CIV-4 Big picture thoughts

[Lewsir]

Folks, after about a year of livin' clean, I'm back on CIV3, weakness during these hot summer months. I broke down and bought C3C - it's pretty good, certainly plenty of interesting tweaks. But I'm finding it still doesn't satisfy certain cravings, that I hope will be dealt with in CIV 4. Here goes:

Diplomacy - the interface is nice, but it's just unsatisfying to go back and forth 5 times until you optimise the trade - there's got to be a better way - maybe you just make an offer and he either takes it or leaves it - or maybe you get two shots at it, then you can't make another offer till the next turn.

Diplomacy II - Too many times, even very early in the game, obvious tech trades don't happen because the AI is way too demanding. I've read others' reasons why this is so, but I just don't like it - certain basic trades ought to be no-brainers for reasonably friendly civs.

Diplomacy III - I just don't find I make interesting alliances, in the way that often occured in SMAC. I want to develop friendships where we die for each other (and when my comrads help me in war, they do it in a way that really helps!). Am I missing something? Do others achieve this? Maybe it happens more late in the game? (I rarely get passed the middle ages because I either win, lose, or get bored by then).

Gameplay - As I think I once said, I usally either win, lose, or get bored by the middle ages - somehow we need more twists and turns in the game to keep it interesting longer. In 90% of my games, it's obvious where things are going by about 0 AD, and if I'm behind, there is no clear way to come back (obviously this is mainly at the higher levels, where we all know you are toast most of the time - but still).

Gameplay II - I'd like there to be more real decision making - I find that way too much of my time is spent doing things that do not involve interesting choices. It's mostly pretty obvious what to do next, so it gets very mechanical - what build orders, tech orders come next, etc. I usually find it makes sense to build most everything possible (more or less) or at least use the same pattern for every city. And it usually makes sense to build nearly all possible techs, with only minor variations in the order from game to game, regardless of what civ I play. It seems to me that with CIV 2 I needed to put much more energy into considering alternative build/research strategy options - but maybe I was just younger and stupider then... Maybe there could at least be some differentiation interms of what city improvements/techs are available to different civs, or when they are?

Intelligence/espionage - as many have said, the spying aspect has been pretty much killed in CIV 3. I say bring it back! There ought to be ways to really make things interesting with spying, as I think it was in SMAC and CIV 2.

Levels - I think the system of levels now doesn't quite work - I can only really play decent games on about 2 of the levels - the others are either too easy or hard. How about levels that also differ in terms of things like complexity? maybe add some additional aspects as one works up the levels? There could even be a matrix of diffiulty with one axis like now and another with increased complexity. People would choose their game from the grid of options (if that makes any sense).

Enough for now. Overall I am rooting for the game to be well improved in its gameplay and AI - I'm hoping for much more than the kinds of little tweaks that seem to be mostly getting mentioned on these boards.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

I think the things you've mentioned really puts light on the basic issues with Civ and helps steer those of us considering the finer details of unlikely additions back to the real issues.

I think you've hit the nail on the head about gameplay in general. There has to be more to the game than finding the ideal build and tech strategy. The real interest comes in the ability to play the game as if you're a part of history and can interact with other nations in a manner that seems fun and realistic.

I too long for the ability to establish lasting friendships with other civs and have that be an integral, fun, influential part of the game. I long for the ability to partner with other civs and cultivate a relationship that allows for each "to die for each other." Liberting your friends cities. Making exclusive trade deals. Sharing intelligence gathering. Trading techs. Supplying arms to that friend in need. These are just examples of some of the concepts that could make Civ so much more engaging and engrossing --even as the map has been maxed out and everyone has expanded.

I'm not sure what other types of things could really add to the later game experience, but I agree that these are the main issues that the Firaxis design team should be grappling with to ensure another timeless Civ game.

--CK

 

[Dr. Broom]

All great points but the one that caught my attention was the improved alliances where your alliances mean something other than other AI players will have to pay me slightly more to attack you. The only one I disagree with is the civ 2 way of spying, I HATE those diplomats, you can't touch them but they just go and steal your techs, there must be a better way than both in civ 2 and civ 3 but in my opinion in civ 3 it is better than in civ 2. I think a solution would be a more interesting and dynamic economy where your commerce and shield production would depend on city infrastructure and population instead of the surrounding terrain. This makes it possible for a smaller nation to become wealthier and more productive than a larger nation simultaneously increasing the effects of your decisions and adding those twists and turns needed to keep the game interesting. The way it is now the games excitement really drops soon after all the land is claimed because after that it is really just a wait, it really doesn't matter much what you decide to do because whoever has the most land will likely win if thats you then great if not well then you will probably lose and cant do much about it. It would be a fine addition to add in game messages requiring you to make a choice with each choice having different effects much like in Europa Universalis II.

