Civilization 5

[Jondalar]

This is sort of a small idea for an improvement, but one I was thinking about when playing the game last night:

Why can't 'peak' tiles be improved or used for anything, really? I understand that hills are mined, but why are peaks not able to be mined? In the US, the Rockies and the Appalachian mountains are heavily mined - not only that, but civilizations have learned to tunnel through them, destroy them, etc.

To me it would make sense that at some point you should be able to plant an explosive on a peak to mine it, remove it, or tunnel through it... Maybe after getting gunpowder - for explosives?

Yeah, small I know, but I was thinking about it last night playing a highlands map...

 

[Tomek]

Anyway, my 6 columns o' civics are as follows: [...]

I dont think it is a good idea to stick to 5 number of civics in each column.
I would rather say that it is obvious that it should differ. Probably theres more posibilities in govt and economic civics and less in religion an military civics.

rgds

 

[bardolph]

For Civ 5, I would love to see real Multiplayer support:

• The game should ship with PitBoss
• The matchmaking service should allow you to sign up for the next available Pitboss or PBEM game.
• You should have the option to play "just one turn" for the AI in an open Pitboss game.
• You should be able to join a Pitboss game already in progress, taking over an AI.
• The matchmaking system should allow you to quickly find unattended (AI-controlled) Pitboss civs, either to take over, or for the "just one turn" option.
• When looking for open games to join, you should be able to browse basic game stats (Demographics, Technologies, and Power Graph) before joining. That way, you can join civs that have a chance at surviving.

I think Pitboss is key to any enhancement of Civ multiplayer, as is the ability to casually play in a game by joining it for "just a couple of turns."

The biggest problem with Civ currently is that the AI is not a competent player. Multiplayer is a solution to this. However, the biggest problem with Multiplayer is that it's hard to get 18 players with 10-20 free hours, in one stretch, at the same time.

 

[Fraydom]

Being a person of the military that i am i highly agree that the next civilization should pursue a chance at an internal rebellion. but not just the uprisings we get now, but more detailed, such as a coupe could happen to where the city becomes a city state of whichever religion or government the AI chooses, not exactly rebelling to join another nation but starting a nation of its own. we have seen this in reality.

as to the size of units, i myself enjoy naming my units, when it comes to infantry i assume each unit is a company or troop. when it comes to cavalry i assume each unit is a squadron or battalion. when i group them with each other with a veteran unit i name that unit as a regiment or brigrade that the other squadrons or battalions fall under. but i would love to see the ability to manage all of my units into a cohesive unit. if say i am at war on my eastern front and i deploy units i would like to keep them under a single division, within that division i would like to be able to coordinate which brigades go where. then when it comes down to assualting a city i would like to direct which companies assualt from where. ofcourse it would be far to extensive to bring it down to platoon and squad level and this game runs with larger unit levels. but atleast at this point when it comes down to where each of my units are i know for example 1st armored division is deployed to the eastern front and 2nd infantry division is deployed to the northern front. within those divisions i would know which units are where by what brigades or battalions they are. but mind you all, i am a soldier myself, i am already adapted to the recognition of unit affiliations.

 

[TheDuckLover]

Maybe catherine will take that part for russia as a totalitarian regime.

Yea when I contact her for the first time she says "I'm always looking for CLOSER relations with other leaders if you know what I mean."

And crime would be nice. Adds unhappiness points as city gets larger and the jail or a police station cuts those points down. And wood as a resource instead of it just being there.

 

[Hexed]

I would be really, really, really, happy if the old wonder movies came back. Voice overs, with the movie and the text of historical stuff. I loved them

 

[Skallagrimson]

Lord Sandwich, Mormonism is a minority religion in America. The mainstream religion is a loose confederation of people who call themselves "Evangelical", a large subset of Protestant, offshoot from Anglican but distinct from it. Its pedigree is largely from the "Puritans" who landed at Plymouth Rock: escapees from Anglican persecution under King James, who had wrongly assumed the natives would simply slaughter them, LOL.

The more ridiculous examples of the Evangelicals are "Televangelists", or, Evangelical preachers who do their spouting on TV shows, mainly to fleece the gullible of donation money.

