I have enjoyed playing Civ IV for the past several weeks, and look forward to playing it many many more times. Sometimes while I am playing though, I am often struck by how much this game feels like the beginnings of a game, with potential for much more depth and personalization. This game is extremely moddable, so I think that this potential could be tapped. Here are some of my thoughts on how this potential could be fulfilled.
The amount of interaction between civilization and world is always straightforward in this game. I have seen a mod that will allow certain advantages to a civ depending on starting location, and I think this is a great start. Someone should go much further than this. I think that in order for this game to have a much more realistic, nonlinear feel there needs to be a much deeper relationship between the civ and leader you choose, the surrounding terrain and resourses, and your playing style.
Say you pick a leader that allows you to build wonders faster. Obviously this means you want to build more wonders than other civs, but it also means your population will have more experience with building large buildings. Your scientists (or natural philosophers, depending on your epic) will look more at the nature of materials, structures, geometry etc. Your population will be concentrated in worker huts that will allow them better access at the huge building they are helping to construct, or supporting these workers with stores and bars nearby. Specialists not related to the construction would be fairly rare.
If your city starts in the middle of a forest, you have abundant wood for construction. This means cheap, easily constructed homes, buildings and wonders that are mostly or all wood. This also means a fire could easily wipe out most or all of a city. Breaking down a wooden wall with something designed initially to get around stone defenses would win fairly easily. You would also get bows and arrows quickly, and learn how to fight in a forrest setting. You would not immediately know how to work stone. You would, however, be able to gain experience with stone quickly if you are able to bring enough of it into your city and build things with it.
Your civ should also adapt to your playing style. If you are the type of player that churns out unit after unit in a city, that city should become something like what Sparta became. The Spartan city-state became extremely efficient at churning out troops, making pretty much the entire non-slave population an army. Because of this they became militarily extremely powerful and culturally dead. They could not extend themselves outside of their territory for very long for fear of a slave revolt, or extend their territory at all. If you do this with your entire civ you could build up a massive army of a few different types of units quickly, but you would not be able to advance at all culturally or scientifically.
War wariness migh be kept to a minimum at first, but quickly build after several turns. If you did this to a specific city, it would become essentially a military acadamy, producing excellent troops but not much else, and be slow to adapt new technologies and philosophies. After several turns getting this city to build anything other than troops and perhaps old military buildings would become difficult and slow.
The civ you are playing should reflect all of the above factors. The technology that is available for you to research, the units and buildings you can build, the strengths and weaknesses of what you build, the diplomatic options you can use, and the religions that your civ develops should all change based on your choice of leader and your random starting location, and adapt to your playing style as you go through the game.
Balancing this type of game without making it feel like you are playing with a straightjacket on would be very difficult. You want to provide a full game to the player no matter what conditions the game is played in. I suppose this would require a way of allowing the game to edit or perhaps create the tech tree, units, buildings and wonders available to the player while playing the game.
The amount of interaction between civilization and world is always straightforward in this game. I have seen a mod that will allow certain advantages to a civ depending on starting location, and I think this is a great start. Someone should go much further than this. I think that in order for this game to have a much more realistic, nonlinear feel there needs to be a much deeper relationship between the civ and leader you choose, the surrounding terrain and resourses, and your playing style.
Say you pick a leader that allows you to build wonders faster. Obviously this means you want to build more wonders than other civs, but it also means your population will have more experience with building large buildings. Your scientists (or natural philosophers, depending on your epic) will look more at the nature of materials, structures, geometry etc. Your population will be concentrated in worker huts that will allow them better access at the huge building they are helping to construct, or supporting these workers with stores and bars nearby. Specialists not related to the construction would be fairly rare.
If your city starts in the middle of a forest, you have abundant wood for construction. This means cheap, easily constructed homes, buildings and wonders that are mostly or all wood. This also means a fire could easily wipe out most or all of a city. Breaking down a wooden wall with something designed initially to get around stone defenses would win fairly easily. You would also get bows and arrows quickly, and learn how to fight in a forrest setting. You would not immediately know how to work stone. You would, however, be able to gain experience with stone quickly if you are able to bring enough of it into your city and build things with it.
Your civ should also adapt to your playing style. If you are the type of player that churns out unit after unit in a city, that city should become something like what Sparta became. The Spartan city-state became extremely efficient at churning out troops, making pretty much the entire non-slave population an army. Because of this they became militarily extremely powerful and culturally dead. They could not extend themselves outside of their territory for very long for fear of a slave revolt, or extend their territory at all. If you do this with your entire civ you could build up a massive army of a few different types of units quickly, but you would not be able to advance at all culturally or scientifically.
War wariness migh be kept to a minimum at first, but quickly build after several turns. If you did this to a specific city, it would become essentially a military acadamy, producing excellent troops but not much else, and be slow to adapt new technologies and philosophies. After several turns getting this city to build anything other than troops and perhaps old military buildings would become difficult and slow.
The civ you are playing should reflect all of the above factors. The technology that is available for you to research, the units and buildings you can build, the strengths and weaknesses of what you build, the diplomatic options you can use, and the religions that your civ develops should all change based on your choice of leader and your random starting location, and adapt to your playing style as you go through the game.
Balancing this type of game without making it feel like you are playing with a straightjacket on would be very difficult. You want to provide a full game to the player no matter what conditions the game is played in. I suppose this would require a way of allowing the game to edit or perhaps create the tech tree, units, buildings and wonders available to the player while playing the game.
