Civ5 Wishlist

[The Almighty dF]

Do you just dislike the military-based civilization? Surely, the game should have a few war-based civilizations, so why not Japan?

You can easily pick a Creative / Financial civ, or whatever combination you want, if you want to play a peaceful builder.

Why do you want specifically Japan to not be so warlike?

Not at all, I just find that Japan isn't as good at being pure-war as say... Rome, the Celts, the Mongols, etc. are. They really need -something- that can help them maintain themselves a bit.

Am I the only one who doesn't understand what MAF means?

Memory Allocation Failure.
Civ4 has an issue with large mods. Basically, once your mod reaches a certain size... be prepared for random crashes. Especially if you're a fan of Large/Huge mods, or you reach the modern age.
Sadly, this can't really be fixed on your end, it's just a design flaw.
Then again, I guess when Civ4 was released, many of us probably didn't have as much RAM as we do by now, so I guess it was more of a lack of thinking ahead, or not expecting mods to become as large as many (such as Diplomacy and Extra) have become.

 

[Atticus]

1. Nomadic civs. I didn't play the Genghis Khan scenario of Warlords, but didn't it have moving camp? It could be used in this. (City states sounds very promising btw).

2. Different kinds of open borders. For military and nonmilitary units.

3. Remain emphasis on religion, economy and espionage. Corporations were fine, sadly the game is pretty much over when they step in, if you allow space chuttle that is.

4. Minor civs. Small countries that act little like barbarians, but are civs however. They could be handicapped with no leader traits, no unique units and so on.

5. More useless terrain. Rhye's mod for civ3 is good example of this: Make deserts and jungles uninhabitable and accessible by only for workers or by roads. This adds to the strategy. You can't settle or move anywhere you want, and on the other hand you can exploit terrain and natural borders.

1. Improved Trade
2. Bring back resource scarcity.

Agree.

 

[fandamage]

I really only have one single big wish for the game: make each civ's bonuses interesting and unique, like in Alpha Centauri (or CivRev). None of the mix-and-match system where every civ gets 2 types. It makes the civs sort of lose identity and leads to less interesting gameplay strategy/variety.

 

[Yong]

Remove "Worker" units:
- Tiles consume certain amount of "labor points" to be improved, based on different type of improvement.
- Base on population, city and tech level, let each civ have a numeric "labor pool" which limits the maximum number of labor points available each turn.
- Labor points are assigned from labor pool to tiles, with effect moderated by proximity to city, in/out of civ border, improvement, tech, civic, etc.
- The more points assigned, the sooner to finish an improvement.

Hopefully this design can reduce worker-micromanagement and eliminate early worker hunting war.

 

[snoochems]

Remove "Worker" units:
- Tiles consume certain amount of "labor points" to be improved, based on different type of improvement.
- Base on population, city and tech level, let each civ have a numeric "labor pool" which limits the maximum number of labor points available each turn.
- Labor points are assigned from labor pool to tiles, with effect moderated by proximity to city, in/out of civ border, improvement, tech, civic, etc.
- The more points assigned, the sooner to finish an improvement.

Hopefully this design can reduce worker-micromanagement and eliminate early worker hunting war.

You're talking about Civ CTP. Pretty crap game, but I did like that aspect of it.

 

[GenMarshall]

Mod Modules that are easy to install, similar to the way Fallout 3/Oblivian handles mods.

Second, usable on the most modern machines that are around 2-3 years old.

Remove the workers and implement a tile improvement feature found in Call to Power II.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Memory Allocation Failure.
Civ4 has an issue with large mods. Basically, once your mod reaches a certain size... be prepared for random crashes. Especially if you're a fan of Large/Huge mods, or you reach the modern age.
Sadly, this can't really be fixed on your end, it's just a design flaw.
Then again, I guess when Civ4 was released, many of us probably didn't have as much RAM as we do by now, so I guess it was more of a lack of thinking ahead, or not expecting mods to become as large as many (such as Diplomacy and Extra) have become.

Ah, right. Makes sense now. Yes, I've had that error quite frequently on some mods and maps, especially in the late game, and it's certainly a big irritation.

 

[i_diavolorosso]

Religion!!!!
Seriously!
They should fixed what was broken CIV IV Religion
And leave them out of the box, is not fixing

Complete diversity!
Both unit and the great people name should be unique for each civ

Revolution and barb civ as game option is a must!

Religion!(Did i already mention it? )

 

[BobeBrown]

Revolution inside your own civilization leading to a spin off civilization.

A pimped and beefed modern era because CIV4 really sucked there.

Weather I'd like it to have an influence on battles

Corporations I really hope they have made this better and not just thrown it out like religeons

Chat room Let it have a chat room to discuss tactics!

Future era I hope is not overly dramatic with walking mechs and invisible men

Ethnic city diversity Is a must

Ethnic unit diversity Is a must

But im guessing the last two they will leave for the modding community lol.

18civs? WEAK! They must be missing out on loads of good ones.

Visibly see promotions on units eg like better equipment.

Random Events I wanna it similar to civ4 but on steroids.

