Ideas for Civilization 4

One idea i have always wanted to see is civilization changes. What do I mean? Well just as the Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire so could one Civ become another. Reasons for this could if a Civ's capital is plagued by civil disorder for too many rounds or something along those lines. Also not all civilizations could appear at the same time. Have some civs (probably AI) appear later.

Also I don't think that civs should be the only one that build cities. For example the barbarians could also build cities and they could be called warlords or something.

anybody else got ideas?

I don't like your first idea. I don't want my civ to become somebody else. If I am the Romans then I want to stay as the Romans. If I am the Indians, I don't want to turn into Mughal India, then British India etc.

Don't like the second one either. A later civ will be far back from the one that started in the beginning. And what if you play one of those civs. When you start as the Germans, you find that the Babylonians already have built a 15 city empire. Also how many civs could we have in the beginning. From the current list: Indians, Egyptians are the ones to start. A little bit in come the Chinese (they might be older, but I believe the Dravidians and Egyptians and Sumerians came before) and the Babylonians. Slightly further in we get the Greeks and the Persians. Then a few more years later the Romans, Celts, Carthagians, and Germans. And so on. I guess India and Egypt will win this one.

I like the third idea. Barbarians should be able to have small kingdoms. Or we can have barbarians, the type that have their huts and raid, and minor kingdoms (civs that didn't make the final cut as a proper civ [like Mayans in Civ 3]) . The minor kingdoms can build a few cities and units, and cause some havoc but will be limited alot, allowing relatively easy conquest over them. Plus no difficulty adjustment for them. They always stay easy. The barbarians could be like the Civ 2 ones and try to threaten and all and capture cities, but can't build their own.

I understand what you are saying. Perhaps by changing the gameplay would solve the problem. One thing that has always irritated me about Civilization is the endless city sprawl. For Civ3 I have a Earth Map that I play from frequently. I position all the civs in their proper position. Then they endlessly create cities in places they have no buisness being in. For example the egyptians and romans will have cities on the eastern tip of Russia.

I think that limits should be made on the size of an empire. In ancient times mabye only a few cities big then in midevil times a little bigger and then modern times I could be limitless (theoritically)

Also about civs starting later than other civs: One thing I have always wanted was a more historic gameline. My wish is that a civ develop within its historic timeline barring any major catastropies (ie the civ is destroyed) Perhaps as only an option to the game.

Originally posted by wtiberon
anybody else got ideas?

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Sure. Firaxis/Infogrames has NOTHING to do with Civ 4. I will not give them a dime after what they did with Civ 3/PTW selling us half-baked concepts and, even worse, bugs, crashes, and assorted problems and typos.

I spent five years discussing Civ 3, and most of what we all wanted was ignored, and crap we did not want thrown in. I see no point in discussing Civ 4 if Firaxis might be involved with it.


My prayer: please, Inforgrames, go out of business and take Firaxis with you.

Moderator Action: Zouave, you've done this a lot today. Once more it's another month.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

If they mix the best elements of SMAC CTP2 and Civ3, then you have the perfect civ game IMO.

Originally posted by Zouave
Sure. Firaxis/Infogrames has NOTHING to do with Civ 4. I will not give them a dime after what they did with Civ 3/PTW...

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I see you didn't learn anything from being kicked out a month Zouave. This thread is about ideas for CIV4 (although I'm not sure we need another one), not about unfocused ranting about Firaxis. Even if you don't see the point in discussing this, why do you have to try to mess up others discussions?


Back on-topic. I have of course several things I would want better in CIV4. One of them is a more advanced resource concept. IMHO, it's not satisfying that a big empire don't need more resources than a small, both only needs one of each.

I think a better system would be one where there were a lot more resources on the map, and the number depended on map size, not number of civs. Then, each strategic resource should give a fixed number of production points each turn.
For example, an oil resource could give 200 production points. This means that if all your cities have a production of 50 shields, then this oil source will let 4 of the cities build units that need oil. If you want to have more than 4 tanks in production at the same time, then you need more than one oil source.

When trading, you would trade production points, i.e. you could trade 120 oil production points to another city.

Luxury resources should have a max cities number, ex: one luxury resource could work for max 20 cities. If you have 40 cities, then you need 2 luxury resources of a type if all your cities shall benefit. Distributing this between cities when you don't have enough could be done by a governor or manually in the city screen by adding/subtracting individual luxuries for each city.

