Civ V Ideas & Suggestions Summary

[rysmiel]

That is all fine for a game based on hammers, food, and commerce but I think civ 5 should move beyond that.

I very much don't; it's a level of abstraction exactly suited to the scale of what Civ is and what makes Civ unique, as an empire-management-as-an-emergent-property-of-city-management game.

That also ties into production. It is kind of ridiculous that a hill produces 2 hammers.
The citizen should produce 2 hammers,

A hill only produces two hammers/shields if you have a citizen working it, so your distinction here makes no sense to me.

The biggest aspect of altering tile production into resource production is that you open up large aspects of trade that can make the game much much better.

They can certainly make it more complex, but I am unconvinced that makes it inherently much better. I would far rather see resources layered on top of food/shields/commerce than replacing them.

 

[rysmiel]

Unit builder.

Please, no. It's a lot of annoying pointless busywork as a gameplay element, and it's a major chunk of programming energy so I would not want it even if I could easily avoid it.

Additional defensive structures like towers and walls.
Actual ranged attacks.

I agree here.

Migration of population to other cities which can lead to taking over it. Or something like that.

Not here, though. Not unless someone can show me a workable model for it. (I do not construe "your people move around independent of what you want them to do" as a workable model here.)

Additional options for international organizations.

Such as ?

Tourism.

Represented how ? The Civ III "tourist attraction" model seems a good place to start; build something impressive and you eventually get additional revenue from it.

Significance of obsolete wonders.

Again, at what level ?

Specialization of cities.

Not if it is forced.

Additional stuff for great people and actions that doesn't consume them.

Such as ?

Diseases.

So long as there are means to counter them.

Learning techs by other means, e.g. slowly learning about it from foreigners, internet, reverse engineering or a product of a great idea.

The Great Library does this, no ?

Terraforming.

Entirely agreed.

Contact with extra terrestrials.

Possibly as a victory condition, but I can;t see it as a game element.

More terrain types/features and natural events, e.g. volcanoes = eruptions, storms, whirlpools, earthquakes.

I am opposed to that notion; randomness here would be less fun.

Natural wonders placed all over the world, can be taken by territory borders.

Serving what game purpose ?

Expansion on civics and religions.

I do not like civics at all, but more fixed governments, definitely; I think I've posted about my preference for religions before.

Resource levels on tiles, i.e. plenty, few, scarce, WTFOMG.

Nah; make it fully quantitative.

And something I don't know what use it could have:
Sub-tiles.

Different from a larger map with finer-grained tiles how ?

 

[Decimatus]

I very much don't; it's a level of abstraction exactly suited to the scale of what Civ is and what makes Civ unique, as an empire-management-as-an-emergent-property-of-city-management game.

The only thing that makes civ unique is the fact that no one makes games like this besides 4x space strategy or vaguely similar RTS games.

It would be nice if Sid Meier had competition with another company for this genre, but he doesn't.

Call to Power was a much better game than Civ 1-3, it is unfortunate that the franchise closed down due to a poorly supported and buggy game.

A hill only produces two hammers/shields if you have a citizen working it, so your distinction here makes no sense to me.

A citizen working on a flat tile of grass has the same number of hammers as a citizen on a hill. What is that guy doing on a hill that he couldn't have done on the grass?

Basically he is gathering resources, which should be represented as resources and not vague hammers.

Civ is currently missing an actual trade system, and resources is key to making one.

can certainly make it more complex, but I am unconvinced that makes it inherently much better. I would far rather see resources layered on top of food/shields/commerce than replacing them.

Like I said, trade. For such a huge factor throughout civilization, Civ 1-4's representation of it is pretty unacceptable.

Feel free to offer ideas that makes it simple enough for you but gives us a fun and working trade system.

 

[rysmiel]

The only thing that makes civ unique is the fact that no one makes games like this besides 4x space strategy or vaguely similar RTS games.

