I am an old Civ player and member of this community (although not much active on these forums)
I would like to share with you my ideas for improving our beloved game.
Some of them end up with several 'unchangable' Civ rules accompanied with the game for years through all the versions...
Please feel free to comment
Rewriting the Civ!
Scope:
- Spherical map
- Initiative points for units and object positions
- Battles like in Microsoft Legions
- Logistics and unit support
- Real population numbers and employment/unemployment issues
- Equal turns
- Fields of science instead pursuits to certain discoveries
- Distinction between freely spreading theoretical science and slower or restricted spread of technologies/inventions
- Resources
Spherical map
Among many proposals, spherical was an issue. There were risen many problems with it, especially: it cannot be equally divided into squares or hexagons nor quantified in any other way.
But theres no need to divide a sphere into it!
There will be no problem with the unit movement or placement of any objects on the map
Just for the map creation, the minimum length of a straight line can be limited to 10km or so
And now the consequences
Units movement and related aspects (turn length, zone of controls, battles, front lines)
Its easy with spherical map! Lets give to each unit certain amount of initiative points (IP) that can be spent for various actions that can be performed by unit like movement, attack, pillage, build, entrench. Movement can be performed at any direction and costs certain amount of points per i.e. 10km (or any other minimum scale) depending on terrain. If you want to move your unit 17 km ahead, 6 km through forested hills, 11 through grassland the movement cost will be calculated proportionally. Actions like attack or pillage can cost different amount of initiative points for each unit. Modern mobile units will have lots of initiative , so they may move and attack several times per turn.
Additionally moving first 10 km can cost relatively less IP than last 10 km within 50km distance. The same applies to moving unit after performing a battle or any other consecutive actions. It will easily apply the being tired feature. It also solves the problem of inconsistency that in previous versions of Civ a unit could move one or two squares per 10 o 20 years. With the minimum turn length of 1 week we can give to the units initiative high enough to travel through hundreds of km if the movement is not stopped by battles, support restrictions, undertaken action or difficult terrain without fear about the game balance. Support representing food and ammo of a unit can effectively prevent from easy scouting and revealing the map in early game.
Objects can be easily located with longitude and latitude model
Battles and ZOC
I remember the game called Microsoft Legions. The economy feature was totally ed up there but the battle was quite nice. My proposal is to get rid of the micromanagement of the battle. And here it goes:
1) the units can be grouped in packs and larger armies
2) While we approach our enemy we can chose our battle strategy attack with the left flank, right flank, frontal assult, defend, withdraw and many others with the paper/stone/scissors effect. We can distribute our soldiers between the wings, middle and the back. When we attack out enemy is allowed to do the same and the paper/stone/scissors model comes into effect
3) The casualties are randomized among the single units depending on the battle strategy i.e. units in the middle with frontal attack chosen by both opponents will suffer most
4) Some knowledge about distribution of opponents armies before the battle can be an additional feature so i.e. attacking from the forest to open field can succeed with ambush-like effect as we know the weaker points of an enemy defense line
5) After action behavior also can be additional feature lets say at the certain proportion of the armies we can order automatic withdrawal keeping in mind that it may cause some extra casualties. Also some low morale or high odds can effect with disorganized retreat and bloody defeat
So the battles will be shorter but more challenging. It will also cost quite a lot of IP points and each battle will significantly increase cost of consecutive actions undertaken in the same turn. Zone of controls (ZOC) have a huge imperative in this model. As the relatively high amount of IP per turn given to the units may effect with sneaky attacks on the back lines it will be a part of strategy to distribute small squads on strategic points that can slow enemy down in case of aggression giving us time to mobilize our troops. This model should lead also to FRONT LINES in modern wars, what had not been seen in previous Civ versions. All comes to more realistic player behavior
Support and logistics
Sending your troops to enemy lands without supplies would easily lead to the bitter end. Support system is needed. Unsupported unit can be completely useless including automatic disbandment of that unit. Support unit can be directly connected to the money/treasury and work the following way:
1) We point a unit or a group of units that need support
2) In response we get the cost of support that depends on the distance from supporting cities (not closest city), roughness of the terrain that we can accept or not
3) Support can be divided for food and ammunition. Food can be grabbed relatively easy (i.e. Pillaging) comparing to ammunition. It will cause a huge effect after gunpowder units will be discovered. So early armies can get the support easier they do not need an ammo. Modern wars will require better planning and more money.
