Suggestions and Requests

[freethink]

It also was nice for scenarios, since it increased the number of era and culture appropriate leaderheads available. I remember that medieval Lincoln was used for some Burgundian king in the Middle Ages scenario from Conquests.
Also, since Civ 3 had only 4 eras, it was probably more manageable. I haven't played unmodded Civ 4 in years, but IIRC, it has like 6 eras.

I thought Civ 3 had the nicest tone of any of the Civ games I played (3,4,5). Civ4Col also had a nice tone, but I guess it's easier to make a tonally consistent game when you're focused on one area and era.
I didn't much care for the Civ 5 UI, either, but I did like the terrain and leader graphics. Nor did I really like Civ 4's UI, although you and embryodead both made it better by turning it grey and brown respectively. I liked how the Civ 3 UI kind of looked like parchment, that added to the historical feel.
The nice thing about Civ 3 is, even though it wasn't very moddable and had some flaws is, it tried to make all the eras distinct. Distinct music, leaders changing clothes, advisers changing clothes. The eras don't feel nearly as distinct aesthetically in Civ 4, and not at all in Civ 5, where, from 4000 BC to 2000 AD, there is the same music, the same leader costumes, the hyper-modern UI.
Completely agree about Civ 6 looking like a Facebook or mobile game. I found it very oftputting, I played at most an hour or two of Civ 6, because my brother has it and I was curious. I also think the Civ 6 leaderheads are a big step back...far fewer voiced lines, way more cartoony, and not even a full background.

Awesome

It's not the straight coastline that I dislike, but whenever you have a coastline that should be rounded or diagonal and is just blocky. I'm sure they could have easily fixed this in the exe, which, IIRC, is the only part of Civ 4 that is still not moddable, almost 2 decades later. Civ 3's coastlines seemed less blocky to me.

I like the aesthetic of Civ three so much I almost went back to this game, the biggest thing holding me back is not being able to select multiple units at once, and the religions and spies of Civ IV are more fun and Leoreth's Rhyes and Fall is the default way of playing civ now. But Civ three had the tone like others have said as truly being timeless and yet ancient in a charming way. It was worth playing just to see the leaders change, also Civ III leaders had more personality they would not threaten but sometimes declare war if demands were not met, they would also take advantage of right of passage agreements and betray the leader (The Human Hive in Aplha Centauri did this too)

 

[Askii2D]

no anarchy for solid stable civs.

twice as long for unstable ones

 

[Dracosolon]

How does anarchy affect stability actually? Does it just trigger a check?

 

[1SDANi]

no anarchy for solid stable civs.

twice as long for unstable ones

That's actually a really interesting idea to build a DoC modmodmod around, like, DoC itself very much uses stability as a lose condition and little else, but a total conversion built from the ground up around stability having a constant passive effect would be really cool, especially if it influenced what random events you got.

 

[Glorfindel of Gondolin]

How about if Rome survives and the arabs don't make it to Carthage then the moors won't spawn?
It wouldn't make much sense for them to suddenly spawn without any historical precedent.
As the roman player, you should be able to hold on to some parts of the empire, if you have a strong military and if you are stable enough.
The arabs would probably send armies to north Africa, but if the Romans have a strong enough garrison then some other events should be allowed to take place, other than the scripted moorish spawn.
To make it more challenging for the roman player, the moors would still spawn if the arabs have a city beyond Egypt, or beyond Libya.

 

[Dracosolon]

I feel like it's very accurate for the late Roman gameplay to be "why do these new people keep popping up all over my territory".

 

[Glorfindel of Gondolin]

But it all happened when the empire was unstable, or when it lost battles, and was thus defenseless against the the barbarians, who sacked whole provinces.
Rome did manage to defeat some invasions, but not all of them, thus pillaging France, the balkans and Spain and destroying the infrastructure there.
There isn't any reason for it to occur somewhere without instability and military defeats, so in my opinion there is a reason in giving the romans a chance to restore lost territories/survive/shape their own fate a bit.

 

[Glorfindel of Gondolin]

Nothing too drastic anyway, just an opening a window for the human player to influence History if they prove strong and capable enough in leading the empire.
If the roman had good emperors and good management it wouldn't have been destroyed.

 

[Glorfindel of Gondolin]

By the way, is Egypt in the Arab flip zone?

 

[Cypriot]

But it all happened when the empire was unstable, or when it lost battles, and was thus defenseless against the the barbarians, who sacked whole provinces.
Rome did manage to defeat some invasions, but not all of them, thus pillaging France, the balkans and Spain and destroying the infrastructure there.
There isn't any reason for it to occur somewhere without instability and military defeats, so in my opinion there is a reason in giving the romans a chance to restore lost territories/survive/shape their own fate a bit.

Currently the ability to prevent spawn of any civ is, besides few exceptions, is outright not existing, and Leoreth doesn't seem to want to change it. Spawn of Moors without successful Arabs seems strange because Cordoba emirate historically was Umayyad remnant state, but in the game the Caliphate never conquers the Western Mediterranean, so we are pretty much dealing with alternative history anyway. Moors serve very important purpose as early competitor for Spain, so potential removing of them drastically changes balance of the region.

 

[Dracosolon]

Nothing too drastic anyway, just an opening a window for the human player to influence History if they prove strong and capable enough in leading the empire.
If the roman had good emperors and good management it wouldn't have been destroyed.

