the patch, I used the "tree farm" method to develop production in remote and/or arctic cities. But with 1.16f, we can only do that once per tile. Once again, we really DO that in real life. Why does Sid only want us to chop down old-growth virgin forests?

Canals. How about a way to send a ship two or three tiles across an isthumus or into an inland sea? This was another good idea from the old thread before it turned into a pissing contest. Again, real life.

Transforming Terrain. Maybe they could bring back that Civ2 ability as a future tech. It came way to early in Civ2 (i.e., we really CAN'T do that in real life, not like in Civ2. But in the foreseeable future?)

Zoom levels. More than two would be nice. And with only one zoom level in the editor, I don't see how you guys can create all those cool maps.

This is already a great game, but it can be even better.

Great ideas! Added those to the list.

What do you all think about this idea?

• Make nearby democratic and republic governments cause civil disorder near border cities to communisms, despotisms, and monarchies (because they get a taste of the free world)

Would it tip the balance too far in the direction of republics and democracies? Or would it give them a real-world, fair advantage?

By communism, I assume Firaxis is referring to the USSR communism, of course.

I don't agree with some points you've made. I mean

Make nearby democratic and republic governments cause civil disorder near border cities to communisms, despotisms, and monarchies (because they get a taste of the free world)

Click to expand...

That would unbalance the game. Besides, Democracy already has the imunity to propaganda and lowest corruption on its side.

Choice to unload units from army and/or upgrade units in army
Terraformation/transformation of terrain
Gain deforestation shield bonus more than once

Click to expand...

Those were design choices, and that last one was a change that came with the patch. Maybe this should go under editor choices that should be added.

Increase ship movement rates
Cavalry upgradable to tank

Click to expand...

You can do this through the editor. I believe you should do that because this are personal preferences. I for one don't want my cavalries upgrading to tanks. It's a bit weird.

Warnings if a city is close to culture-flipping ("our citizens in CITY seem to be disappointed with our culture, sir!" for example)

Click to expand...

Wouldn't that make the whole culture-flipping process useless?

Arms dealing

Click to expand...

??? Do you mean ability to trade units?



I second all the other points you have listed, and here are some of my desires.

- I would like to have the ability of negotiate thr duration of my diplomaticdeals. For instance, I want to set a mutual protection pact that lasts 40 turns instead of 20.

- I want to be able to finish a trade deal even within the duration of a deal as long as the other part agrees with the closing. So, if I don't want to sell wine to the Germans and they don't want to buy, but the deal won't expire for another 14 turns, I should have the option to brake the deal peacefully.

You make a lot of good points. I've removed the first idea and clarified the arms dealing idea. By arms dealing, I think the person who posted it meant nuclear arms, but I've expanded it to units because it seems to be the general consensus that everyone wants to be able to trade units.

Some people feel strongly that you should be able to reforest squares and receive the 10 shield bonus each time. I think that it's sort of an exploit. As someone else on these forums said, the amount of workers planting tree seeds is not proportional to the age of the trees. It's unrealistic that you could assign several workers to one square and just keep getting the bonus. What does everyone else think? We don't want to submit an idea to Firaxis that none of us like, in case they actually do implement it.

Same thing for cavalry->tanks and faster naval movement. What do you all think? IMO, naval units should all get one more movement point, because they just move so slowly. I've been playing with a .bic I made where ships all have +1 movement points and I really like it. It doesn't make that much of a difference, it just makes you get less frustrated waiting for that battleship to get in position to bombard Thebes.

Also, remember that whatever the movement points are set at in the patch is what we'll have to play with on MP games. It would be hard to use a custom .bic unless you play with a group of friends who you trust not to sneak in a 99/99/99 unit available only to their civ.

About the culture flipping warning...it wouldn't make culture flipping useless. It would just give us a warning. And it's realistic: if Bush visited northern Washington state, and all of the people there said "eh", he would know that region was soon going to become part of Canada. Or, if from your palace you saw the residents of one of your neglected cities partying with your arch-rivals, you would know that in just a few turns, you'd lose that city.

Sure, you _could_ rush buy temples to try to stop the flip. We don't know the algorithm for culture flips yet so I have no idea how much of an effect that would make. Again, what do you all think?

Great ideas, I have added yours. I'll keep the suggestions in dispute until we can come up with a verdict.

Originally posted by qslack
Some people feel strongly that you should be able to reforest squares and receive the 10 shield bonus each time. I think that it's sort of an exploit. As someone else on these forums said, the amount of workers planting tree seeds is not proportional to the age of the trees. It's unrealistic that you could assign several workers to one square and just keep getting the bonus.

Click to expand...

