So What DO we agree on?

OK, I've been thinking that perhaps its time to put together a bit of a list of what features posters most want in the game. Now I'll confess ahead of time that the list will, to some extent, reflect my personal bias, but I'll try and make it reflect the 'majority view' as much as possible.
The last point is that please feel free to shoot me down if you think I'm pushing my own agenda on parts of this list, and please feel free to post additional info according to what section it belongs to. Thank you !

Economics and Trade:
-Replacement of tile 'commerce' with a more realistic representation of city wealth (based on demographics, population and resource factors)
-Ability to trade 'Commodities' (shields/food)
-Private Sector Investment.
-better system for piracy and trade embargoes (perhaps similar to CtP 1 and 2!)
-Contraband Resource Trade.
-Better system for 'discovery' and 'loss' of resources.
-Better System for both taxation and budgeting.

Population and Demographics:
-Some kind of 'Social Interaction' system-where your people have more of a 'Say' in your foreign and domestic policies.
-Possible Civil Wars and Breakaway States.
-Linking Demographics to both research and wealth.
-Having population growth being able to outstrip 'City Size'. No arbitrary cut-off points for city growth (like aqueduct and size 8!)

Research:
-A more 'Organic' Tech tree, where you don't have direct control over what specific types of techs you research.
-A link between having a resource and how fast you can research techs dependant on that resource.
-The ability for cultural techs to 'Osmose' between trading civs, and non-military techs to 'Osmose' between allies.

Politics and Religion:
-Make governments more 'adjustable' through the introduction of a Social engineering system.
-Allow civs to pick their religions.
-Have some kind of secularity, which effects conversions, happiness and tech advances, for instance!
-Give Religion and Government types, along with culture groups, a greater role in relations between Civs!

Combat:
-Give certain units bonuses against different unit types.
-Give units an 'Operational Range' and tiles a 'Stack Limit' to help wipe out 'Stacks of Death'!
-Introduce some kind of bonuses for combined arms tactics.
-Change the way RR's effect unit movement.
-Bring in Naval Base Tile Improvements-perhaps allow rebasing between friendly naval bases for naval units?!
-Bring back Firepower, and introduce an 'Armour', 'Range' and 'Morale' stat for units.
-break turns up into movement-combat-movement phases.

Terrain and Terrain Improvements:
-Introduce a fusion of Workers and Public Works.
-Make Slaves a more powerful part of the Public Works system.
-Have more terrains and/or the ability to add terrain types in the editor!
-Have the ability to 'upgrade' terrain improvements through the ages.
-Give terrain improvements a Maintainance cost and, in some cases, a pollution factor.
-Have the ability to vary the food/shield output of terrain-perhaps to make a resource last longer, or reduce pollution effects!
-Have terrain types effecting the maximum city size and/or population growth rate.

Diplomacy:
-ability to trade units and land with other civs
-Multilateral trade, alliances, RoP's and MPP's
-3rd party war and peace (i.e. 'interventions')
-Protectorates.
-Ability to place 'diplomatic bans' on trade with certain civs and of certain resources.
-Make the UN more like SMAC 'Planetary Council', and have a peackeeper unit and peackeeper missions.
-Also, perhaps make it easier to make war, as democracy, if you have the UN-like in Civ2!
-Many more diplomatic options generally.
-Have a more realistic international reputation system. Also as stated above, make government, religion and culture more of a factor in international relations.

Anyway, those are all I can think of, for now. Please feel free to add to the list as you like-but sticking to the Main Categories!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

You are pushing your own agenda

(Having said that, I do agree with over half of what you propose)

Although I also agree with most of what you have shown, I must admit that not all of the items you listed are "majority" items. Specifically, the idea of operational range is split about even, bonuses for combined arms was not talked about all that much, unit vs unit bonuses were split about even, etc.

I think most of the civ fans agree in the question of unit vs unit bonuses, with certain modifications, of course.....

Yeah, I'm afraid you're pushing your own agenda pretty hard!

Economics and Trade:
I agree that ability to trade shields/food between cities seems to be a pretty common desire, as well as a better system for piracy and trade embargoes (although not necessarily like CtP). However, I've haven't seen much consensus that private sector investment is needed, nor contraband trade, nor a better system for taxation and budgeting. Replacement of tile commerce with a more realistic system has gotten a lot of discussion but there's plenty of us who don't see the need for major changes.

Population and Demographics:
Lots of people seem to want possible civil wars and breakaway states, and I haven't seen anyone argue against the idea of removing the caps on city size. But I haven't seen any agreement about what you call 'social interaction' - and I, for one, enjoy having control as a player, not letting the people have too much 'say'.

