Civ5 Wishlist

[climat]

How about.. making resources like ivory and whale obsolete by UN decision, not by technology (if they are in, of course)?

 

[Wodan]

How about, getting a relations penalty from civs who have decided working ivory/whales are bad.

Compare: Japan still "works" whales today. It doesn't really hurt them, other than every now and then PETA stages a demonstration and they make the news.

 

[trevort]

I'd like to see a more in depth UN. The UN plays a large role in our global society today and having it in the game as it is now is marginal at best. I'd love to see more options and more penalties for opposing these options.

Also refering to the AI concerning wars. I hate when other civs want me to declare war on a civ half a world away with no logically way for either of us to support such an endeavor.

In the real world the UN is marginal at best. If the game were to model the real UN, it would have to include fraud, waste, corruption, indecision, meaningless resolutions and an unequal system of funding itself. Don't get me wrong. The UN has done some good, but not much.

 

[climat]

How about, getting a relations penalty from civs who have decided working ivory/whales are bad.

It seems reasonable.

 

[Wodan]

In the real world the UN is marginal at best. If the game were to model the real UN, it would have to include fraud, waste, corruption, indecision, meaningless resolutions and an unequal system of funding itself. Don't get me wrong. The UN has done some good, but not much.

I agree with all that.

But, strictly talking about the game and a wishlist, the current UN is horrible for the game. It's absolutely one of the worst things they could have done.

Let's see... let's make a game mechanic that discourages player creativity and forces the same "idealitic" civics down their throats. Even if the player wants to do something different, they might be forced to switch. Which means, taking a gamble on alternative and interesting civic combinations is double risky, because you might be forced into this mold, making all of your preparations till that point worthless. Instead, the wise and careful player will not take the risk, and will prepare for a late game strategy which uses the UN civics, thus resulting in an optimal late game with minimal risk.

In ciV, let's throw that in the crapper where it belongs, along with similar mechanics such as the Emancipation penalty. If we get a UN, let's make it totally different gameplay than cIV.

 

[trevort]

I agree with all that.

But, strictly talking about the game and a wishlist, the current UN is horrible for the game. It's absolutely one of the worst things they could have done.

Let's see... let's make a game mechanic that discourages player creativity and forces the same "idealitic" civics down their throats. Even if the player wants to do something different, they might be forced to switch. Which means, taking a gamble on alternative and interesting civic combinations is double risky, because you might be forced into this mold, making all of your preparations till that point worthless. Instead, the wise and careful player will not take the risk, and will prepare for a late game strategy which uses the UN civics, thus resulting in an optimal late game with minimal risk.

In ciV, let's throw that in the crapper where it belongs, along with similar mechanics such as the Emancipation penalty. If we get a UN, let's make it totally different gameplay than cIV.

Instead of a UN how about the UC. United Civilizations. Then it could be anything. We wouldnt have to worry about it matching a real world counterpart or disappointing some player who is expecting the Civ4 UN.

I like Kissamies idea of unit patrol routes. You could have destroyers or anti-sub planes patrolling your coast for enemy SSBN's. Fighters patrolling for German bombers over the English Channel. F-14's patrolling for Soviet Bear bombers and their Carrier killer cruise missiles. Lots of possibilities.

 

[Kickbooti]

I would love to see an increase in communications technology have an impact in lowering corruption. If you have a distant city that is cut off from the mainland in the days of sail, then the governor there would have lots of opportunity for graft. After radio, maybe less so as he is tied into the center of power. After airports someone from the Justice Department (or the secret police) is just a plane ride away.

 

[Sinist4r]

Space-faring! It could be included in a expansion pack or so. I just think that we have waited enough to see the civilizations conquer another planets.

 

[duckstab]

I absolutely hate the upgrade system in Civ IV. Too expensive and too much micromanagement. I hate that I always end up with tons of obsolete units because it's too costly to upgrade them but I can't afford to delete them because it'll take my power rating down too low. And when I do have enough cash to upgrade a unit or few I have to pick them out one at a time.

A few thoughts I had for Civ V:

1) Have another slider to dedicate a portion of the GNP to upgrades. Whenever funds were available, the game would automatically upgrade your most experienced unit(s) to the latest weaponry. Or you can set the slider to 0 and continue to do upgrades directly from your treasury.
2) Have increasing discounts for each successive upgrade of the same type. I.e., once I've trained one Archer unit to use Longbows the next one is significantly cheaper, and so on.
3) Automatically remove units that aren't upgraded within a certain number of turns (20?, 50?) after they become obsolete, selecting the least-experienced / weakest units first. For both the human and the AI.
4) Do away with the AI discounts on upgrades. Instead maybe adjust the threshold at which 3) applies to shorter or longer for the AI.

 

[trevort]

Instead of upgrading, for instance, Archer to Longbowman all the way up to Rifleman, Start with Archer but just buy new weapons as the technology becomes available. When you discover musketry the game would ask " You have discovered Musketry would you like to equip your Longbowmen with muskets for x amount." If yes then they would be unavailable for x amount of turns for retraining.

