Ideas from CivIV that worked out well
1. Religion. It's not ideal, certainly, with all religions being equal and Buddhism and Hinduism almost always dominating, but it's a start. A few changes I'd make: Instead of having cities with multiple religions contributing 1/3 Hindu, 1/3 Muslim, and 1/3 Confucion, for example, in the % of total, have each citizen in the city have a religion (a size 12 city could be 7/12 Hindu, 4/12 Muslim, and 1/12 Confucion, for example). Religions aren't entirely identical, for instance, instead of giving +1
, cows give cities in Hindu countries with the state religion + 1
.
2. UN Resolutions. The UN didn't have much purpose when all it could do was elect a Secretary-General.
3. Cultural percentages. It was always cool to see a city that was 41% English, 27% French, 22% German, and 10% Norwegian. This really allowed you to focus your efforts in the culture wars.
Ideas from Past Civ games to Bring Back
1. Diplomatic System from CivIII. Seriously, what's with not being able to trade gold per turn or resources for technologies? If India has oil and coal, and Greece has Nationalism and Industrialism and a war that they need oil and rails for, it makes perfect sense for Greece to trade Nationalism and Industrialism for oil and coal. Sure, India might backstab them, but that's why CivIII had reputations be forever trashed if that happened. Diplomacy is much, much less fun in CivIV than CivIII.
2. The Artillery/Bombardment System from CivIII. What's with artillery and bombers not being able to destroy city buildings? Why can't artillery or ships shell tile improvements or units? Offshore naval bombardment and artillery bombardment to destroy terrain improvements and weaken troops has long been a part of warfare. And come on, it's not realistic or nearly as fun a game if city improvements are "invincible" to bombing. I'm sure Dresden and Tokyo thought city buildings were invicible to bombing after World War II.
3. The score system from Civilization III. One of the great things about CivIII was that being great in the Ancient and Medieval times was as important score-wise as being strong in 2050 (provided, of course, you were still alive). In CivIV, you can have a great score just by conquering most of the world in 2049 if you plan it right. But is capturing lots of land in a short time the measure of a great civilization? No - otherwise the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great and the Mongol Empire of Temujin would have been thought of at their times as the greatest civilizations ever - and they were not, at least not universally. The importance of every turn in CivIII's score was a great idea. Further, the increased value of happy citizens over content ones in score in CivIII gave reason to being a benevolent dictator rather than one entirely focused on military conquest.
New, Fresh Ideas
1. A civics system that works like a table of laws that you can enact or not enact. Right now you must choose one of five options in each category, and frankly, that's still fairly constaining. Why can't my civilization have both Nationalism and Vassalage? I don't think that's a mutually exclusive set. And certainly both State Property and Environmentalism can be achieved. How about a Hereditary Rule Police State? Or a Guild System with Slavery? A Bureaucracy with Free Speech? I mean, that's what the United States is, isn't it? Why not a Pacifist Theocracy? Setting up Civics as a set of laws that you could choose to have enacted or not after certain technology was discovered, with consequences resulting from each law enacted, would create a much more realistic and fun civics system. There would have to be some laws that could only be enacted when others weren't - you couldn't for example have Slavery and Emancipation or Despotism and Democracy at the same time, but it would allow for a more interesting Civics system than the current model.
Note that this would also have more Civics - perhaps Hanging is a civic, or Conscription. I'm sure the CivIV mods give a plethora of choices for this.
Some games, such as The Guild and Tropico, have already implemented a system similar to the one I just described.
2. Perhaps instead of a Unique Building replacing a current one, it is an additional building? For example, I believe the English have a Stock Exchange in Warlords that replaces the Bank. Why can't you have both a Stock Exchange and a Bank? Seems a novel idea, doesn't it?
3. I've always thought it would be cool to have the option of playing a Civ game that goes beyond the starting planet and has intergalactic Star Wars. So instead of a Space Race victory, if two civs get spaceships sent to Alpha Centauri, they can duke it out in space and between different star systems, building cities on other planets just like on the first one (only with better technology), all the while keeping up their cities on the home planet. It would be the most epic form of Civ, essentially combining Civilization and Galactic Civilizations/Alpha Centauri. True, it would make your empire take even more time to manage in the Space Age, and thus would have to be an option, but I've always thought it would be a great option.
I'd also like to cast a vote against removing the tile system. If it ain't broke, why break it? The tile system works well for Civ. Hex tiles would be fine (or maybe triangles?), but taking them away entirely I can't see as working in a TBS environment.