TheDarkPhantom
Deconstructing Minds
- Joined
- May 26, 2004
- Messages
- 94
I havn't been able to read every other thread posted here, but I've seen a few ideas and would just like to present an extended thread on a few of the suggestions I think most important (and comments on other suggestions). I know everyone has differing opinions and obviously people will disagree with me, but as a player of pretty much all the Sid Meir Games (Civ, Civ2, Civ3, CivTOT, CivCTP, Alpha Centauri etc.) I thought I'd just lay out some thoughts on the effects these changes would have on the game in my opinion.
Firstly I would like to make one absoolute request for any Civ4 game: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep it just as moddable and easy to mod as Civ3. The Civ3 editor is fantastic and has given rise to probably the largest modding community of any game I know thanks to Civ's decetralised file structure and it would just be such a huge mistake to make the editor more complicated in an attempt to be much more powerful or something. So, that's my first plea.
Anyway, down to actual changes. There has already been a thread posted by Trade-peror about how much power a Civ player wields and what they represent (head of state, all of government, collective 'spirit' of the Civlisations etc.). It seems to me that to this point the Civ Player has always represented the collective spirit of the civilisations, a combination of its entire government and its social pressures within the society. I feel that if we could get a view of a Civ Player as being more the 'government' of the Civilisation, with some things out of his control that affect the civ, then this would be helpful, its not a specific change, but a general way in which a Civ player is conceived, and which can influence other changes.
But more importantly, I think there are 5 major changes that it would be very helpful to include in the next edition of Civ:
1) I would greatly like to see a slightly more complicated government system. At the moment it isn't enitrely clear what government represents in Civilisation, I have taken it to refer to how your civilisation is ruled and makes decisions AND a description of major social beliefs and pressures in your society, such as Fascism representing a more militaristic, more oppressive society, Democracy representing a free and sucessful society etc. etc. However to make this clearer, and present players with more decisions for government, how about seeing the return of a more complex system such as that used in Alpha Centauri (in the Social Engineering page). For those of you who havn't played it, Alpha Centauri split issues such as how decisions are made, how the economy is run, what motives your society values etc. into different sections. I would like to see this returned. SO you would have seperate decisions to make on whether your nation was Democratic/Autocratic/One-Party/Consensus (for example), whether it was Free Market/Communist/Socialist, whether your society was driven by Wealth/Science/Fundamentalism/Nationalism and so on. Each option would give different bonuses and penalties to your civ, allowing for much more flexible government management.
2) As has been mentioned several times, some representation of supply. I think the best idea would be simply for Land Units to have a simply Supply Value, or something, which is the number of turns they can operate outside of friendly territory before they suffer deteriorative effects. This supply value reduces by one every turn they end in enemy territory, and can be returned o full by spending an entire turn in friendly territory. Once a unit's supply reaches 0, they continue to function normally but simply suffer deteriorated attack and defence values. This is largely what's been suggested in the main Civ4 suggestions thread, which I agree with, but I would argue against the ideas of supply lines and supply units to keep units supplied - just use Civ's territory factor, if your in friendly territory your in supply, if your in enemy territory, your out of supply, and after a certain amount of turns, suffer an 'Undersupplied' penalty.
I think Supply should only be more significant for sea vessels. I think all Sea squares should count as out of supply (or unfriendly territory for this purpose) to force ships to return to port. In real life the vast majority of the colonial empires were founded out of the need for regular bases along the coast of Africa and Asia to supply ships as they moved round the world.
3) I strongly support the idea raised by Dell19 about rebellion and the Dynamism of Empires. This is really part of what I mentioned abotu Civ Players oughting to be Heads of Government, not the whole spirit of Civ. As heads of the central government, players are subjected to some areas of their country beyond their control, such as citizen moods, and nationalist feeling. I think it would be a great idea to have some factors beyond simply the size of a city, war weariness and war with a conquered city's country to affect citizen moods, some more complex and variable factors. For example, if recent years have seen a large increase in a civ's Power rating, then this should please citizens, as should sucessful conquests in a war, while the loss of cities to an invading army should make citizens unhappy (making peace a more desirable option in many wars) etc. A more complex citizen mood system would create a more dynamic feel to empire management.