When trading, you could trade luxury for a number of cities.

Any ideas on how to get around the problem of Americans roaming around on an earth map in 4000BC? Likewise, being the English and discovering North America only to find an already established and thriving American civilization?

Perhaps one way it could work would be if overseas cities of a certain size had a chance of revolting entirely in times of civil disorder. Too tricky? Perhaps each civilization could have several offshoot civs to be potentially activated. England might have US, Australia, New Zealand, Spain might have Mexico, Argentina, Chile. What do you think?

Include multiplayer into the base build.

NiceOne: I really like the resource points idea. I always thought the resource model should be more robust. Or perhaps instead of/in addition you should be required to have a certain number of workers per resource to support a number of units. I mean, I think that an iron or oil deposit may be sufficient to supply your entire nation. However, you have to have an infrastructure (currently represented by roads) AND workers to harvest those resources. Perhaps you have to dedicate 1 worker to that resource to support 10 units or something similar. Then again, this may just be a large pain in the butt so I vote for resource points like you said!

Lucidity: Some of us love the historical aspect of this game so I think we should have a scenario with historical triggered events. So if you are the British you know that at some point a portion of your empire is going to revolt and attempt secession. Germany ALWAYS attempts to invade France. Spain will invade the Americas, etc. You could have these events date triggered but I think that would invite a lot of gamesmanship. Rather I believe a certain set of requirements need exist with a modest random modifier.

That said, I am still trying to get past Monarchy level in Civ3 so I am not ready for Civ4 yet.

NiceOne, I like your ideas about resources and luxuries, although it would require a lot more micromanaging.

My personal peeve about resources is the fixed locations and the fact that the AI knows where oil will be 5500 years later. It would be more realistic if the resources sprouted randomly when the required tech was researched. That way, you wouldn't have Egypt planting a city on the eastern coast of Russia for no apparent reason, as wtiberon complained.

I would also like to see RoP as a commodity and not a bilateral agreement. If you can trade a world map, you can trade the right to use roads and railways.

yes, unilateral agreements are missing.. I want to be able to force a civ to go to war while staying in peace.. that's how global politics works.. keep a friendly face for your trade but weaken the enemy by proxy wars.

ideas?
well, yes.
improve naval warfare

i think a good idea wold be to have civ-specific wonders, only available to one civ. egypt could get the sphynx and pyramids, the french could get the eiffel tower. etc. if they include it, it would probably have to be in civ-specific options at the start, and maybeonly be able to build it once you enter your golden age.

Oh, zcylen, yes naval warfare is really to short to be effective. more naval units should be able to bomb cities as well.

These are some good Ideas.

I think another way to keep Civs in their own area is to perhaps have a civ population for each area (i'll explain what I mean). In all civ games the civs were the only one creating cities and all of the suddon 10,000 people would appear with your nationality. Where did they come from? I think that sprawled throughout the land should be civ specific population. For example the Romans population would be limited to Italy and Germans to central europe (unless you play a new map then it would just be a specified area around you.

Conquoring these civ areas would be easy but conguroing another civ specific area would be harder. If you open a city far from your land then it would consist of citizens of that civ specific area. Of course since it is your city you would begin adding your own countryman to the fray and create a mixed population.

As far as resources I think these should be more abstract instead of a physical thing. I do think they should exist as a layover but you shouldn't have to trade the whole thing. For example if you have Iron resource you could trade just portion of it to another civ (there could be some kinda limitation) but countries nowadays supply oil to the world off of one field. Also the more of one resource you own the cheaper it could be to sell it. (perhaps you could corner the market cause civs would only want to buy a resource from you)

Also I think capitalism should be an advancement that no longer allows countries to pick and chose who to trade with and leaves it to entrapenuers and you see it only as CASH.

Also more money in later years. Make it realistic like the U.S. makes over 3 trillion a year. Not too realistic so its not fun but so you can afford to do buisness with other civs and vica versa.

Originally posted by TheNiceOne
Then, each strategic resource should give a fixed number of production points each turn.
For example, an oil resource could give 200 production points. This means that if all your cities have a production of 50 shields, then this oil source will let 4 of the cities build units that need oil. If you want to have more than 4 tanks in production at the same time, then you need more than one oil source.

When trading, you would trade production points, i.e. you could trade 120 oil production points to another city.

