Civ4 Suggestions

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by Chieftess
>> Maybe it's just me (regular antiquity units defeating my elite indutrial and modern units - I had a galley dent my battle ship once! ), but make units have a stat bonus vs. a unit from a lower era. (i.e., i.e., middle vs antiquity would be +2 on all stats, indust vs antiquity would be +4, and so on). I don't think a band of regular warriors should be very successful against elite modern infantry.
>>

Reply: I think you are right that some fine tuning would be an improvement. But sometimes the lower tech army wins in real war. In a way, CIV3 might be showing what happens when you send U. S. Marines to Lebanon. And the modern destroyer in Yemen that was partly blown up. If you are not careful a suicide bomber will do a lot of damage. The higher tech units have an advantage, but you must plan carefully. Or you will be sorry.

 

[Hammurabi II]

Originally posted by Parmenion
The idea for altering the rate of gameplay is an excellent one. I really like the ancient and medieval times and would like to see the turns shortened to 5 years or so. I'm sure we could all come up with dozens of extra techs to add to the tree in those times so that we don't have stealth bombers in 800 AD.

It surely can't be a coincidence that in every game I play I really enjoy the first half when I'm still expanding and learning lots of new things about the world and my neighbours, but then lose interest around the late industrial era and generally decide whether the game is won or not before starting again.

The game is all about civilisations after all, and the ancient ones are the ones that immediately spring to mind, so I would like to see more time spent in ancient times and less in modern times please. (Or more in ancient and medieval and the same amount of time in modern - this would make each game take much longer but I would definitely carry on playing well into the modern era if I had taken so long to build my civ in ancient and medieval days).

This would definitely make the game much more fun. However, it would take sooooo long, and it already takes forever. Maybe make an option like in Empire Eart so you can start in different ages and end in different ages. This way if I wanted to start in the Middle ages and not allow the game to go past the early modern age I could, or any other combination of ages.


In regard to unit differences between ages, maybe make it so that if you enter a new age, all your units automatically get 1 more hitpoint, to symbolize the advancement.

 

[hzm]

That would have to be for scenarios. Otherwise you would still have to build your civilization up from the ground, and to do it during the industrial ages wouldn’t make much sense. Right?

 

[JoseM]

Originally posted by hzm
That would have to be for scenarios. Otherwise you would still have to build your civilization up from the ground, and to do it during the industrial ages wouldn’t make much sense. Right?

the united states born in the industrial ages

 

[elfstorm]

Combat more like Master of Magic - but better, after all that game is, what? 8 years old? (and obviously realistic, no magic!)

More tactics for battle as well.

Less emphasis on building settlers and expanding. More "assimilating" barbarian tribes. A primitive tribe left to it's own devices could also develop into a civ later?

um... and other stuff - which is good and improves the game. There's quite a few good suggestions in this thread.

 

[hzm]

Originally posted by JoseM


the united states born in the industrial ages

Well, but then europe would be born in the industrial ages too.


Hey, if airbases were brought back I could make a Tesla death weapon. Put them around your borders and you're safe!

 

[hzm]

It would be nice if they also use would westwood style INIs. Very easy to edit and add things.

 

[Jason Fox]

I saw a lot of ideas I liked here. Among my favorites (and a couple of my own - or at least I dont recall reading)

Use of enemy roads - at least two movement per turn - down one since invading units aren't familiar with shortcuts. (Then a knight in enemy territory could outrun a stack of pursuing swordsmen, realistic.)

"Stop your war with X" - bail out a friendly civ with a cash/tech/resource trade. This could work the other way too, when an MPP associate of your enemy tries to buy you off to leave them alone.

I like being able to send an assassin to kill a rival leader and send them into anarchy- governors are easy to kill but only lose production in their city 7-15 turns. Country leaders are hard to kill but the every city (except the capital, where the number 2 guy would be) loses production for 7-12 turns. Only possible with civs you're not at war with. Then, if the civ decides to declare war right away (the next possible turn) post nationalism, they could get a national pride enlistment bonus (free conscript defense unit in your capital that turn - maybe a number that equals 10% of your total forces.)

Canals and airbases. I barely build ships and planes and almost never make a paratrooper.

More civs but I think you'd need two more civ attributes (and I don't have any idea what they would be)

Longer time spent in early ages, fewer years pass with early turns. Jaguar Warriors are almost always more annoyance than threat by the time I'm dealing with them since I usually have swordsmen by then. JWs are most affective early when we have armies of ten guys and you can't kill theirs, they run away and heal. And I don't think I've seen two chariots since I started playing (Egypt's UU is a joke)

I like the idea of making RRs (and roads?) harder to build so pillaging means more. Attach a cost and longer completion time (if putting down RR on a hill took 20 turns and cost 3 gold it's less likely we'd build it needlessly.)

