Civilization 5

[rysmiel]

That's a good point, which gives me an even better idea. How about this one - leaders start traitless. As you reach certain milestones (perhaps similar to the BTS "quests") you obtain bonuses (and perhaps drawbacks). Thus you start with a clean slate, but as you make your choices, you become more specialized. This would have an early game that is very flexible, and an end game that is increasingly unique.

This one I could go for, all right; have posted similar notions myself. I'm inlcined to think of it as logically best assessed at the end of Ages of development, for slightly more Ages than Civ has had before. (My preference is for Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial, Early Modern (or "dieselpunk", but that term just has not caught on enough yet) and Space Age.)

I don't think "increasingly specialised" should be the only way it can go, though. I'd like it to be possible - though hard and expensive - to make a major change of direction mid-game if that was apt, and for the traits to follow that accordingly. i'm not drawn to the notion of being stuck with one set of advantages and disadvantages in the Industrial Age because they were useful in the Classical Age.

 

[lelangir]

1. In CivIII, I always wondered why you could have a land-based army but not a sea-based fleet...

2. The lack of politics bugged me. Perhaps if you're the omnipotent player, there could be a tripartisan (or what have you) system where during each democratic election cycle, the player must conform to the political choices as defined by a generalized political ideology of the current leader, lest they face rebellion. This broad "political ideology" could also be user-constructed by assigning a large set of ideals (laissez-faire or high government regulation, state sovereignty or federal regulation, religion-based or science-based society, etc.) with a name, an ____ism.

3. Add factors which complicate all things normally deemed "good".

4. Why no Y-axis wrap around? Crossing the poles may be strategically....interesting.

5. Add climate/weather/disasters. Blizzards, floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcano, hurricane/typhoon, tornado. Or are those already implemented?

 

[EmperorFool]

Why no Y-axis wrap around? Crossing the poles may be strategically....interesting.

Civ4 allows this already. Certain map scripts make this more interesting than others. Given that only subs can go through ice in the normal game, you need a map script that will leave the poles open or play one like Highlands or Inland Sea where there are no poles.

 

[rysmiel]

Civ4 allows this already.

So does Civ3, it's an option in the map editor.

 

[Balderstrom]

I've bought Rise of Nations+Expansion last year, which was designed as a RTS CIV-clone - the main designer had worked on Civ previously. Definitely an interesting take on a RTS version of the CIV franchise.

RoN has real National Borders
vs CIV's City Borders/Culture - that may or may not overlap with other cities of your Empire.

RoN utilizes an actual Caravan Unit - which builds roads automatically.
vs CIV's trade routes that a player has absolutely no control over.

RoN's equivalent has been broken down into Food,Trees,Metal,Gold, and Oil.
Units/Buildings require specific types of resources instead of just .
Unit costs increase the more units of that type you have.

Your nation can only support a finite number of Units.

Citizens can become Militia.

Cities grow after (X) buildings have been built and a certain (growth) Ages, instead of CIV's obscure idea of "excess food". CIV allows for huge cities - even if the City in question has no supporting (building) infrastructure for it's citizens.
A straggling city that has been built with little to no food resources nearby can't grow - period...Even if other cities in your Empire have excess food they could provide.

I do believe a number of key points implemented in Rise of Nations would make for welcome fixes to some of CIV's flaws/shortcomings.

 

[(Alexandros)]

Having seen many suggestions that offer a much greater level of complexity and real-life analogues, I'd like to ask one thing: Do we really want Civ to become all-inclusive and full of complex economic and strategic/diplomatic calculations? Because there are other games that offer this possibility (Europa Universalis comes to mind). Isn't the purpose of Civ to offer a greatly simplified version of science, economy, diplomacy and war for people to play around with?

By making this question I don't imply that I have decided what I want. I'm just asking to see what others think.

 

[Camikaze]

No, I don't think that is what Civ is for. As it is, it isn't very simple, shown by the many strategy articles, just on this site. However, I see what you mean; it shouldn't get too complicated.

 

[flyingchicken]

As it is, it isn't very simple, shown by the many strategy articles, just on this site.

Number of strategies not related to simplicity, I believe! See chess? LASER CHESS? Scrabble?

 

[Camikaze]

Number of strategies not related to simplicity, I believe! See chess? LASER CHESS? Scrabble?