Here's a closer look at them:

http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/

 

[Skallagrimson]

This is sort of a small idea for an improvement, but one I was thinking about when playing the game last night:

Why can't 'peak' tiles be improved or used for anything, really? I understand that hills are mined, but why are peaks not able to be mined? In the US, the Rockies and the Appalachian mountains are heavily mined - not only that, but civilizations have learned to tunnel through them, destroy them, etc.

To me it would make sense that at some point you should be able to plant an explosive on a peak to mine it, remove it, or tunnel through it... Maybe after getting gunpowder - for explosives?

Yeah, small I know, but I was thinking about it last night playing a highlands map...

Civ2 used to let you mine them, or even change them to hills with the "transform" command. Some of the resource transformations made no sense, but it did make more sense that you could do things with mountains other than simply be blocked by them.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Being a person of the military that i am i highly agree that the next civilization should pursue a chance at an internal rebellion. but not just the uprisings we get now, but more detailed, such as a coupe could happen to where the city becomes a city state of whichever religion or government the AI chooses, not exactly rebelling to join another nation but starting a nation of its own. we have seen this in reality.

I agree with this. I think the old Medieval Total War had a good thing going with a "loyalty" score, and the lower the score dropped, the more likely a province was to revolt, and if it did it could either be a "barbarian" uprising, or a new AI civ emerging into the game (e.g., the "Swiss" which appear out of nowhere as a new AI if Switzerland's loyalty drops in the mid-late phase of the game). BUT, instead of just automatically converting, what would happen is that a number of armies of the uprising force would appear, and your garrison there would have to fight them to keep control of the place: if they lost, the uprising won; and if they won, the uprising was suppressed. This adds the dreaded r-word (realism) which many Civ fans hate so much though, so we're probably in the minority supporting this.

as to the size of units, i myself enjoy naming my units, when it comes to infantry i assume each unit is a company or troop. when it comes to cavalry i assume each unit is a squadron or battalion. when i group them with each other with a veteran unit i name that unit as a regiment or brigrade that the other squadrons or battalions fall under. but i would love to see the ability to manage all of my units into a cohesive unit. if say i am at war on my eastern front and i deploy units i would like to keep them under a single division, within that division i would like to be able to coordinate which brigades go where. then when it comes down to assualting a city i would like to direct which companies assualt from where. ofcourse it would be far to extensive to bring it down to platoon and squad level and this game runs with larger unit levels. but atleast at this point when it comes down to where each of my units are i know for example 1st armored division is deployed to the eastern front and 2nd infantry division is deployed to the northern front. within those divisions i would know which units are where by what brigades or battalions they are. but mind you all, i am a soldier myself, i am already adapted to the recognition of unit affiliations.

Civ already lets you name units and group them. What it doesn't have are different organizational layers, going up in size to Army or Division or down in size to Platoon or Squad. I think a good realistic way to handle this would be in a Unit Assembly screen, which would have these elements:

1) Weapons. A stockpile of weapons from a city stockpile or a national armory stockpile would be assigned to the unit. The number of weapons available would limit how many troops could be armed thereby, naturally.

2) Manpower. A troop levy of manpower from one or more cities would be raised, either through volunteer recruitment (mid-cost), a draft (low-cost), or mercenary hires (high-cost). Volunteers and draftees would deplete population from one or more cities, not in "levels" from 9 to 8, for example, but in real numbers of people, from say, 60000 to 50000 (with a limit based on population subgroups of how many are adult men versus, say, women and children).

3) Organization. Ideally unit types based on size can be player-edited, or the player can go by defaults chosen by the game. Units can be grouped into a single large unit, a handful of medium sized units, or broken out into several smaller units, by the player's choice. The size of each unit grouped, based on size-class names, would be referred to in terms of that type. If, say, a "Company" is defined as units from 150 to 300 men, a unit of 200 would be called a "Company" (and if armed with rifles, a "Rifle Company", but different unit type names based on weaponry should also be editable, to allow for naval, marine, air force, etc., organizational naming). It could get a little tricky when adopting combined-arms organization, and custom names may be required in all cases here. "What do you want to call a unit of this type" (when riflemen are combined with tanks, for example) might have to be the prompt. And you enter in "Armored Cavalry" or some such...