4) Units may receive an ammo from friendly cities but not all of them. Ammo need to be produced, then sent and storage. Closest city may not have enough ammo to support all the units on the frontline. Also the location of a military factory has a great impact for war strategy. Supplies routes can be automated (i.e. send 10% of the production each X turns to city Y, so they dont need to be altered each turn.
5) In some cases support may last longer than one turn or be sabotaged (i.e. in the meantime our enemy crossed the route of our supplies
6) A military unit is divided into two aspects: man/training and equipment so production of the unit will never be as simple as before when after few turns (dozens of years) we get the unit trained, equipped and we do not need to take care of it until it will die. So we can have men after a military training and basic experience but no weapon for them. Or we must choose what kind of equipment to assign with our men: rifle, tank or plane. This model is consistent with supporting model (we can lose artillery but not men) and also with having a REAL POPULATION NUMBERS. So we will never be able to have oversized armies without an impact to our economy >>> please see the unemployment feature below
7) Also the problem of weird upgrade of the units from cavalry to helicopters or tanks will disappear. We have man, but we need to produce new weapons and equipment to assign our soldiers with. Old weaponry can be traded to poorer countries
8) Air battles will be having similar mechanics as in Civ 4 air ride, bomb missions and support for regular battles.
Real population numbers consequences and related things
In recent Civ versions it was one of the biggest mistakes causing problems with game balance. For instance we always had a 100% employment (except the revolt times) which is unrealistic and weird
We do not need to count and micromanage each citizen! We can have a population city of 100,000 and share citizens as resources 17% farming 50% industry 20% services 5% army training. So it seems 7% is unemployed why is that and what to do with them.
First we need to get rid of the current thinking of buildings or improvements in the cities. By now we could have one library, one factory, one granary. But we do not need to I would love to see a feature allowing players to build several buildings of the same kind in the city. Of course each building requires workers so we cant increase our industry output just by spamming factories. Spamming factories will effect only with empty factories with ZERO output. Each building produces certain need for workers, and each building can be assigned to a farming/industry/services/administration/military model. While we have our buildings and citizens we can assign them to their jobs setting the percentages. If there is no job for everyone it can cause several things:
1) Unhappiness and riots
2) Crime and corruption
3) Automatic migration between our cities
4) Automatic migration abroad
We can also imagine several other rules that accompany that model:
- Changing employment share among different type of economy such as farming and industry takes time, so it can be switched in 100% in one turn or even several turns. We can imagine that switching jobs takes more time in modern times when the specialization is far more developed
Migration causes ineffectiveness. Citizens that are unemployed have a certain chance to move automatically from one city to another. Even they move to a city with available jobs it may also take time for them to be employed and adopt to a new place
The issues above also lead us to another >fixed civ rule< that should be changed. Until now once we rise a building it will serve us through ages. Of course we have support paid for each building but due to technology advance the buildings should be allowed to upgrade same way as units I previous version of Civ. Some can be upgraded, some have to be rebuild from the beginning. This feature will impact a late game when each technology may improve output of your factories as soon as you upgrade then to align with a new technology. Discovering a flight does not mean that your factories can produce regular planes, right?
The game dont need to be unplayable that way. We can easily imagine an automatic upgrade feature that solves the micromanagement problem. In case of money shortages (caused by huge upgrade spending) we can set a percentage of the budget constantly supporting our upgrade throughout the turns. It will also eliminate the strange issue of sudden economic /military jump with single spending to upgrade the whole economy.
So the whole economy will be more about the macro-management and budget-management instead of turning each citizen head into tax collector, scientist or engineer and switching them from one city square to another.
Real population number may also produce another effect the longevity and it also gives the possibility to add the feature of constantly dying and emerging citizens. It causes that once trained armies may retire and you have to train new ones. In late games you may suffer from high spending on pensions and the whole demographic pyramid will be not only the Civ statistics! Thus I also propose not to link the food production with new citizens emerging process. Once we do not count each citizen we can operate with global numbers and population increase rate dependent on many factors.
Equal turns
Turns that slowed down in time were another factor that caused unbalanced problem in the game
Lets have equal turns with all consequences such as long play in ancient/medieval times. I suppose main idea to avoid equal turns was to avoid long boring periods with similar technology levels (probably). I think it is not a disadvantage, and for me such a game would not be boring.
