Civ5 Wishlist

[Dachs]

It's nonsensical use of jibberjabber.

Hey, I'm just sayin' that the concept of a "supreme allied commander" isn't really plausible even in the Second World War sense that the user in question is trying to convey.

 

[Danielos]

We need some dangers on the sea:

* Kraken (only oceanic, very rare but very strong)
* Great sea serpent
* Great White shark (may attack fishing boats)

 

[NBAfan]

Revolutions should be in the game.

 

[trevort]

Hey, I'm just sayin' that the concept of a "supreme allied commander" isn't really plausible even in the Second World War sense that the user in question is trying to convey.

How is a Supreme Allied Commander a "horrifying anachronism for most of human history."

OK lets take your first sentence apart and define the words. We'll leave the one, two and three letter words alone.

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

horrifying [ˈhɒrɪˌfaɪɪŋ]
adj
1. causing feelings of horror in; awful; terrifying;
2. dismaying or greatly shocking; dreadful
horrifyingly adv

a·nach·ro·nism (-nkr-nzm)
n.
1. The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order.
2. One that is out of its proper or chronological order, especially a person or practice that belongs to an earlier time

most (mst)
adj. Superlative of many, much.
1.
a. Greatest in number: won the most votes.
b. Greatest in amount, extent, or degree: has the most compassion.
2. In the greatest number of instances: Most fish have fins

human I think we all know that one

his·to·ry (hst-r)
n. pl. his·to·ries
1.
a. A usually chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a people or institution, often including an explanation of or commentary on those events: a history of the Vikings.

What's horrifying about the Supreme Allied Commander?

What makes it an anachronism?

Now lets look at the history of Supreme Allied Commander here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Allied_Commander
As you can see, the position of Supreme Allied Commander (SAC) didn't even exist until World War Two. Hardly "for most of human history." From what I understand of WW 2 history, the position of SAC was created to coordinate military strategy amongst the Allied forces and consult with Allied civilian leadership. This was in response to the disaster that resulted during WW1 from not having a SAC. What lostcause was saying is he would like to have the ability in game to act as a SAC during times of war when there are allies fighting a common enemy.

Given all of the above I find your statement to be illogical and false.
Personally I believe you were just using big words (horrifying and anachronism) to use big words. Why use complicated language when it's not needed.

As far is it being plausible:
plau·si·ble (plôz-bl)
adj.
1. Seemingly or apparently valid, likely, or acceptable; credible: a plausible excuse.

How is it not plausible? Historically it's valid and acceptable. I don't know how much you know about military operations, but effective leadership is the key to success. At all levels of command. Without leadership, a successful outcome is highly unlikely. lostcause would like the game to simulate one more level of command.

 

[hrman]

First post with the group...be nice to me! Sorry for the length, but reading everyone else's ideas got me thinking!

Before I get into specific minor improvements I'd like to see, here are two overriding things that MUST be right with Civ 5.

1) First and foremost - don't destroy the fundamental balance and style of gameplay. I've seen too many great game franchises destroyed when concerns such as graphics and ease of play for newcomers become more important than the gameplay itself.
2) Be sure the product is ready when released - this means a fairly bug-free product, as well as one that does not leave out things we've had in past versions for the sake of putting them in expansions. For example, I don't want to go back to 12 civilizations and have to buy expansions to get back to what we have now.

Now for the little stuff I've always wished was different in Civ 4 that I'd love to see in Civ 5 (some of which have already been mentioned):

1) Diplomacy Issues. This is a major area for improvement. I'd love to see the opportunity to claim undeveloped land and be able to buy, trade for, or negotiate to have others recognize your rights to it. Imagine being able to trade gold, technologies, or resources to someone in exchange for the rights to expand your borders around an undeveloped area of a continent. As others have mentioned, I'd also like to see the permanent penalties for refusing to help/provide tribute to another civ removed. They're just not realistic.
2) Open Border Issues - "Open Border" agreements need to be replaced with separate agreements for trade and military cooperation. For example, a regular open border agreement should allow trade between the countries, and non-military units only (scouts, missionaries, etc.) to enter their territory. A separate agreement should be required to allow military units access to territory.
3) Improvement on the handling of naval units. I've seen this mentioned by others, so I won't go into a lot of detail, except to say that the interaction between sea units and land units and cities has to become more realistic. For example, having an entire fleet next to a stack of units (not in a city) and not being able to do anything to them is just not right.
4) There needs to be some way to gain resources without having to build a city next to it. One of the most frustrating things about Civ 4 happens when you have to build a useless city just to take advantage of a resources. This is especially true if the resource is in the middle of useless tiles such as ice or desert. The Civ 3 model (I believe they were called colonies or outposts) worked for this, and I don't know why it was changed.
5) Finally, as others have said, unit upgrades need to be easier. It's frustrating to have warriors running around next to rifleman, and be forced to spend a large amount of gold to upgrade them. Instead of being forced to pay for upgrades, why can't you simply disband a unit in a city and get the hammers from it applied towards making it's upgrade? This would be an accurate way of expressing the fact that production is needed to supply the unit with it's new needs.

