Civ Specific Wonders
I think more work should be done to make each civ even more unique. Adding civ-specific units was a major step in the right direction and I think everyone agrees on this one, I do however think that each civ should have one(or more?) unique wonders that only that civ can build. Their golden ages then should be triggered by the completion of the wonder or by the first successful special unit. The golden ages should however only be able to be triggered in the same era as the tech that the wonder origins from. As an example, if egypts had pyramids(pottery) as their unique wonder, they would only be able to trigger their golden age in the ancient times. Once they come to the middle ages they can still build the wonder but wont't get a golden age. Using an ancient and outdated unit to trigger a golden age in the modern time is really bad in my opinion.
Catastrophies
Fourth, I would like to see alot more natural catastrophies, with alot more impact on gameplay. Randomness is fun! It would be really awesome if devastating earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, firestorms and hurricanes and massive plagues could be added. Some should be frequent and not so dangerous, while some should have a really large impact on the game but only happen very seldom. Imagine how fun the game would be, lets say that you're hoplessly under siege by some civ that is twice as large as you, it's only a matter of time before your empire crackles and it's game over. Normally you'd quit and start a new game when you 'know' that you're screwed, but lets say your rival gets struck by a huge earthquake which would completely change the outcome of the game. That would be cool. Natural catastrophies should offcourse be an option when you create a new game. Perhaps you should be able to set their impact level, kind of how you choose the amount of barbarians now.
Logistics
Fifth, I think something should be done to roads and railroads. It's both unreal and ugly as hell when every square of the entire map has road and railroad on it. In my opinion it would be better if both roads and railroads had some drawback (perhaps gold cost per room and turn) so that you only build them where you really want them. It could perhaps be done like this;
Roads
Roads would cost 1 gold/square and give you commerce from all squares directly adjacent to the road. They make you able to travel 3x as fast(like they are now, a warrior moving 3 squares/turn and a horseman 6squares/turn etc).
Railroads
Railroads would cost 5 gold/square and give you railroad bonuses on all squares which are 1 and 2 squares away from the railroad. They make you able to travel 6 squares each turn regardless of which unit is is. This is a huge change from the current game, but I think it would be a great change.
With the system of roads described above, the civ landscape would be alot more realistic and there would be a ****load more strategy as to how you build your roads and railroads. First of all since all roads would have a maintenance cost, you would only have roads where you really need them. The fact that railroads no longer instant-teleports units across huge distances would also add more strategy to the game, since it would make airports alot more attractive. The railroad would be the fastest mean of transportation for slow units, and roads would totally rock for fast units. Hmm, should I use the railroad or the road for my warrior? Let's see... Tactics!
Rough Terrain
The terrain of the map is one of the most important aspects of the game, which is why it is very important that it's as good as possible. One of the main reasons that Africa never was colonized until around year 1800-1900 is the fact that there was so huge distances of desert and then jungle between the mediterranean and the southern (juicy) parts of Africa. I think something should be done to make these areas less attractive(yes, less). Make so that if your civilization has not discovered medicine your units will get injured randomly (50% chance that you loose 1 hitpoint) when they move on a jungle square (deseases, fevers, malaria etc). Perhaps the same thing should be done to swamps. Deserts maybe should have the same affect but with a less %, say 25% chance to loose a hitpoint due to lack of water. This would make those nasty terrains even more nasty and would add more strategy to the game (should i risk passing through that wicked swamp to attack my enemy or should i go around?). This would also open up for new cool unit features such as Arab Beduin Warriors that can cross deserts safely, Zulu Impi could cross jungle safely, etc. Further I would like to see catapults and such units being able to cross mountains but at the same risk as normal units crossing swamps, ie: getting injured. The catapult maybe should have a 50% chance to loose 1 hitpoint every time it moves into a mountain square.
Governments
First of all, I think the governments should be changed around somewhat to reflect the history of our world in a better way, plus make some of the more war-mongering goverments used more. Throughout our entire history the entire world has been completely ruled by dictators, monarchs and kings until the french revolution in 1789. (Yes, the greeks had kind of a democracy but I don't think that justifies having republic as a government so early in the game, in my opinion Philosophy could be considered the achievement of the greek democracy but you should not be able to change your government into such a democracy). Further, the feudal societies were the pre-requisite to the strong monarchs of the late medeival and early rennaisance ages. When you think of a monarch, think of the mighty english and french kings between 1500-1700. When you think of feudalism, think of the feudal kings of the dark ages and the early middle ages, circa 500-1400. This also suits the game in a much better way, since feudalism is ideal when you have small towns and monarchy is ideal when you have larger towns. You always proceed from small to large, so why have monarchy before feudalism? That's madness. The order in which you attain feudalism and monarchy right now is completely screwed up since you most likely will have smaller towns when you get monarchy, and then when you get feudalism all your towns will have grown bigger so there is no longer any need for feudalism. Anyway, I suggest solving the governments issue and the order in which they are achieved in the following way;
Feudalism(should be attained in the late ancients, prefferably where monarchy is attained right now).
