Civ V Ideas & Suggestions Summary

[702]

What context have you in mind ?

If what you want to play is an Earth map, there are lots of those, some very good indeed, with resource distributions realistic on that level.

No, it would be simply that some civs would always start with a particular resource nearby. Maybe Arabs always have oil, Khmer have elephants, Mongols have horses, etc... and perhaps also civs might not have resources nearby, so Native Americans are unlikely to start near horses, etc...

no idea how this would work mind you, probably would just add more confusion tbh, just putting it out there as an idea.

 

[702]

The problem with such an arbitrary climate system is that it is, well, arbitrary. Random flipping almost simultaneously taking effect? I mean, sure, have some variation in tiles outputs and a general trend towards tundra in one period, or desert in another, but having simultaneous change of climate at random would just be too arbitrary and annoying.

Also, where would pollution fit into your model? Would these changes be sparked by the amount of pollution (health levels) of the world, or your civ in particular?

As far as being arbitary, I would perhaps envisage these changes occuring close to different biomes. These are in the game already, snow, tundra, grassland, desert, rainforest, desert, grassland, tundra, snow. These ecotones are where climate change would be felt the strongest.

And the flipping could be over a prolonged period of time, say 30 turns, so it wouldnt happen all at once, but over a long time you would see the potential of a city change, and you would also then be aware that at some point it may turn back. When these changes did occur would be kind of arbitrary though yes, but I would simply limit them to a handful of times at most in the game, perhaps randomly assigned to between 2 and 8 a game.

Pollution is another interesting one... and I guess if you do have some even vague representation of climatic change then why not go for anthropogenic change as well?

You could go a number of ways... a climate change route or a pollution route.
Perhaps if a city gets too polluted, beyond a certain point, then the tiles around it start to degrade, produce 1 less food for instance. If pollution then got back under control then the tile would revert to normal.

For climate change, perhaps if the total pollution of the map got beyond a certain point then change would happen. It could simply be the same as now, random squares changing to deserts, or it could be something more complex, random tiles losing some capacity, or changing to another terrain type. With climate change though, this would be irreversible (on civ timescales it certainly is), once it got kicked in you would be stuck with it for the rest of the game. It may get worse/stronger/more frequent as pollution then got higher, and so once it started all you could do would be to try to cut down on pollution levels so it didnt get worse.
There could even be a UN option to do something about this, like adopting Environmentalism I guess, but different, like Kyoto or Copenhagen (wishful thinking there mind you), maybe banning building of any more polluting buildings until you've first reduced the pollution in that city or something. Not sure if that specifically would work very well. And maybe this UN idea is a bit too complicated anyway.

You could also combine the climate and pollution models as well now i think of it.


Also, an unrelated point. It annoys me that if you build a coal plant, then a damn or nuclear plant, you still get the unhealthiness from the coal. I would prefer it if when you built one powerplant it overwrote another, so people would build coal plants initially, but if some cities had a major pollution/unhealthiness you may then choose to build a cleaner power plant. This would fit in rather well with climate/pollution as well.

 

[Camikaze]

Not if it means that you can't turn around without people saying "but they're not enough like the real Vikings" or arguing about whether Vikings is an appropriate name for a civilisation in the first place, it's not.

Okay. Bad example.

I don't think that realism is a consideration so much as fun, when it comes to having civilizations labelled, as you say. It's much more fun to control the French than to control the dark blue civilization.

As far as being arbitary, I would perhaps envisage these changes occuring close to different biomes. These are in the game already, snow, tundra, grassland, desert, rainforest, desert, grassland, tundra, snow. These ecotones are where climate change would be felt the strongest.

And the flipping could be over a prolonged period of time, say 30 turns, so it wouldnt happen all at once, but over a long time you would see the potential of a city change, and you would also then be aware that at some point it may turn back. When these changes did occur would be kind of arbitrary though yes, but I would simply limit them to a handful of times at most in the game, perhaps randomly assigned to between 2 and 8 a game.

I was thinking you were suggesting that in one turn, the climate completely changes. That would be bad. It wouldn't be so bad if you spread it out over more turns, but it is still essentially introducing a large determining factor into the game that is beyond the control of the player. This idea sounds like it would have large impacts and implications. And it would invariably impact on some Civs more than others. So it would need to be seriously nerfed to be able to be applied.