Research:
We most certainly do not all agree that you should have less control over the specifics of your research. Just because multiple people have suggested it doesn't mean its the majority view! I like the current system and am strongly opposed to any system where the player has less direct control. Also, I don't like the 'osmosis' idea: trading techs is a perfectly valid mechanism.

Politics and Religion:
Its hard to say how much consensus there is on these issues cause you didn't give any real specifics. The designers have already announced that religion will have bigger role...

Combat:
Bonuses against certain unit types has been a common request, although a lot of people have countered that they aren't interested in a paper-scissors-rock combat model (I know, the former doesn't automatically imply the latter). Most people do seem to agree that encouraging combined arms somehow would be good. But operational range, stack limits, and changes to RRs are all controversial ideas with various people arguing for and against. And while I've seen a number of calls for bringing back Firepower, I haven't read many posts supporting the morale idea. Personally, I think its an unecessary complication.

Terrain and Terrain Improvements:
Some people have called for a Public Works style system, but I've also read plenty of posts that are opposed to that. Combining Public Works and Workers is not necessarily a way to satisfy everyone - there's a danger that it could instead be worse than either system alone. Again, this is a controversial issue: certainly no general agreement here.

Diplomacy:
In this area, I think, is the most agreement: more diplomatic options are needed to improve the game. Third party negotiations, multilateral trade, unit trade and land trade/border treaties... I haven't seen too many people arguing against such ideas.

All in all, I agree with about half of what you listed, but even some of the things I agree with I recognize that other people disagree with. I'd say that at least half the things on your list are controversial ideas with no general agreement about them. By titling this thread "So what DO we agree on?" and then posting that list, I think you're giving the false impression that there's a lot more agreement about many issues than there really is. It is a useful idea, though, to try to compile a list of the most commonly requested features. Perhaps a poll would be interesting? Of course, we should all keep in mind that even the majority opinion of people who post here isn't necessarily the majority opinion of all people who might buy and play Civ 4: civ-fanatics aren't necessarily representative of civ-players in general.

I agree with well under half this list -- a fourth or a fifth at best.

Economics and Trade: Disagree with most
Population and Demographics: Disagree
Research: Some agreement
Politics and Religion: Neutral
Combat: Agree with some and disagree with some
Terrain and Terrain Improvements: Vehemently disagree with basically all
Diplomacy: Generally agree

It's hard to get a consensus because most people who disagree with an idea (stack limits or public works) don't participate much in a thread about them -- there's no point. So the illusion of agreement may be achieved, when it's really only a couple people who are really interested and generally agree in the first place that are participating. Be wary of this.

This list also seems to be defiantly geared towards two things:
- Giving the player less control over the game
- Making it 100X more complicated

I can't see either of these as a good thing. Certainly not to the degree listed here.

Overall, two thumbs down from me. This list is NOT a consensus opinion.

Arathorn

I think that the consnesus is that this is not a consensus opinion.

I don't agree with a good number of items mentioned above.

Though I would like to see the Un having more powers, the fact that comes at such a late stage, would make improving it to the extenet where interaction with it is as good as the council in SMAC a bit pointless. Even shonky players like me can clean up well before the UN comes around.

Eh . . . where is my re-trade idea:
http://www2.vhl.tudelft.nl/~emile/civilization/trade_idea.html

Originally posted by warpstorm
You are pushing your own agenda
(Having said that, I do agree with over half of what you propose)

Click to expand...

Same here, I agree with over half of your proposals. At least you've given us a summarized starting point to debate what we really want in Civ 4. Thanx.

I must go with the general consensus here: I agree on less than half of these ideas here. A good start though.

Thanks for all the comments guys. When I looked back at my list, I did realise JUST how much I was pushing my 'own agenda'-sorry about that ! If this can serve one useful purpose, then I guess it can be a summary of everything I WOULD like to see in civ4-incorporating many of my ideas and some of the ones which did get, if not majority approval, at least some kind of overall support.
Also, if any of you have a summary of features that YOU would like to see in civ4, then please don't hesitate to post it here as well !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

what about tile & city sharing between allies.

Me, I don't see much use in a consensus (and am glad there isn't one). I see the main value of this kind of forum as more mass brainstrorming session than anything else. Not that there isn't plenty of analysis and discussion, but it occurs somewhat unmoored from the reality that is the game designers' world.

There might be some really good ideas here that are heavily detailed and well explained ... and just don't work--even if they are very playable, appropriately realistic/abstract, etc. There might also be some little spark in an otherwise silly idea that makes it into Civ4 after so much massaging that no one here would ever connect the two. At least, that's what I expect from what I've read of how Sid and company design games. Most often, I'd expect some cool new feature of Civ4 to be a synthesis of many different ideas.

The devil's always in the details, of course. But I don't think the community here will contribute very much directly to the details. Not that I don't find it interesting and fun to discuss such things. I just don't value consensus in the discussion.