Monarchy(should be attained in the mid-medieval age, maybe as a spin-off tech from monotheism since basically all monarchs used religion as a major force to control their peoples and countries).
Republic(should be attained in the late medeival ages, maybe around the time you get democracy in the current game).
Democracy(this should be moved into the mid-imperial ages, around the time when communism is attained).
This change would make almost all the governments a must for any civ since you would attain them in ascending order. Everyone would get feudalism first and switch to that, then monarchy would be attained and would be used throughout the entire medeival-ages. Then republic would be attained, and a while after that you would get democracy. This would reflect the real world in a much better way and it would also make the game more fun since you'd basically have to use all governments.
Multiplayer Improvements
Make the multiplayer lobby a bit more sophisticated. There should definitively be a list of players that are visible in the lobby. Further make so that all multiplayer games have a version-number. The game should get the same version-number as the version-number of the player that creates the game. If a player has Civilization 4 version 1.12 then when the player creates a game the game should also get version 1.12. Players who have versions that are incompatible with version 1.12 should not be able to join the game. This is one of the more annoying things which causes a tremendous amount of hassle when creating multiplayer games.
Multiplayer games should have a scroll-able event history. It is extremely sucky that the (very short) message history just floods over so easily so that you loose track of what is happening in your empire. Make so that the history is a little window with a scrollbar. Further, the chat in multiplayer games also needs improvement. It most definitively needs a history aswell since it's very easy to miss what other people are saying if you just leave the keyboard for a few brief seconds.
Colonies / New Cities
Settlers should only be able to build cities if the new city will be directly conneced to your territory (so basically you will only be able to build new cities at a maximum of 3 squares outside your own borders, otherwise the city would be territorially unconnected which should not be allowed). It should not be possible to move a settler 30 squares outside your borders and build a city at a strategical resource. This way cultural buildings which expand your borders will be much better to build early in the game since it will allow you to build your new cities at a little greater distance from your old ones, plus that colonies will be MUCH more useful.
Territory Borders / War Declaration
If both civs have discovered mapmaking, war shold be declared instantly as you try to move a unit into their territory. It should not be possible to move units into their land at all without declaring war. (An exception should be made to peaceful units, settlers, scouts, workers. I think you should be able to have 1 peacefull unit inside their territory without a declaration of war, but the unit should NOT be able to pillage any improvements. If war is declared the unit should be teleported outside the borders to avoid cheese-pillaging of resources.) It should not be possible to sneak in a scout and pillage their iron as you declare war, but it should be possible to cross their lands with scouts and settlers to avoid trapping people.)
Replacable Parts
Make so replacable parts also require steel to make the rifleman era a bit longer.
Cultural Flips
Make so cities doesn't flip instantly to the enemy with cultural conversions, instead make so the units that occupy the city are slowly destroyed one after another and if the last unit is destroyed the city flips. It is VERY lame and extremely annoying that you can loose your entire army instantly just because the city they were protecting decides to flip to the enemy. Having so that the units are destroyed one after another is a much better sollution.
Defending Units
Make so that less precious units defend before precious units. A regular spearman with 3/3 health should defend before an elite spearman with 3/5 health. Or make so you can configure this manually in the game. It sucks that you loose your precious elite units when there are regular units that have as much health.
Making Tech Trading Harder
Make so that you can't trade technologies with other civilizations unless your borders are directly adjacant. If your borders does not connect education should be a required tech to trade techs, and if a sea separates your empires education -and- navigation should be a required tech and if an ocean separates the empires education, navigation -and- magnetism should be required in order to be able to trade technologies. This way the crazy amount of tech-trading in the ancient and medieval era will be slowed somewhat since you'll only be able to trade with those civs that are your closest neighbours.