This statement is perfectly true but I have no idea what point you are aiming at with it; it boils down to "Civ is unique because nobody else does it", which is a mite tautological, no ?

My position, fwiw, is that Civ's uniqueness in this reagrd is what makes it worth playing and there is no positive aspect to changing it fundamentally to be more like something else that already exists.

Call to Power was a much better game than Civ 1-3, it is unfortunate that the franchise closed down due to a poorly supported and buggy game.

I think there are ways in which CtP was a better game and ways in which it wasn't - the whole "public works" notion in it just gives me hives, frex.

A citizen working on a flat tile of grass has the same number of hammers as a citizen on a hill. What is that guy doing on a hill that he couldn't have done on the grass?

This is not a problem with the underlying concept; it's a problem with Civ 4's numerical assignment of production values. Flat grasslands don't default give you two production in Civ III.

Civ is currently missing an actual trade system, and resources is key to making one.
Like I said, trade. For such a huge factor throughout civilization, Civ 1-4's representation of it is pretty unacceptable.
Feel free to offer ideas that makes it simple enough for you but gives us a fun and working trade system.

If you think I want it simple, you misread me; I just said I don't think complexity is inherently better, not that it can't be better.

I have argued in favour of a) qualitative resources, b) Civ II-type caravan units containing fixed amounts of each of those resources needing to be moved from point to point and c) more sophisticated trade options with other civilisations before, and stand by those arguments now. I just am adamantly opposed to this replacing the existing model of production rather than adding to it. Nor am I keen on Civ II-type internal trade options for your civilisation, as that implementation enables a massively unbalanced focus on trade to trivially win the game for you. (Look up "Power Democracy" under Civ 2 strategies.)

 

[Decimatus]

This statement is perfectly true but I have no idea what point you are aiming at with it; it boils down to "Civ is unique because nobody else does it", which is a mite tautological, no ?

I mean to say that Civ will be unique no matter what because it is the only game in this genre basically.

My position, fwiw, is that Civ's uniqueness in this reagrd is what makes it worth playing and there is no positive aspect to changing it fundamentally to be more like something else that already exists.

You could change the whole game and it would still be unique.

If you want to keep the old production style, it would be more about your preference for the old way than it being unique, since the game is unique either way.

You might argue against adopting a feature from another game such as Supreme ruler 2010 as the resource model for civ 5, but I believe we can still greatly enhance the civ resource production model and still keep it unique in all those regards.

Anyway, the only thing that really makes civ 1-4 unique is that no one else makes games like this.

Civilization the genre, to me, is about building a powerful empire turn by turn from the beginning of mankind, into the spaceages and beyond with all the wars and colonizations that come with that.

Whatever resource, trade, or whatever model Civ 5 has, it isn't going to change the fact that it is the only game in the genre.

Do we really need to have every aspect of civ 5 be unique across the board just for the sake of uniqueness? That doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Good ideas are good ideas, and if another game does it well and it can be applied here it should be considered.

I think there are ways in which CtP was a better game and ways in which it wasn't - the whole "public works" notion in it just gives me hives, frex.

True, but you have to admit it was a good step up from Civ 2. The worker model of Civ 4 is better yet, but I still think that it can be improved upon.

Anyway, other aspects of CtP were really good. The trade system in that game was a good start on a worthwhile trading system. I don't think it has a place in Civ 5, but it should serve as an example of the direction that Civ 5 needs to head in order to move away from prior civs.

Also, CtP had a much better combat system. Stacks is the way to go. The actual combat can be different, but the idea of combining a cannon and a musketeer and the results that came form that is much better than the unit system for Civ 1-4. Hearts of Iron also had a good point with attaching a support/artillery unit to a combat unit. Civ 5 should incorporate something along those lines for better combat and more epic warfare.

I also liked how CtP pooled food, production, and gold into a national stockpile. No city starved as long as your entire nation produced enough food. Again, that is a step in the right direction. Plenty of enhancements can be made upon that, but generally that is the direction I want civ 5 to move in.

