Best Features EVER!!

[StittsvilleJame]

When I heard the announcement of civ 5, I was excited. Not just "Oh cool" excited, but pee my pants excited. As I have read about all the changes they are making to the game, from subtle changes like leaders speaking in tongues, to game changers, like no unit stacking, I got to thinking, what have been the biggest and most revolutionary changes since the launch of the original.
Out of all the changes ever made to the game, from the addition of golden ages and great people, to the inclusion of unique buildings and units, some stand out as "Why didn't they think of that sooner" additions, like strategic resources.
Anyways here is my list of what I consider the 10 most important additions.

10. Golden Ages: I find them immersive. When thinking of history, I always like to think about the height of a civilizations power. The Pax Romana, or Elizabethan England. When I play civ 4, I will always have a golden age (usually brought about by some extra great prophet post-divine right). To me, they are one of the leading qualifiers for a great historical civilization.

9. National Wonders: I always hated the idea that a civilization couldn't have internally significant building achievements. Each culture, nation, country have culturally significant entities that they treasure, even though they may not be globally unique. Also, I enjoy being able to think about where to put my Oxford college, and don't want to be forced into putting it only where it has a chance of being built.

8. Vassal States: Although I don't generally create vassals, or accept others trying to be vassals to me, I like having them in the game, as they add that extra layer to diplomacy for me. I want to be forced to think "Hmm, Izzy has a great city I would love to own, but dammit, I don't want to fight Monty right now". It seems more historical to me to have puppet states and client kingdoms.

7. Flexible Research Paths: I like the feel of being able to actually be in control. Not just deciding which techs I should get now, but being able to decide which way to get to what I want. In Civ 1, it was always the same tech path. I bet you can guess which tech was the destination.

6. Unique Units / Buildings: For me, they add a ton of flavour. That, coupled with the cultural look, adds more to the feel, than to the gameplay. I like my Aztecs to have jaguars, for the simple fact that they should have jaguars, and the Americans should have malls.

5. Civics: This is huge for me. I never liked being pigeon holed by goverment, and having the choice of different aspects, is awesome. The only problem I find is I would love to have a whole bunch more civics, and a couple of new categories.

4. Strategic Resources: Going into the top 4 game changing features for me, it gets tougher to prioritize. Strategic resources are one of the things that makes me change course mid game, when I find out that my good buddy Washington is sitting on the only oil on the continent, and I have to tell you, I value one oil over 3000 years of peace any day. I don't even bother to try to trade for them, it's too important to leave up to the whims of trade. Sorry Washington, you may be happy to give me the oil, but I'd rather fight ya for it.

3. Great People: I think they're the cat's ass. I love it when I get the notification of one of them, and I actually know who he / she is, like finding out Isaac Newton is Greek, or Da Vinci is an Aztec. Plus with all those fabulous special powers, who wouldn't love them? They definately shape my strategy, in a very good way.

2. Workers: Remember when settlers built roads? What was that about? Shouldn't settlers be off, you know, settling somewhere?

1. Culture!: Culture wins for biggest feature ever added for me. Since being added, it has become as important to me as the tech tree, or city production. A core feature in other words. You want to be a jerk to me Stalin? Well, you are not welcome on my property. Take your ball, and go home. By the way, is that an oil inside your border? hmmmm.

So what will be the features from civ 5 which can be added to my list once it ships? I think city states will be on there, and 1 unit per tile. Ranged attacks? Unit to tansport? Who knows.

What about you guys? What's on your list of best added features?

 

[eleazzaar]

That's a good list. If i thought it through i'd probably have most of the same items on my top 10, probably in a different order.

Weren't golden ages in the original? I don't remember the gameplay clearly, but Sid likes to mention that his original idea for civ was to use dark ages (negative), but he learned that golden ages (positive) were more fun.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Golden Ages: They're a good addition. They make the game a bit more dynamic and doesn't really affect the gameplay that much.

National Wonders: I'm not that fond of them. It feels enough with wonders and normal buildings. Some could be in.

Vassal States: Not sure, but I think this could be taken out without losing out on the gameplay.

Flexible Research Paths: Great

Unique Units / Buildings: Unique unit - great, unique building - meh.

Civics: I'm glad they're trying out something different.

Strategic Resources: Great

Great People: I like that great, historical persons are in, but the mechanic for them could possibly be changed.

Workers: They're ok, but it seems they given additional work assignments with each installment and that's not really good gamedesign imo. It only leads to earlier and more automation for me, which doesn't make the game more fun.

Culture!: Great, i hope the improve it in civ5

 

[Chalks]

Having armies of workers swarming all over my lands improving tiles has always been something I have loved. Especially when a war breaks out and their AI makes them all scuttle away to the nearest city or to less dangerous lands

Culture flipping of cities is another favourite of mine, but I believe that it's something that's getting dropped in Civ 5 which saddens me.

 

[StittsvilleJame]

Golden Ages came along with civ 3, if I remember correctly.

 

[Set]

Vassal States: Not sure, but I think this could be taken out without losing out on the gameplay.

what are you talking about! vassal states are one of the best things added to civ. if i don't want to have to attack some island where a countries last 2 or 3 cities are I simply vassalize them and gain most of the bonuses of conquering without having to invest in a navy. i also agree with stittsvillejame on them adding to diplomacy. more than once there has been someone who i am more powerful then but they 2-3 vassals this can stop me from attacking them.

 

[Willem]

Weren't golden ages in the original?

No. Golden Ages were a Civ 3 introduction.