National / Natural Resources
Currently there is only one national resource which your entire civilization shares and that is gold coins. I think all the natural resources and luxuries, iron, oil, spices etc should be changed so that they work like gold coins. Your civilization should have a 'buffer' for each resource type, and every natural resource that you control on the map would add a small(or large?) amount to your national buffer every turn. Natural resources should be a bit more common on the map and they should have different sizes. As an example, if you had control over a small iron ore which had size 8, you'd get 8 iron ore every turn. Every turn that passes your national buffer of iron ore would increase with 8. If you then have three swordsmen(each which requires 1 iron ore) you'd only increase your national buffer of iron ore with 5 each turn. If you have buffered up lets say 100 iron ore you could offcourse build a huge army of 20 swordsmen(which would cost 20 iron each turn) even though you only have that single iron resource which gives you 8 iron each turn (you'd go -12 each turn in total).
Now you ask yourself; "What happens if i build 200 swordsmen and then run out of iron? Will my swordsmen die?". No they would not die, you would be able to use them all but you would not be able to build new ones until you find some more iron. All ancient and medeival resources would work this way. If you build 20 knights you'll still have the knights even if you loose all your access to horses and/or iron.
In the industrial and modern eras however your units would become disfunctional. As a simple example, if you have 30 tanks (lets say that each tank costs 1 oil and 1 rubber) and you suddenly loose control over all your oil resources except a single oil well that gives you 17 oil each turn, then you would only be able to use 17 of your tanks(unless you have a huge buffer of oil), the rest of the tanks would be like catapults and workers are now, captureable by enemies. You woul ofcourse be able to choose which 17 of your tanks to use and which would be disfuncional. Think of it as choosing which tanks you deliver oil to.
A special case of this resource system would be when you want to build a square of railroad, then it could cost you 1 iron and 1 coal from your national buffer of iron and coal. Perhaps this could be used when building different wonders or buildings aswell.
Anyway, with this system of natural resources the game would be alot more playable since you would not be hoplessly game over if you happen to start on a continent with no(or little iron). Your opponents might have nearly infinite iron but if you just find a little iron ore resource you will still be able to build a few pikemen! Resources should ofcourse be distributed across the map so that they are much more common but so that you will also want to take control over several resources of the same type. This system would also open up a whole new aspect of trading resources.
I think more work should be done to make each civ even more unique. Adding civ-specific units was a major step in the right direction and I think everyone agrees on this one, I do however think that each civ should have one(or more?) unique wonders that only that civ can build. Their golden ages then should be triggered by the completion of the wonder or by the first successful special unit. The golden ages should however only be able to be triggered in the same era as the tech that the wonder origins from. As an example, if egypts had pyramids(pottery) as their unique wonder, they would only be able to trigger their golden age in the ancient times. Once they come to the middle ages they can still build the wonder but wont't get a golden age. Using an ancient and outdated unit to trigger a golden age in the modern time is really bad in my opinion.
Catastrophies
Fourth, I would like to see alot more natural catastrophies, with alot more impact on gameplay. Randomness is fun! It would be really awesome if devastating earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, firestorms and hurricanes and massive plagues could be added. Some should be frequent and not so dangerous, while some should have a really large impact on the game but only happen very seldom. Imagine how fun the game would be, lets say that you're hoplessly under siege by some civ that is twice as large as you, it's only a matter of time before your empire crackles and it's game over. Normally you'd quit and start a new game when you 'know' that you're screwed, but lets say your rival gets struck by a huge earthquake which would completely change the outcome of the game. That would be cool. Natural catastrophies should offcourse be an option when you create a new game. Perhaps you should be able to set their impact level, kind of how you choose the amount of barbarians now.
Logistics
Fifth, I think something should be done to roads and railroads. It's both unreal and ugly as hell when every square of the entire map has road and railroad on it. In my opinion it would be better if both roads and railroads had some drawback (perhaps gold cost per room and turn) so that you only build them where you really want them. It could perhaps be done like this;
Roads
Roads would cost 1 gold/square and give you commerce from all squares directly adjacent to the road. They make you able to travel 3x as fast(like they are now, a warrior moving 3 squares/turn and a horseman 6squares/turn etc).
Railroads
Railroads would cost 5 gold/square and give you railroad bonuses on all squares which are 1 and 2 squares away from the railroad. They make you able to travel 6 squares each turn regardless of which unit is is. This is a huge change from the current game, but I think it would be a great change.
With the system of roads described above, the civ landscape would be alot more realistic and there would be a ****load more strategy as to how you build your roads and railroads. First of all since all roads would have a maintenance cost, you would only have roads where you really need them. The fact that railroads no longer instant-teleports units across huge distances would also add more strategy to the game, since it would make airports alot more attractive. The railroad would be the fastest mean of transportation for slow units, and roads would totally rock for fast units. Hmm, should I use the railroad or the road for my warrior? Let's see... Tactics!
