C7 Feature Requests

[WildWeazel]

Hi Gary, welcome back and thanks for your interest! We can certainly use help. So far, the main focus has been on Godot Engine and C# programming while borrowing all assets from Civ3. But we're eventually going to need ALL original (free to distribute) media, whether reused from mods or custom made. If you'd like to make units or anything else we can talk about formats and standards. We have a lot more flexibility with this engine, so we can potentially use 32-bit colors, multiple zoom/LOD, shaders, whatever.

 

[Quintillus]

Programming remains the top need for now, but eventually there's the build-out of the art catalog as WildWeazel mentions. I think there's an intermediate step before that too, which is cataloging the available art and identifying the gaps. We can certainly add community art as we go, but answering "what do we need?" relies to some extent on knowing "what exactly do we have available?"

It might not be glamorous, but that ultimately means looking at all the Vanilla/PTW/Conquests art files (except the few that aren't actually used in-game), and figuring out if there's a viable replacement for it in the Downloads Database or somewhere else where it's legitimately viable (Apolyton?), and if not, that would be what is most needed. My guess is 95% or more has replacement art created, but there are probably a few exceptions.

 

[wazzbot]

Haven't had a chance to test out a working version yet so apologies if this is in there already but I'm hoping to see trade revolutionised - you could work in ideas like capacity, overproduction, artificial scarcity, the need for military reinforcement of trade routes, preferential and easy trade routes reflecting river flows.

Early biological warfare such as evil colonialist settlers offering smallpox blankets, or dipping arrowheads in faeces to ensure infection. Biology and disease constitute huge drivers in human movement and history.

Sorry if these feature requests are too big - on a smaller scale, I quite like the idea of a bunch more small wonders that seek to improve education, production, culture, trade etc.

 

[Retvizan]

I played in Civ 3 long time. Weak AI is the main problem of game.
How will be AI in C7?

 

[Fergei]

Unfortunately my good old Windows XP computer is probably going to be too old to use the fruits of this project, but I thought I’d throw in some personal perspectives on issues that are small blemishes on the majesty that is, Civ 3! Most of these are listed in more detail in my Civ3 Retuned thread and I appreciate some of these can be done with the standard editor, but I think the default game would benefit from these elements. Good luck in your endeavours!

1. Quitting a game inside 20 turns is a bad thing!

a) Fresh water availability – makes random archipelago maps far too haphazard and many unviable starts, even if you manually bring forward irrigation without a river or lake to say Engineering.
Suggestion – somehow increase occurrence of fresh water sources on random maps (e.g. wells?)

b) People quitting a game without playing a turn due to ‘sub-optimal’ land - some call it common sense, others cheating or losing. Whatever way you paint it, its bad.
Suggestion – embrace the concept that people quitting the game without playing a turn is a ‘bad thing’ and incorporate that into decisions around rulesets.

c) Having an option to produce auto-settlers for some or all of the game would massively increase the suitability of ‘unviable’ starts. It also massively helps the AI if they get stuck without fresh water.

Suggestion – have an option for the palace to produce auto-settlers the whole game and/or until a certain tech is achieved and/or until a set number of auto-settlers have been produced – then switch to manual


2. Difficulty Levels

a) The Civ3 difficulty settings are broken. On higher difficulties the Ancient era through until mid-Medieval is far more difficult than the rest of the game, due to the way the AI is configured to attack when it has military superiority (which its starting unit bonus ensures). I’d argue this is completely the wrong way round in terms of game difficulty. Games should get tougher the longer they go on.

Suggestion – make the AI more productive (reduced cost factor) on each difficulty (to make them harder) and dispense with their starting units (to make them easier). This offsets to a difficulty curve I find much more credible. Especially as the AI becomes more hostile to the human score leader.


3. Expansion uber alles (it doesn’t have to be this way)

a) Settler factories, ‘optimum land’ and mass expansion – it is the focus of all human players 99% of the time. It makes the AI passive in the early game until all land is taken. It makes early military units obsolete. It makes the Agricultural trait more powerful than the others.

Suggestion – auto production of settlers (at least for the first few) is one option to counteract this issue. Or make settlers far more expensive or only one can be built at a time.

b) Agricultural trait uber alles – buff religious (more expensive religious buildings, longer (but milder) anarchy duration), buff militaristic (cheaper courthouse), buff expansionist (Scouts have a defensive ability), buff seafaring (how?). Keep Scientific and Commercial (and corruption) as is.

c) Make more variation between AI Civs in what they build often. Make militaristic & expansionist ones truly focus on military at the expense of buildings. Also…

d) make it easier for strong militaries to extort techs, gold, luxuries and resources from other Civs.

