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

[Alexey86]

They should make Espionage bigger, expand it like they did with the religion system. We should not get information that easy, like from the demographics where you know how you stand, or even who to attack, if your army is strong enough, etc. Everything should be done with espionage to find out these details.

The AI should behave way better and I am not talking about combat t wich is harder to program but common sense in diplomacy. For example the warmonger issues when defending, etc etc etc.

Gameplay mechanic to create more solid alliances like NATO or Varshaw Pact. Give them custom symbols and names. Can win games as an alliance (option available at the start of game). As well as economic alliances such as European Union, etc.

Bring back vassalage (a must!!!!) and colonization. Vassalage can be voted out at Congress.

New victory conditions such as Economic and Religious.

A general victory conditions where you play all victory conditions, but the game does not end when someone reaches one first, but you rather get points for first place, second place, third place on each victory condition. The player with most points(set at the begining) wins and has at least been first on 1. For example win a victory condition, 2th place on another and 3th place on two others should be more then enough to win the game, or 1th place on 2victory conditions, depends!!

Random Events!

Not be afraind of bringing back great gameplay mechanics and implement some succesfull mods.

 

[Arishok]

Two new options for cities you conquer:
- Vassalize. You get no money, no science and no unhappiness from the city's population (but neither does the original owner of the city). You get any resources that are in the city's radius and a regular tribute of gold or units (or maybe food) from that city (you can specify what you want them to tribute). Effectively this turns the city you've conquered into a perma-allied city state.
- Sack. Most of the buildings in the city are destroyed and most population is killed. You get a very large amount of gold from the city (depending on its size and the buildings you've destroyed). Otherwise, nothing changes, the city stays with the original owner.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Two new options for cities you conquer:
- Vassalize. You get no money, no science and no unhappiness from the city's population (but neither does the original owner of the city). You get any resources that are in the city's radius and a regular tribute of gold or units (or maybe food) from that city (you can specify what you want them to tribute). Effectively this turns the city you've conquered into a perma-allied city state.
- Sack. Most of the buildings in the city are destroyed and most population is killed. You get a very large amount of gold from the city (depending on its size and the buildings you've destroyed). Otherwise, nothing changes, the city stays with the original owner.

I like it very much and could do well with Civ5 global happiness. Sure something should be done towards this. You should be able to vassalize / demand tribute to whole civs also, globally, after capitulation or coups. (for coups, only weak/weakened civs could be taken as so, remaining themselves for everyone but you)

 

[killmeplease]

cities should not heal if starving
maybe lose some hp per turn

land units should block nearby terrain from working just like sea units

 

[Auramagma]

Three things are important for me in any new Civ instalment. I will repeat them even though they've been mentioned many times before.

1. The diplomacy in Civ 5 is step backwards compare to Civ 4. The reason for this is that it is based on the weighting attributes of the big number of factors, all of these factors contributing to the overall score, which is the basis of AIs relationships with the player. That system is fundamentally flowed as it can't be balanced to provide consistent behaviour from AI.

Every single action from the player even one which doesn't concern the interests of the particular AI's Empire contribute to the score and influence the diplomatic relationships between AI and the player. So, it is not uncommon that AI denounces player in one turn after being friends for the entire game...

That system is inferior IMHO to one in Civ 4 with much smaller in number, but focused diplomacy coefficients. Using that system doesn't feel like AI is changing it's mind towards you (and usually to the worst) every single turn regardless of how much effort was spent in maintaining good relationships in the past.

2. 1 UT system. As people were saying - AI has to learn many things, i.e. how to use range units, siege units more effectively and how to quickly focus them on attacking cities. What does he need to do to be successful in these sieges. He needs to attack with some army composition, i.e. range\infantry\mounted, rather then some seem to be random unit selections, which get more numerous with higher difficulty levels, but still have no idea of where to go and what to do...