 

[troytheface]

yes, nice concise reasoning there..i agree on all points and the idea of level of complexity as oppossed to level of ai advantages is inspired. Good outside view that avoids nit picking and addresses major gameplay flaws.

 

[Demon_Axe]

GREAT ideas. I agree that often it just to much repetition and you really need to be kept interested. I would love to see more complex stuff like the stuff you suggested and it would certainly add a new sense of fun to the game

 

[dh_epic]

Hey there,

I think with the race to talk about all the cool wonders we can have, and how we can make the wars more realistic, let alone how to come up with the best economic system, we may have lost sight of your attitude towards the game. To me it's best summed up with "by the middle ages, I either win, lose, or get bored".

This ultimately suggests that the game needs to have more empowering decisions right up until the end, with the ability to mount a huge comeback, and the ability to shift strategies.

Our real world is presently full of twists and turns, and all with dozens of nations at peace. Even war has taken a different form, with people taking the role of liberator rather than conqueror. Yet Civ gets terribly repetitive, a game about conquering where the dominant power emerges by 1000AD.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I definitely agree with your first point on Diplomacy. I really don't like to be able to 'fine tune' my trade/diplomacy deals (and, to be honest, I DON'T ) The best system, IMHO, is allow you to have only 2 attempts in a given turn, and only have your foreign advisor be able to give you an 'idea' of if your opponent will accept it (i.e. nothing should be absolute!)

In fact, what I would love is to have the chance for ANY of your advisors to be wrong! In Warlords 3, I have lost count of the number of times that my military advisor has promised me a 'great victory', or a victory on a par with 'slaughtering sleeping cattle', only to win by the skin of my teeth ! I always imagined, in my head, said 'military advisor' being lead to the 'chopping block' ! Of course, in civ4, it would be a funny addition to be able to sack an advisor who gets it wrong-pure I candy, though, but fun all the same !!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Lewsir]

Thanks for these responses - glad to see I'm not the only one looking for these kinds of major changes.

I fear that it will be easier for Firaxis to do 50 little tweaks than 2 or 3 major changes in gameplay, or push the AI to the "next level". I heard somewhere that they may add religion as a gameplay factor, the way they did with culture this time - that would be fine, but to me it would be far too little to count as THE major change to CIV 4 (along wiith the no doubt much improved graphics that I personally couldn't care less about)...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Actually, though I believe this has been mentioned elsewhere, I do think that the possibility of your advisors being WRONG and/or sacking/executing advisors who do you wrong would add a whole new and intriguing element to the game!

For instance, what if there was an espionage function that allowed a foreign civ to BRIBE one of your advisors!

Synopsis: The English Foreign Advisor has been bribed by the French (who wants the English to start a war with their hated enemy, the Germans)! So, when the English player has any dealings with Germany, the foreign advisor will feed the player FALSE info (like, 'sire-I have it on good authority that the Germans are secretly amassing troops on our borders', or 'The Germans are FURIOUS at us, and I believe they are preparing for war' or 'The Germans are well known for being treacherous-declare war before they backstab us!')
I think that would be cool!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

I fear that it will be easier for Firaxis to do 50 little tweaks than 2 or 3 major changes in gameplay, or push the AI to the "next level". I heard somewhere that they may add religion as a gameplay factor, the way they did with culture this time - that would be fine, but to me it would be far too little to count as THE major change to CIV 4 (along wiith the no doubt much improved graphics that I personally couldn't care less about)...

I think we're gonna get along quite well. You'll find a lot of kindred spirits these forums who aren't opposed to many ideas, but have set expectations high in terms of resolving gameplay flaws.

Micromanagement is one.
Late game boredom is two.
Repetitive gameplay and unbalanced strategy (expansionism) is three.
Predictable and disappointing AI is four.

I don't think these topics are unrelated either. Micromanagement ties into repetitive gameplay, late game boredom, and is the reason the high difficulties exist (the AI is no less predictable or more interesting at Deity level).

Late game boredom has everything to do with repetitive gameplay and unbalanced strategy -- expansionism becomes especially boring when the borders are well defined. America is the most powerful nation on the planet and has some of the most interesting strategies for dominance, and yet have expanded their borders very little in the past century. Where are the alternatives to expansion?

Anyway, it doesn't take much for me to go off and rant. But welcome to the fold, indeed.

 

[Lewsir]

Thanks, this is indeed a welcoming place.

Those four sound like the right concerns to me - any sense that Firaxis embraces this? I saw a ppt presentation from their CIV 4 chief developer that suggests not (I guess everyone has seen this?) "Simplicity" is his overriding concern. I'm all for reducing micromanagement, but this sounds to me like we're going to get a dumbing down of the game. Like for many products in society, there seems to be a sense that simpler (and stupider) means more sales...probably true, unfortunately.

 

[dh_epic]

Don't look at it that way. I think the idea is that Civ 3 has a nice level of complexity. It's complex enough that there's some depth to gameplay, but it's not so complex that it turns you off or confuses you.