Trade I wana see ships sailing accross lands, I wana be able to control who i send my pack of bananas too and what city. And i wana attack someone sending a Oil tanker to my enemy.

 

[Wodan]

Most wishlists are thinking too small. The question shouldn't be the color of paint used in the house, it's what rooms there should be in the floorplan.

#1 wish is to get out of the Earth history model. Every single game shouldn't have to follow history as it happened. The whole point of replaying history is to create a civ how it could have happened. This basically amounts to breaking out of the tech tree model. Why does tech X follow tech Y? Unless there's some reason based in science, we have to ask if the answer boils down to "because that's how it happened in real life." That's probably the worst possible reason to do something, especially in a computer game. The game should be about allowing the possible, including real life, not mandating real life.

Ultimately having a more open paradigm will dramatically broaden player options, increase replayability of the game, and add enjoyment.

 

[whb]

I'll say the same thing I said on Slashdot -- I'd like them to solve the problem that as the game goes on, the number of pieces in the game grows polynormially. Civ4 morphs from a snappy fun game into a slow grind as the modern era approaches -- not just taking extra time per move, but also removing risk (losing your only War Elephant to an archer and it matters; losing one of a dozen tanks doesn't matter).

I'd also like them to remove the "homeostatic" rules. At the moment, there are various rules to keep nations from growing too fast -- eg, corruption costs as your civilization grows. Unfortunately, this means that there's an optimal size to be at any stage of the game and games tend to follow a similar pattern. Use a different method to help overrun players catch-up and to challenge players who are doing too well -- something like the dynamic difficulty that racing games use (where if you spin out, your opponents myseteriously get a bit slower so it doesn't end your game, and if you are racing ahead they get faster). "Ooh, you're doing well -- I think we'll have stronger barbarian cities nearby." That way you can tune the game for the player so it's always fun, without making all games the same.

 

[RedRalph]

Borders that aren't determined by culture, at least not in the late game

Something that seriously slows down huge empire, stability or the likes

Spread of tech, so no one is conquering space while someone else is still in the iron age

 

[dagriggstar]

Alright...

1) - Improved trade. You should have a choice between builder/aggressor/trader types of gamestyle. There should be like a "major" trade route that evolves with time that gives cities that are located nearby bonuses (however, loose these bonuses when the route changes). You should be able to "raid" these trade routes as well (in a similar way that you can blockade ports in BTS)

2) - Initially, some civs startoff nomadic. They may remain like that for along period (Zulu) or are only nomadic for a short period of time (Germany).

3) - Revolutions

4) - Impassable terrain, or some terrains can only be passed by certain types of units.

5) - For me each civ should have a unique bonus, handled differently by different leaders (very difficult to balance, but if you have a weak bonus trait you get a strong UU/UB to balance out)

6) - Events

think that'll do for now...

 

[CMKMStephens]

The 'View city' screen.

In Civ IV the buildings and wonders you build quickly come to dominate the graphical representation of your city on the map, crowding out all the housing. It looks kinda crap.

I'd like to see the city screen back where you can get a more detailed image of your city with the wonders and buildings in amongst them. Preferably, a step up from its previous iterations by taking all the surrounding tiles into account. Or some sort of micro-zoom.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Most wishlists are thinking too small. The question shouldn't be the color of paint used in the house, it's what rooms there should be in the floorplan.

#1 wish is to get out of the Earth history model. Every single game shouldn't have to follow history as it happened. The whole point of replaying history is to create a civ how it could have happened. This basically amounts to breaking out of the tech tree model. Why does tech X follow tech Y? Unless there's some reason based in science, we have to ask if the answer boils down to "because that's how it happened in real life." That's probably the worst possible reason to do something, especially in a computer game. The game should be about allowing the possible, including real life, not mandating real life.

Ultimately having a more open paradigm will dramatically broaden player options, increase replayability of the game, and add enjoyment.

I can't really visualize how what you're proposing would work though. Can you give an example? There's got to be a certain amount of structure in a game, or else it all falls to pieces. What use is it researching Bronze Working if someone else can get Iron straight off the bat? Also, where are the lines drawn? Surely someone can't start researching Fission from the get-go?

I think your idea might have some potential, but it seems very vague and ill-defined at the moment. Unless you can propose a workable alternative system, I don't see the problem with sticking (roughly) with what we've got: a semi-linear progression from the stone age to the modern age.

I'll say the same thing I said on Slashdot -- I'd like them to solve the problem that as the game goes on, the number of pieces in the game grows polynormially. Civ4 morphs from a snappy fun game into a slow grind as the modern era approaches -- not just taking extra time per move, but also removing risk (losing your only War Elephant to an archer and it matters; losing one of a dozen tanks doesn't matter).

Sometimes those huge modern era battles can be quite fun and satisfying, though. And I don't see any way that you could limit the amount of units present in the later game, save for implementing a "population cap" of sorts. And I've never much liked those.

Use a different method to help overrun players catch-up and to challenge players who are doing too well -- something like the dynamic difficulty that racing games use (where if you spin out, your opponents myseteriously get a bit slower so it doesn't end your game, and if you are racing ahead they get faster). "Ooh, you're doing well -- I think we'll have stronger barbarian cities nearby." That way you can tune the game for the player so it's always fun, without making all games the same.