Programming to auto-resolve combat between different custom-type units would have to be sophisticated, but can be done. The matchup of different units on each side can make it clear in some cases (rifles versus cavalry) or more up to chance in others (rifles versus rifles), with all the usual factors of who's fortified, what's the terrain, who's defending, etc. BUT, I do think it would also be a huge improvement to have an interactive combat module, Total War style, where the victory or loss is based, not on chance or calculations, but on your own battlefield tactics.

 

[carmen510]

What to keep:

Wonder Movies
Great People
Religion
Civilopedia
The system to minimize micromanagement

What to add:

Better diplomacy system (How does a person with +14 relations and -3 relations with someone else vote for the 'someone else?')
More civics/governments (Maybe add what branches there are as well?)
More turns.
2d or 3d?

 

[Tomek]

What to keep:

Wonder Movies
Great People
Religion
....

Religion...
that's the big question !!

Nobody rised this issue but. I can probably assume that we can agree that religions are loosing their influence on the people and civilisations since our world became a global village.

there's more and more atheists, more and more acceptance for mixed marriages, people dont care so much about church i.e. comparing to medieval times.

Nowadays religions definitely does not have so much cultural and espionage impact as it has been set up in civilization 4. I would strongly recommend to decrease religious benefits while civilization is more and more advanced. Probably an internet could be a kind of turning point. The ability to give happiness, culture and information aboult rivals' cities should decrease during times.

It is also a chcracteristic of christian church which is institutionally and politically organized. I would not say that bhuddism or taoism should give so strong espionage benefits as christian church. Each religion should give different benefits for sure, and differently changing during times. Probably buddism should give more happiness, christian more espionage benefits, islam
military and so on. Islam could keep the benefits till modern times, while christian should be decreased ealier.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Religion...
that's the big question !!

Nobody rised this issue but. I can probably assume that we can agree that religions are loosing their influence on the people and civilisations since our world became a global village.

there's more and more atheists, more and more acceptance for mixed marriages, people dont care so much about church i.e. comparing to medieval times.

I agree that State Atheism should be a civic, but I disagree that religion has become irrelevant in the modern world. Bush's form of evangelical Christianity; Islam; Judaism; these religions and the differences between them are still fueling wars, as we speak.

One aspect of religion we can see in the modern era which doesn't exist in the game is a sort of ecumenical affinity, similar to diplomatic relations between empires: sometimes religions get along better with certain other religions, than with yet other religions. Christianity and Judaism currently seem to be teamed up against Islam, in the global struggle for humanity's soul; yet if this were a Civ4 world, they'd all hate each other in equal proportions.

What might be a good new feature to add would be a religious relations function, where religions either get postive or negative toward one another based on the same factors as between the civs as a whole:

1) Years of peace between the shrine-owners of religion A and religion B.
2) Common cause in a war.
3) Trading with the enemy of religion A.
...etc.

In this way, sometimes there would be a large diplomatic hit to being a different religion than an AI, and sometimes not.

This also reminds me of a diplomacy issue: why is it impossible to know what level of relations each AI has with each of the others? "Furious, Annoyed, Cautious, Pleased, Friendly" should be visible not just between the AI and you, but between the AIs and each-other. At the very least make it available upon the establishment of an embassy or spying mission, which (and I hate beating the Civ2-was-better drum all the time but it's TRUE) was available in Civ2 (I think it was upon Writing you could build a "diplomat" and establish an embassy to reveal inter-civ relations).

Nowadays religions definitely does not have so much cultural and espionage impact as it has been set up in civilization 4. I would strongly recommend to decrease religious benefits while civilization is more and more advanced. Probably an internet could be a kind of turning point. The ability to give happiness, culture and information aboult rivals' cities should decrease during times.

OR... in the modern era let Atheism gain an equal if not slightly higher footing than religion in terms of ability to generate happiness. The problem with having Atheism as a "religion" is that Atheism has no concept of a shrine or a holy city. Even if it has "missionaries" of a sort (Atheist philosophers), and libraries and universities can act as its "temples", the business of shrines nags at me and makes me want to avoid it as an alternative religion. However, as a religious *civic*, it makes perfect sense. And maybe this can be captured by Free Religion getting slightly more powerful in the modern era (maybe the 10% beakers benefit goes to 15% after Industrialism), and adding a State Atheism civic to represent such states as the former USSR and how they approached religion: they didn't, after all, have "FREE" religion, now...

