Civ Ideas & Suggestions Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread

[Camikaze]

Currently when you interact with a City State you only see a name, color and characteristic (Irrational, Friendly, hostile, ect.) Why not give us a drawing or photo to go along with it? It would be a warrior or merchant dressed in the garb of the City-State or even better a historical drawing of the city. Civilization 5 at its best tells a story, adding more graphic details to the city-state screen would only enhance the narrative.

Yeah, that would be quite nice. Arguments against more graphics are usually to do with them being resource intensive in terms of development, but a simpler graphic would certainly work. Maybe even a small illustration of the city in question?

 

[MARDUK80]

@Bresim
@Camikaze

Very good ideas. Small things like that really make the game feel more alive. About adding more graphics to the game, I would like to post SilverMoonFlare's nice idea about new Victory Screens;

I was dissapointed with the release of Civ5 but now i'm starting to like it (after all those patches). Next patch will add game replays...but what about other end-game candy - victory movies? These oil paintings are great! They have a unique and interesting style. Too bad that they are too static and boring for the game ending. I think many will agree with me on that matter. Making a CGI movie is too expensive and it will ruin Civ5 style. Firaxis already used too much money on the intro movie.

I have an idea about victory movies: a stylish oil painting slideshow. An example for space victory : 1) spaceship is being build -> 2) people aboard the spaceship -> 3) A shot of it flying near the Moon -> 4) Lightspeed jump to the stars (Star wars-style) -> 5) Arrival at Alpha Centauri -> 6) A shot of a planet they will live on -> 7) A wide shot of the first human colony on Alpha Centauri with a lunar vehicle near it (like in Civ2).

It's rather cheap and will continue that lineup of awesome oil paintings. And it's a good alternative to CGI and will make finishing the game more satisfying.

 

[Deggial]

There are plenty of great ideas out there to expand the game in this or that direction with espionage or religion. There are creative ideas to enhance or change large parts of the game, as the SoPo tree or diplomacy with City States. And there are requests and proposals for better tactical or diplomatic AI.

All of this is good and maybe sometimes needed – but it is not, what *this* thread shall be about.

As I’ve got the impression, that CiV has done a great step into the right direction with the last patches and is a good game now (there is *always* the possibility for further enhancements, of course!), it might be possible to have a look on smaller issues. Issues, that might not be game breaking, but would be a good enhancement of the game in general.

I want to invite you to collect all these “small optimization possibilities”, all these “minor, but nevertheless annoying tittles” so they *might* be addressed in future patches – alongside with all the still needed “big enhancements”.

Let me start the list with my main reason for this thread:

1. Please colorize UU’s (inheritable) special ability icon (I mean the icon in it’s promotion list) with a different color, e.g. green. All these little yellow triangles (you have to mouse-over to identify) are not helpful enough!

First reason for this proposal is, that at the current state it is a bit unclear, which ability will be bequeathed when upgrading the UU.
Second – and way more important – reason is, that it is *very* difficult right now to tell valuable upgraded UU-veterans apart from freshly builded (and therefore replaceable) troops.

If the special ability’s icon would be in a different color, just *one glance* would be enough to recognize the UU’s successor.

(I *know* that there is the possibility to rename the unit! But on one hand, this is only possible on upgrade and therefore forgotten way to easily and on the other hand it is uncomfortable. I’m looking for *optimizations*!)

2. When loading a saved game, let us use a *double click* on the name. It’s unnecessarily
complicated to force the clicking on the “load” button. (Yes, I know this is *very* minor. But it would be an optimization, too!)

---

Are there equivalent issues, you want to add? Please, abstain form *big* changes worth their own thread. Just list already existing “nuisances” that could be optimized - not completely new additions.

Moderator Action: Thread merged. wobuffet (below) is correct.

 

[Optional]

I'm not happy with the current Water Mill (+2 food, +1 hammer, maintenance 2 gpt, 75 hammers to build) for at least 2 reasons:
* Strategically it's an awful deal
* It's too much a copy of other improvements, especially the Granary

Explaining the strategically awful bit about the current Water Mill; its main purpose is to give food, but you can only build it in a city on a river, meaning you can only build it in locations that normally have lots of free food through farms already, typically showing a number of +4 food tiles with Civil Service.
Then the Water Mill comes after the Granary. The Granary also gives +2 food, but only costs 60 hammers and at 1 gpt maintenance.
For the 1 hammer extra production you don't want the Water Mill either, because it costs 75 hammers to build in the first place, so it'll take a long while to just get the invested hammers back, and remember the Water Mill eats up 2 gold each turn all this time. Not good.

It's just a terrible building that you'll almost never have a use for right now.