Fair enough, but to play chess well is very complicated. Which is the beauty behind it. It is simple to grasp, but has so many different possibilities and layers of strategy. Just like Civilization (okay, maybe comparing chess and Civ is a bit of a stretch).

 

[(Alexandros)]

As it is, it isn't very simple, shown by the many strategy articles, just on this site.

It has been long since I last browsed through the strategy articles. However, from what I recall, appart from the basic strategy pointers (e.g. specialise, always be ready for war, choose your cities carefully etc.), the advanced strategy articles mostly deal with exploitation of the game mechanics and micromanagement so as to hold your own in higher difficulty settings (where the AI has advantages for which you must compensate) and/or against human opponents (who micromanage). The game itself remains simple and fully playable even if a player does not choose to delve much into micromanagement. On the contrary, in a game like Europa Universalis, complex factors come into every aspect of the game and (unless you cheat) it is very difficult to have a successful game if you don't take them into consideration.

 

[Camikaze]

I suppose that is true to a large degree, but it is micromanagement that is needed to have a successful game on a higher difficulty, so this must be taken into consideration. But, having said that, I think that the game should have more layers, or aspects, to it, to make it, not so much more complicated, but more strategic, or variable.

 

[Mythrl]

Three ideas.

1.

This may be controversial but I would like to see the separation between the city level and nation level eliminated. Instead of having cities with buildings inside them you could just have all buildings be terrain improvements. You could create a new terrain improvement called a town center to act as the center of a city. Each tile that you work in some manner would then have it's own associated population level. You could have a residential building to improve a tile's population.

A building's effectiveness could then be dependent on it's location (e.g. granaries near farms improve food production, markets near gems generate more money, factories near mines have a greater impact on production). Also linking buildings with associated resources by road or rail would also provide a bonus. Even placing certain types of buildings within a certain proximity to one another and/or linking them through roads could improve those buildings.

Not only would this increase your flexibility in building you empire, but it would also change the nature of combat since there aren't discrete cities to take over anymore. Now you would actually need to conquer tiles individually. This could also allow the introduction of concepts such as supply lines so you can't just send a big army into the middle of an empire and go wild.

Finally, you could allow more than one building per tile to a maximum, and the maximum could increase with certain technologies (e.g. masonry, or construction) allowing increased density with time.

Since each tile would have a certain amount of production, population commerce and food associated with it, you could essentially view this characteristics through heat maps instead of the city screens.

I think this would make the game more fluid and growth would be more organic.

2.

I think the AI could be improved by implementing something like a genetic algorithm or neural network that learns as you play. You could turn off AI learning when it's good enough to provide enough of a challenge and turn it back on when it becomes easy to beat. It would make the game more varied as the AI would have more varied and unpredictable strategies. It could also potentially eliminate the need for a "cheating" AI at higher difficulties. I would suggest this in addition to keeping static difficulty levels.

3.

Instead of having food, production, population growth etc. be based on constant formulas make them random. I don't mean completely random though. Take a farm for example. A tile might have 1 food production without a farm and 2 food production with a farm in the current game. Instead of this have food be based on a distribution where an unworked tile might be normally distributed with a mean of 1 and a standard deviation of 0.2 and a farmed tile might be normally distributed with a mean of 2 and a standard deviation of 0.3. This means you can't predict exactly how much growth you will have from turn to turn. You can still have a general idea of where you stand and a farm is still better than no farm but it adds variability and realism.

 

[rysmiel]

Three ideas.

1.
This may be controversial but I would like to see the separation between the city level and nation level eliminated.

I don't think that's controversial; a controversy kind of needs strong arguments for both sides, and I don't think there's any strong argument for a game that works this way still being Civ. Possibly a fun game, sure, but not Civ.There are any number of empire-management games; there are far fewer games where empire management is an emergent property of city management.

Instead of having food, production, population growth etc. be based on constant formulas make them random. I don't mean completely random though. Take a farm for example. A tile might have 1 food production without a farm and 2 food production with a farm in the current game. Instead of this have food be based on a distribution where an unworked tile might be normally distributed with a mean of 1 and a standard deviation of 0.2 and a farmed tile might be normally distributed with a mean of 2 and a standard deviation of 0.3. This means you can't predict exactly how much growth you will have from turn to turn. You can still have a general idea of where you stand and a farm is still better than no farm but it adds variability and realism.

Why are variability and realism at this precise scale benefits to gameplay ? I would see undermining the predictability of the results of what you choose to do as a major drawback to the construction of any coherent strategy.