It is also a chcracteristic of christian church which is institutionally and politically organized. I would not say that bhuddism or taoism should give so strong espionage benefits as christian church. Each religion should give different benefits for sure, and differently changing during times. Probably buddism should give more happiness, christian more espionage benefits, islam
military and so on. Islam could keep the benefits till modern times, while christian should be decreased ealier.

That's a good idea. Unique religion-based bonus attributes of some sort. Maybe allow these bonuses with the building of the religion's shrine, such that, instead of just a WEALTH bonus, each shrine could have a unique bonus. Some ideas:

Buddhist Shrine = +25% culture in cities with Buddhism; +50% with Buddhist Temple; +100% with Academy
Hindu Shrine = +1 health in cities with Hinduism; +2 with Hindu Temple; +3 with Mandir
Jewish Shrine = +5% wealth in cities with Judaism; +15% wealth with Jewish Temple; +25% wealth with Synagogue
Taoist Shrine = +1 happy in cities with Taoism; +2 happies with Taoist Temple; +3 happies with Academy
Confucian Shrine = +5% beakers in cities with Confucianism; +15% beakers with Confucian Temple; +25% beakers with Academy
Christian Shrine = -25% war weariness in cities with Christianity; -50% WW with Christian Temple; NO WW with Christian Cathedral
Muslim Shrine = -25% unit maintenance cost for units built in cities with Islam; -50% unit maintenance with Muslim Temple; NO maintenance cost for units built in cities with Mosque

...something along those lines

Edit: obviously these benefits should only work if you *have* the city with the religion, and the shrine. If someone else has the Muslim shrine you don't get the effects in any cities you have with Islam, nor do they get the effect for having spread their religion to you.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

That's a good idea. Unique religion-based bonus attributes of some sort. Maybe allow these bonuses with the building of the religion's shrine, such that, instead of just a WEALTH bonus, each shrine could have a unique bonus. Some ideas:

Buddhist Shrine = +25% culture in cities with Buddhism; +50% with Buddhist Temple; +100% with Academy
Hindu Shrine = +1 health in cities with Hinduism; +2 with Hindu Temple; +3 with Mandir
Jewish Shrine = +5% wealth in cities with Judaism; +15% wealth with Jewish Temple; +25% wealth with Synagogue
Taoist Shrine = +1 happy in cities with Taoism; +2 happies with Taoist Temple; +3 happies with Academy
Confucian Shrine = +5% beakers in cities with Confucianism; +15% beakers with Confucian Temple; +25% beakers with Academy
Christian Shrine = -25% war weariness in cities with Christianity; -50% WW with Christian Temple; NO WW with Christian Cathedral
Muslim Shrine = -25% unit maintenance cost for units built in cities with Islam; -50% unit maintenance with Muslim Temple; NO maintenance cost for units built in cities with Mosque

...something along those lines

I remember reading somewhere that the developers avoided giving the religions different effects because it would be bound to create arguments about which religion is best .

Anyway I like your ideas but the effects you listed seem to be pretty strong, especially if you were spiritual with half priced temples. Plus i think that the effects if any should be randomized each game perhaps.

 

[Tomek]

I remember reading somewhere that the developers avoided giving the religions different effects because it would be bound to create arguments about which religion is best

there always will be such discussions - in civ reality and in real life... I think the one unavoidable aspect has great impact on the game including this issue: Civilisations and its people, rulers and chcracteristic change during ages - During the game there is the one and only ruler - the player who's judging and measuring everything form totally different point of view. Each player has onw strategy and opinion i.e. about usefulness of given tech, wonder or civ. One can say Indians are best 'cos they are spititual ('cos he likes play spiritual or has specific point of view). Other may say England is best because they are financial... I understand that probably such discussion about religions may not be politically correct. But I can see no difference while saying liberalism is better than despotism, rifleing better than swords, islam better than taoism to me. We are still discussing the game not the reality isn't it?