I see a posibility to make it better, though, although it would mean making it more like a Windmill. I'm thinking of the real life windmills that were used for water management, making the land better arable.
In the game a mill like this could be placed in a town to deal with the marshes. You would build a mill in a town that had marshes in its radius, and the effect would be that gradually the marsh tiles got transformed to ordinary grass tiles. Right now a worker with a spade does this, but it's more realistic to have a mill do this.
The mill could still have its current effect as well, delivering some extra food and hammers.
Perhaps the time for workers to clear a marsh could be made longer, as it would be a tough job in real life as well.
The main advantage for the game I see is that a mill like this would actually become interesting to build in some locations, and also that it becomes a building with its own function rather than being a copy of other buildings.

A complication would be that there already is an improvement in the game called 'Windmill'. Except this mill gives a production bonus when constructing buildings, so perhaps this mill could then be renamed 'Sawmill', that would seem to fit better anyway.

 

[ViterboKnight]

Currently when you interact with a City State you only see a name, color and characteristic (Irrational, Friendly, hostile, ect.) Why not give us a drawing or photo to go along with it? It would be a warrior or merchant dressed in the garb of the City-State or even better a historical drawing of the city. Civilization 5 at its best tells a story, adding more graphic details to the city-state screen would only enhance the narrative.

I like it.

 

[JaGarLo]

Ok, there you go my ideas about small details... Please take it as constructive criticism:

1) About the post-action replay

It's nice to see that Firaxis finally reintroduced this feature, but it needs some work:

- I would put the messages and the map in the same window.

- Instead of putting ''This happened on Turn 250'', I would say ''This happened on 1700AD''.

- There's a lot of missing info in the messages. It should include when you adopt one SP and maybe the first player to discover a new tecnology.

- Fix the graphs. In 5 games, only 2 came out with correct graphs (I mean, civs which ''go back in time'', wrong display, etc.).

- There's a lot of things you can see on the graphs. However, I'd add ''real'' values, like 100.000.000 population instead of ''population level 400'', aproval, number of soldiers... So it is a little more ''historical''.

2) Combat animations

- A unit with fireweapons against a melee unit. When the melee soldiers arrives to the musket line, they keep shooting at nothing. I'd include a melee animation for that unit (using bayonets, knifes, or something).

- When a mounted units attacks a melee unit. They charge, and there's only one enemy left. This lone guy beats down a horseman while anyone does nothing. You know what I mean? Again, I'd add more animations.

- When fighting with a mech infantry. It takes forever since the mech attacks one soldier at a time. I'd speed it up.

- Faster bomber animations. It would be welcomed.

3) Aproval rate

I find it unrealistic that once you hit about 15 happiness, everybody loves you (100%). So the AI is always at 100%, while I'm on 60-75%. Instead of that, I would put the aproval rate on 100% if you hit, for example, 50 happiness of something.

4) Unit cost

I would make all units cheaper, but take more the supply factor into account. I'd put less supply so the AI can't put a unit in the entire continent.



There you go my ideas. If you agree or disagree, please don't hesistate to write your opinion. And sorry for bad English!

Moderator Action: Thread merged. Posts with multiple smaller ideas should be placed in this thread.

 

[Optional]

Currently when you interact with a City State you only see a name, color and characteristic (Irrational, Friendly, hostile, ect.) Why not give us a drawing or photo to go along with it? It would be a warrior or merchant dressed in the garb of the City-State or even better a historical drawing of the city. Civilization 5 at its best tells a story, adding more graphic details to the city-state screen would only enhance the narrative.

Yeah, that would be quite nice. Arguments against more graphics are usually to do with them being resource intensive in terms of development, but a simpler graphic would certainly work. Maybe even a small illustration of the city in question?

A flag could do nice as well. This is what Firaxis did in their medieval Japan scenario for Civ III.

Through modding you can also get what you're describing, and mods exist that do it, but they're overhauling the whole city state concept. It would be nice if someone came with a mod that just added the graphics.

 

[wobuffet]

There are plenty of great ideas out there to expand the game in this or that direction with espionage or religion. There are creative ideas to enhance or change large parts of the game, as the SoPo tree or diplomacy with City States. And there are requests and proposals for better tactical or diplomatic AI.

All of this is good and maybe sometimes needed – but it is not, what *this* thread shall be about.

As I’ve got the impression, that CiV has done a great step into the right direction with the last patches and is a good game now (there is *always* the possibility for further enhancements, of course!), it might be possible to have a look on smaller issues. Issues, that might not be game breaking, but would be a good enhancement of the game in general.

I want to invite you to collect all these “small optimization possibilities”, all these “minor, but nevertheless annoying tittles” so they *might* be addressed in future patches – alongside with all the still needed “big enhancements”.

