bioelectricclam
Warlord
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 244
I'd like to see a few things:
1. Alternatives to farming. For instance, pastoralism and hunting-and-gathering. Maybe even different levels of a civilization, from tribal to subsistence farming to full-blown city-state.
2. More time in the Paleolithic time period. I'd like to see what happens before my civilization decides to "settle down".
3. The rise, decline, and fall of empires, followed by the birth of their legacy nations. For instance, let's say I chose Monarchy as my government. I think it would be neat if this eventually lead to a split in the royal family, leading to half your civilization declaring war on the other half. As the controller, you'd pick a side, which would have different advantages and disadvantages. For instance, Henry the Navigator loves Astronomy and is willing to fund its development, but he is a bumbler when it comes to commanding troops and if you choose his side your military will suffer a morality penalty. Richard the Lionhearted, Henry's brother, always flunked his studies and hates scholars, so under his rule your science will languish and you may even lose some non-military technologies, but the generals love him and your troops will easily win battles. Depending on your choice your civilization could go very different ways.
4. I'd like language to play a part. For instance, let's say that your civilization, the Maya, has had no contact with the French when suddenly their boats show up on your doorstep. Neither of you speak the same language, so until you decipher each other's speech misunderstandings are bound to happen. I could see language, or at least writing systems, work a lot like Religion, spreading around through trade routes and bringing people closer together. For instance, say I'm playing the Japanese and I happen to be the first to discover the Alphabet on my continent. Suddenly I have a much faster way to communicate than the ancient Chinese hieroglyphs, and my katakana alphabet begins to spread like wildfire. Eventually everyone is reading using katakana letters, except for the Chinese who cling to the old ways. Because of this, I have a diplomatic boost and a chance to learn the technologies of other people who use my alphabet, but the chinese do not.
5. The Future: I'd love to see science fiction inspired technologies, like underwater cities and killer nanite attacks.
6. I'd like to see upgradeable buildings and resources. For instance, let's say that I have the Toolmaking technology. With this I am able to chop down trees and use them to build a palisade around my hill-fort town. The palisade basically acts like one big unit that gets in the way of attackers, but they can eventually kill its hitpoints and leave my city open to attack. So to defend against raiders with axes I decide to upgrade the palisade using my newfound knowledge of Masonry and I build a proper City Wall.
On the resources side, let's say pottery unlocks the clay resource. Clay is great for making simple storage devices, but it isn't all that pretty. Fortunately, I eventually discover Alchemy, and the primitive knowledge of chemistry it brings allows me to upgrade my clay resource to a porcelain resource, giving me access to a new luxury good.
7. Domestication: So we all probably have seen pictures of natives running down wagon trains on their horses, but this simply can't be done in Civ the way it is now, since there is no real way to transport domesticated animals in the game. My idea is pretty simple; whenever you need a horse, you build the Horse unit in a city with access to horses. You can then either saddle the unit with an archer or spearman, or take the horse unit to a city which doesn't have the resource, and then settle the horse in that city. I like this system for a few reasons:
*You can saddle and unsaddle defending units for a quick means of transportation.
*If your civilization doesn't have horses but you manage to kill a mounted rider, you could capture the horse and take it back to one of your cities to start breeding the beasts.
To keep people from abusing this and just setting up pastures in every city, it should be more like a "great person" instead. Basically, you have on city with a pasture, but you can build a horse in that city, move it to a new city and "settle" the horse to gain access to that resource. It needs tweaking I'm sure, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying here.
1. Alternatives to farming. For instance, pastoralism and hunting-and-gathering. Maybe even different levels of a civilization, from tribal to subsistence farming to full-blown city-state.
2. More time in the Paleolithic time period. I'd like to see what happens before my civilization decides to "settle down".
3. The rise, decline, and fall of empires, followed by the birth of their legacy nations. For instance, let's say I chose Monarchy as my government. I think it would be neat if this eventually lead to a split in the royal family, leading to half your civilization declaring war on the other half. As the controller, you'd pick a side, which would have different advantages and disadvantages. For instance, Henry the Navigator loves Astronomy and is willing to fund its development, but he is a bumbler when it comes to commanding troops and if you choose his side your military will suffer a morality penalty. Richard the Lionhearted, Henry's brother, always flunked his studies and hates scholars, so under his rule your science will languish and you may even lose some non-military technologies, but the generals love him and your troops will easily win battles. Depending on your choice your civilization could go very different ways.
4. I'd like language to play a part. For instance, let's say that your civilization, the Maya, has had no contact with the French when suddenly their boats show up on your doorstep. Neither of you speak the same language, so until you decipher each other's speech misunderstandings are bound to happen. I could see language, or at least writing systems, work a lot like Religion, spreading around through trade routes and bringing people closer together. For instance, say I'm playing the Japanese and I happen to be the first to discover the Alphabet on my continent. Suddenly I have a much faster way to communicate than the ancient Chinese hieroglyphs, and my katakana alphabet begins to spread like wildfire. Eventually everyone is reading using katakana letters, except for the Chinese who cling to the old ways. Because of this, I have a diplomatic boost and a chance to learn the technologies of other people who use my alphabet, but the chinese do not.
5. The Future: I'd love to see science fiction inspired technologies, like underwater cities and killer nanite attacks.
6. I'd like to see upgradeable buildings and resources. For instance, let's say that I have the Toolmaking technology. With this I am able to chop down trees and use them to build a palisade around my hill-fort town. The palisade basically acts like one big unit that gets in the way of attackers, but they can eventually kill its hitpoints and leave my city open to attack. So to defend against raiders with axes I decide to upgrade the palisade using my newfound knowledge of Masonry and I build a proper City Wall.
On the resources side, let's say pottery unlocks the clay resource. Clay is great for making simple storage devices, but it isn't all that pretty. Fortunately, I eventually discover Alchemy, and the primitive knowledge of chemistry it brings allows me to upgrade my clay resource to a porcelain resource, giving me access to a new luxury good.
7. Domestication: So we all probably have seen pictures of natives running down wagon trains on their horses, but this simply can't be done in Civ the way it is now, since there is no real way to transport domesticated animals in the game. My idea is pretty simple; whenever you need a horse, you build the Horse unit in a city with access to horses. You can then either saddle the unit with an archer or spearman, or take the horse unit to a city which doesn't have the resource, and then settle the horse in that city. I like this system for a few reasons:
*You can saddle and unsaddle defending units for a quick means of transportation.
*If your civilization doesn't have horses but you manage to kill a mounted rider, you could capture the horse and take it back to one of your cities to start breeding the beasts.
To keep people from abusing this and just setting up pastures in every city, it should be more like a "great person" instead. Basically, you have on city with a pasture, but you can build a horse in that city, move it to a new city and "settle" the horse to gain access to that resource. It needs tweaking I'm sure, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying here.