Anyway I like your ideas but the effects you listed seem to be pretty strong, especially if you were spiritual with half priced temples. Plus i think that the effects if any should be randomized each game perhaps.

I agree
thats why I will keep my point of view: even the religious benefits are strong they should decrease century by century.
And adding sth on the top of it - I'm not great supporter of religion idea in civ. Religion is a kind of idea that become a massive, popular movement. In the same way we can consider other ideas of life: pacifism, racism, taoism, greenpeacesm , vegetarianism - so why not regulate racism spread & impact on civ development or even vegetarianism - I know that for some of you it may look funny but I can easily imagine that with massive popularity veggies may change the countries' economies - just imagine: in the game your people become veggies - you cannot take the same food surplus from cows and pigs, chopping forrests its a crime so you cannot do this and so on...

so religion for me is only a one of zillions social aspects of the civ, kind of effect of people's activity. Its imoposible to regulate everything and paralyse the game, and why should we favour religions and skip others ideas/ideologies??

And if we finally decide to stay with religions why we favour only these that are present now in real life? What about druidism, cults of nature, ancient egyptian, greek, babylonian religions... ?

 

[Skallagrimson]

Anyway I like your ideas but the effects you listed seem to be pretty strong, especially if you were spiritual with half priced temples. Plus i think that the effects if any should be randomized each game perhaps.

Unique effects would have to be strong to wean people away from the gold rush for building shrines, IMO. Maybe randomizing could work, where each religion randomly gets a benefit of some sort in:

1. Culture
2. Beakers
3. Wealth
4. Happy
5. Healthy
6. Reduced WW
7. Reduced Unit Maintenance

I assigned them the way I did mainly out of my analysis of the nature of each religion: the unique effect of Islam seems to be mainly in the area of an ability to dramatically boost volunteerism for Jihads and such; of Christianity, it seems to generate a large tolerance for being at war (e.g., the Crusades), no matter how many of their men are dying. And so on.

 

[Skallagrimson]

And if we finally decide to stay with religions why we favour only these that are present now in real life? What about druidism, cults of nature, ancient egyptian, greek, babylonian religions... ?

I think a concept of national religions would fix this. Each civ would be guaranteed to discover at least one religion, and have a potential to get a crack at a multinational one--but not guaranteed that.

Druidry for Brennus; Asatru for Ragnar; Quetzalcoatl worship for Montezuma; and so on...

The seven in the present game could be world religions, discovered by whoever gets to the associated tech first.

 

[Hexed]

I had an idea to make the tribal villages do something extra. Right now you can get Gold, a map, a unit, experience boost or (rarely) Tech from exploring. How about the adding one that upgrades your units. Maybe your base warriors would become axemen or spear soliders.
The idea is that this tribal village had some form of martial tech beyond you (at least in some little way) and while your unit was in the village they learned. This is similar to the xp boost but better (and therefor rarer).
Also if your upgraded unit goes back to one of your town the could sacrafice themselve to give a boost towards the tech needed for the upgrade they got. Something like what the great people science sacrafice is.

I think this would make those units you send off to explore possible survive a little longer, and give them a good reason to fight their way back to the main cities.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I tend to explore with chariots if I can build them, or axemen otherwise. Warriors and scouts just don't survive long enough to make it worth the build-turns, even when you stop to heal them after they get hit by animal attacks, etc.

 

[bardolph]

I had an idea to make the tribal villages do something extra. Right now you can get Gold, a map, a unit, experience boost or (rarely) Tech from exploring. How about the adding one that upgrades your units. Maybe your base warriors would become axemen or spear soliders.
The idea is that this tribal village had some form of martial tech beyond you (at least in some little way) and while your unit was in the village they learned. This is similar to the xp boost but better (and therefor rarer).
Also if your upgraded unit goes back to one of your town the could sacrafice themselve to give a boost towards the tech needed for the upgrade they got. Something like what the great people science sacrafice is.

I think this would make those units you send off to explore possible survive a little longer, and give them a good reason to fight their way back to the main cities.

You're talking about upgrading to units beyond your current tech?

 

[Sebiche]

i think tribal villages shouldn't just disapear, eventually they could become a sort of neutral or barbarian city

maybe?