Let me start the list with my main reason for this thread:

1. Please colorize UU’s (inheritable) special ability icon (I mean the icon in it’s promotion list) with a different color, e.g. green. All these little yellow triangles (you have to mouse-over to identify) are not helpful enough!

First reason for this proposal is, that at the current state it is a bit unclear, which ability will be bequeathed when upgrading the UU.
Second – and way more important – reason is, that it is *very* difficult right now to tell valuable upgraded UU-veterans apart from freshly builded (and therefore replaceable) troops.

If the special ability’s icon would be in a different color, just *one glance* would be enough to recognize the UU’s successor.

(I *know* that there is the possibility to rename the unit! But on one hand, this is only possible on upgrade and therefore forgotten way to easily and on the other hand it is uncomfortable. I’m looking for *optimizations*!)

2. When loading a saved game, let us use a *double click* on the name. It’s unnecessarily
complicated to force the clicking on the “load” button. (Yes, I know this is *very* minor. But it would be an optimization, too!)

---

Are there equivalent issues, you want to add? Please, abstain form *big* changes worth their own thread. Just list already existing “nuisances” that could be optimized - not completely new additions.

I think that's exactly what this sticky is for! http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=392233

edit: Agree strongly with the first point. In addition, an alternative vertical promotion list when you mouseover could be a quick fix (I have a couple level 8 artillery in my current game whose full promotion list I can't see at all).

 

[wobuffet]

Ok, there you go my ideas about small details... Please take it as constructive criticism:

1) About the post-action replay

It's nice to see that Firaxis finally reintroduced this feature, but it needs some work:

- I would put the messages and the map in the same window.

- Instead of putting ''This happened on Turn 250'', I would say ''This happened on 1700AD''.

- There's a lot of missing info in the messages. It should include when you adopt one SP and maybe the first player to discover a new tecnology.

- Fix the graphs. In 5 games, only 2 came out with correct graphs (I mean, civs which ''go back in time'', wrong display, etc.).

- There's a lot of things you can see on the graphs. However, I'd add ''real'' values, like 100.000.000 population instead of ''population level 400'', aproval, number of soldiers... So it is a little more ''historical''.

2) Combat animations

- A unit with fireweapons against a melee unit. When the melee soldiers arrives to the musket line, they keep shooting at nothing. I'd include a melee animation for that unit (using bayonets, knifes, or something).

- When a mounted units attacks a melee unit. They charge, and there's only one enemy left. This lone guy beats down a horseman while anyone does nothing. You know what I mean? Again, I'd add more animations.

- When fighting with a mech infantry. It takes forever since the mech attacks one soldier at a time. I'd speed it up.

- Faster bomber animations. It would be welcomed.

3) Aproval rate

I find it unrealistic that once you hit about 15 happiness, everybody loves you (100%). So the AI is always at 100%, while I'm on 60-75%. Instead of that, I would put the aproval rate on 100% if you hit, for example, 50 happiness of something.

4) Unit cost

I would make all units cheaper, but take more the supply factor into account. I'd put less supply so the AI can't put a unit in the entire continent.



There you go my ideas. If you agree or disagree, please don't hesistate to write your opinion. And sorry for bad English!

The bomber animations do take forever. That should be sped up, and perhaps three options for combat speed: regular, minimal animation, and quick/no animations – preferably adjustable ingame, too.

Or just speed up animations while the Shift key is held down or something.

 

[black213]

Approval rate doesn't mean anything.

 

[Lone Cat]

ok I don't say everything in just one post. since it has a hella long lists
here's overall wishlist for civ6

COMBAT: Hex-based combat like SSI Five Stars Generals series, artillery can provide defensive support to a friendly troops standing NEXT TO it. if you've played Panzer General before. assaulting any enemy that has an artillery placed in the next hex means that you must survive the defensive barrage first. then you'll fight the actual force there.
ESPIONAGE: Bring back spy unit. please... spy should also provided with some options
- Bribe unit
- view city (that's not belong to player, regardless of city's alignment)
- incite (a city to) revolt (have 50% chance that a city will become barbarian ones)
- sabotage
a. buildings
b. production
c. food (call this 'contamination', either using germs or poison)
- each of spy actions comes with additional options to 'frame another player' if success, a player may watch the other two fighting each other. if failed, there's some risks that another player may declare war against you (and maybe joined forces with your opponent)
- Counterspy (a unit is treated like civilian, may be stacked with troops).. place YOUR spy inside YOUR city to reduce enemy spy's success rate.
Culture: now culture should be able to 'capture city' without any direct military action.
Barbarians: i have a whole thread dedicated to one
Tech tree: no 'dead ends' just like Civ5
Air combat: just like Civ5. except helicopters.
Customizable leaders: every civilization comes with TWO OR MORE leaders which you may choose AI players to have one.
Fashionization: This feature allows a player (and others!) to dress up in the same fashion as an era a player is. Neither you will see Napoleon bicorne in ancient age NOR Roman stateman outfit in Industrial era. this will appear in diplomatic screen.
to do this. there's 'dress up' points (you may choose 'auto' for this feature if you wish) which player may 'buy' outfits. the points are calculated from BOTH technological progress (era-focused) AND culture points.
Same goes with throne room (remember Civ2 ?) but the throne room uses DECORE POINTS (which can't be interchangible with dress up points.
Diplomacy: you may sell or buy 'units' to other civilizations ,payments are customizible as follows
- Cash (pays a huge sum of gold ONCE)
- credit (pays a small amount of gold for several turns)
- resources (either strategic or luxury resources)
- mixed (either Cash + resources OR credit + resources, no cash+credits in any circumstances!)
tech tree, units, and buildings coming soon

