A better feel for civilizations in CivV

[Naokaukodem]

Alpha Centauri had kind of blue, red civilizations, except they had a name and a charismatic leader. I remember Provost Zakarov, i was always taking him!

 

[rysmiel]

Enemy civilizations cannot be Purple, Green, Yellow and so on. First of all, UUs and UBs help create different strategies for each civilization,

UUs and UBs are a cheap lazy option for that.

Four or five times as many units and things, multiple different strategies for winning that have different strong and weak points that are better balanced with combinations of units and developments optimised for each of them, and AIs that intelligently choose which strategy to take on based on environment and surroundings would be much more to my taste.

and to my mind personalization and flavour are part of the fun.

Well, it's clear that we disagree on that much.

Besides, Firaxis would never have purple, green and yellow civilizations: the marketing wouldn't work and although it would please some people, it will likely not attract new players to civilization and repel some players.

Dude, seriously ? Look at some of the threads here about "why can't we have civilisation X ?" and "You're doing civilisation Y wrong !" and tell me that naming civilisations after historical ones doesn't have failure modes for some people too.

 

[Skallagrimson]

For personalization and customization, you should be able to rename all the AIs and not merely your own civ. Or make an option "turn off historical naming" so that other civs and cities can random-generate their naming (if you want a post-apocalyptic-futuristic feel and not an alternative-history feel, to the game).

For UUs and UBs, I think it would be more balanced if each civ had a UU and a UB for each era. Right now too much strategic energy is wasted in wheel-spinning over "late-arriving UUs" or "late-arriving UBs" which steers too many players away from those civs that are stronger in the late game. No one wants to play American, lol.

Wonders probably need to be reworked as well. Right now WORLD wonders are specific and NATIONAL wonders are generic, and I feel that should be the other way around. National wonders should be a nation's UW, or Unique Wonders, while the world wonders should just be some generic goal to be met. That is to say, Pyramids for the Egyptians may be one; Oracle for the Greeks; Great Wall for the Chinese; and so on. Let the world ones be amorphous, "The Great Mausoleum" (instead of M. of Mausallos), and so on. If Iron Works were a world wonder instead of a guaranteed national wonder, that would surely shake up some people's strategy!

 

[rysmiel]

For personalization and customization, you should be able to rename all the AIs and not merely your own civ. Or make an option "turn off historical naming" so that other civs and cities can random-generate their naming (if you want a post-apocalyptic-futuristic feel and not an alternative-history feel, to the game).

Oh, I'd be entirely happy with "remove historical naming" as an option; am not pushing for it as a default.

For UUs and UBs, I think it would be more balanced if each civ had a UU and a UB for each era.

That is more balanced precisely because it's less unique, no ?

 

[Skallagrimson]

That is more balanced precisely because it's less unique, no ?

In a sense, yes. Everyone's got an early UU. Everyone's got a late UU. And all the UUs of all the eras in-between. I think the purpose of a UU should be more to add "flavour" to a civ, than as a full strategic factor. An impi shouldn't be some game-breaking OMG "super-unit" of the ancient world, but rather, a spearman who looks *uniquely Zulu*, adding realism (or the word preferred in Firaxis-speak, "verisimilitude").

Perhaps all units should be "unique" in their LOOK, and none of them in their bonuses, etc. They've already gone a bit in that direction with the unique look of native American, Aztec, etc., swordsmen, knights, and so on.