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That's a really great idea. It would add more variety to the resource aspect of the game. For instance, you could discover a huge oil reserve in your desert, that gives 300 "production points" (LOVE that phrase...... ) , while your enemy has 2 oil fields in his tundra that are only supplying him with 50 and 100 production points, respectively.

Just imagine the stretegic options this would open up! "Hmm. I have no oil in my territory, should I try to seize that huge oilfield in the desert that is heavily defended or go for those smaller deposits in the tundra?" It would realy add a second dimension to resources, as multiple sources would actually be valuable, which isn't so much the case right now. Mmmmmm, strategy.....-drools-

I have several ideas and had already sent some to Firaxis.

Simple ideas already listed on forum:

- Barbarians taking and settling cities, improve sea and air units, production points, to pay a civ to go into war agains other while staying at peace, and for-gosh-sake improving espionage (that became horrible)

My other ideas:

- Improve resources industry: if you got silk and dyes, you build a *textile factory* and can have *clothes* and also export it. Create factories to produce industrial goods, to improve luxuries and export.

- If you haven't a florest near your city you can't build archers (that will be nice, since you won't transform all your forest into grass).

- Sell food to other civs. Shields too. You may force other civ to build something to you, if they are afraid to you.

- Improve trading: now it's too easy to set a naval route. May you need to build an naval unit and move it until another city to set the naval route.

- Now you can't trade with a civ that doesn't have a harbor. On ancient ages, they could get spice and other resources from civs with no technology at all. If you can navigate till another civ city, you are suppossed to be able to import and export resources.

Originally posted by cromagnon
NiceOne, I like your ideas about resources and luxuries, although it would require a lot more micromanaging.

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The strategic resource part would hardly need any micromanaging at all. You need a display showing your total and remaining production points for the turn for each resource type. When starting to produce a tank, the remaining oil production point would simply be reduced by that cities production.

Trade would be equally simple. Just as with gold, you would be free to write any number that's less than your net production capacity.

There would of course be some micromanagement when you want to start porducing a tank in a 50-shield city and only have 30 oil proudction points left.
Options should then be:
*Just start producing the tank, and waste 20 shields in that city the first turn.
*Micromanage by selecting another city that builds a tank, manually remove 10 oil points from its production , and add those 10 oil points to the former city. Now both cities get 10 oil points less than their max build capacity.

So the added micromanaging would only be an addition to the city screen that let you remove/add production points from/to that cities current production.


When it comes to luxuries, trading would be similar to gold per turn and resource points. Assigning will add a layer of micromanagement: If you have wine enough for 20 cities but have 30 cities, the wine would automatically go to the 20 cities that needs it most (as decided by a governor), but the city screen would allow you to click on the wine symbol to remove it from one city, and then do similarly to add it to another city.

My personal peeve about resources is the fixed locations and the fact that the AI knows where oil will be 5500 years later. It would be more realistic if the resources sprouted randomly when the required tech was researched. That way, you wouldn't have Egypt planting a city on the eastern coast of Russia for no apparent reason, as wtiberon complained.

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Of course, this is one of the few AI cheats, and the game would be better without (if they managed to program the AI to account for the probability of future resources).

On the subject of resource production points, I always thought it would be cool if you would have to go searching for the resources more. Perhaps when the resource first became known, obvious deposits would appear on the map, but then you could go in with workers and dig for iron ore, drill oil wells, etc. and add to your production point total. So you'd see iron appear on a tile in a mountain range, and you could send workers to go dig for ore to try to reveal more iron from the surrounding mountains. And of course not all tiles would be equal, so you could find next to nothing (+1 production point) or hit the big time (+30 production points).

I also think a more sophisticated depletion of resources would be good to have as well, instead of this randomly disappearing resource bullcrap we've got now. The more iron you use, the faster your tiles production of iron gets depleted.

Exporting food from one city to another would be good to have in some cases, like when you have one city in the middle of a flood plain that can support 32 citizens and another one in a mountain range that supports 3, you could transfer some of that food supply and even things out a bit. There could also be some sort of loss that happens (every 2 food exported adds only one food to the other city) that could be improved over time as new technologies (e.g. refrigeration) are discovered.

I'd also like to see wasted shields go away, as it just seems plain dumb. If a city produces 120 shields in a turn, why shouldn't it be able to churn out 2 units that cost 60 shields a piece in that turn? If you only have one shield left to build a unit, where the hell do the extra 119 shields go? Just doesn't make sense.