3. AI has to have reasonable expansionist strategy. Even in Civ 5 with it's global happiness mechanic, I can get ~7-12 cities in first 100 turns. And most of AIs have 2-4?? Even on Immortal...

That would be my list. Otherwise, I am reasonably happy with the game mechanics, graphics and the features.

May be one smaller thing: Religion's mechanics seem to be somewhat repeating knowledge and culture in the way how faith is accumulated and used. It would be good to change it to be more original.

 

[Boog911]

Im an old feller just learning about this wonderful game. Ive enjoyed many of the comments made here on Civfanatics. Now, would one of young whippersnappers please make an Conan the Barbarian civilization mod? I'm really surprised to see that no one has done it yet, It seems like it would be a natural addition to the fantastic mods ive seen here

 

[boghog]

I would like more variety in my relationships with city states. What if you could choose to spend your influence with them on various things:
- provide resources
- give me food/culture/money/faith/science tribute
- give me units
- give me great people
- build me space ship parts
- attack civilization X/city state Y/barbarians
- make peace with civilization/city state X
- moderate between civ X and civ Y (=improve relationship score)
- send spy to city X and tell me what you find out
- send out missionaries to spread our common faith
- vote for proposal X in the World Congress
- send population to live in my city X
- train this unit to receive a special (exclusive) promotion
- give me this hex
- show me your map

 

[criZp]

I think having more of the same luxury resource could provide extra happiness, the first give 4 happiness, the other give 3, next give 2 and all other you might have give 1. So trading the copies isn't always the only thing to do.

Destroying buildings of culture and science of an AI could make other AI civs angry if they also like science and culture, depending on how good the friendship is between the two

Districts really could work without districts: city hexes can divide to 6 triangles, and all city buildings have to be put in one. The buildings in a triangle can be attacked by ground enemies in adjacent tiles, or from the air or ranged units with indirect fire. Academies and manifacture plants, holy sites and landmarks already serve as districts outside the city which can be taken out by force, but there's very few of them, in my games at least.

Rather than cities having a city attack, you could arm the populace and create militias. Arming costs production. The more citizens in the militia, the more city defense. Citizens in militias will die off if the city is attacked and they take damage. Cities with strong militias will also accept less unhappiness and starvation, such cities might do some kind of revolt.

In addition you can put a unit in the city for defense. Cities don't have any hit points, but will be conquered when an enemy unit moves in when all defenders are defeated. Walls, etc. give combat bonuses to units and militia in the city.

Eventually you can make luxuries more like strategics, you can find tiles with 2x, 4x and 6x, these are then assigned to individual cities. Each luxury can only satisfy say 10 pop in a city.

Great worker: make X tile improvements, get a great worker, which can build a citadel, academy, manifacture plant etc.

 

[Krajzen]

In the past I loved posting in the threads like this one, but that enthusiasm died within me.

I mean, does it even matter? Do devs read suggestion threads and subforums at all? (maybe they glance over thread titles and check interesting ideas, but I am very skeptical about them bothering to read for example this massive thread)

I have been a betatester of a massive strategy game in the past (can't say which one and how long ago, NDA, it was big and succesfull) and I glanced into the development process - devs have extremely limited time and are barely able (or unable) to consider implementing their own ideas or their small tester team's suggestions. And in the development process devs often consider a lot of ideas that look super awesome and would be cheered by people if described in theory on forums, but then those ideas are tested in practice and revealed to be complete crap in-game.

Also, I like Firaxis but these guys aren't very in-touch with forums or in direct contact with fans so I have no idea if they will even look at these forums.

Don't get me wrong, I am fine with this subforum and some suggestions are very good, but I doubt in this particular thread where all kinds of ideas - good, bad, huge, small - are mashed by hundreds of people into one big pile of ideas which is... not the pinnacle of accesability. If anything, I think it's separate visible threads, with approval of significant number of players, that have any (small) chance of being ever considered by devs.