Pollution is another interesting one... and I guess if you do have some even vague representation of climatic change then why not go for anthropogenic change as well?

You could go a number of ways... a climate change route or a pollution route.
Perhaps if a city gets too polluted, beyond a certain point, then the tiles around it start to degrade, produce 1 less food for instance. If pollution then got back under control then the tile would revert to normal.

For climate change, perhaps if the total pollution of the map got beyond a certain point then change would happen. It could simply be the same as now, random squares changing to deserts, or it could be something more complex, random tiles losing some capacity, or changing to another terrain type. With climate change though, this would be irreversible (on civ timescales it certainly is), once it got kicked in you would be stuck with it for the rest of the game. It may get worse/stronger/more frequent as pollution then got higher, and so once it started all you could do would be to try to cut down on pollution levels so it didnt get worse.
There could even be a UN option to do something about this, like adopting Environmentalism I guess, but different, like Kyoto or Copenhagen (wishful thinking there mind you), maybe banning building of any more polluting buildings until you've first reduced the pollution in that city or something. Not sure if that specifically would work very well. And maybe this UN idea is a bit too complicated anyway.

Or you could go both ways. Have both pollution of surrounding tiles, and AGW.

 

[rysmiel]

No, it would be simply that some civs would always start with a particular resource nearby. Maybe Arabs always have oil, Khmer have elephants, Mongols have horses, etc... and perhaps also civs might not have resources nearby, so Native Americans are unlikely to start near horses, etc...

Interesting. I've long been opposed to UUs, UBs, leader traits and so on because they are skewing the strategic landscape in ways that have nothing to do with the environment, and what you are proposing is havking that at the level of the environment. (Which I suppose is already done to some extent with Seafaring civs being guaranteed a coastal start in Civ III, frex).

I still don't think it would appeal to me as an option to play, but it's a much more sensible mechanism for making civilisations in Civ behave like their real-world counterparts than anything else I have yet seen.

 

[rysmiel]

I don't think that realism is a consideration so much as fun, when it comes to having civilizations labelled, as you say. It's much more fun to control the French than to control the dark blue civilization.

To which I can only say that your notion of fun and mine are at variance; if they are exactly the same civilisation in all respects save for the label, to me they would be exacly as much fun to play.

I was thinking you were suggesting that in one turn, the climate completely changes. That would be bad. It wouldn't be so bad if you spread it out over more turns, but it is still essentially introducing a large determining factor into the game that is beyond the control of the player.

Depends on how the pollution mechanic works.

If one can keep close track of the effect one is having on climate via pollution, so that one can see it building up to have a catastrophic effect, that would present an interesting different level of strategic challenge. (Making diplomatic deals with other civs to stop them building polluting buildings - essentially paying them something for limiting their development. Invading heavily polluting civilisations.)

This idea sounds like it would have large impacts and implications. And it would invariably impact on some Civs more than others. So it would need to be seriously nerfed to be able to be applied.

I don;t see the logic between your second and third sentences. I'm now envisioning being able to make sea levels rise or fall and using this to flood opponents' coastal cities; I don't think that has to be nerfed at all, if it's a strategic element of which one is aware from the beginning. (Crude terraforming of your home planet via greenhouses gases, and the occasional nuclear bombardment to put plenty of dust in the air, refelct the sunlight, and stop the place going into runaway overheating.. )

Or you could go both ways. Have both pollution of surrounding tiles, and AGW.

I incline to this, yes.

 

[702]

I was thinking you were suggesting that in one turn, the climate completely changes. That would be bad. It wouldn't be so bad if you spread it out over more turns, but it is still essentially introducing a large determining factor into the game that is beyond the control of the player. This idea sounds like it would have large impacts and implications. And it would invariably impact on some Civs more than others. So it would need to be seriously nerfed to be able to be applied.

Well I hadn’t thought about it quite as much to begin with, but now yes I see it certainly needs to be spread out temporally (as indeed natural climate change is in real life). As I mentioned before, only some tiles should change (there should be no way of telling which will change, and whether it is always the same tiles that change, or is always random, is another issue.). In fact only a minority should change in any given climate change phase. In this way the effects are reduced. I would see this influencing the average city in only a fairly minor way, perhaps meaning a city can now support 1 less population, or perhaps it can now grow further. Maybe it will become slightly less productive, maybe slightly more. I certainly wouldn’t want the kind of change that helped do for the Anasazi, Mayans and Akkadians!