So, as Dell19 said, this can culminate with citizens being unhappy for much longer periods because of not being part of the main Empire's original Civ. Rebellions should be possible, with Rebel armies forming round cities much like Partisans in Civ2? Or with cities defecting to the rebels and needing to be reconquered, and founding new nations? Rather than re-spawning AI players, which rarely happens anyway, Civs could re-emerge after defeat by breakign away from conquerer's later on.
To offset this, give Civ players the option to devolve power within their empire in some way. They could create some cities as 'puppet nations' or semi-autonomous regions. It would be much like using the Governors under the current Civ3, except that it is mandatory if a player chooses to create a semi-autonomous region such as this. The cities within it might still be taxed and generate science accroding to the tax rate, but building orders are contrlled by the governors, or perhaps build orders are still ordered by the player, but no tax is generated, or something.
I appreciate this may sound complicated, but I strongly believe it would add much needed dynamism and political complexity to the game (perhaps it should be optional, like cultural conversions are in Conquests), and would keep the game far far more in sync with historical accuracy, where the vast majority of empires have not been brought down by invaders, been conquered by another natiom or been absorbed culturally, they have been dissolved by fragmentation within, see Rome, the Mongol Empire, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, the French Empire, Alexander's Greece, Imperial Dynastic China etc. etc.
4) Ok, a much more minor change here, but I would like to see a couple of new worker actions, which I shall explain seperately.
It might be unimportant, but how about a Build Canal command? It could take a long time to perform, and perhaps can only be build to span squares with coast on both side, but basically allows the square to be treated as a city in that both land AND sea units can enter it. This would allow the creation of the Suez and Panama Canals wihtout actually building a city on the square. Ok not very important, but just a thought.
More important, I like to ideas of Outposts and Airbases and Colonies and the way they work in Civ3, but I was wondering if there could be some sort of consolidation of them? Basically what if Civilisations could build Military Bases or Outposts or something in open terrain AND in another Civ's territory with the permission of that Civilisation (or without, if at War). These are not full Cities, they do not generate tax or science, but they have the airbases function of landing Aircraft and allowing units to Airlift to them, count as a city for the purposes of healing units, provide a small defensive bonus and perhaps allow units to be built there if cash is paid for them? Kind of a combination of AIrbases, Fortresses and small cities. Just a thought, to be avilable in the modern era with computers or something.
5) Finally, I think Civ3 did a great job of creating a totally flexible diplomacy system, but I was wondering if the Diplomacy AI could be shaped up a little? I think once civs become major allies they should be able to cooperate more extenisvely, like sharing vision and co-ordinating attacks (Alpha Centauri's Diplomacy system had the option of asking your allies where they were attacking next, perhaps an extension of this?) so that proper military allies such as in WW1 and 2 can be formed. Also, I'd like some kind of extension of economics in diplomacy. Beyond simply trading resources, how abotu a new agreement like an Investment Pact or something, that basically earns both sides cash, from each other's investment, or perhaps this should be a function of Peace Treaties? This is present in Alpha Centauri, Medieval Total War and severla other games, and shows the effects of economic power in global terms. Over history many nations have ruled primarily through vast economic power (The British Empire, in part, the Venetian Empire of the Renaissance, and partly the USA today). There are serious detrimental effects of going to war simply in that your economy suffers from the lack of investment and trade with your enemy (in the game this is shown by the loss of all revenue you were previously gaining from being at peace with your enemy) and Economic Sanctions are powerful not just through denying specific resources, but more importantly through denying revenue from investment and trade between two nations. So how about all sides gain some kind of 'Trade Revenue' from any civ they are at peace with and have a trade link with, unless that civ places economic sanctions on them. This revenue is variable according to the economic strength of the other Civ (economically small friendly civs bring in some revenue, an economically powerful neihgbour can generate great revenue for your civ by your trade with them).