 

[TRoosevelt]

In the past I loved posting in the threads like this one, but that enthusiasm died within me.

I mean, does it even matter? Do devs read suggestion threads and subforums at all? (maybe they glance over thread titles and check interesting ideas, but I am very skeptical about them bothering to read for example this massive thread)

...

Also, I like Firaxis but these guys aren't very in-touch with forums or in direct contact with fans so I have no idea if they will even look at these forums.

Yeah, they're perfectly happy with taking our money, but have they ever read anything on here, or have acknowledged doing so? How can you consistently ignore your fanbase, and yet expect their loyalty to remain true? Think about what a great game Civ would be with the minds of a thousand people working on it!

Don't get me wrong, I am fine with this subforum and some suggestions are very good, but I doubt in this particular thread where all kinds of ideas - good, bad, huge, small - are mashed by hundreds of people into one big pile of ideas which is... not the pinnacle of accessability. If anything, I think it's separate visible threads, with approval of significant number of players, that have any (small) chance of being ever considered by devs.

You're right. Even if Firaxis wanted some ideas from this forum, it would be hard to sift through all of them here. Perhaps this subforum could be broken down into the different game mechanics - such as a diplomacy subforum, a research subforum, a combat subforum, a victory subforum, etc. That would probably really help to organize this parent forum, but I don't want to create more work for the MODS. And again, what's the point of it all if the developers don't even look here and take any of our suggestions seriously.

I've been playing since CivI, but I didn't even know this forum existed until much later, which is why I'm such a latecomer. But I'm sure Firaxis did. A resource like this filled with such dedicated gamers should not be overlooked. Honestly, I think we care more for the game than they do. And that's really sad.

 

[m15a]

Yeah, they're perfectly happy with taking our money, but have they ever read anything on here, or have acknowledged doing so?

Assuming by here, you mean the CFC forums and not this particular thread, then yes, they have. The designers have responded to post in the past, usually to talk about bugs and updates. Also, they've mentioned ideas and opinions mentioned on forums in the past in interviews and talks.

I'm not sure where to find those mentions, but probably looking through past Polycast episodes where they were guests is a good start. There is also Firaxicon where I think they interact with players directly. And some people in the Civ player community have gone on to do testing and I think designing in the past, too. (Edit: and as if on cue, an ex-Civ designer and long time player seems to have just read through most of the Civ 6 board right after I posted.)

 

[Drakarska]

Assuming by here, you mean the CFC forums and not this particular thread, then yes, they have. The designers have responded to post in the past, usually to talk about bugs and updates. Also, they've mentioned ideas and opinions mentioned on forums in the past in interviews and talks.

I'm not sure where to find those mentions, but probably looking through past Polycast episodes where they were guests is a good start. There is also Firaxicon where I think they interact with players directly. And some people in the Civ player community have gone on to do testing and I think designing in the past, too. (Edit: and as if on cue, an ex-Civ designer and long time player seems to have just read through most of the Civ 6 board right after I posted.)

The usual pattern concerning 2K/Firaxis peeps on these is approximately this;

Hi, I'm 2K Liz/Greg, Billy Bob/Uncle Festus. I'll be your contact between you and the devs, answer any questions that I can, and of course pass your ideas, questions, and thoughts to the Devs. Any that I can't answer, or potential concerns, I'll pass up the food chain to The PTB's.... This of course is to creatively cater to your inquiries, while ensuring we spin our game in the most advantageous light in order for you to purchase our brand new shiny toy.

Said individual rep will stay on the boards for just long enough to get you hyped for the game, then disappear once enough peeps have succumbed to the glitz and glitter and purchased said toys.


Yes, I may be over blowing things a bit, but that's the usual pattern of a 2K rep appearing on CFC.