Or you could go both ways. Have both pollution of surrounding tiles, and AGW.

I agree. I would perhaps make the pollution of surrounding tiles relatively weak though, or perhaps subtle… If it is too strong then players will be very efficient dealing with it and will never have to deal with AGW. It should be something that only big cities, or those with certain buildings in, have to deal with. And with AGW the threshold should be high so that it only comes into effect once players start industrialising.
Maybe even relate AGW to world population as well, so that once the global population goes beyond X million or billion depending on map size, a pollution threshold is then activated, and once pollution is higher than that, then AGW comes into effect.
But this population idea may be needlessly complicating things. It’s easy to complicate a game like civ, getting it as simple as the developers had is very impressive!

Interesting. I've long been opposed to UUs, UBs, leader traits and so on because they are skewing the strategic landscape in ways that have nothing to do with the environment, and what you are proposing is havking that at the level of the environment. (Which I suppose is already done to some extent with Seafaring civs being guaranteed a coastal start in Civ III, frex).

Well we disagree on UUs, UBs, etc…, but that doesn’t really matter here. I would see this resource idea as very much an option to turn on or off as you choose. And of course the resources would still also be scattered over the map, so just because you’re the Vikings that doesn’t mean you’ll never get War Elephants, just that it will be unusual.
However I do see problems as well, in that it might restrict certain civs to certain areas of the map. So the Khmer will usually start in the tropics, whereas the Mongols won’t. Which I guess is realistic in a sense. But also restrictive…
I would say that perhaps each civ could have a couple of resources they always have near them, and a couple that are never near them. So these would basically become a characteristic of the civ.
Inca: Always near; gold, silver
Never near; horses, iron
But then, with certain resources, such as horses and iron, imagine starting a long way from these! This could seriously restrict your game options and make some civs much more viable than others. I’m not at all sure how this idea would work…

 

[rysmiel]

Well I hadn’t thought about it quite as much to begin with, but now yes I see it certainly needs to be spread out temporally (as indeed natural climate change is in real life).

If realism is actually a concern here, generally temporally spread out with occasional relatively major catastrophic turning points would seem more so to me.

As I mentioned before, only some tiles should change (there should be no way of telling which will change, and whether it is always the same tiles that change, or is always random, is another issue.)

I'm not sure I agree here, either, because it would seem to me that, for example, if one is modelling an ice age, glaciers would spread from a source, or if one models a change in rain patterns, a forest would die away and desertify from a specific direction; what one wants might be spread of contiguous areas of one kind of terrain, perhaps ?

Maybe it will become slightly less productive, maybe slightly more. I certainly wouldn’t want the kind of change that helped do for the Anasazi, Mayans and Akkadians!

Why not ?

I agree. I would perhaps make the pollution of surrounding tiles relatively weak though, or perhaps subtle… If it is too strong then players will be very efficient dealing with it and will never have to deal with AGW.

I disagree here; if you make it strong, players have to prioritise it; if there are enough other priorities jostling for their attention, they very well might not, because it's not a game-winning strategy to be perfectly effective cleaning up your pollution at the cost of being overrun by the bloody Aztecs.

And with AGW the threshold should be high so that it only comes into effect once players start industrialising.

I think we are in some ways closing on reinventing the pre-Civ IV wheel where pollution is concerned here.

Maybe even relate AGW to world population as well, so that once the global population goes beyond X million or billion depending on map size, a pollution threshold is then activated, and once pollution is higher than that, then AGW comes into effect.

I see nothing wrong with the Civ III mechanic, which i think is also in Civ II, of totting up the effect of pollution based on number of polluted tiles and how long they go uncleaned up, and having the overall climate effect (whatever it might be) derived as a function of that; though I can also see a point to adding it up directly.

But this population idea may be needlessly complicating things. It’s easy to complicate a game like civ, getting it as simple as the developers had is very impressive!

Insert "standard rant about how Civ IV is oversimplified in the wrong places and has complexity in places where it doesn't help" here.