 

[Ekolite]

Promotions are the best feature ever been added to Civ IMO.

 

[CHEESE!]

I love the easy modding. Civ III had almost everything below a very shallow level concealed.

Gameplay, I love Promotions, Vassals, UUs and especially UBs, Civics (MOAR!), Culture, GAs, GPs, National Wonders, Research Paths, ALL resources (I hated the 'bonus resources' in CIII), workers, multiple leaders, HEALTH (great feature and badly needed), Micromanagement streamlining, unique music, 3D- damnit, I love it all!

 

[Roland Johansen]

An often neglected/overlooked feature of civilization 4: the ability to choose between an array of terrain improvements to organise the output of your cities in food, hammers and commerce. Before, you could only choose between mines and farms. The commerce output of your cities could not be regulated at all: every tile with roads produced the same amount of commerce.

Since the output of your cities is one of the most important factors of success in the game, the ability to fine tune this allows you to organize your empire to your liking instead of every city being equal to the next. The whole new city specialisation in civilization 4 is the result of these terrain improvements (combined with the national wonders).

It's a change of very low profile but huge gameplay consequences.

 

[Sonereal]

what are you talking about! vassal states are one of the best things added to civ. if i don't want to have to attack some island where a countries last 2 or 3 cities are I simply vassalize them and gain most of the bonuses of conquering without having to invest in a navy. i also agree with stittsvillejame on them adding to diplomacy. more than once there has been someone who i am more powerful then but they 2-3 vassals this can stop me from attacking them.

I like vassals because it bridges the gap between letting the losing civilization off the hook and straight out annexing them. There're other benefits as well

1. I don't need to manage large armies across the ocean since I can simply create a vassal who'll build his own army.

2. Maintenance isn't as high when you create vassals.

 

[nullspace]

An often neglected/overlooked feature of civilization 4: the ability to choose between an array of terrain improvements to organise the output of your cities in food, hammers and commerce. Before, you could only choose between mines and farms. The commerce output of your cities could not be regulated at all: every tile with roads produced the same amount of commerce.

....

It's a change of very low profile but huge gameplay consequences.

This change never got any hype because it sounds so boring, but it's a major part of why Civ 4 is so good. It's basically required for city specialization to be possible.

At least is sounds like we don't need to worry about Civ 5 because a road on a tile reduces that tile's production. That's specialization right there.

For my favorite features, I'll say:

1) World Wonders. These are probably a given in Civ, but they're great, and I enjoy choosing my strategy and making my civ unique during the game, rather than having predetermined unique units and such.

2) Civics. Same reason as above, really.

3) Great People. They add a lot to the builder side of the game without making it a complicated growth curve on a spreadsheet. There's strategy in choosing how you generate them, which type you want or if a random one is okay, weighing them against commerce, hammers, and food, and which of their abilities you'll use.

4) Culture. Although I like the way Civ Rev does it best. Your cultural strength depends mainly on your entire civ's current cultural output per citizen, instead of distance and age.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

I like all those except National Wonders, I feel their a step backwards. The lack of any 'race' completely removes the wow factor around national wonders, on top of that the effects tend to be very bland. If the goal is to diversify/specialize a players cities then their should be a better more interesting set of regular buildings/specialist to achieve that.

 

[civ_king]

super modability trumps all

 

[whats a navy]

I like all those except National Wonders, I feel their a step backwards. The lack of any 'race' completely removes the wow factor around national wonders, on top of that the effects tend to be very bland. If the goal is to diversify/specialize a players cities then their should be a better more interesting set of regular buildings/specialist to achieve that.

Getting those building sooner rather than later is important. Who wouldn't want Oxford in 900 AD rather than 1400 AD?

 

[Bobbtjoe]

I could NOT imagine a civ game without civics

 

[cardgame]

government types were early civic choices. I loved being a communist...

 

[CHEESE!]

But the problem was being a communist FORCED you into going into war. There was no point in running Communism in peace when you could have run Democracy/Republic instead. With individual civics giving individual benefits, you can pick and choose the best of the governments together, which is (somewhat) more realistic (not all democracies, republics, communisms are the same), and much more fun and in-depth.

 

[Junuxx]

Promotions are the best feature ever been added to Civ IMO.

Yes, the unit XP system is awesome.

Also: Air missions
Remember the Civ 2 bombers? they had to dodge fortified phalanxes in the field, or they wouldn't be able to bomb the city. Then after their bombing run was completed, they would hang still in mid-air, flying home next year!

 

[The Cosmic Kid]

I like all those except National Wonders, I feel their a step backwards. The lack of any 'race' completely removes the wow factor around national wonders, on top of that the effects tend to be very bland. If the goal is to diversify/specialize a players cities then their should be a better more interesting set of regular buildings/specialist to achieve that.

I think national wonders serve a useful gameplay purpose for city specialization, but they need to be reconcepted. They shouldn't be "wonders" with names that imply a uniqueness and "wow factor" they do not have - Wall Street, Oxford University, the Globe, these are names for real wonders. Rather, they should just be "national buildings" or something. GalCiv2 called their equivalent buildings "capitals", so you built a Financial Capital, a Scientific Capital, a Cultural Capital, and so on. I think Civ could be a little more creative in naming, perhaps using Financial District, Research University, Museum of Art, and so on. The National Park and Iron Works were fine, generic buildings; the Epics would have been fine except for the oddity of treating a literary achievement like a building.

And the Moai Statues just made no sense on any level.