Rough Terrain
The terrain of the map is one of the most important aspects of the game, which is why it is very important that it's as good as possible. One of the main reasons that Africa never was colonized until around year 1800-1900 is the fact that there was so huge distances of desert and then jungle between the mediterranean and the southern (juicy) parts of Africa. I think something should be done to make these areas less attractive(yes, less). Make so that if your civilization has not discovered medicine your units will get injured randomly (50% chance that you loose 1 hitpoint) when they move on a jungle square (deseases, fevers, malaria etc). Perhaps the same thing should be done to swamps. Deserts maybe should have the same affect but with a less %, say 25% chance to loose a hitpoint due to lack of water. This would make those nasty terrains even more nasty and would add more strategy to the game (should i risk passing through that wicked swamp to attack my enemy or should i go around?). This would also open up for new cool unit features such as Arab Beduin Warriors that can cross deserts safely, Zulu Impi could cross jungle safely, etc. Further I would like to see catapults and such units being able to cross mountains but at the same risk as normal units crossing swamps, ie: getting injured. The catapult maybe should have a 50% chance to loose 1 hitpoint every time it moves into a mountain square.
Governments
First of all, I think the governments should be changed around somewhat to reflect the history of our world in a better way, plus make some of the more war-mongering goverments used more. Throughout our entire history the entire world has been completely ruled by dictators, monarchs and kings until the french revolution in 1789. (Yes, the greeks had kind of a democracy but I don't think that justifies having republic as a government so early in the game, in my opinion Philosophy could be considered the achievement of the greek democracy but you should not be able to change your government into such a democracy). Further, the feudal societies were the pre-requisite to the strong monarchs of the late medeival and early rennaisance ages. When you think of a monarch, think of the mighty english and french kings between 1500-1700. When you think of feudalism, think of the feudal kings of the dark ages and the early middle ages, circa 500-1400. This also suits the game in a much better way, since feudalism is ideal when you have small towns and monarchy is ideal when you have larger towns. You always proceed from small to large, so why have monarchy before feudalism? That's madness. The order in which you attain feudalism and monarchy right now is completely screwed up since you most likely will have smaller towns when you get monarchy, and then when you get feudalism all your towns will have grown bigger so there is no longer any need for feudalism. Anyway, I suggest solving the governments issue and the order in which they are achieved in the following way;
Feudalism(should be attained in the late ancients, prefferably where monarchy is attained right now).
Monarchy(should be attained in the mid-medieval age, maybe as a spin-off tech from monotheism since basically all monarchs used religion as a major force to control their peoples and countries).
Republic(should be attained in the late medeival ages, maybe around the time you get democracy in the current game).
Democracy(this should be moved into the mid-imperial ages, around the time when communism is attained).
This change would make almost all the governments a must for any civ since you would attain them in ascending order. Everyone would get feudalism first and switch to that, then monarchy would be attained and would be used throughout the entire medeival-ages. Then republic would be attained, and a while after that you would get democracy. This would reflect the real world in a much better way and it would also make the game more fun since you'd basically have to use all governments.
Multiplayer Improvements
Make the multiplayer lobby a bit more sophisticated. There should definitively be a list of players that are visible in the lobby. Further make so that all multiplayer games have a version-number. The game should get the same version-number as the version-number of the player that creates the game. If a player has Civilization 4 version 1.12 then when the player creates a game the game should also get version 1.12. Players who have versions that are incompatible with version 1.12 should not be able to join the game. This is one of the more annoying things which causes a tremendous amount of hassle when creating multiplayer games.
Multiplayer games should have a scroll-able event history. It is extremely sucky that the (very short) message history just floods over so easily so that you loose track of what is happening in your empire. Make so that the history is a little window with a scrollbar. Further, the chat in multiplayer games also needs improvement. It most definitively needs a history aswell since it's very easy to miss what other people are saying if you just leave the keyboard for a few brief seconds.
Colonies / New Cities
Settlers should only be able to build cities if the new city will be directly conneced to your territory (so basically you will only be able to build new cities at a maximum of 3 squares outside your own borders, otherwise the city would be territorially unconnected which should not be allowed). It should not be possible to move a settler 30 squares outside your borders and build a city at a strategical resource. This way cultural buildings which expand your borders will be much better to build early in the game since it will allow you to build your new cities at a little greater distance from your old ones, plus that colonies will be MUCH more useful.