 

[Mythrl]

I don't think there's any strong argument for a game that works this way still being Civ. Possibly a fun game, sure, but not Civ.There are any number of empire-management games; there are far fewer games where empire management is an emergent property of city management.

What I have suggested isn't all that different from city management. It's just treating tiles as vastly simplified cities. So instead of managing a dozen or so cities you are managing a larger number of simpler tiles. You would still have cities, although the demarcation between city and land would be more fuzzy. The game becomes one where empire management is an emergent property of land management where some land will be more urbanized and other land will be more rural.

I would see undermining the predictability of the results of what you choose to do as a major drawback to the construction of any coherent strategy.

This isn't true at all. First of all results are still predictable to a degree. Second of all you can still build a coherent strategy and in fact you already do this in any current version of Civ. Anytime you go to war, the outcome of combat is determined through probability. That doesn't mean you can't build a coherent strategy for wars. Why not extend that to other aspects of the game? It might mean that things don't work out exactly as you might hope, but then you just have to adapt your plans to fit the circumstances. It keeps you on your toes a bit more, makes the game more fun, and a bit more challenging.

 

[Shurdus]

Mythrl, I do quite like your idea as it seems to offer quite some flexibility. I do however think that cities and tile management are such fundamental values in Civ that I do not see them being thrown out of the door. The fans will just not put up with a game like that being called Civ. It would be nice for another game though.

 

[Birdman6]

I think the AI could be improved by implementing something like a genetic algorithm or neural network that learns as you play. You could turn off AI learning when it's good enough to provide enough of a challenge and turn it back on when it becomes easy to beat. It would make the game more varied as the AI would have more varied and unpredictable strategies. It could also potentially eliminate the need for a "cheating" AI at higher difficulties. I would suggest this in addition to keeping static difficulty levels.

Ummmm, you know this isn't the 24th century...

5. Add climate/weather/disasters. Blizzards, floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcano, hurricane/typhoon, tornado. Or are those already implemented?

Couldn't agree more. There's not much in real life that affects humanity more than climate and weather. Everything that every real society does and is built on has been sculpted by local weather conditions for millenia and modern times are no different. Even our biology is defined by Earth's climate/weather. Yet this is the one thing that's almost universally ignored by game programmers. It's about time some crafty game programmer tackled this issue!

 

[rysmiel]

Ummmm, you know this isn't the 24th century...

Neural networks are a real contemporary technology.

 

[rysmiel]

What I have suggested isn't all that different from city management. It's just treating tiles as vastly simplified cities. So instead of managing a dozen or so cities you are managing a larger number of simpler tiles.

I prefer playing Civ III precisely because I find a dozen or so cities hopelessly confining; I'm usually managing a hundred or so cities towards the latter part of the game.

The game becomes one where empire management is an emergent property of land management where some land will be more urbanized and other land will be more rural.

The one aspect of this which does appeal to me, though, is finally having a model in which the larger-than-one-tile city actually makes sense.

Anytime you go to war, the outcome of combat is determined through probability. That doesn't mean you can't build a coherent strategy for wars.

Well, yes; you Stack (of Doom) the odds. I far prefer the grand strategy/logistical level of building a successful empire that supports a larger and more sophisticated army to the tactical level of worrying about individual combats, so that by enough advance planning any given combat can be pretty solidly assured to come out my way.

Why not extend that to other aspects of the game? It might mean that things don't work out exactly as you might hope,

Surely having opponents and indeed barbarians is enough for that, no ?

 

[rysmiel]

Couldn't agree more. There's not much in real life that affects humanity more than climate and weather. Everything that every real society does and is built on has been sculpted by local weather conditions for millenia and modern times are no different. Even our biology is defined by Earth's climate/weather. Yet this is the one thing that's almost universally ignored by game programmers. It's about time some crafty game programmer tackled this issue!

It's an issue of scale, really. I don't think there's any reasonable way to implement something that could be called "weather" on a scale of ten-to-a-hundred-miles to a side tiles and turns of at very minimum one year, and I would see larger scale climate as being effectively reflected in what the terrain of a tile is like. And various Civ games have done things with larger scale shifts, the various models for global warming, sea level shifts in SMAC and so on.

 

[Birdman6]

Neural networks are a real contemporary technology.

Ok fair enough, but available for widespread consumer purchase?