So a few ideas there, I appreciate anyone who's taken the time to read through them. Generally I am thinking of what would improve Civ's gameplay and improve realism without generating too much complexity (most of the increased complexity of these suggestions is with the game engine, not with the player). I would appreciate comments and thoughts, and any more suggestions, what does everyone think?
Firstly I would like to make one absoolute request for any Civ4 game: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep it just as moddable and easy to mod as Civ3. The Civ3 editor is fantastic and has given rise to probably the largest modding community of any game I know thanks to Civ's decetralised file structure and it would just be such a huge mistake to make the editor more complicated in an attempt to be much more powerful or something. So, that's my first plea.
Anyway, down to actual changes. There has already been a thread posted by Trade-peror about how much power a Civ player wields and what they represent (head of state, all of government, collective 'spirit' of the Civlisations etc.). It seems to me that to this point the Civ Player has always represented the collective spirit of the civilisations, a combination of its entire government and its social pressures within the society. I feel that if we could get a view of a Civ Player as being more the 'government' of the Civilisation, with some things out of his control that affect the civ, then this would be helpful, its not a specific change, but a general way in which a Civ player is conceived, and which can influence other changes.
But more importantly, I think there are 5 major changes that it would be very helpful to include in the next edition of Civ:
1) I would greatly like to see a slightly more complicated government system. At the moment it isn't enitrely clear what government represents in Civilisation, I have taken it to refer to how your civilisation is ruled and makes decisions AND a description of major social beliefs and pressures in your society, such as Fascism representing a more militaristic, more oppressive society, Democracy representing a free and sucessful society etc. etc. However to make this clearer, and present players with more decisions for government, how about seeing the return of a more complex system such as that used in Alpha Centauri (in the Social Engineering page). For those of you who havn't played it, Alpha Centauri split issues such as how decisions are made, how the economy is run, what motives your society values etc. into different sections. I would like to see this returned. SO you would have seperate decisions to make on whether your nation was Democratic/Autocratic/One-Party/Consensus (for example), whether it was Free Market/Communist/Socialist, whether your society was driven by Wealth/Science/Fundamentalism/Nationalism and so on. Each option would give different bonuses and penalties to your civ, allowing for much more flexible government management.
2) As has been mentioned several times, some representation of supply. I think the best idea would be simply for Land Units to have a simply Supply Value, or something, which is the number of turns they can operate outside of friendly territory before they suffer deteriorative effects. This supply value reduces by one every turn they end in enemy territory, and can be returned o full by spending an entire turn in friendly territory. Once a unit's supply reaches 0, they continue to function normally but simply suffer deteriorated attack and defence values. This is largely what's been suggested in the main Civ4 suggestions thread, which I agree with, but I would argue against the ideas of supply lines and supply units to keep units supplied - just use Civ's territory factor, if your in friendly territory your in supply, if your in enemy territory, your out of supply, and after a certain amount of turns, suffer an 'Undersupplied' penalty.
I think Supply should only be more significant for sea vessels. I think all Sea squares should count as out of supply (or unfriendly territory for this purpose) to force ships to return to port. In real life the vast majority of the colonial empires were founded out of the need for regular bases along the coast of Africa and Asia to supply ships as they moved round the world.
3) I strongly support the idea raised by Dell19 about rebellion and the Dynamism of Empires. This is really part of what I mentioned abotu Civ Players oughting to be Heads of Government, not the whole spirit of Civ. As heads of the central government, players are subjected to some areas of their country beyond their control, such as citizen moods, and nationalist feeling. I think it would be a great idea to have some factors beyond simply the size of a city, war weariness and war with a conquered city's country to affect citizen moods, some more complex and variable factors. For example, if recent years have seen a large increase in a civ's Power rating, then this should please citizens, as should sucessful conquests in a war, while the loss of cities to an invading army should make citizens unhappy (making peace a more desirable option in many wars) etc. A more complex citizen mood system would create a more dynamic feel to empire management.