However I do see problems as well, in that it might restrict certain civs to certain areas of the map. So the Khmer will usually start in the tropics, whereas the Mongols won’t. Which I guess is realistic in a sense. But also restrictive…
I would say that perhaps each civ could have a couple of resources they always have near them, and a couple that are never near them. So these would basically become a characteristic of the civ.
Inca: Always near; gold, silver
Never near; horses, iron
But then, with certain resources, such as horses and iron, imagine starting a long way from these! This could seriously restrict your game options and make some civs much more viable than others. I’m not at all sure how this idea would work…

I think insofar as it has a point, it's for people who either care about historical realism enough that they will take what would seem to me to be major handicaps in enjoying the game, or for people who can beat a level playing field and like the challenge of a less level one in this respect rather than the particular way higher difficult levels assist the AI. Neither of which are generally my personal cup of tea.

 

[Nuvoloblu]

"Vikings" and "Byzantines" are labels. If you called them the Red civilisation and the Purple civilisation instead it would make no difference at all to the game.
And even if you think of "realism" as a good thing, how it is "realistic" for Byzantines who start off landlocked in the middle of a huge continent to get Dromons when they don;t see the sea until the Middle Ages is beyond me.
No, it's not "essential". It's like any other notion of "realism": to be considered on whether or not it improves the game.

This is a consent which has at least the merit to be coherent with which seems your philosophy…

What me gene personally it is that they are then consents of hypocrisy, because it would be acted in fact of producing a game named “Civilizations” to attract naive purchasers in search of cultural identification, and to sell to them in fact that one non-cultural game of distraction, without heart and who treats only “Colors”!!!
Here finally definite the true reason for which this product deserves to appear among the "simulation's games" !
Is this the persistent immorality of the worst capitalist spirit? I acknowledge that this mistook the human one seemed to me to be only the specificity of the last barbarians…

Perhaps also, you forget these hundreds (or thousands) of Fan who devote himself while trying to develop this play by the development of Mods and animations, in the hope to bring to him a pretence of dignity, heart and credibility… without which it would not have known success!
(In spite of that, the best sales are done only in the USA! One wonders why….)

I have horror to have to be unpleasant, but I must be frank: my sensitivity and my culture do not include/understand at all what such a philosophy anti-humanistic, negationnist and anti-cultural bring “enriching” to the development by this game!
Are you perhaps elected by the Editor to save awaited developments and -rage and despair!- you would have some capacities to influence future orientations of this evolution ?!
From my point of view, it would be really dismaying and -I fear- very harmful for the prestige of the Editor and for the next generations of purchasers!
If it is case, I reassure you, I have no power to avoid it …

To return in this Thread, I note personally that many interesting suggestions raised previously (by chance… not all) still remained without answers or counter-proposals, and that in addition one of the great interests of the moment seems to go on the question:

- "Is there the right to massacre Settlers who one let enter our territory, without that not generating any indignation or automatic reaction of the other IA gamers?"​

I acknowledge that this exceeds my intelligence and my capacities of acceptance !!!
Finally I regret having lost such an amount of time by misleading me in this Thread with the title however so promising (!!!), and I by no means wish from now on to take part in this kind of debates !!!

 

[Capt_Blondbeard]

I've seen a ton of good suggestions, but my basic suggestion would be to make things flexible. Take 2 has to sell the game to as wide an audience as possible to make money on it, and if its so complicated that it only appeals to the hard core audience, it won't get off the ground. I do LAN parties with Civ 4 quite a bit, and even though it seems "too simple" to most of the people in these forums, it can be overwhelming to newbies (and remember, a newbie pays the same $40 as a "power user")

Therefore, when starting the game, have a

"advanced combat yes/no" switch
"Complex tech tree yes/no"
"Complicated Unit structure yes/no"

etc.

And otherwise, I've always wanted to have seasons/weather as an option. In the winter there's snow, and unit movement slows down, visibility is lower, etc. (in the early game the years would still jump by 20 or 50 or whatever, but you would still have a season ie Winter 3740 BC -> Spring 3720 BC.

...and of course you would have the option to disable the movement rules, and just watch the falling snow...

 

[Argetnyx]

weather is too short term for the year+ turns, it wouldn't work. Maybe in mods, but not in the game itself.