Suggestion – make AI (and human) able to threaten for the only luxury or resource source another Civ has (i.e. it doesn’t have to be a spare one). Make it possible for the AI to extort gold per turn tributes rather than demand a laughable 1GPT.

e) Infinite City Spawn

Suggestion - make this less viable somehow.

f) Culture is great – it actually works well if you have AIs more densely packed in on a landmass. AIs with high culture could benefit from making more aggressive city placements as they should have a reduced risk of flipping due to their overall civ culture level.

Suggestion – change AI placement criteria. Have 10-20% more Civs per map size. Make Culture even more important in influencing diplomatic calculations for war, trade and alliance. Effectively make the AI in awe of a Civ with a big culture lead.

g) Espionage auto-war – remove this for failed espionage. Instead really reduce the AI’s attitude towards an Civ they find out is spying on them (so it is factored into trade and war declaration calculations).

h) Espionage – bring it forward to the end of the Ancient era so it is a viable option before the end of the late game.


4. AI behaviour – aggression

a) As above, 3 c) & d). It is bad that a human can receive pitiful threats and just pay up. Threats should make the human player sweat… (they want my only luxury or my only iron!?)

b) Increase AI aggression when they have access to their UU (make this is a variable in their aggression levels?). So many of them just squander their UU or don’t seem to realise the strength of it.


5. AI behaviour – diplomacy

a) MPPs are really good. They work beautifully, but only if Military Alliances are removed.

Suggestion – make MPPs appear earlier in the game than Military Alliance (you may need to ramp up overall game aggression levels).

b) Trade Embargos are pretty good

Suggestion, make these appear early on. Withholding trade as a diplomatic tactic has been used for centuries.


6. AI behaviour – idiocy at wartime

a) No sense of self preservation or historical relationships “I will join your military alliance even though my military consists of an old, toothless dog and you are paying me with a single rotten egg.”

Suggestion – make a Civ that is offered a military alliance factor in their military strength versus the opponent. Make a military alliance almost impossible to obtain against a Civ that the AI is on good terms with (especially if they are not on great terms with the AI seeking the alliance)

b) Link the trade reputation in to AI calculations about a military alliance. “I will not give you 1GPT under any circumstances but I will join a stupid war to die by your side in return for you offering me the opportunity to sniff your left armpit” is not an immersive experience.

c) Armies (make AI use them correctly or nerf completely to just give a few extra HP to single unit, plus repeat attack).


7. Barbarians

a) Buff them - Make them enslave, build (and defend) forts and not have such predictable attack patterns. Consider stronger units. Consider removal of combat bonus against barbs from Emperor difficulty and above.


8. Governments & Anarchy

a) Fix AI aversion to ‘communal’ corruption so that a more natural decision is made by the AI between Fascism and Communism.

b) Fix no-corruption bug so that this becomes a real option.

c) Make Anarchy longer, but softer (e.g. tech 50%, max corruption but no unit support costs)

d) New late game government - Consider a high corruption, trade bonus, no war weariness government type in the Industrial era (Plutocracy or Oligarchy) to add into the mix versus Fascism & Communism.

e) Remove the Republic slingshot. Make Feudalism and Monarchy accessible prior to Republic in every circumstance.


9. Resources – all or nothing

a) Make some units (e.g. Ancient Cavalry and Crusader) available at a later time (and expensive in terms of shields) so that an AI with just one resource can be at least semi-competitive until the start of the Industrial era. There may be equivalents in the late game, but I don’t think these should be as powerful as TOW infantry (or TOW Infantry should appear well after Mech Inf).


10. Idiocy at sea

a) Make the sea units able to transport more land units. Decrease the naval escort that the AI provides. Beef up the HP of late game naval units and remove lethal bombardment against sea units.

b) Give all Civs a basic raft unit (a slower curragh) for early game exploration and reduce chance of a stunted AI.

c) Bring forward the ability to navigate sea slightly to reduce prevalence of stunted AI. Or make this available out of the box to Seafaring Civs (they need the buff).

 

[Civinator]

Fergei, in many of your points welcome to CCM 3.

 

[AvalancheMaster]

I think the game should stay as it is in terms of balance and new features, but new tools for modders would certainly be a welcome addition to the project. The two civilization games I've been playing the most are Civilization III and Civilizaiton V, and with that said, I think there's plenty of inspiration we can take from Civ V.

Most of the restrictions in the editor are very arbitrary, and I believe it is crucial to allow more flexible rule changes for modders. Thus all of my suggestions concern not rebalancing the base game, but enabling new features in the editor.