=^.^=

Moderator Action: Thread merged.

 

[78stonewobble]

A little change to roads/railroads I would like.

You wanna build a road from city A to B.

While building the road it costs money since it doesn't end in a city. Basically simulating construction costs of a road.

When the stretch of road connects to B from A it starts earning gold to the empire. It would only earn gold for the "direct path" and not for additional road "spam".

Basically it eases moving units within an empire whereas roads to middle of nowhere costs money.

Well just my idea. Perhaps it can come in a mod or something.

 

[Artingel78]

Maybe replace spanish Conquistador with unique Building.
So let's start.
Name: Santiago Bernabeu
replaces:Stadium
Santiago bernabeu give you +5 and +3.but maintenance is 3gold
I know it's being little overpowered but Spain don't have good Special Trait and there Unique Units are very stupid and weak except tercio.

Why Santiago Bernabeu?
Because it's one of the greatest and oldest Soccer stadiums in the world.The staduim of Real Madrid.

And also i have idea for new wonder.
Stadium Rio de Janeiro Maracana
You need Stadium in all of your cities and he gives you +6 and +4.

Moderator Action: Thread merged.

 

[Kimuyama]

The problem with that is that Santiago Bernabeu is just ONE building, it is not a special kind of building, unique buildings are less "precise" than that

 

[zyx]

I played the Mongols recently and had horsemen upraded to Keshliks (range units) and then to cavalery (non-range unit). Wouldn't a simplified promotion system (same promotions for range and non-range units) be better? There is no use for tanks with range-attack-promotions. And I think it's weird, that range units (not siege units) cannot conquer cities - or did I miss something. I had to build horsemen again, after upgrading them to Keshliks, as they are the only units with a similar movement rate.

 

[eazyseeker]

Maybe replace spanish Conquistador with unique Building.
So let's start.
Name: Santiago Bernabeu
replaces:Stadium
Santiago bernabeu give you +5 and +3.but maintenance is 3gold
I know it's being little overpowered but Spain don't have good Special Trait and there Unique Units are very stupid and weak except tercio.

Why Santiago Bernabeu?
Because it's one of the greatest and oldest Soccer stadiums in the world.The staduim of Real Madrid.

And also i have idea for new wonder.
Stadium Rio de Janeiro Maracana
You need Stadium in all of your cities and he gives you +6 and +4.

I do not understand your fiendish desire to remove the unit that represent's the most dominant of Spain's achievements - the Conquest of the New World.

And Stadium's come in a little late. I say Spain UUs are fine as they are. I'd say rebalancing the UA to 300/200g (first to find/not first to find) as in Vanilla Enhanced would certeinly be better

 

[Pouakai]

What I thought about today, with reading about devastation from the 1931 Hawkes bay Earthquake, is to have workers able to repair city ruins. So, assuming there is no city within minimum range, a city ruins is allowed to be repaired. It would take 10 turns, but then the city is restored in the same spot,

 

[Bechhold]

I'm inclined to make a thread about this in order to see what others think but I think this one is fine.


All food commodities should be trade able resources and it's affects on Civilizations would be like that of Maritime city states but Civilization to Civilization. Wheat, Bananas, Fish even general (as long as your Farms could sustain it while feeding your own citizens). It would offer a load of strategic options/gameplay and scenarios.

 

[ShahJahanII]

I'm inclined to make a thread about this in order to see what others think but I think this one is fine.


All food commodities should be trade able resources and it's affects on Civilizations would be like that of Maritime city states but Civilization to Civilization. Wheat, Bananas, Fish even general (as long as your Farms could sustain it while feeding your own citizens). It would offer a load of strategic options/gameplay and scenarios.

This was sort of how it was in Civ IV

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Never mind, I posted a list of ideas but didn't notice this is for "future" installments, i.e not for Civ 5. -.-