This should be fairly easy to do, just make sure that no matter how many workers you assign to the replanting of a Forest in the same square, the time to replant that Forest remain the same. ie. 10 workers will not be able to plant a Forest faster than 1 Worker and neither should the Industrious trait or government have any effect on how fast you can replant a Forest (the trees are already growing as fast as they can - extra manpower or industriousness will help little).

You should still be able to cut the forest down instantly with a lot of workes, we just want the replanting to have a fixed time.

what about:

continental tunnels (I know the airport exist, but it's not the same thing really)

ability to transport sea-vessels on land. very slowly, of course. alot of industries does this. this would help to mobilize a large inland sea.

I miss the helicopter cavalry in apocalypse now. why not make the cavalry turn into air cavalry? seem more logic.

one of the most important thingies: minefields. protect your coastline and shores in times of war. landmines should be taken out by troops as a special order (in let's say 5 turns or so). seamines should need a special craft for clearing. maybe there should be a landcraft aswell, when I think about it...
the mines should have a tremendous negative effect on the population (making it usable only in very remote unpopulated areas or by very unsqueamish rulers like despots, commies and kings).

Commerce victory (+5,000 gold per turn, for example, might win you the game) !

!no way, i don't think so... the one with more points should win the game!

Ability to view the trades, treaties, and agreements of a civ through the embassy or espionage !
!OK!

More civs! (or, the ability to add more civs, with some generic leader heads) !
Yeah, sure, by middle ages in a huge realistic map , with starting locations according to real life! the distribution of cities become a total chaos! so add like 50 more countries!
More countries for Asia(mongolia), America (Brazil, Argentina), Africa (Argelia, Tunisia, Morocco, Congo) , Europe (Austria, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal were some kind of important by the middle and modern ages)

Creation of canals between bodies of water

yeah

"Force peace treaty" diplomatic agreement, to force one civ into a peace treaty with another civ
could be!

Ability to offer money/techs/luxuries/etc. to another civ even if they refuse to acknowledge your envoy

Not sure about this

Included scenarios
Yeah why not, but with Marla Singer map who needs another! and it has Reality starting locations

Extra unit animations and sounds for mod makers to use
maybe

More government types
sure!

Choice of who to support if you have a mutual protection pact with two civs at war
could be

Scenario editor with scripting ("macro") language
dunno

Ability to trade units
yeah sure!

Anti-nuclear treaties (and the ability to see what nuclear weapons a civ has via espionage)
Yeah

Nuke planting ability (through the espionage menu)
dunno

More AI-initiated trading with the human player
Yeah and less threats!!

Terraformation/transformation of terrain
hmm i thought you could make forest!

Ability to send food surplus between cities (like in Colonization)
yeah!! sure!! cause it sucks when people die! and u just can't do anything

Gain deforestation shield bonus more than once
yeah but you'll have to wait for those trees to grow

Numerical option for corruption in each gov type (so we can set it at, say, 0% if we hate corruption) in editor
no, unrealistic, all governments have corruption...

More precise science/luxury percentage sliders (not 10% intervals)
assign manually each quantity!

Increase ship movement rates
then include wind and waves effects!

Additional zoom levels in both the game and the editor
yeah sure!

Units upgradable to a civ's SU (fighter -> F-15, for example)
no!

Cavalry upgradable to tank
No way, too unrealistic... a horse can't become a tank

Warnings if a city is close to culture-flipping ("our citizens in CITY seem to be disappointed with our culture, sir!" for example)

no

Foreign advisor should be able to have all 16 civs shown at once
not

Don't allow someone to start on a gov-specific city project then change govs and still be building it
didn't know about this

Less chance of huge battle upsets (i.e. spearman wins vs modern armor)
hahaha sure!

Group movement
maybe... yeah definately

Choice to unload units from army and/or upgrade units in army

Ability to set treaties' length in turns (i.e. settable to 40 instead of the normal 20 turns)
yeah

Ability to call off diplomatic deals efore they expire if both sides agree
yeah!

This is something that I really miss and it shouldn't be to hard to implement;

Colorcoded worldmap. Yepp; all cities on the worldmap are white as it is right now. But; why can't cities with civil disorder be a red dot? It would make things a lot easier. The same for cities that does not grow (yellow) and perhaps also for starving cities (any other color that white, red or yellow).

hmm. this is really something extra isn't it?

have a global weather system, with currents, jetstreams and el nino. storms would afflict sea trade and lower speed of modern vessels. going with the passade winds would increase speed dramaticly (like columbus voyage)...

This is something that I really miss and it shouldn't be to hard to implement;

Colorcoded worldmap. Yepp; all cities on the worldmap are white as it is right now. But; why can't cities with civil disorder be a red dot? It would make things a lot easier. The same for cities that does not grow (yellow) and perhaps also for starving cities (any other color that white, red or yellow).