 

[rysmiel]

What me gene personally it is that they are then consents of hypocrisy, because it would be acted in fact of producing a game named “Civilizations” to attract naive purchasers in search of cultural identification, and to sell to them in fact that one non-cultural game of distraction, without heart and who treats only “Colors”!!!

If I understand your point correctly, I disagree with it.

A game called Civilisation is by that name claiming to be about civilisation, the historical process of human development. It's not claiming to be about specific individual civilisations or the accidents of real history.

I have horror to have to be unpleasant, but I must be frank: my sensitivity and my culture do not include/understand at all what such a philosophy anti-humanistic, negationnist and anti-cultural bring “enriching” to the development by this game!

It's very simple to me.

If your civilisation is labelled "French", and you think of them as being like the historical French, you are restricting your playing flexibility. If the game mechanics gives them some features that are (supposedly) like the historical French, the game mechanics is choking your ability to develop whatever features best suit the circumstances and evnvironments of the particular specific game you are playing,

I want maximum flexibility in how the civilisation I am playing develops.

 

[rysmiel]

I've seen a ton of good suggestions, but my basic suggestion would be to make things flexible. Take 2 has to sell the game to as wide an audience as possible to make money on it, and if its so complicated that it only appeals to the hard core audience, it won't get off the ground.

The impression I have from the general tenor of the conversations here is that enough people want enough different levels of complexity that it's going to be impossible to satisfy everyone in one game.

The course I would urge upon any Firaxian reading this thread, therefore, is a possibly-slightly-tweaked PC port of CivRev for those who want short and simple games, and a Civ 5 that is capable of significantly greater complexity than Civ 3 or 4 for those who want long and complex games.

 

[Argetnyx]

The impression I have from the general tenor of the conversations here is that enough people want enough different levels of complexity that it's going to be impossible to satisfy everyone in one game.

The course I would urge upon any Firaxian reading this thread, therefore, is a possibly-slightly-tweaked PC port of CivRev for those who want short and simple games, and a Civ 5 that is capable of significantly greater complexity than Civ 3 or 4 for those who want long and complex games.

Couldn't have said it any better myself

 

[Nuvoloblu]

If I understand your point correctly, I disagree with it.
A game called Civilisation is by that name claiming to be about civilisation, the historical process of human development. It's not claiming to be about specific individual civilisations or the accidents of real history.

Sorry, I was a little excessive in certain fields … I understand your point of view, but I think that there remain all the same some contradictions (I know, that is not easy…).
If I understood well, you advance the concept that “Civilization” (in the singular) must be a simple and modular game (I hope!) who does not treat real history of the People (=Civilizations/in the plural) nor their characteristics, but of the evolution of the human ones.

Why not (except for the characteristics)… but then why not to develop alternative possibilities of Evolution which are not solely based on the expansion??!! I believe that we like all here the spirit “Wargame” which I do not dispute, but times change and -by chance- there are new sensitivities which are spread and which suggest us taking account also of other parameters (generosity, ecology, etc).
In this context, could not one thus introduce these new values and establish of it an evaluation for the points of victory?!

It would then be necessary obviously also to re-examine this “Victory's system”: this one single any more and would not be acquired by reaching one of the parameters currently chosen, but would be obtained after a determinable (!) number of Turns, according to a Classification in various fields (for example: I am 1st in Technology, but that 2nd in Conquest… and the last in Ecology!).
It is necessary really that there is a stupid interface which says to us, as in certain games: “You gained!” or “You lost! ”? That will not make evil learn by playing only what one gains of with dimensions one often loses it another…

With regard to "Civilizations"(in the plural), I do not think that to deprive them of their characteristics (at least basic) that is to say a good idea. If I selected to play the English is well to benefit from a certain maritime superiority at certain periods (quid… far from the sea?), and I will not be more advanced with Byzantines without Dromon but with of Cataphractes if I do not have horses! It is certain that their specificities can create handicaps in certain conditions, but this can be assumed!

Lastly, as for the various parameters of play (scales, movements, interactions, etc), I remain of opinion that some efforts of realism remain necessary, because if the game misses verisimilitude on this subject, it loses of credibility and risk then really to only interest babies…

The idea of “Cpt Blonbeard” to always establish 2 degrees (or +) of complexity is very interesting !… and I accept finally the idea that the versions even more advanced -or "historic”- can be entrusted/abandoned to Modders… in condition however that the game is easily “modulable”!!!