That could be neat. I've already seen similar things (variable difficulty with how your score compares to others' scores, for instance) implemented in some mods for Civ4. So I'm sure this would be feasible.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Something that's always grated on my nerves with Civ4 (and Civ3 too I think):

Please have the ability to SAVE certain favoured game settings, or at least use ALL the ones from the last game. Civ4 remembers a couple of things, but not everything by a long shot... and it's frustrating to have to open the right number of AI slots, pick all the civs, set up the map settings, etc, every time I want to start a new game identical to the last one.

Also:

Sure there's a "regenerate" button in single player, which is very handy, but there's no such option in multiplayer games. I'd like to at least have the option there in Hotseat and LAN, since I play quite frequently with my girlfriend, and it's annoying to have to manually quit and restart (see above) every time until we get starts that we both like. I'm aware that such an option might cause problems in online play with strangers, so perhaps in that case maybe limit the "regenerate" option to the host of the game, or just eliminate it entirely.

 

[ese-aSH]

1) take the existing, which is good, improve what you want, but keep the good at all cost; Do not deny a 20 years old background (WTH is wrong with these fu*** hexagons?? did you hire some Paradox guys ???)

2) Look to civ4 mods. Take the best, insert it in civ5. I want the stability concept from R&F and LoR (I remember it happening in civ1 : big empires splitting)

3) Do something around culture. Culture is not the way borders are drawned (this is easily compatible with the stability concept : owning tiles where a foreign culture dominates increase unstability). Two cultures should not be always exclusive.
Do something about culture diffusion : you share yor movies from holliwood to a civ ? this should bring some of your culture on their tiles.
And most important : some culture are close to each other, some are not. The religions were a way to simulate that in civ4 early to mid game : when two civ started close to each other, they have a good chance to get the same religion, and be 'friendly'.

4) Forget about predefined traits / UU / UB. A civilization builts itself over time. One has to do something to get bonuses. You want to get a promotion bonus on melee units (as the agg trait) ? build a certain number of melee unit and make them win a couple of fights.

5) More civics (or whatever they are called), that cover more areas of the game. Civics should lock/unlock certain part of the gameplay (the locked parts delegated to 'governors').

 

[Luckystrike77]

I'd love to see military units costing you population points. War should cost you blood too, not just money and production.

 

[Wodan]

I can't really visualize how what you're proposing would work though. Can you give an example?

Consider the Inca. They were quite advanced, agriculturally, as I understand, and also in medical fields. What would their civilization have changed into if the New World had not been discovered and "polluted" by European thinking and ideas?

Why not a culture that doesn't discover internal combustion (perhaps they have no oil) and as a result advanced steam technology and pneumatics to "modern" levels, despite other areas of their technology still being at 18th century levels?

Why do we have situations such as Paper having a prereq of Civil Service. There are dozens of similar situations in CIV.

There's got to be a certain amount of structure in a game, or else it all falls to pieces.

What's your basis for that conclusion?

And, who is to say what the "certain amount" is to be?

What use is it researching Bronze Working if someone else can get Iron straight off the bat? Also, where are the lines drawn? Surely someone can't start researching Fission from the get-go?

As I said, "unless there's some reason based in science".

Also we should be careful that we don't make assumptions. Why is IW "better" than BW? There are many applications where bronze or copper is a better choice than iron. And what if my civilization has Iron but not the metals to make Bronze? How would we "research" BW if we didn't have those metals at all? Wouldn't we jump straight to IW?

What if there was some "metallurgy" or "metal working" technology which is a prereq for both? Then, you could choose whether you go for IW or BW based upon strategic game decisions, instead of being forced to get BW before IW.

I think your idea might have some potential, but it seems very vague and ill-defined at the moment.

Well of course. That's why the game designers make the big bucks. We could define it here, and certainly I would be glad to explore it. I have put thought into it but we should understand that a well-designed game requires thousands of man hours, just in the concepting (before you even get to coding).

Unless you can propose a workable alternative system, I don't see the problem with sticking (roughly) with what we've got: a semi-linear progression from the stone age to the modern age.

Because it limits replayability, it limits enjoyability, it limits player creativity and strategy. It also limits profit, because those things directly impact sales.

 

[Loose Nut]

Well, I'm dreaming here, but something I would like to see in a Civ game: rotating leaders.

Like, for example, every time you advance an era, your leader changes, randomly (or not) – from say Augustus in the Classical Era to Constantine in the Medieval to Julius in the Renaissance. So your tactics might change depending on who takes the throne. You wouldn't necessarily have to have a leader for each age, but rotating from three or four or five might be cool.

The main drawback is, this may be more difficult with historically smaller/ shorter-lived/ sparser-historical-record civilizations.

You could also have (brief) dark ages this way, if each civilization has a disastrous leader. Caligula has seized the throne! Better not send out the praetorians for another hundred years.

And in a golden age, maybe you could choose a new leader (among whatever else). Or perhaps have a new category of Great Person – revolutionaries.