So, as Dell19 said, this can culminate with citizens being unhappy for much longer periods because of not being part of the main Empire's original Civ. Rebellions should be possible, with Rebel armies forming round cities much like Partisans in Civ2? Or with cities defecting to the rebels and needing to be reconquered, and founding new nations? Rather than re-spawning AI players, which rarely happens anyway, Civs could re-emerge after defeat by breakign away from conquerer's later on.
To offset this, give Civ players the option to devolve power within their empire in some way. They could create some cities as 'puppet nations' or semi-autonomous regions. It would be much like using the Governors under the current Civ3, except that it is mandatory if a player chooses to create a semi-autonomous region such as this. The cities within it might still be taxed and generate science accroding to the tax rate, but building orders are contrlled by the governors, or perhaps build orders are still ordered by the player, but no tax is generated, or something.
I appreciate this may sound complicated, but I strongly believe it would add much needed dynamism and political complexity to the game (perhaps it should be optional, like cultural conversions are in Conquests), and would keep the game far far more in sync with historical accuracy, where the vast majority of empires have not been brought down by invaders, been conquered by another natiom or been absorbed culturally, they have been dissolved by fragmentation within, see Rome, the Mongol Empire, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, the French Empire, Alexander's Greece, Imperial Dynastic China etc. etc.
4) Ok, a much more minor change here, but I would like to see a couple of new worker actions, which I shall explain seperately.
It might be unimportant, but how about a Build Canal command? It could take a long time to perform, and perhaps can only be build to span squares with coast on both side, but basically allows the square to be treated as a city in that both land AND sea units can enter it. This would allow the creation of the Suez and Panama Canals wihtout actually building a city on the square. Ok not very important, but just a thought.
More important, I like to ideas of Outposts and Airbases and Colonies and the way they work in Civ3, but I was wondering if there could be some sort of consolidation of them? Basically what if Civilisations could build Military Bases or Outposts or something in open terrain AND in another Civ's territory with the permission of that Civilisation (or without, if at War). These are not full Cities, they do not generate tax or science, but they have the airbases function of landing Aircraft and allowing units to Airlift to them, count as a city for the purposes of healing units, provide a small defensive bonus and perhaps allow units to be built there if cash is paid for them? Kind of a combination of AIrbases, Fortresses and small cities. Just a thought, to be avilable in the modern era with computers or something.
5) Finally, I think Civ3 did a great job of creating a totally flexible diplomacy system, but I was wondering if the Diplomacy AI could be shaped up a little? I think once civs become major allies they should be able to cooperate more extenisvely, like sharing vision and co-ordinating attacks (Alpha Centauri's Diplomacy system had the option of asking your allies where they were attacking next, perhaps an extension of this?) so that proper military allies such as in WW1 and 2 can be formed. Also, I'd like some kind of extension of economics in diplomacy. Beyond simply trading resources, how abotu a new agreement like an Investment Pact or something, that basically earns both sides cash, from each other's investment, or perhaps this should be a function of Peace Treaties? This is present in Alpha Centauri, Medieval Total War and severla other games, and shows the effects of economic power in global terms. Over history many nations have ruled primarily through vast economic power (The British Empire, in part, the Venetian Empire of the Renaissance, and partly the USA today). There are serious detrimental effects of going to war simply in that your economy suffers from the lack of investment and trade with your enemy (in the game this is shown by the loss of all revenue you were previously gaining from being at peace with your enemy) and Economic Sanctions are powerful not just through denying specific resources, but more importantly through denying revenue from investment and trade between two nations. So how about all sides gain some kind of 'Trade Revenue' from any civ they are at peace with and have a trade link with, unless that civ places economic sanctions on them. This revenue is variable according to the economic strength of the other Civ (economically small friendly civs bring in some revenue, an economically powerful neihgbour can generate great revenue for your civ by your trade with them).
So a few ideas there, I appreciate anyone who's taken the time to read through them. Generally I am thinking of what would improve Civ's gameplay and improve realism without generating too much complexity (most of the increased complexity of these suggestions is with the game engine, not with the player). I would appreciate comments and thoughts, and any more suggestions, what does everyone think?