There IS a focus on simplicity in the presentation. But you'll also notice he spends a lot of his presentation on "fighting cynicism" -- that old fans DO get tired of franchises if you don't bring them something new. He also spends a lot of his presentation saying that Civ 4 will have a larger, or at least slightly different audience than Civ 3. To me that suggests that the lead designer is conscious of the need to add a few killer features to Civ 4.

Combine that with the "simplification" rule and we're talking about cutting out some stuff in Civ 3 to make room for more stuff in Civ 4.

I'd just like to see that "more stuff" focus on making the modern game more interesting (cold war, puppet regimes) let alone the industrial game (colonialism, independance, civil war), and adding more variety in strategy (e.g.: a perfectionist economic powerhouse instead of an expansionist empire, e.g.: growing your quality of life instead of your quantity of cities).

Right now, the two leading choices for killer features are "Religion" and "Civics". Religion sounds neat, but doesn't resolve any of the gameplay problems. Civics, nobody really has a clue what it is. I'm worried they're moving forward without thinking about the gameplay flaws from Civ 3.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

I'm worried they're moving forward without thinking about the gameplay flaws from Civ 3.

I hope we're all wrong on this.

 

[mitsho]

I understand civics as 'laws and NGO's'. But let away this discussion
and I doubt that they will forget this, colonel Kraken. I mean they know this forum and there are plenty of topics discussing this. At least they have thought about it, and probably the got a solution full of new flaws which we can critizise during the civ4 era and bring plenty of solution for them during the developing time of civ5 .

Back to topic. I support the idea above

mitsho

 

[Dr. Broom]

I'm worried they're moving forward without thinking about the gameplay flaws from Civ 3.

I wouldn't worry about this because the people who are working on Civilization IV are reading in these forums for ideas and improvements.

 

[Baccus]

This ultimately suggests that the game needs to have more empowering decisions right up until the end, with the ability to mount a huge comeback, and the ability to shift strategies.

Indeed - there isn't much 'rise and fall' of empires in Civ. The civs that were great in one age, possibly even appearing invincible, are just so much cannon fodder a few hundred years later. Persians, Romans, etc. Perhaps there could be more options for rebellion or liberation - look at Britian. 70 years ago we had a world-spanning empire, now all (or just about all) those countries are self governing, due to social and political change.

 

[Jake5555555]

Great ideas everybody!

 

[brtman]

Warfare is a subject i have some ideas on. I think wars, and especially long ones, should be more difficult. Somehow, wars are not as interesting as they should be. If all western countries are seen as one civilization, they were the only civ to use warmongering/domination succesfully for the world (most non-western people see the ability of the west to organize aggression against enemies on a large scale as the most important).
To make things more interesting i thought of this:

1 Population
Sending people into war should influence population. If troops get killed, this should slow down population growth back home. When victorious however, more mixed siblings should inhabit the the conquered areas. The last effect should change over time, being more powerful in ancient times.

2 Supplies
Supplies should get a more important role in warfare. Modern wars are unthinkable without having a decent supply strategy, older wars are still dependent on food supply. For example, units can only be healed in producing cities, or by special units (later in the game). Mounted units need more food (horses!), rifles need saltpeter, tanks need oil, etc.
There are probably more ideas on special resources, I haven't thought about it that much, but exhaustable resources can work very well with more difficult wars.

3 Morale
Troops fighting a long time without supplies will have lower morale. As war weariness affects home, this influences the war itself.

4 Civil wars
Apparent already, with resisting cities, this could be a longer-term development. If a large area of distant cities only pay taxes and get nothing back, they can unite and revolt. Americans can have Confederates, Dutch have Belgians, Spanish have Basques etc.
This was mentioned before and I really like this idea. There are more (better) ideas in this, I guess.

Optional defending strategies:
- Scorched earth tactics could be used. Abandon cities, burn oil supply, burn acres, etc.
- Guerillas can be highly successful against low morale armies. Perhaps some spies/diplomats spreading propaganda can help here as well.

The question of waging a war will be much more difficult. Instead of just changing government and building some more units, much more effort should go into preparation.
Wars will be smaller, only to grab a couple of cities nearby, and then continue development. Together with the more advanced Diplomacy, as stated before, alliances are more interesting. Just raiding capitals to weaken shared enemies instead of taking it should be rewarded more. (destroy wonders?)

Just some thoughts, not really detailed, but some of the things that pop in my mind when I play C3C (still an awesome game though!)

 

[brtman]

Ok, this was pretty obsolete...
Sorry, I'll read previous topics more often...

 

[Verowin]

Overall I am rooting for the game to be well improved in its gameplay and AI - I'm hoping for much more than the kinds of little tweaks that seem to be mostly getting mentioned on these boards.

Lewsir, great job, you nailed the flawes of the game exactly.