This is not a problem with the underlying concept; it's a problem with Civ 4's numerical assignment of production values. Flat grasslands don't default give you two production in Civ III.

What I meant was, in real life the only difference between a hill and a grassland as far as production is the resources contained. It isn't about a hill being magically more productive, it is about the resources found inside the hill.

Civ 1-4 is basically simulating low-key resource gathering in the hills(for the hills without actual copper/iron/etc on them).

In Civ 5, each citizen should produce X hammers, no matter where on the map they work. Then the hammers that come from the citizen work that land, producing resources that flow to the city. The city then uses those raw materials to build whatever. Or(which is what makes the change key), the city can trade those resources with other cities gaining commerce and the resources that city really wants/needs.

That should apply to food, iron, copper, everything. The number of resources should be vastly expanded, and each should be valuable as a trade commodity. For cities that don't have that resource, but maybe have alot of another resource, trade should commence generating commerce and the filling of needs(Dallas gets some iron while Pittsburgh gets some wheat/cows).

If you think I want it simple, you misread me; I just said I don't think complexity is inherently better, not that it can't be better.

I have argued in favour of a) qualitative resources, b) Civ II-type caravan units containing fixed amounts of each of those resources needing to be moved from point to point and c) more sophisticated trade options with other civilisations before, and stand by those arguments now. I just am adamantly opposed to this replacing the existing model of production rather than adding to it. Nor am I keen on Civ II-type internal trade options for your civilisation, as that implementation enables a massively unbalanced focus on trade to trivially win the game for you. (Look up "Power Democracy" under Civ 2 strategies.)

I really dislike the caravan trading method. Apart from a certain tweak.

I would much rather have one or a combination of the following for trade:
A) An automated trading system that routes resources based on market needs
B) A city directed system where you tell the governor to trade with X city/nation that has resources you want. After that it automates until there is war or closed borders or whatever.
C) A caravan trading system where caravans a produced like great people, but then automate. IE. The more commerce you have, the more trade points you generate. When you fill the bar with trade points, the city produces a caravan which then seeks out the best source(from the visible cities on the map) for it's goods.

I don't like a trade system that forces you to spend turn after turn in a city to produce a caravan, only to receive a small sum of gold to your treasury in return once it gets to the target city.

Trade should have basic and far reaching effects for the base economy of your cities and empire. It shouldn't be a system where you generate a little extra gold for your government treasury(though you can have that along side the real trading system).

Basically I want trade to be mostly automated, and I want it to give many more benefits especially in resources and commerce.

The trade method of your society should be largely a result of your civic choice also. The first civic might let you build caravans, while future civics start opening up free markets and all the automation that comes with it.

 

[w2w2w]

there is in truth 2 things that I would like.
1. able to attack without declaring war
2.able to purchase and sell culture plots, since forts dont work in other enemy culture

 

[Camikaze]

[...]

Sorry I'm not replying to you in full; lately I haven't had much time (or energy) to reply to many long posts. But this is perhaps a thread that you may be interested in.

Why should the output of a factory-fished ocean tile be realtively minuscule foodwise compared to that of a sea tile withing the radius of a coastal city ?

Eh, I suppose so.

 

[rysmiel]

You could change the whole game and it would still be unique.
If you want to keep the old production style, it would be more about your preference for the old way than it being unique, since the game is unique either way.

Changing it to something completely different would to my minfd make it not actually be Civ any more.

Do we really need to have every aspect of civ 5 be unique across the board just for the sake of uniqueness? That doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

No, but it''s worth keeping the aspects that have been demonstrated to work over the past nineteen years.

True, but you have to admit it was a good step up from Civ 2. The worker model of Civ 4 is better yet, but I still think that it can be improved upon.

The number of ways Civ 4 messed up things that worked better in Civ 3 is a rant I have done before; I am far from convinced that in general later Civ games are always better ones.