 

[w2w2w]

Nukes can be used For EMPS which would just revolt a large area and not allow anything to be researched or built that involves power untill a city builds a special "stabilize power" building/project.

The U.N. should be able to propose national building. In the future(maybe) we build a special building that provides power for ever city,yours and your enemies. it would be open to any one to build but who ever does build it gets a +1 relations with all the other civilations.

Satelite Recon. with the satelite technology you should be able to build a satelite unit that flies around the planet and reveals tiles depending on where its at. These could only be shot down by a missile or nuke. Nukes would cause a large enough shockwave to destroy more than one but less than 10% of world size of satelites nearby.

building a wall improvment. walls is a building you can build but it should also be an improvement that can be used to have a 10% chance to stop spies from entering. If you have a military unit on this improvement somewhere it should be raised to 15%.

Taxing and Civil wars.
if you have certain civics ( like freemarket) where citizens to keep money , then you should be able to tax them without effecting the research rate. so if a city produces 10 gold and you raise the tax level to 10 percent, then you get one extra gold per turn but that city gets 2 unhappiness and the chance of a civil war which checks all cities with unhappiness greater than 2 and does a check(+5% for each unhappiness and -5% for each happiness) which makes a new civ that starts in a war with you.

Army Divisions. A great general should also be able to make divisions where you put 2 of the same units together (say 2 swordsman) and make a new unit with +75% bonus to health but a +125% production to building it. now lets say your hammers to build a swords man is 100. you now need 225 to build it but it starts out with that extra bonus.

Long range attacking. archers should have a one tile far range attack where they do, say, 2% damge to an enemy in range.

Stealth promotions. If a unit is stealthed and attacks it gets 2-4 free strikes. stealth(duh) makes your unit invisible to the enemy. this can easily cause an enemy to lose a battle for it what it doesnt see. lets say amphibious give you a +10% bonus to stealth when near water and you have a unit like sniper which has +20% stealth and a promotion, camoflauge +2% stealth for every fortification then in total when near water a sniper and fortified, would have 40% chance each turn that an enemy doesnt spot him. and if an enemy stays long enough for a sniper to attack then it gets 2-4 free strikes and 10% of stealth(+4% bonus) when attacking.

Hills should give +10 to attack when you are on a hill and you run off of one and at the same time instead of a hill giving defensive bonuses it should give an attack dedicution because only ranged units have that defence bonus when really an enemy unit would get exhausted going up a hill ,then having to attack. that involves no defence really its just that the enemy got tuired going up the hill

Attacking without declaring war. Lets say you attack an enemy AI worker. now the ai has an option pop up which it judges based on your size, power, advancement, and past events (have you attacked and he didnt start a war). if this proves to be positive then an AI would give you the unit and move on but if the AI thinks he can win/has had enough then he will start a war and attack.

Resources=+attack. if you have 5 iron then your swordsman should have a small bonus to attack (maybe +5%)or if you want to build an axemen and you have iron he can get a bonus to attack.\

Air travel. You gave airports but thats not really considered military helicopter travel. you should be able to build a unit ( I vote helicopter, you need more of those) that allows 4 passengers and is just a faster way of travel.

Religious Crusades! when your enemy is the founder of your state religion and you are in war with him thenyou get a bonus to military production.

Land Attacking. If you drop a missile or nuke on a desert then a sand storm should appear as to where if you drop a missile or nuke on enough ice plots the water level should rise and destory costal cities if they do not have the tech to build cities on water.

trading with other cities should take a number of turns not all in one. if you have a road built to another city but is covered in trees then there will be a delay. same goes to distance.