 

[m15a]

The usual pattern concerning 2K/Firaxis peeps on these is approximately this;

Hi, I'm 2K Liz/Greg, Billy Bob/Uncle Festus. I'll be your contact between you and the devs, answer any questions that I can, and of course pass your ideas, questions, and thoughts to the Devs. Any that I can't answer, or potential concerns, I'll pass up the food chain to The PTB's.... This of course is to creatively cater to your inquiries, while ensuring we spin our game in the most advantageous light in order for you to purchase our brand new shiny toy.

Said individual rep will stay on the boards for just long enough to get you hyped for the game, then disappear once enough peeps have succumbed to the glitz and glitter and purchased said toys.


Yes, I may be over blowing things a bit, but that's the usual pattern of a 2K rep appearing on CFC.

Sorry, I just stumbled on this thread and read the last few posts so I don't know what was discussed earlier, but my impression was that the discussion was about the developers, i.e., Firaxis not 2k, and whether they read the boards, not whether they provide direct support. I had an answer to that just from reading the boards and following interviews, which is that, yes, they do read the boards and what the community thinks about Civ is clearly an influence (although not necessarily this specific thread or every specific idea in this thread.)

Whether 2k is reading these suggestions is irrelevant since they don't implement design decisions. My impression is that 2k reps are responsible for getting the community "hyped" for the game and try to make sure we're happy customers, so that's why they pop in here when most people are actually involved in making purchases.

 

[Drakarska]

Sorry, I just stumbled on this thread and read the last few posts so I don't know what was discussed earlier, but my impression was that the discussion was about the developers, i.e., Firaxis not 2k, and whether they read the boards, not whether they provide direct support. I had an answer to that just from reading the boards and following interviews, which is that, yes, they do read the boards and what the community thinks about Civ is clearly an influence (although not necessarily this specific thread or every specific idea in this thread.)

Whether 2k is reading these suggestions is irrelevant since they don't implement design decisions. My impression is that 2k reps are responsible for getting the community "hyped" for the game and try to make sure we're happy customers, so that's why they pop in here when most people are actually involved in making purchases.

Your interpretation of what the community thinks is "hyped" through interaction with a rep, and how much it actually can influence 2K/Firaxis to the betterment of a product vastly differs from mine.

No matter.

I admire your faith with regards that any input you may have with any visiting reps will help improve the game. I sincerely mean that and wish you good luck.

 

[m15a]

You're considering 2k and Firaxis to be one thing. I don't think that's accurate at all and might be causing confusion (either in what you think or my understanding of what you're saying). It doesn't make sense to be angry about *2k* only caring about the sale IMO because that is basically their job. They don't develop the game - they publish it. And the previous posts weren't about 2k anyway.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Appart from the debate 2K / Firaxis which I don't care, for being a long time user of the forum Suggestions I can assure anyone that Firaxis doesn't care this forum at all, and probably doesn't even bother reading it, and if they do it's with cynism (probably to have fun). What we know of Civ6, it is to say its main characteristics, proves it without any ambiguity.

They only care about the General Discussion Forums, and what shines there in terms of criticisms and implied "suggestions".

As the marginal frequentation of the forum Suggestions underlines, a General Discussion topic moved into Suggestions is a sentence by itself within the limited sphere of the forums world, and to an extent of freedom of speech.

What's harder yet to admit though is that there is an additionnal sentence (and definitely crippling for me), into that the developers just don't give an <snip> of all we can suggest here.

Moderator Action: Remember this is a family friendly forum. Leave the foul language at home. Offending word snipped.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

By seeing the firsts 3 screenshots of Civ6, it's like I took a massive slap in my face. But without the "wow" effect.

It appears that nothing is changing, the civs borders look the same, rivers are the exact same, no armies, empty maps, good old barbs in the old fashion, probably goody huts, and city-states all as gamey artificial elements (they had been interesting in only one of my hundreds games) rather than a possible evolution of the player, and that just as an example.