Worker Improvements

In general, Worker Improvements are one of the most baked-in features of the game, which is why mods rarely make creative use of them, other than reskinning them and locking them behind technologies.

• Worker improvements that provide more than one type of a bonus. For example, in the editor, you should be able to set mines to provide bonus both to Shields and Commerce.
• New Technologies and Wonders should be able to improve the efficiency of improvements. For example, a Silk Road wonder which increases the Commerce generated by your roads by 1. Or a "Crop Rotation" tech that improves the food yield of Irrigation.
• Negative values for worker improvements. Roads in Civilization 5 actually cost gold to maintain, though that is different from what I'm suggesting. However, irrigation is often reskinned as farms by various mods, and Farms that cost production to maintain is something realistic. Imagine irrigation providing +2 food, and -1 production.
• Creating new worker jobs in the editor. I am biased, but I think this should be a higher priority custom feature, as workers get progressively more boring later in the game once you've developed all of your cities, and are basically put on "Automate Clean Waste" jobs.
• Limit railroad movement. This is something the C3X mod already allows, so it goes without saying.
• Worker improvements that produce science or culture. This is something that Civ 5 does well enough.
• Worker improvements that change citizen moods. Imagine parks that make them content or happy, or the reverse — factories that improve shields output, but at the cost of making citizens unhappy.
• Colonies should be capturable.
• Colonies should be able to connect to a trade network in other ways. For example, a colony on the coast should be able to connect to harbors. This is a much more minor and niche idea that I still think is worth sharing.

Governments

Governments are also something that's way too limited in its scope in the base game. Sure, some governments allow for special wonders to be constructed, but the game actively disincentivizes you from changing your government more than once, which in combination with the despotism penalty makes all governments that are unlocked late in the game basically pointless unless in very specific circumstances. I actually don't have many concrete suggestions on how to solve this, nevertheless I am bringing this up to start a discussion.

• Variable despotism penalty. Right now, the penalty applies to all production types, and it applies when a tile produces more than 2 of a type. Allowing to change that number, as well as the type of production, can make for more interesting government types.
• The same applies in reverse to the commerce bonus — not only should it be applicable to more than just commerce, but also it should change the conditions under which it applies (for example, how much commerce a tile should have before the bonus applies to it), as well as the bonus itself (how much additional commerce is granted).

Citizens

• Specialists should also be able to provide culture and food bonuses.

Rivers

Historically, rivers were the first roads. The waterways of Tigris-Euphrates, of the Nile, of the Danube were major arteries, which unfortunately is not represented in Civ3, as all rivers do is provide additional food (through irrigation) and commerce. Not to mention they break up roads until Engineering is researched.

• Rivers should link cities on them in a trade network. Since movement bonuses cannot be represented well with the current river system, at the very least cities situated on the same river should be able to connect to each other as if they were connected by a road.
• Alternatively, rivers should also be impassable. Rivers are major waterways, but also major natural barriers. This can make for some interesting scenarios, if a river cannot be crossed. Ideally this would be done through a flag on each unit ("Can cross rivers"). I can definitely see the logic behind a catapult not being able to cross the Danube.
• Bonuses rivers provide should be more customizable. Commerce is good and all, but rivers should also be able to provide a bonus to food output, or production. In addition to that, modders should be able to apply that bonus to specific terrain types only.

 

[tjs282]

Improvements that change citizen moods. Imagine parks that make them content or happy, or the reverse — factories that improve shields output, but at the cost of making citizens unhappy

I may be misunderstanding what you mean here(?), but modding generic buildings to produce local and/or continental (un)happiness is already possible in the standard Editor. As an obvious example, even in the unmodded Firaxis game, a Temple makes 1 unhappy citizen content.

And in his CCM mod, @Civinator has done exactly what you describe: rather than having Industrial/ shield-boosting buildings generate Pollution (as in the Firaxis game), he used building-induced unhappiness extensively as a balancing disadvantage instead.

 

[AvalancheMaster]

I may be misunderstanding what you mean here(?), but modding generic buildings to produce local and/or continental (un)happiness is already possible in the standard Editor. As an obvious example, even in the unmodded Firaxis game, a Temple makes 1 unhappy citizen content.

And in his CCM mod, @Civinator has done exactly what you describe: rather than having Industrial/ shield-boosting buildings generate Pollution (as in the Firaxis game), he used building-induced unhappiness extensively as a balancing disadvantage instead.

I'm talking about worker improvements only. I thought it was obvious enough (I grouped all Worker Improvements suggestions together), but in hindsight, maybe I should've clarified.