Provinces And States. you should be able to group 2 cities or 3 (if the other 2 cities culture allows it) to make a province/state which would give a +25% trade bonus yet any other cities outside these get a -75% bonus to trade. Maintenance lowered when these cities are together and allow the build of state/province capital. which makes that -75% income bonus into a -45% income bonus.

so new leader traits such as
caring, if a city within a few tiles is starving by 1 yet another city is growing by 2 then the growing city sends all growing food to teh starving city but the starving city only gets 50% of it. (this could be a communist trait instead or could be not a trait for being unbalenced)
productive, 10% buildng production and double production of forge, factory.
scouting, a military units get +1 movement

new great people. a Great Scout and Great settler for one. a great settler can build a city with a population of 4 and have a +4 food bonus. and a great scout can join a city to give it +1 visibility or use its ability to get +14 movement range for one turn.

create youe own leader? Perhaps if you win a immortal, huge, diplomatic win you have points to spend on diplomatic traits (charismatic) or if you win a duel settler conquest then maybe you only have enough for aggressive. If you win with romans then you get there UU and UB to buy on the menu with your points.this would require you not to use the world builder and its an single player only thing. the only faces you get to choose are a defualt set and any other civilization's face

Lastly, new terrians such as:
valley: + 20% when you attack a unit in here
Crater:no cities can be built here. no improvements can be built on this unless it has a resource, but will always have an option to excavate which always gives a chance of +5% alluminum +35% copper +20% iron and +40% stone
Canyon:cannot build city here. can only build Toll Bridge improvementwhich gives +4 gold production and cannot pass this terrian (except workers) untill Toll Bridge is built

 

[t0mme]

All I want to be able to do is to literally DRAW borders on the map, for instance when negotiating a peace-treaty. You and the AI should be able to aruge about it, offcourse.
And I want to carve my empire up in provinces or states, again, with literally drawing borders on the map. Every state/province should have a capital which would act like a Forbidden Palace. And if such a city would be captured, a certain amount of cities should fall automatically as well (based on proximity/culture/religion/whatever).
O, naval and airwarfare should get a serious upgrade. Perhaps by giving them a big 'zone of control a la Civ2'?

 

[Camikaze]

The problem with drawing borders is that it would be open to horrific abuse. If you have an AI in a precarious situation, what is to stop you just taking all of their good territory? There is no effective instability mechanism to counter this.

 

[rysmiel]

Nukes can be used For EMPS which would just revolt a large area and not allow anything to be researched or built that involves power untill a city builds a special "stabilize power" building/project.

Well, that misrepresents how EMPs work from the get go; I think it would work better for them to destroy power plants &c, across the area of a pulse, anything that needs electroncis.

The U.N. should be able to propose national building. In the future(maybe) we build a special building that provides power for ever city,yours and your enemies. it would be open to any one to build but who ever does build it gets a +1 relations with all the other civilations.

Sort of like collaborative small wonders.

Satelite Recon. with the satelite technology you should be able to build a satelite unit that flies around the planet and reveals tiles depending on where its at. These could only be shot down by a missile or nuke. Nukes would cause a large enough shockwave to destroy more than one but less than 10% of world size of satelites nearby.

I favour satellites having something like half the width of the map movement points and a ten-suare visibility radius, and needing a unit distinct from existing missiles to be taken down; but this way leads into the whole orbit-layer notion, which is a bit complex for this thread.

if you have certain civics ( like freemarket) where citizens to keep money , then you should be able to tax them without effecting the research rate. so if a city produces 10 gold and you raise the tax level to 10 percent, then you get one extra gold per turn but that city gets 2 unhappiness and the chance of a civil war which checks all cities with unhappiness greater than 2 and does a check(+5% for each unhappiness and -5% for each happiness) which makes a new civ that starts in a war with you.

Assuming that people object to paying more tax if they are getting benefits from it is a parochial, dude.

Long range attacking. archers should have a one tile far range attack where they do, say, 2% damge to an enemy in range.

Nah, bring back Civ III bombardment.

Hills should give +10 to attack when you are on a hill and you run off of one and at the same time instead of a hill giving defensive bonuses it should give an attack dedicution because only ranged units have that defence bonus when really an enemy unit would get exhausted going up a hill ,then having to attack. that involves no defence really its just that the enemy got tuired going up the hil

This is too tactical.

Attacking without declaring war. Lets say you attack an enemy AI worker. now the ai has an option pop up which it judges based on your size, power, advancement, and past events (have you attacked and he didnt start a war). if this proves to be positive then an AI would give you the unit and move on but if the AI thinks he can win/has had enough then he will start a war and attack.

Something like this would be cool, provided it goes both ways; that the AI can pick off your workers without that automatically meaning youu have to be at war.