 

[leswt]

I would like to see more complexity in diplomacy. One specific idea is allowing you to make threats.

The option list would include things like "threaten war" and "threaten to nuke". When a threat is made, all of the unavailable options (red things like cities or vassal or capitulation) become available. If the contacted civ refuses the deal, then you can either carry out the threat or not (a bluff).

Implementation might involve assigning a negative value to the threat were an offer has positive value. Bluffing or not should effect credibility later

 

[trevort]

@hrman

1) Preach it Brother

2) Firaxis, do you hear and understand what the man is saying?

1) I agree with all that and would like to add permanent borders. Drawn on a map kind. Not based on Culture. How to implement permanent borders is above my pay grade.

2) You're cooking with gas

3) Man you hit the nail on the head. More naval units with more options to equip them. See this post for more of my thoughts concerning naval units.

4) This is strait from the CIV 3 Info Center
# Using Resources:

* To access any resource, you need to build a road to that resource. That resource must also be connected to your capitol in some way, be it by road, harbor, or airport.
* If the resource in question lies outside of your borders, you will need to build a colony on that square to use it.
* Resources and luxuries can be shared between cities via your trade network. For example, if there is an iron tile anywhere within your borders, all of your cities that are connected to that tile via road will have access to iron.
o One resource square is enough for your whole empire, as long as the road network from the square to your capitol is intact.

5)Great points.

 

[Camikaze]

In real life you wouldn't hold that land by owning it, you would hold it by having military units in the land.

Well you would hold it by owning it, unless someone wanted to take it from you, in which case they would declare war. Now, I guess there will be a move towards capturing individual tiles instead of having to take cities, so you probably will have more scope to take that one chockpoint tile.

 

[mrt144]

Now that religion is out, schisms and sects were on my wishlist. Make this game fun and interesting, not an also ran wargame.

 

[lostcause]

Wow, I don't read this thread for a couple days and one of my ideas becomes a major point of contention. trevort, you nailed it. I'll admit, the concept of a SAC is a modern concept, but many times in history military powers have worked together to achieve a single goal. The name Supreme Allied Commander might be anachronistic in 1000 BC, but the concept isn't. Besides, since when has Civ been a bastion of historical accuracy?

 

[mrt144]

Wow, I don't read this thread for a couple days and one of my ideas becomes a major point of contention. trevort, you nailed it. I'll admit, the concept of a SAC is a modern concept, but many times in history military powers have worked together to achieve a single goal. The name Supreme Allied Commander might be anachronistic in 1000 BC, but the concept isn't. Besides, since when has Civ been a bastion of historical accuracy?

Thats exactly the point. You're not playing, well most the time, you're not playing a historic simulation, you're playing a game of "What if this civilization and leader were in this situation? What if Ghandi was bloodthirsty?"

 

[trevort]

Wow, I don't read this thread for a couple days and one of my ideas becomes a major point of contention. trevort, you nailed it. I'll admit, the concept of a SAC is a modern concept, but many times in history military powers have worked together to achieve a single goal. The name Supreme Allied Commander might be anachronistic in 1000 BC, but the concept isn't. Besides, since when has Civ been a bastion of historical accuracy?

Perhaps it could be called "Supreme Military Commander". Sounds pretty era generic to me.

I didn't mean for it to become a point of contention. I just can't tolerate know it all smartalecs that spit out ill-considered, illogical statements that don't help the discussion.

Main Entry: smart al·eck
Variant(s): also smart al·ec \ˈsmärt-ˌa-lik, -ˌe-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Aleck, nickname for Alexander
Date: 1865
: an obnoxiously conceited and self-assertive person with pretensions to smartness or cleverness

 

[Suspiria]

For the last time, there is no confirmation to religion being out of the game or one unit per tile. it's just not confirmed people so dont take it for granted.

 

[trevort]

For the last time, there is no confirmation to religion being out of the game or one unit per tile. it's just not confirmed people so dont take it for granted.

I think the one unit per tile thing is like it was in Civ 3. Only units from one nation per tile.

 

[lostcause]

I think the one unit per tile thing is like it was in Civ 3. Only units from one nation per tile.

According to the summary of the Danish article that has driven most of the argument on the one unit per tile is that unit stacking (the SOD) is out. What all that entails is still up in the air until we have more details.

 

[The Almighty dF]

According to the summary of the Danish article that has driven most of the argument on the one unit per tile is that unit stacking (the SOD) is out. What all that entails is still up in the air until we have more details.

Though the danish article is still very questionable, and last I checked could very well just be some crap someone made up.
Until the info actually comes out, assume the source (the original person that made claims about the allleged leaked contents of the alleged article) is lying.

 

[lostcause]

Though the danish article is still very questionable, and last I checked could very well just be some crap someone made up.
Until the info actually comes out, assume the source (the original person that made claims about the allleged leaked contents of the alleged article) is lying.