Additional bonus for units from later eras engaging early ones.

More luxuries spread out. Last game I had five silks and nothing else. Only able to trade two of them at any given time. This game I have three furs... and nothing else.

More unit types - particularly an effective foot soldier late in the game, something that could garrison/defend newly taken cities but also attack effectively should they need to (so 8/8/1 maybe?)

Ability to give units to help another civ without joining the war.

Teach AI to use artillary more effectively. Now I can take out 20 of their tanks (bombard until all are at one HP then almost any unit can take them out) in a turn with no fear of getting wiped out that way myself.

That's a lot more than I intended to write but I love this game and would love to see it improve.

 

[obiwankanathan]

One thing that I think that they need to fix are nukes When you nuke a city it should be compleatly destroyed (or maybe in the case of huge cities, almost destroyed). Plus, the land that is nuked should be unable to be used for so many turns because of radiation. This would make the nukes a little more useful and realistic.

Something else they could add is that instead of global warming happening if you use too many nukes, I want to see nuclear winter. You could have a neat little movie of the world destroyed and all of the civs dying out. This would be a fitting end to earth after I launce to Alpha Centauri

 

[LastMan]

May be it was mentioned before and I missed it, yet I have to add my input:

While I like some and dislike other suggestions made here, most of you don't realize all the difficulties.

Firaxis did a lot of work with AI (may be not sufficient though), and to include some of the "improvements" of the game means rewriting AI algorythms from a scratch. While most of the suggestions made sense for humans, for AI they are something different. That is, most of the suggestions here may and will seriously imbalance the game, creating advantage for human players. Unless you have some ideas of how to incorporate the changes in the game into the AI strategies.

Besides, some of the ideas are not new at all, they are just suggestions to change this or that aspect of Civ3, not add a new and powerful feature which could differentiate Civ4 from Civ3.

The suggestions are not good for MP either. Imagine, each turn, already long enough, may double or triple...

So the only sensible suggestion might be to improve the AI performance. Firaxis could make the AI algorythms more open or more flexible, so that the Civilization community could participate in improving AIs.

 

[romelus]

one oversight in the civ series is that hind sight is always 20/20, and we all know how history has progressed up until now. however, no one in 1900 thought "ok now that we have combustion and replaceable parts, it's time to develop tanks". if ww1 didn't happen, we might have discovered flight way before motorized transportation. since the name of the game is civilization, and not "history", it's kind of senseless to have a predesigned tech tree that everyone follows. to improve the existing system, this is something completely new i'm proposing: event-based technology development system (EBTDS)

not all civs continually developed techs through out history. certain events and conditions trigger new technologies:

historical examples:

1. tanks were developed in ww1 after huge casualties in trench warfare was experienced. translation to game - a civ would have a chance to develop tanks after some prolonged infantry warfare. nations that weren't involved in that war would not spontaneously discover armored warfare. historically, nations that weren't involved in ww1 didn't begin tank development (and never thought about it seriously) until after the war was over and until they had observed the effectiveness of tanks.

2. the newtons or baches in history usually had the proper environment to develop intellectually. a peaceful, high-cultured civ with good infrastructure will be much more likely to sprout great scientists and artists, who in turn endow the civ with great benefits such as wonders or technologies. translation to game - a constantly warring state has a very low chance of advancing their technology in theoritical science and art, which provide the foundation for applied science. making peaceful development time necessary. tech cost will be significantly modified by existing conditions in a civ.

so in essence, under EBTDS technology is triggered by the player's actions, and supported by the player's funds. this dynamic system allows each civ to develop slightly different techs under different circumstances. the aim is not historical accuracy (since the game is not "history"), but accurate tech development and realistic tech leads. everyone can START research AFTER one civ has COMPLETED its own, as they would then have something to copy from. but combine the research with resouces and you can have a truly interactive system.

game example: since france has been at peace for 100+ years and it has good infrastructre, a great scientist (let's call him x) has discovered the principle of fission, a theoretical advancement. france can now see uranium on the map. from this point on, other civs can start reserching fission too, as they have heard about the discovery. suddenly a world war breaks out, and germany is looking to develop the atomic bomb, an applied science advancement. however, in order to efficiently research atomic bomb, germany needs uranium, which it doesn't have. therefore it must research at a much reduced rate. at the same time, the americans, who have used towed artillery extensively in the war, now have the option to research self propelled artillery. and the japanese is now able to research aircraft carrier because it has a sizeable navy and air force... etc.

obviously technology cannot be sold for 50 gold under this system. techs are actually precious here, just like in real world. and being the first to meet research conditions is very advantageous because others cannot start until you finish (unless they also meet the condition, of course)

so there you go. no messy micromanagement, and a different tech development pattern every game!

