Civ5 discussion

[Sims2789]

Civilization IV: Best Civ Yet!

- Modern interface/help conventions
- Continuous, immersive 3D world (what-you-see-is-what-you-get)
- Drop unfun legacy (pollution, rioting, maintenance, corruption/waste)
- New killer features (religion, civics)
- RPG elements (unit upgrades/experience)
- Coding from scratch (multiplayer, mod-friendly)
- Can still take over the world!

Wait. So does this mean that there is no rioting in Civ4? That sucks! It would, however, be cool if all of these options were toggleable so that newbies could have an easier time learning the ropes. But if it isn't then I won't buy Civ4. Part of the fun is makinmg sure that there is no pollution, rioting, ect.

 

[Jon Shafer]

hi everyone and i think you may be underestimating Civ4.

its still not out and if you noticed they have said some good ideas like civics and religion which could be replacements for corruption, and pollution as ballancers, who knows

any ways i heard somewhere that Firaxis and Microsoft are going to work together to combine aspects of Microsofts game Age of Mythology or something like that and Civilization 3 to make Civ4. Both games are alike in many factors so its not surprising that they may or are working together to create Civ4. I'm not sure if the game is called Age of Mythology but the game starts with Age of xxxxx. but both games are alike each other

just a note to everyone and also great ideas everyone keep coming up with these and hopefully some wil be implented in Civ4.

That was originally posted on April 1st.

Notice something?

 

[brrrrrett]

I dunno about removing the "unfun" parts of the game. It seems that if the ones listed are taken away the game would be too easy and lose a lot of its depth as game, making it just about dominating the world and not mastering it in all aspects.

I'd have more 'unfun' elements, floods, snow storms, avalanches, earthquakes, hurricanes, plagues, locusts, frogs, whirlwinds, tornadoes, rivers of blood, werewolves etc. This game is meant ot be a challenge! Bring em on I say!!!

 

[warpstorm]

brrrrett, you are confusing difficult with 'unfun'. Unfun to me is pointless stuff you have to fiddle with because the designer didn't think through the mechanics well enough.

 

[dh_epic]

Agreed.

Unfun is mechanical -- doing something that a monkey can do if they read the instructions, but if you don't do it you lose. That's the worst.

see: micromanagement

 

[troytheface]

i am a bit at a loss about all this, i mean exactly what is a 3d engine or whatever? (what u see is what u get...?...what does that mean specifically?) Also, ...Provinces?...is this to say that one would have "parts" to ur empire..(good idea)
In so far as corruption/pollution/ect ...i still contend that the amount (and their movement) of enemy units is more "unfun" ....
(The definition given above by ol warp/dh about what constitutes "unfun" is welcome- clarifies it to me-and I agree )

 

[Colonel Kraken]

I think it can be good to talk about radical departures from current Civ simply for the sake of bringing to light many of the elements that currently annoy players and finding a way to make that aspect of the game more seemless and fun. Certainly, if we in the fan base push the envelope, some aspects/ideas of what we discuss can be discussed and thought about in order for the Firaxis team to incorporate elements of our ideas they may not have thought of otherwise.

I think it's always important to hear what gamers' dreams are for their favorite games. Civ certainly is my favorite game. I've spent more time with the Civ franchise than with any other game.

--CK

p.s. Warpstorm, you poo-poo people's ideas too much.

 

[Diogenes183]

I don't know about Civ5, but Civ6 should have a virtual reality interface. You get teleported from place to place within the world and give orders with either voice commands or simple hand gestures.

The system requirements are a Intel Xenium 700 Ghz multiprocessor array.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Randomly shaped small provinces instead of hexes or squares. This would give certain provinces a higher strategic value than others to a higher degree than now.

 

[Sirian]

Unfun is mechanical -- doing something that a monkey can do if they read the instructions, but if you don't do it you lose. That's the worst.

Yeah. I slowed way down on my Civ3 playing when I'd gone past the point of having my fill of babysitting my cities so they don't waste shields, or babysitting the tech pace so the last turn of research doesn't waste scads of beakers. I'm just not a big babysitting kind of guy.

Some better city governors would be nice, for starters. I mean, the Civ3 governor is blind to corruption. It will try to use tiles with shields on them even if the city is so corrupt it's doomed to 1 shield and 1 commerce max. It should be running all food and then making use of specialists, like taxmen and civil engineers.

I tried once to play a variant game where I put all my cities on AI control, and just moved the units, but I tore my hair out by 1000BC and gave up on the concept. Watching the governor choose a forest tile where the second shield was wasted, over a bonus grass that pulls in an extra food... well I just fired the poor thing and never trusted it again. It just wasn't effective enough. The point of having automation is to AUTOMATE, meaning I don't have to babysit it. If I hire a babysitter to do that for me but I have to babysit the babysitter, what's the point?

The automation has to do a good enough job to be worth trusting. I'm sure that's not easy to design, but the game would be more fun if we don't impersonate a human abacus, doing no-brainer calculations that the game could be doing for us.


