A Great Idea: The Civ 4 Mod

[Stiefel]

First of all, I would like you to know that I regestered on the forum just for the reason of sharing this idea. But that's not the main point, and we'll get right back on topic.

Now, we all know that Civ 5 is vastly more simplistic than Civ 4. Another version of Civ Revolution, as many would put it. The main idea of this mod is to bring back the complexity and strategy of the mod that makes the Civ franchise so great. I'm sure that veterans to Civ would very much enjoy the mod if implemented.



The main idea of the mod is to bring back most of the management features of Civ 4 whilst leaving things like City-States and the new combat engine untouched (although we could let units stack and make them cheaper like in Civ 4). Things like city management, health, civics, research based on commerce, the sliders, espionage/spies, cottages, allowing players to manually choose tiles for cities to work, etc. should be implemented. No more of this crap where all you have to do is build cities near luxury resources and spam trading posts to get a proper victory.

We can also fix diplomacy in Civ 5 to make it more like Civ 4. We can add things like Vassal States and trade routes to make diplomacy more fruitful and more like Civ 4 whilst leaving most of the things in Civ 5 intact.



Please PM me if you have any interest in this idea. I'll say in advance that I have almost no experience in programming or texturing. However, I do have moderate experience in file compression and creating torrents, as well as solid knowledge of Civ 4 and Civ 5 game mechanics.

 

[Flavorable]

lol, just go back to Civ 4.

Civ V is a different game, get over it, if you have concepts on how to improve on aspects of Civ 4, and reintegrate them in a way thats practical and ideal, then share.

But literally, you're saying: "I can't handle change, lets make Civ V into Civ IV for no reason."

 

[JDexter]

...allowing players to manually choose tiles for cities to work...

You can actually do that very easily. Go to the (full) city screen and take a look into the top-most box on the right. When you click it you get a nice overview of the worked hexes with a box for each one to be worked or not.
The only thing I don't like about that is that you can't enable two kinds of focuses for auto-placement.

 

[Shiggs713]

indeed, you can actually lock in whatever tiles you want the city to work, and let the governor take over the rest, I usually manually control every last citizen, but the governor is actually better than civ4's.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Graphically, Civ5 and Civ4 aren't dramatically different. I don't see why you wouldn't just play Civ4. This isn't like recreating Civ2 for Civ3 or 4 (where the user interface gave you plenty of incentive to create the mod either for nostalgia or because you thought it was a better game).

 

[Lord Shadow]

...as well as solid knowledge of Civ 4 and Civ 5 game mechanics.

Hefty claim, considering the game's been out for less than a week. And the fact that you were mistaken about something as basic as city tiles control puts the entirety of that statement in doubt.

Is the lack of cottages really bad? What's wrong with research NOT being based on commerce? Espionage (like religion) was quite the gimmick, not to mention it wasn't present in vanilla Civ4. And the old civics system is very much obsolete in the face of the more versatile social policies mechanic of Civ5.

I'd suggest you didn't give up on Civ5 yet. Sounds to me you're rejecting a lot the new mechanics essentially because they're just that, new, and not what you're used to. Same thing happened in the Civ3-Civ4 transition, and I bet similar sentiments weren't non-existent in the Civ2-Civ3 one.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

It would probably be easier just to mod in city-states and the combat changes to civ 4.

 

[keldath]

BobTheTerrible, i agree.

i think the transition between civ3 to 4 was a different then 4-5, civ4 didnt change the game play, it mostly improved it with new addition,
civ5 really works differently, a lot of new stuff, and a lot of the old , that was micro manage , are now macro.

 

[Lord Shadow]

BobTheTerrible, i agree.

i think the transition between civ3 to 4 was a different then 4-5, civ4 didnt change the game play, it mostly improved it with new addition,
civ5 really works differently, a lot of new stuff, and a lot of the old , that was micro manage , are now macro.

It did, enough that entirely new strategies had to be developed. You can't effectively play Civ4 using Civ3-oriented strategies. Civ5 presents a new strategic shift.

 

[Paasky]

Anyone claiming they are going to "improve" civ5 should not be allowed to do so before playing at least 3 full games. I'm only halfway on my first one, and have already learnt a lot of the new strategies and thought process required.

For example, in civ4 city expansion was just a balancing act of maintenance vs gold production. Now you have to jiggle with having enough money to upkeep buildings creating enough happiness to have enough people to have enough science to invent new buildings making more money and more happy etc etc.

I was in a pickle at one point, -10 gold per turn, -12 happiness (meaning everything from research to combat effectiveness is reduced). Thankfully I got a great person so I could start a golden age and invent the colosseum & circus.

The only thing that bugs me is the one unit per tile. In one hand it makes very interesting battles, for example my huge army got slaughtered to a much smaller chinese army which I was trying to invade from the sea. Basically all my units got slaughtered on the beaches: I could only land units in a 6 grid area so most of my units spent the war in the sea, and once they managed to find room on the shore, the chinese cities and archers descended upon them in a hale of fire. It's the most fun I've had losing a war in a long time

But on the other hand it makes moving large amounts of units very difficult and annoying.

 

[BloodyMaul]

I'd actually be much happier if anyone managed to make civ 4 hex based with cities 2 cells away (instead of civ5 3 cells), I'd ditch civ 5 in a second

 

[keldath]

I'd actually be much happier if anyone managed to make civ 4 hex based with cities 2 cells away (instead of civ5 3 cells), I'd ditch civ 5 in a second

i second that.

 

[Lord Shadow]

I'm betting Civ4's square system is so ingrained into the game it's probably hard-coded.

 

[Shiggs713]

I'm betting you can easily change that 3 to a 2 in the XML.

 

[Lord Tirian]

I'm betting Civ4's square system is so ingrained into the game it's probably hard-coded.

AFAIK, "sort of". The graphics are hardcoded. But... you can forbid two directions of movement (let's say upper left and bottom right), leaving each "square" with six directions - that will geometrically yield very similar results, for example see this thread.

Will look weird, though.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Quetz]

indeed, you can actually lock in whatever tiles you want the city to work, and let the governor take over the rest, I usually manually control every last citizen, but the governor is actually better than civ4's.

I have to agree there, in Civ 4 I was the type to manually place every citizen, but the focus governor's in 5 are actually very good - I usually don't even bother with manual placement at all anymore.