Also, CtP had a much better combat system. Stacks is the way to go. The actual combat can be different, but the idea of combining a cannon and a musketeer and the results that came form that is much better than the unit system for Civ 1-4. Hearts of Iron also had a good point with attaching a support/artillery unit to a combat unit. Civ 5 should incorporate something along those lines for better combat and more epic warfare.

I strongly disagree here; it's too tactical.

I also liked how CtP pooled food, production, and gold into a national stockpile. No city starved as long as your entire nation produced enough food. Again, that is a step in the right direction. Plenty of enhancements can be made upon that, but generally that is the direction I want civ 5 to move in.

Not to my mind; because it's a stpe towards empire-management-like-any-other and away from empire-management-via-city-management.

I really dislike the caravan trading method. Apart from a certain tweak.

I would much rather have one or a combination of the following for trade:
A) An automated trading system that routes resources based on market needs
B) A city directed system where you tell the governor to trade with X city/nation that has resources you want. After that it automates until there is war or closed borders or whatever.
C) A caravan trading system where caravans a produced like great people, but then automate. IE. The more commerce you have, the more trade points you generate. When you fill the bar with trade points, the city produces a caravan which then seeks out the best source(from the visible cities on the map) for it's goods.

I don't like a trade system that forces you to spend turn after turn in a city to produce a caravan, only to receive a small sum of gold to your treasury in return once it gets to the target city.
(...)
Basically I want trade to be mostly automated, and I want it to give many more benefits especially in resources and commerce.

I think we're probably at an impasse, then, because when you say "mostly automated", what I am hearing is "can;t control it in fine enough detail to be fun, can't squeeze every last drop of potential out of it."

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I hope

The game effectively ends if the player is assassinated or a coup takes place. By this I mean all scoring stops and the player cannot win by any method. A pop up box says,"You have been assassinated (removed from office by a successful coup). Your administration/regime is at an end. You may continue playing but you will not be scored. Yes, let the game on / No, I'm outta here."

has an option to be turned off. I play Civ to dabble in international, not domestic, politics. And some of these suggestions are downright terrible. Artillery being able to destroy city improvements and reduce population points. That's not overpowered or will lead to people spamming artillery units at all.

As for this:

77. Airships
Gas-filled airships should not really be able to upgrade to fighter units. This also applies to the upgrading of wooden galleys into modern destroyers and the like.

I would venture that it's not really turning the airship into a fighter, but more like retraining the crew (who already has experience piloting aircraft) and giving them new fighter planes.

 

[Silv Something]

I agree on with you on both items, SS-18 ICBM.

 

[702]

This would require a more complex altitude system (well, there isn't really an altitude system at all, as such, currently). Is there any point in having it as well as mountains other than aesthetics?

Well it is basically just aesthetic, but it wouldn't be difficult to do I don't think, it would simply require a little game knowledge of latitude. Which the game already has; you can't build the Space Elevator beyond 30 degrees north or south, tundra and ice only appear in the high latitudes, etc... So it would be like tundra except at even higher latitudes.

 

[cbmclean]

I strongly disagree here; it's too tactical.

rysmiel,

I understand your concern, but I do not share it. I also am a fan of the CtP combat system. I loved the way that you really had to have a good mix of units in order to have an effective army. I know that you feel that that makes the game to tactical but I think that the idea of combined arms is appropriate even at the grand level that Civ games play.

 

[Camikaze]

I'm not exactly sure what the CtP combat system actually is, but from what it sounds like, it uses a combined arms approach in the sense of having more than the simple one unit vs. one unit? That would be too tactical, IMO. It's a strategy game, so you should be thinking about a war strategy, not about how to maximise the results of each individual battle. Simplifying it to one vs. one means that combat isn't the largest focus of the game, which it otherwise would be.

 

[cbmclean]

I'm not exactly sure what the CtP combat system actually is, but from what it sounds like, it uses a combined arms approach in the sense of having more than the simple one unit vs. one unit? /QUOTE]

Yes

That would be too tactical, IMO. It's a strategy game, so you should be thinking about a war strategy, not about how to maximise the results of each individual battle. Simplifying it to one vs. one means that combat isn't the largest focus of the game, which it otherwise would be.