It could even be one choice to do it as funds become available or another choice could be to do a certain percentage of the unit in question at a time. A weapon rollout schedule. That way you would still have a large percentage available for action at any given time.

 

[Kickbooti]

1. A Supreme Allied Commander. Whenever I fight a war in Civ4, it seems like I do all the fighting while my allies sit on the sidelines out of fear of getting dirty (or waiting to capture a city that I had just assaulted). I think it would be nice that when allies go to war they create a unified assault force under the command of the player (or AI, if you're daring). You just select which units of yours you want to send, and they are placed under the command of the SAC.

I REALLY like this idea.

 

[duckstab]

Instead of upgrading, for instance, Archer to Longbowman all the way up to Rifleman, Start with Archer but just buy new weapons as the technology becomes available. When you discover musketry the game would ask " You have discovered Musketry would you like to equip your Longbowmen with muskets for x amount." If yes then they would be unavailable for x amount of turns for retraining.

It could even be one choice to do it as funds become available or another choice could be to do a certain percentage of the unit in question at a time. A weapon rollout schedule. That way you would still have a large percentage available for action at any given time.

I think something like that would work as well. Your idea of having the units unavailable for some time is intriguing. Maybe the more money you're willing/able to spend the shorter the time of unavailability?

 

[Mango Elephant]

I have one. Much like in Civ 3 when you capture your opponents city it doesn't just throw up its culture and become your culture but instead becomes steadily integrated into the new culture. An example would be this, the Chinese take over a Greek city, and the city graphics remain Greek but every few turns or so the city steadily turns Chinese. This is more a cosmetic touch, but empires feel a lot more imperial when there's a mesh of cultures.

 

[trevort]

I think something like that would work as well. Your idea of having the units unavailable for some time is intriguing. Maybe the more money you're willing/able to spend the shorter the time of unavailability?

I'm not so sure about more money should equal less time. The time the unit is unavailable is to simulate the weeks or months real troops need to learn a new weapon and the new tactics required/possible. There could be a tech, possibly called Advanced training or whatever, that would reduce the time unavailable for training. Or perhaps a Leader trait.
I do think that the first few, shall we say gunpowder units, produced should take longer to train than later ones. For instance, Arquebusiers should take longer to train than Rifleman because gunpowder has been around for centuries by then. This concept could apply across the board for most units.
Except for maybe ships. They were either scrapped or kept around while being incrementally upgraded. WW1 4 stack destroyers did not become WW2 Fletcher Class destroyers. To show the real world upgrading of ships they should be put in a Naval dry dock (CIV city building) for a period of time. When they emerge they should have a new or improved ability. For instance, US Navy WW2 battle ships started the war with pathetic anti-air defenses but over the course of the war more and better anti-air guns and radars were added. The British, if I remember correctly, added armor to their battleships as a result of battle experience during WW1. The ultimate example of this is the Iowa class battleships. They served from the 1940's to the 1990's. The basic structure of the ship stayed the same. A ww2 vet would feel at home on a Desert Storm Iowa class. Most of the weapons stayed the same. Obsolete weapons were removed and new added.
This photo is an example of what I am referring to.

Notice the removals and additions made over time. Although all three aren't the same ship they are the same class and are representative of what I'm saying.
This article illustrates it even better. http://web.archive.org/web/20070624045508/www.battleship.org/html/Articles/Features/MysteryShip.htm
This would require a more complex upgrade path. More ship models to display the new additions or subtractions. It's "just" programming and art. Right?

 

[captain_kickass]

I would like to see The Sphinx as a world wonder.

 

[duckstab]

I have one. Much like in Civ 3 when you capture your opponents city it doesn't just throw up its culture and become your culture but instead becomes steadily integrated into the new culture. An example would be this, the Chinese take over a Greek city, and the city graphics remain Greek but every few turns or so the city steadily turns Chinese. This is more a cosmetic touch, but empires feel a lot more imperial when there's a mesh of cultures.

I like that idea - I play with the BAT mod most of the time and I like how each civ has its own building style, but it's kind of jarring when a city gets conquered and all the architecture changes at once.

One thing that might be nice, however, is if any UBs that survive a conquest retain at least their graphics, if not their effects. I once conquered a bunch of Ottoman cities and aqueducts miraculously appeared in place of the Hammams that were there.

 

[Suspiria]

If CivV gets battle right, it will put in zones of control for military units and have supply lines. Meaning you will still have your stacks but you will need units to guard your supply lines and flanks too.

Military zones of control would also take the battles out of the cities and put them on the battlefields where they should be. Civilizations would try and prevent further ingress of their territory and take the fight outside the cities.

City warfare could still play an important part of the game. I believe that invading forces should be able to cut off supply lines to the city and starve the citizens and defenders.

Forts should also have some zone of control in the game, especially against city states. Forts should be able to be upgradeable to Keeps, Castles, Star Forts, Military bases, etc.