 

[Vertigom]

Two leaders for each civ, one male and one female.

 

[obiwankanathan]

I like your idea romelus, it would make civ a lot more realistic. I can think of some other things that can add to the idea though.

You can combine your research with other nations to decrease the time it takes to advance in a technology, but the catch is that you both get the technology.

And instead of having everyone have the chance to research the tech once someone comes up with it, you can have it vary depending on the civilization. You can have a diplomatic option to share your advances with friends, while your enemys and neutrals have to research it from scratch. It would make a lot more sense. In WW2 we weren't giving our new advances to the germans but we were giving some of them to our allies. Of course, your enemys will know that you have the tech and can try to capture units using it or steal the tech so they can gain the ability to research it.

 

[FredLC]

still in that line, I think that when a CIV captures a unit that is too advanced to be used, it should not be destroyed. Instead, it should disapear, and them that CIV should recieve a bonus in the researching of all the missing technologies to achieve that particular unit, representing that the cientists "studied it's parts".

It also should happen when a civ captures a city with improvements that it cannot build yet.

 

[romelus]

to continue the thought. obiwankanathan, research pacts is always a good idea to implement and furthers the idea of alliances. maybe the condition to research can be traded also:

example: england and america are in an alliance against germany. after extensive trench warfare by enlish infantry, english diplomat requests an audience with america, "we now have a concept for a heavily armored land vehicle designed for breaking open battlelines, would you like to trade for it?" of course you can then decide to research the concept together. other situations may include countries inviting you to send a science or religious convoy to visit (for a cost), taking advantage of their infrastructure to add to your advancements. of course, you can decide to send a spy convoy instead...

the chance to hear about new discoveries can be varied too. a civ with no contact would not be able to start researching on much at all, making isolation a truly dangerous thing. less free governments such as despotism or fundamentalism would impede the adoption of new discoveries, so even if a fundamentalist civ knows about physics, it would take them longer to start the research, while a democracy can start research right away.

fredlc, good idea there. maybe the loss of advanced units could give your opponent a chance to begin the research. so you have to be careful not to recklessly lose units, and if you are behind, it would be a great achievement for your riflemen to capture a tank (firepower almost has to be reintroduced to prevent spearmen from defeating tanks)

the system can also have built-in safeguards against situations where a city that has built spearmen for centuries suddenly being able to build tanks the next year. you may need at a sizable destroyer and fighter force to begin carrier research - no country has gone straight from building wooden frigates to carrier! this will stretch out tech development so every unit enjoys some use before they become obsolete!

 

[ibollica]

wood may be a resouce. in early ages same units will need wood (galley, chariot etc.) there is too less resouces in early ages (i can remember only iron, and hourse). or more resouce types

 

[Hamlet]

Longer eventual end-date.

2020 is just too small for a good game. Combined with this would be a more expanded advanced tech range. Stopping at out present point in history is V. boring.

Space - The missing frontier

Why is it that space is completely redundant from the game, save the spaceship?

Diplomacy

There should be definite diplomacy benefits for similar governments.

Also, the present diplomacy options are too limited.

More governments

Please????????

It makes the game more intresting.

I like the Present resource options. Adding greater waffle to them is unecessary.

 

[Zouave]

The hindsight comment above is a really good one.


The failure of Civ III is shown by the length of this thread. We all can't wait for Civ4.


If there are two things I want in Civ4 (besides scenario-building and a cheat mode) it is an end to Culture Flipping cities, and an end to the irritating diarrhea of settlers flooding every open tile near your territory even on desert and tundra. I hate that so much.

 

[Frodawg]

One thing they could do is have major influential people other then just war hero's. Scientists and economists could each have a bonus in their respective fields and other's such as muscians can improve culture. Each person should be able to be kidnapped, assassinated, or defect based one your country's govt., living quality etc. (Remember Einstein left Germany as it became Nazi controlled). Also going back to changing of the empire instead of one 6000 year one could be caused by emergence of people like Lenin, Marx, Oliver Cromwell, Robespierre, etc. This could make the people demand change and revolution.

 

[Frodawg]

I also like the Idea of slowing down the time frames. If slowed down a war could provoke changes in technology based on need and could make some people emerge in cities on the fronts. A zoom in on certain areas could let you see war fronts closer and make units more complex based on orders.
A change could also be made in emigration of people if you dont control it you can lose your citizens based on life style or govt. based on emigration. This could also hold true coordinating a rural change to urban (a move from farms to cities) based on technology. This dispertion of citizens could effect wars or tensions (Berlin wall) and also provoke you to create more luxuries and appease the people.
Based on giving people back land after a war a treaty system can be made. This can make harsh reparations to compensate. You can also make joint missions. Allies vs. Axis, The catholic church in crusades, A holy war in mid -east, U.N. troops etc.