Generally it seems that time of peace and slow development was cut out by the Civ creators. It has to be always something! Like war, discovery, great project To me it does not have to be like that.
If there is some doubt that the game could not be much interesting it can be enriched with some random events that would produce additional challenges
Equal turns are the advantage and chance to balance the game and implement some additional demographic features (described earlier). Is solves the weird movement one square per 20 years. It allows to implement the successor feature known from Total War games. So there is no need to have one leader through the ages with the same characteristics! We can enjoy the full flavor of diplomacy caused by changing monarchs and governments! Hammurabi died without a son and your country can fall into a troublesome period without a leader? You can be a big trouble as a Babylonian, but as an Egyptian you can also use the advantage of the chaos in the neighboring country and attack your rival
Fields of science instead of discoveries.
Lets allocate our resources into certain fields such as physics-related science, biology-related science, philosophy-related science instead of one dedicated discovery. A certain advance in given theoretical field may give us a certain chance to reach a milestone or develop certain technology.
separation science and tech (inventions) - science as a way to a tech/building/unit improvement I propose to build a science model based on points that can be gathered in some science areas: biology-related physics-related, social science-related and others - that give you a certain boost in building some tech improvements, units or buildings. Of course you can try invent sth like nuclear weapon having little knowledge in physics - but it will take long time if you have high level on physics related areas you'll build it much quicker. This concept eliminates IMHO wrong situation when with inventing chemistry you'll automatically get right to build frigate and grenadier. It also covers the issue of discovering Frigates while on the map with little or no seas.
It should be also allowed to work at several areas simultaneously and of course being advanced on some areas you may discover other (but still understood as a pure science not tech), but generally quite balanced development in main science fields should give a synergy effect on further science development
Im not using a term discovery because thinking of the flight discovery I always think that it was discovered by birds or ancient reptiles rather by human.
Lets think of a theory of flight as a science and about a flight or certain flying machine as a technology or invention. I also think that in alternative histories of our planet probably people had flying machines in ancient times such as glides as technologically it was possible to build them. And heres also a synergy as some technologies were used by our ancestors without or with little theoretical background and some inventions were found by accident or by need and then they boosted some theoretical research on a given field
science and (mostly) technologies are spreading independently on Earth - it was always spread by natural contacts and trade - so my opinion is that some 'invention points' on certain areas should be exchanged automatically between civilizations - the stronger trade route factor, scout/explorer activity and geographical closeness (especially in early game) is the strongest automatic science exchange should take place - more or less it should work as a internet wonder but in much more sophisticated way. It will cut funny situations of very outdated civilizations got stuck in a stone age while others build tanks. It also eliminate strong relation between territory (number of cities) and science & military power.
Inventions is a bit different thing. the theory can be written or spoken and passed freely. Invention can be restricted by skills or certain materials. So its spread factor should be slower, and in the late game spread of non-commercial technologies can be restricted , even almost stopped (i.e. nuclear weaponry, sophisticated rocket engines). But when wed allow the game to go far in the future when space flights would get a high commercial value the knowledge about building good rocket engines should not be restricted only to military purposes and should spread freely.
In that way it will be possible to have small but strong and developed country. Trade matters!!
In terms of inventions I will be glad to see the Alpha Centauri-like units creation. You may create longer or shorter swords, smaller or bigger tanks, faster or slower vehicles. First you design a unit with desired parameters what costs your invention points, once you have the design you get the cost of production measured with resources, money and time. We do not need Unique Units. They will emerge spontaneously. The possibility to name your own tank or plane is an additional flavour. You may also sell the design to other civilisations, so you can make profit. Other may save time on inventing. Why not? During WW II Americans were not the only nation that used Shermans, right?
Almost the last thing RESOURCES
Resources should be quantified. Certain amount of coal is needed to power a factory, certain amount of steel is needed to build a tank. So in simple words Each economy should produce certain need for resources, mines can be depleted, there can be surpluses or shortages in resources. It will cope with the problem of the civilizations that dont have a oil within its borders, because resources will be more willingly traded and oil will be not so rare. Many countries have some oil resources the problem is that they may not cover all the needs but definitely you will not face the situation that you have no tanks because the lack of oil. You will have some at least in case of aggression or you will be able even to have larger amount of them , just causing shortages in civilian industry...
I said almost because probably the last big things to cover are RELIGION and GOVERNMENTS. But honestly I have no idea what to do with it and how implement it into the game with realistic manner
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