I would even say that this non evolution is not only about Civ6. It's about the entire series. Civ1 to Civ2 was a nice graphical update, and to say all, seeing how ugly and hurting Civ1 graphics were, a saving change, welcomed as a fresh glass of water in the middle of the desert. It were littlely about any evolution, it was just that.

The sequels have been merely limited by that, with more or less success (Civ2 to Civ3 graphics weren't so impressive) and with different advantages (Civ3 animations were immersive for example).

But what they tried to do to various other elements was each time a mistake and a proof of the utter misunderstanding of the series.

For example, the apparition of graphical borders in Civ3. I won't expand further on it as I did it already in various topics. It's not only one step in the wrong direction, but a total nonsense. The reason why they have been created did not prevent this reason to happen anytime. More, the cost of new cities, especially in Civ4 and Civ5, underlined the limitations of those borders and their frustration (why can't I have this oil one tile of my borders, owned by nobody ?), nonsense and unimmersion.

Another example are stacks of doom. They were possible in Civ1 & 2 but at the cost of losing the whole stack in case of a single defeat. Granted, in Civ2 it was virtually impossible to lose such a stack, with the calculation system favorizing nearly every time the strongest unit and the fact that one could have more easily a tech advance in Civ2, especially when the Deity level was a lot more easier than today. But with a more random calculation system, stacks would have been made a lot more risky and nearly unbearable on the front. This simple fact, that have been implemented in some Civs, would have solved the stack of doom and the carpet of doom. Unfortunately, it seems that ideas are not linked in the devs' heads, and that it's impossible for them to come up with mutual opportunity. In other words, good ideas have been used, but just when their only relevant "twins" have been removed, making them more marketing arguments than clever moves.

Sid Meier and Firaxis are geniuses for sure. Marketing one. They keep the interest on their series by its only name, "Civilization", which is terribly(+++) evocating for the eternal newcomers (their best audience), thanks to the copyright system, and by showing solutions to what they consider (who knows how) the most relevant fans concerns. (example : "we can't specialize cities anymore") Because it's impossible to have its own game designers concerns when we don't understand them.

So yes, civ series is definitely over for me. Retrospectively I remember only disappointement, anyway. I'm just stopping to be my own fool.

 

[Liufeng]

For a while, I asked myself how could Civ V be improved, and stacked my different thoughts into a paper I share here. Feel free to read (despite the bad English) and do whatever you want with it.

 

[Syndistik]

Unless I was unable to figure out how to do propose resolutions after winning UN presidency, I would love to see that again....it brought more sense of power and control to that seat holder. Anyways, that was a wonderful addition to the game....maybe more proposal options.

 

[lacond]

A new barbarian system!

I would like that each barbarian camp could be able to conquier some territory, tile after tile, ( for example first tile in 25 turn, second tile in turn 50) then being involved in a barbarian city, more stronger, ( that you could conquier or let grow up) with a random name of something existing in the world. then if the city suceed in keep his freedom, well it can being involved in a kind of city state, more harder to ally, and also able to conquier!

In a another case, when two nearby barbarian camp would become cities, they also be able to allie themselves, at the point they can found a new civ, during the game!

this system could cooperate with civ expansion and the city state mechanic!

euh.. When I say "each barbarian could be able to become city and later civ, I mean that it could be a possibility of evolution. It would be bored if each barbarian camp automaticaly become a city.

As the metaphor of spermatozoid, many are called and rare are the chosen!

 

[ThisNameIsTooLo]

Like in all previous games, each tile should have the three basic levels of visibility: Uncharted (no information known), Charted (previously explored but not in line-of-sight), and Visible (in line-of sight).

But on top of that, Charted tiles should also store values for how up-to-date the information is. If you hover over a given tile, the tooltip should display something like "Last explored in 500 B.C. (Turn 140)".

When trading maps, you should be able to specify which tiles you want to trade. You should also be able to trade maps of only tiles that were previously Charted, on the basis that you want updated information. Furthermore, when the AI trades for maps, they should value each tile based on how recently they explored them.