But you can still recapture the territory once their rise phase is over, even if it'll be a game of whack-a-mole for a while if you try to take back everything.

By the way, is Egypt in the Arab flip zone?

Yes. I think you keep some cities if you're playing as Egypt yourself though.

 

[manio curio]

How about if Rome survives and the arabs don't make it to Carthage then the moors won't spawn?
It wouldn't make much sense for them to suddenly spawn without any historical precedent.
As the roman player, you should be able to hold on to some parts of the empire, if you have a strong military and if you are stable enough.
The arabs would probably send armies to north Africa, but if the Romans have a strong enough garrison then some other events should be allowed to take place, other than the scripted moorish spawn.
To make it more challenging for the roman player, the moors would still spawn if the arabs have a city beyond Egypt, or beyond Libya.

you can edit your core areas on the world builder. For example set numidia and africa as core areas so Hippo Regius and Carthago will not flip to the Moors. I have not tested this trick with areas in Gaul and Hiberia though, only north africa and the balkans.

 

[Cypriot]

World builder doesn't have this option anymore. And I suspect it wouldn't work. For example, Egypt now loses all its core cities except the capital to Arabia when it spawns, even though it used to be not the case, if I recall correctly.

 

[Leoreth]

Spawn of Moors without successful Arabs seems strange because Cordoba emirate historically was Umayyad remnant state, but in the game the Caliphate never conquers the Western Mediterranean, so we are pretty much dealing with alternative history anyway. Moors serve very important purpose as early competitor for Spain, so potential removing of them drastically changes balance of the region.

The Moorish spawn is an expression of successful Arabs, not a consequence of it. There is no way to expect Arabia to conquer or even reach Iberia by the Moorish spawn date, especially not as an AI.

You could "script" Arabia more to ensure this happens, but what is the point of making something conditional on another event that is scripted to occur anyway?

 

[SOVNARKOM]

How about if Rome survives and the arabs don't make it to Carthage then the moors won't spawn?
It wouldn't make much sense for them to suddenly spawn without any historical precedent.

The reality is that the Moors are more deadly for Carthage than for Rome. Their flipping areas include the partly North African core of Carthage and the historical areas in southern Iberia.
In one of my Carthage games, as I struggled to fight against the Arabs to defend Lebanon, the birth of the Moors forced me have to negotiate with the Arabs, otherwise I would collapse due to a decrease in the core population. (At least the Italian core area of Roman players will not be flipped by any civilization)
Of course, I am also confused about how Arabs can bypass my territories in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia and enter Iberia and Morocco to establish their rule

 

[Cypriot]

Well, in case of week Arabs I would assume that Moors are native berber uprising and not the arabian conquers. But yeah, if anyone shoud be able to prevent Moors' spawn it shoud be player Carthage. Moors and Carthage are both Western Meditation African civ, existing of one of them make the other pretty much redundant. But in case of AI Carthage I think that Moors shoud always spawn normally. Because, in my experience, in that rare cases when Carthage survives into the Middle Ages, it just don't do anything and kinda just exist there.
And if we are talking about preventing civilization's birth, I actually don't like how surviving Greece prevents Byzantium spawn. Yes, it seems completely logical, except one thing: if Greece wasn't killed by Rome or Persia, it never lives for too long anyway and just collapse soon after Arabian spawn alongside with Persia. As a result, we just have power vacuum in Balkans, and while Byzantium ends up "rebirthing" around 1000 AD, it ends up too week and fragile to actually do something and just gets eaten by Turks, which is very unsatisfying. So I suggest that in case of Greece survival, it would inherit Byzantium stability boost, thus surviving Middle Ages until its inevitable death by the Ottomans. I don't think that Greece will end up too strong in this case considering that they will have to fight a lot of Barbarians, Arabs, Turks and Mongols, and they also have kinda harsh tech penalty for Middle Ages. The only problem I see is the situation when Greece survive long enough to prevent Byzantium spawn, but is very weak and on the verge of dying, in which case it would be more reasonable to just kill off Greece and swan Byzantium instead.

 

[Glorfindel of Gondolin]

Why do pagan temples disappear when a religion spreads into the city, and not turned into a church/temple of the religion?
After all, it did cost hammers to build

 

[Glorfindel of Gondolin]

Or maybe a gold payback could happen

 

[Dracosolon]

They convert into a temple of your state religion if you have one. As for gold Steb had that idea for a wonder:

I think I had a good idea for a Rome Pantheon wonder effect: Gain +50 gold (or some appropriate amount) whenever a Pagan Temple is converted to a major religion temple. Pagan Temples are always converted instead of abandoned.

This would have the nice effect of both encouraging Rome (or Greece or whoever builds it) to develop its pagan religion and build a lot of temples, and to convert to Christianity and spread it. It also fits thematically since the Pantheon was a pagan temple (to “all the gods”) that later became a Catholic church (and still is).

The second part of the effect is added to make sure you don't lose some of the bonus when religion begins spreading due to abandonment and to allow for a period of coexistence in which you can still build temples even as the religion spreads. But it could also be left out to encourage quick conversion.

The tech for the wonder obviously has to be Cement, given that the Pantheon boasts the largest concrete dome ever built.