Territory Borders / War Declaration
If both civs have discovered mapmaking, war shold be declared instantly as you try to move a unit into their territory. It should not be possible to move units into their land at all without declaring war. (An exception should be made to peaceful units, settlers, scouts, workers. I think you should be able to have 1 peacefull unit inside their territory without a declaration of war, but the unit should NOT be able to pillage any improvements. If war is declared the unit should be teleported outside the borders to avoid cheese-pillaging of resources.) It should not be possible to sneak in a scout and pillage their iron as you declare war, but it should be possible to cross their lands with scouts and settlers to avoid trapping people.)
Replacable Parts
Make so replacable parts also require steel to make the rifleman era a bit longer.
Cultural Flips
Make so cities doesn't flip instantly to the enemy with cultural conversions, instead make so the units that occupy the city are slowly destroyed one after another and if the last unit is destroyed the city flips. It is VERY lame and extremely annoying that you can loose your entire army instantly just because the city they were protecting decides to flip to the enemy. Having so that the units are destroyed one after another is a much better sollution.
Defending Units
Make so that less precious units defend before precious units. A regular spearman with 3/3 health should defend before an elite spearman with 3/5 health. Or make so you can configure this manually in the game. It sucks that you loose your precious elite units when there are regular units that have as much health.
Making Tech Trading Harder
Make so that you can't trade technologies with other civilizations unless your borders are directly adjacant. If your borders does not connect education should be a required tech to trade techs, and if a sea separates your empires education -and- navigation should be a required tech and if an ocean separates the empires education, navigation -and- magnetism should be required in order to be able to trade technologies. This way the crazy amount of tech-trading in the ancient and medieval era will be slowed somewhat since you'll only be able to trade with those civs that are your closest neighbours.
National / Natural Resources
Currently there is only one national resource which your entire civilization shares and that is gold coins. I think all the natural resources and luxuries, iron, oil, spices etc should be changed so that they work like gold coins. Your civilization should have a 'buffer' for each resource type, and every natural resource that you control on the map would add a small(or large?) amount to your national buffer every turn. Natural resources should be a bit more common on the map and they should have different sizes. As an example, if you had control over a small iron ore which had size 8, you'd get 8 iron ore every turn. Every turn that passes your national buffer of iron ore would increase with 8. If you then have three swordsmen(each which requires 1 iron ore) you'd only increase your national buffer of iron ore with 5 each turn. If you have buffered up lets say 100 iron ore you could offcourse build a huge army of 20 swordsmen(which would cost 20 iron each turn) even though you only have that single iron resource which gives you 8 iron each turn (you'd go -12 each turn in total).
Now you ask yourself; "What happens if i build 200 swordsmen and then run out of iron? Will my swordsmen die?". No they would not die, you would be able to use them all but you would not be able to build new ones until you find some more iron. All ancient and medeival resources would work this way. If you build 20 knights you'll still have the knights even if you loose all your access to horses and/or iron.
In the industrial and modern eras however your units would become disfunctional. As a simple example, if you have 30 tanks (lets say that each tank costs 1 oil and 1 rubber) and you suddenly loose control over all your oil resources except a single oil well that gives you 17 oil each turn, then you would only be able to use 17 of your tanks(unless you have a huge buffer of oil), the rest of the tanks would be like catapults and workers are now, captureable by enemies. You woul ofcourse be able to choose which 17 of your tanks to use and which would be disfuncional. Think of it as choosing which tanks you deliver oil to.
A special case of this resource system would be when you want to build a square of railroad, then it could cost you 1 iron and 1 coal from your national buffer of iron and coal. Perhaps this could be used when building different wonders or buildings aswell.
Anyway, with this system of natural resources the game would be alot more playable since you would not be hoplessly game over if you happen to start on a continent with no(or little iron). Your opponents might have nearly infinite iron but if you just find a little iron ore resource you will still be able to build a few pikemen! Resources should ofcourse be distributed across the map so that they are much more common but so that you will also want to take control over several resources of the same type. This system would also open up a whole new aspect of trading resources.
. I have expressed my view of this elsewhere, but will repeat it here: one should be very careful with these sort of things. While it would perhaps be fun to see your enemies brutalized so, I believe it would be simply annoying and downright game-breaking to have it happen to you. Small events, perhaps even minor catastrophies, yes, why not, but large scale mass destructions... Well, atleast add a button "turn off..."!
I thought you had one good idea; I grant you that.