When the April GamePro edition hits stands in just over a week, then we will have concrete information, hopefully about more than just OUPT.

Perhaps it could be called "Supreme Military Commander". Sounds pretty era generic to me.

Works for me!

 

[Ikael]

Yay, great to see some of you guys liking my ideas

trade route: hard to make a realistic implementation.
the cities along the roads connecting 2 civilizations to eachother would have high trade commerce, is it ok? but how. well, we build road to every city. so which city would be more important for trade? in late game, nearly all plots in the landmass have road.

I think of the following model: You can stablish trade routes between cities only within a fixed radious of movement of a caravan, say, a unit with 4 moves. Depending on the tech development (compass, corporations, etc), civilization traits, buildings (marketplace, airport, etc) communications (roads) and natural communications (rivers, sea, etc), said "traderoute radious" can be expanded. Of course, things like closed borders and wars and civics reduce this ratio. You can stablish trade routes in the same way that you build roads in civ revolutions, you choose the citie (or cities) you want it to go to, and the further it is, the higher is the cost. Once the route is stablished, the benefits apply following these factors: time (the more ancient is the route, the more benefitial it is, for it has been consolidated), number of cities involved (the more direct and less intermediaries there are, the bigger are the benefits), distance (the further you stablish it, the more benefits you obtain) and interdependance (if the destination city lacks a resource the source city has or viceversa, the bonuses are multiplied). There you have it, a comprensible, realistic traderoute model.

immigration cannot be handled.

I think that not only it can be handled, but that it is, in fact, being handled in this new civ 5. I readed on a Spanish magazine that friendly civ could not only cross your frontiers, but also settle on them O_o

naval forces should be more useful yes. but i don't like naval forces anyway. why? i don't like maps with many landmasses. they suck in ways of resources.

It can be solved trought a more efficient resource distribution system.

Attack bonus against surrounded units: this is cool but in which directions should they be surrounded? all6?

I think of something like this: you get bonuses if you are attacking a unit surrounded by more of your units, but it also gets nullified if surrounded by friendly units. Example:

Unit surrounded by 3 friendly units and 3 hostile units: No bonus (they nullify each other).
Unit surrounded by 3 foes and 1 friendly unit: -50% defense (the enemy gets a +25% attack for each surrounding unit that it is not nullified).

differenciate culture into different aspects and Warfare evolving from one era to another: those would exploit the game a lot.

It is not as hard as it looks, it is just a game designing philosophy that hasn't been exploited yet. I made a mod for civ 3 (back when you didn't need to know how to program in order to change minor things) that addressed the evolution of warfare, even if it was just in small dettail: you did not get units with a bombardement radious bigger than one tile till the arrival of the gunpowder, calvary were the only ancient units able to move more than one square and tanks were made the first unit able to attack multiple times, thus enabling the blitzkrieg.

The differenciated culture aspects is not something impossible, I think of something like this:

Language:
Expanded trought: Trade routes and demography
Benefits: Cities with your same language have lowered manteinance costs. Incidentally, if some civ is able to expand their language into your borders that will cause you manteinance problems too, due to the increased bureaucracy needed in order to adminstrate the city into several languages

Religion:
Expanded trought: Same method as civ 4
Benefits: Civic bonuses, line of vision

Lifestyle:
Expanded trought: Happiness buildings, technology (once your civ is the first to research a technology, the adoption of said technology is considered to be the adoption of your lifestyle)
Benefits: Happiness penalty for entering in war against you, happiness bonus for being allied / supporting you in a war, easier assimilation of inmigrants

Arts:
Expanded trought: Theaters, cathedrals, great people
Benefits: Your luxury and food products have a bigger effect in another civs, making them more valuable to trade with

Once a foreign city have adopted all these 4 factors, that isyour art, religion, lifestyle and language, yep, you can claim it as rightfully yours. Also, that could lead to a very interesting specialization in culture aspects depending on the civilization: Americans would excell at spreading their lifestyle, Arabs at spreading their religion, the French at spreading their art and Spanish at spreading their language. It would be quite awesome, me thinks.

 

[surplanter]

i would like to see plant and animal resources that are more dynamic. where once a civ has control of say corn, corn could be planted anywhere in the empire provided it is the correct climate zones. or maybe horses and cows could be traded from one civ and could be bred all over like it was with the americas. it never made much sense to me that horses or food could be traded and once the deal was over you were back to starving and rickshaws.

it would also be be pretty cool if the world was more influential on the civs. how is a civ going to develop iron working if they dont have any iron in their nation? or horseback riding with no horses? until they conquered a neighbor or traded some resources they would be stuck in the dark.

 

[Danielos]

Just a little thing that I missed in Civ 4:

* Leaders, their clothes and their backgrounds should change depending on era of that civ and their government

* If you visit a leader, the background would be of the foreign leader. If the leader visit you, the background would be yours.