What is more strategic about one-on-on combat?

 

[Decimatus]

I am not sure you guys really understand the difference between tactical and strategic.

Or maybe it is just the CtP stack system that you don't really get. There is nothing tactical about it.

In CtP the unit limit for a tile was 9 total. You couldn't stack endless amounts of units in your city, there simply wasn't room. That is where tactics came in, not because of stacks but because of tile limits.

I do think tile limits is a good thing, even if it makes you take 5 seconds to decide which tile is going to have the rest of the units defending your city. Much better than the infinite stacks of doom found in Civ 1-4.

I'm not exactly sure what the CtP combat system actually is, but from what it sounds like, it uses a combined arms approach in the sense of having more than the simple one unit vs. one unit? That would be too tactical, IMO. It's a strategy game, so you should be thinking about a war strategy, not about how to maximise the results of each individual battle. Simplifying it to one vs. one means that combat isn't the largest focus of the game, which it otherwise would be.

The CTP combat system is actually rather simple.

Compared to Civ 4, they are both basically the same only CtP is far better.

In Civ 4, you build cannons so that you can bombard enemy positions. If the cannons are to attack, they do so alone.

In CtP you also build cannons to bombard.

The difference is you can stack units up to 9. If you have a stack of 9, 4 units are on the back row, 5 on the front. If applicable, the most powerful ranged units are automatically in the back row.

Now, when you lock a group of 9 together, you get a battle with say 5 muskets on the front, and 4 cannons in the back. The muskets will take all the hits until they die, or until the backrow outnumbers them at which point some move forward.

When it comes down to it, in CtP if you are at war, you send endless waves of 4 cannon 5 musket stacks until the war is won. You build them one piece at a time, and individually they can do the normal unit things, but strategically they travel in packs and fight together.

In CtP, if 1 pikeman attacks a city of 9 other units, he doesn't survive to fight another day. He dies. The archers standing behind the other pike he is fighting join in on the killing. This is what the stack model allows. Civ 4 of course lets you send single warriors into walls of spears and arrows all day long without any problems.

1 on 1 is just absolute garbage. It really has no place in a civilization simulation.

 

[Ahovking]

Yes Yes Yes

 

[Camikaze]

What is more strategic about one-on-on combat?

Well it's not that it is more strategic, but it is less tactical. And that means that you don't have to focus on tactics so much as being able to focus on strategy, and the strategic direction your forces can follow.

 

[Decimatus]

Well it's not that it is more strategic, but it is less tactical. And that means that you don't have to focus on tactics so much as being able to focus on strategy, and the strategic direction your forces can follow.

The current system basically removes the possibility of Normandy, The Bulge, Thermopylae, Incheon, or a hundred other battles of epic historic importance.

Combined arms is a strategic concept that has been a core component of combat going all the way back to Ancient Greece, if not further.

Why even have combat in Civ 5 at all if it is going to be so watered down and lame? Might as well declare the owner of the largest pile of warriors as the winner.

 

[Camikaze]

The current system, yes, does remove the possibility of re-enacting historical battles. But my argument is that that is not what the focus of the game is at all.

Now, combined arms can still to a degree be in the game; you need various unit types within a stack for the stack to be successful. For instance, you might want a stack with archers, catapults, swordsmen, axemen and spearmen. That is a reasonable combined arms strategy, even if you won't have to think about individual battles in which you use all or a combination of all.

 

[niklas627]

I feel that Civ have come in to an end.
I think that the only developments for strategic games are combination of turn based and RTS game, like Total War. To be honest, how much have Civ actually change since Civ-2 more than graphic and AI?

I have played many hours both of Civ-IV and ETW. ETW beats the out of Civ-IV, since ETW both have the opportunity to play a turn based civ game and as RTS game.