Btw im back after a few years on announcement of this news Funny I was thinking today...hmmm look up Civ5...maybe theres news? And I see an official website link and view it, and now im here. Amazed to say the least. This has been a long time coming.

Things I hope are in the game...

- Military zones of control
- Supply Lines
- Greater more involved democracy
- Naval battles please! The game has never had a good sea warfare component. If they put more focus on sea trade and resources the naval warfare could ramp up considerably. I want to see great naval armada battles.
- Bring back Airfields, for strategic placing of air power.
- I have never been a fan of Civ4 click click promotion system...How about having a system where the units gain battle experience in certain types of warfare. Warrior sucessfully attacking a city gains 1+ city warfare experience. Gain 10-12 of these points overall among your forces and your military gains common knowledge, and from now on all new units start off with +1 city warfare experience. This can be balanced to prevent over pointing new units. Maybe also put in bonuses like free units, abilities, etc.
- I would like to see different representations for Naval and Airforce like seperate bases, academies, different representation on city screen (Military - Barracks, Navy - Naval Port, Airforce - Airfield.)
- Making units like archers and catapults not overly powerful units in and of themself, but hold their value as complimentary units to warfare. Please no shooting range of 2 tiles for archers and no suicidal siege engines.
- Keep in random events and quests. Loved it. Though should have more options to avoid bad disasters.
- Hated corporations and dont want to see it again.
- All for having religions back but want to see an exiciting new direction for the game. The way they focused on diplomacy was unbalanced and annoying. Sure they might factor in somewhat but theres no reason why two different religions automatically have to hate each other.
- Make the espionage system easier to control and manage. No more movable spy units. A simple click of the espionage button would revert the screen to "espionage mode" where you can easily assign points to different rival cities (or your own for counter espionage) and areas and carry out missions.
- Quantities for resources. 1 Gold mine should pump out 1 ton of gold every number of turns, and you can trade this in certain amounts to rivals. It should also factor in to how many units you can support. Eg. 1 horse resource supports only 10 horse units. This would make diplomacy and acquiring new land essential for growing an even larger and more supportive empire.


These are my hopes...

 

[Suspiria]

Also just to add to that...

- fully controllable puppet states/semi controllable vassal states

- ambushes/guerilla warfare, units should have the ability to hide in certain terrain. Eg, partisans and gaellic warriors in hills, most units in forest, solitary ships should be able to hide in the lagoons of islands to avoid armadas or pirates.

- Maybe we dont need worker units? Perhaps we can just click were we want to construct an improvement, or let it go by its self.

- Love the idea of a supreme allied commander. Should also be the option where if your vassal takes an enemy city it automatically goes to you...hate it when they claim a city you mostly attacked.

- Visible sea trading routes represented by tiny ships etc that can be attacked by pirates or rivals. Making a navy more than essential to protect them. Perhaps also you can assign the routes themselves. There should be more city states that pump out pirates/vikings to plunder ocean trade routes.

- A patrol option for units should be absolutely necessary, especially for ships to guard the above option.

- Certain food resources should be pooled nationwide, so you no longer get starving cities on your main land base. This could also work at an intercontinental level with supply routes.

- Units should be cheaper and easier to upgrade, or you can take them back to city barracks and upgrade them by spending money/resources, losing a percentage of their battle experience in the process (an axeman upgrading to a Maceman shouldnt be able to perfectly keep their previous experience). Upgrading a last generation unit should still be cheaper then building a new unit altogether.

- Technology trickle...3rd generation techs should trickle down to neighbouring civs dependings on their economy/science infrastructure/military victories. For instance when you have modern mech infantry theres no reason why most of the world shouldnt already have rifles equating to Infantry. With some exceptions you still might have a few distant isolated native tribes. There would simply be no more phalanx vs tank scenarios. Hell maybe you should even be able to trade weapons to lower tech civs...

 

[kivanc]

I'd like to see a more in depth UN. The UN plays a large role in our global society today and having it in the game as it is now is marginal at best. I'd love to see more options and more penalties for opposing these options.

Also refering to the AI concerning wars. I hate when other civs want me to declare war on a civ half a world away with no logically way for either of us to support such an endeavor.

i hate UN in civ4. forcing for civics suck.
And the emancipation anger
and the "the world consider you a villain"

corp feature is a nerf for SP.
emancipation anger is a nerf for caste system.
both are non-reasonable. is SP, the state have its own corps. so there are still corps called cooperatives.
anyway, i generally ignore all corps. it generally doesn't suit my style. it is a waste of hammers and GPs. you waste hammers for executives and you waste GPs.

How about, getting a relations penalty from civs who have decided working ivory/whales are bad.

Compare: Japan still "works" whales today. It doesn't really hurt them, other than every now and then PETA stages a demonstration and they make the news.

hmm they are absolute in late game. fur plots are generally very south/north. so in some games, i just ignore them and don't settle. you'll loose the happiness extra in late game anyway. and in early game, there is HR.

 

[Dachs]

I REALLY like this idea.

It's a horrifying anachronism for most of human history.