Resources=+attack. if you have 5 iron then your swordsman should have a small bonus to attack (maybe +5%)or if you want to build an axemen and you have iron he can get a bonus to attack.

I disagree entirely here; qualitiative resources allowing you to build the units at all is the way to go.

Air travel. You gave airports but thats not really considered military helicopter travel. you should be able to build a unit ( I vote helicopter, you need more of those) that allows 4 passengers and is just a faster way of travel.

I favour air transports and the removal of the teleporting "airport" entirely.

trading with other cities should take a number of turns not all in one. if you have a road built to another city but is covered in trees then there will be a delay. same goes to distance.

Trade should be by caravans, plain and simple.

valley: + 20% when you attack a unit in here
Crater:no cities can be built here. no improvements can be built on this unless it has a resource, but will always have an option to excavate which always gives a chance of +5% alluminum +35% copper +20% iron and +40% stone
Canyon:cannot build city here. can only build Toll Bridge improvementwhich gives +4 gold production and cannot pass this terrian (except workers) untill Toll Bridge is built

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This is too small-scale; a tile is ten or a hundred miles on a side. Every tile should be usable.

 

[702]

I'm not sure I agree here, either, because it would seem to me that, for example, if one is modelling an ice age, glaciers would spread from a source, or if one models a change in rain patterns, a forest would die away and desertify from a specific direction; what one wants might be spread of contiguous areas of one kind of terrain, perhaps ?

I think that this would work, to a very general extent, with a latitude based system. However the contiguous idea also seems fair enough.

I disagree here; if you make it strong, players have to prioritise it; if there are enough other priorities jostling for their attention, they very well might not, because it's not a game-winning strategy to be perfectly effective cleaning up your pollution at the cost of being overrun by the bloody Aztecs.

Perhaps it could be something that would start out as fairly minor, then when/if you get into the late game it becomes a much bigger concern, so eventually cleaning up after yourself is important. I wonder if there would be some way of making pollution cumulative...

I think we are in some ways closing on reinventing the pre-Civ IV wheel where pollution is concerned here.

I've no idea what that would be I'm afraid, I'm only familiar with Civ IV. Oh, I see you explained it, and yes it seems there was a cumulative pollution effect. Why was this changed for Civ IV do you think? Did it end up resulting in the game being less fun, spoil it some other way, or result in unnecessary faffing about and micro-management?

I think insofar as it has a point, it's for people who either care about historical realism enough that they will take what would seem to me to be major handicaps in enjoying the game, or for people who can beat a level playing field and like the challenge of a less level one in this respect rather than the particular way higher difficult levels assist the AI. Neither of which are generally my personal cup of tea.

Mine neither, but if there is the demand for it, fair enough.

Finally, one major piece of advice to Firaxis, though I expect they already know this, make sure any Civ V is easily modded!

 

[rysmiel]

I think that this would work, to a very general extent, with a latitude based system. However the contiguous idea also seems fair enough.

Why do you assume terrain would be latitude-based, though ? I mean, desets depend on other things, such as mountains casting rain shadow, as well.

Perhaps it could be something that would start out as fairly minor, then when/if you get into the late game it becomes a much bigger concern, so eventually cleaning up after yourself is important. I wonder if there would be some way of making pollution cumulative...

I think there should be; tot up the number of polluted tiles that there are every turn cumulatively, so that cleaning them up has a benefit beyond freeing the tile in question. Which could also lead to such things as making diplomatic agreements to reduce pollution, or invading polluting neighbours.

I would favour something that was only vaguely represented as closing on whatever the results of global warming are up to a certain point, but which one could measure exactly given the appropriate modern tech, and possibly start reducing the cumulative total (as opposed to merely not adding to it) given suitable late-game techs and improvements.

I've no idea what that would be I'm afraid, I'm only familiar with Civ IV. Oh, I see you explained it, and yes it seems there was a cumulative pollution effect. Why was this changed for Civ IV do you think? Did it end up resulting in the game being less fun, spoil it some other way, or result in unnecessary faffing about and micro-management?

Some people seem to think of handling pollution as unnecessary/unfun micromanagement. But then, some people like pro wrestling, so I am at a loss to explain the entire variety of human preferences as to what is and is not fun.