- Sirian

 

[crimson238]

im still and probably always will be at odds with the 3d aspect of civ 4

 

[dh_epic]

I tried once to play a variant game where I put all my cities on AI control, and just moved the units, but I tore my hair out by 1000BC and gave up on the concept. Watching the governor choose a forest tile where the second shield was wasted, over a bonus grass that pulls in an extra food... well I just fired the poor thing and never trusted it again. It just wasn't effective enough. The point of having automation is to AUTOMATE, meaning I don't have to babysit it. If I hire a babysitter to do that for me but I have to babysit the babysitter, what's the point?

Sirian, I wish you could tell that story to every person who tells me "well, for all those who hate micromanagement, just give them the option to automate it!"

Plus it seems that 75% of the strategy for winning is finding ways to exploit the gameplay mechanics. And the exploits are just that: mechanical. It's kind of cool when you figure out that you can get a few extra beakers and coins by lowering your science slider on the last turn of a discovery. Then it immediately becomes worthless when you have to do it every single game that you want to play against the top AI, and pretty much everyone else you talk to knows about it. What's the point?

 

[Sirian]

Plus it seems that 75% of the strategy for winning is finding ways to exploit the gameplay mechanics.

Most players will take an edge where they can find it. Rare are those who so love challenge that they will go out of their way to embrace it, when easier and quicker options are on hand.

England is my favorite civ in C3. Strategies that work well with them will work with any civ, so that's where I built my strategic foundation. Plus, England was the civ I played in my first-ever C3 tournament (at Apolyton, in late 01), and that was sort of my Civ3 coming of age.


If the game rules are tighter and better balanced, there won't be as many exploits and loopholes available. Then players can get the same level of challenge from the AI without having to hand it as much bonus. (Why was Sid level put in to C3C? Because some of us had solved Diety.)

Folks who equate handing bonuses to the AI with "cheating" are tilting at windmills. Civ is not chess. The playfields are randomized and widely varied, the opponents vary, and countless decisions are made by dice rolls. There's no way to program an IBM Big Blue for Civ. The AI is going to NEED help in the form of bonuses to compete with experienced and skilled human players. The aim should be to reduce the amount of bonus necessary, to move the AI's capability up.

Some folks would like to do that by teaching the AI how to exploit the rules the same way many players do. I don't think that would be fun. People can play Civ multiplayer if they want to play no holds barred. Single player is supposed to have some elements of empire building and diplomacy, to give players an experience not just a challenge. Or so I think.

Since the AIs use the city governor routines, improving the governors would not only make them more useful to players, but should reduce the amount of bonuses the AI needs to reach certain levels of performance.

I certainly hope we don't have to wait for Civ5 to see that.


- Sirian

 

[dh_epic]

Since the AIs use the city governor routines, improving the governors would not only make them more useful to players, but should reduce the amount of bonuses the AI needs to reach certain levels of performance.

I agree, absolutely. Although I think reducing the player exploits would be just as good as improving the AI, if not better.

I'd like to beat the AI not because I figured out how to steal a few more shields, and economize my scientific research (in the same way I always do, in the same way all the expert players do) ... but because I reacted to a specific situation in the game in an intelligent yet unpredictable way.

PS: Nice comment about Sid versus Deity, summed up my thoughts exactly.

 

[warpstorm]

Just a reminder that Firaxis has been playing Civ4 multiplayer for over six months now. I'd assume that radical ideas (from where they are planning to take Civ4) are too late.

 

[hockeyrox38]

i like the idea of civs breaking apart and civil wars occuring. you can have that in civ2, but it doesn't work very well. the provinces/states idea is good too. we also need to bring back the fantasy option from civ2, or something like it

 

[warpstorm]

Holy thread necromancy, Batman.

 

[Scilly_guy]

"It seems the newbie made a school boy error!" (In a strong deep voice.)

 

[stanleyshi79]

In my opinion, we need to add some new ideas to CIV to match realistic world, see below.
currency policy and currency rate;
investment:You can get extra money and hammer if you invest other civilizations.
law system, such trade law, commercial law;patent law;
education system:compulsory education cost many money but you can get more research point;
international trade,such as weapon trade, food trade, merchandise trade, WTO;
numerical resource; how many resource do you need for a tank? 1 oil and iron or 10 oil and iron, just like RTG games.The resource will be exhaused if it runs out.
new tech tree, such new material, jet engine, radar etc, drug etc;
unit support cost; A carrier only cost 1 gold per turn, it is incredible. Military drill will cost many money but it can give the units many xps; Supply cost will be very high. So if you declare war to other civilizations indiscreetly, you are likely to be bankrupt;
various resource commerce: oil will be very costly in modern era; If you control enough oil you will get big advantage;
coalition: such as religion coaliton, OPEC;free trade zone;
tech yield to building: if you get new technology the factory can produce more hammer;

 

[Scilly_guy]

Is this some kind of Zombie thread? It just keeps coming back to life!