Civilization 5

[Öjevind Lång]

You want to read Martin Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilisation, then; basically by storing old books in monasteries after the fall of Rome that were instrumental in getting things going again afterwards.

That's a myth, and the book was written by a mythomaniac. Sorry, but that is the truth. Not a single book and not a single piece of knowledge was preserved exclusively by the Irish. The Italians, the Spanish, the Arabs and not least the Byzantine Empire did more impressive work than that; as did the Catholic Church in general. When saying that, I don't mean to deny that the Irish culture in the early Middle Ages was rather imprressive in some respects.

 

[J-War]

This may be a huge stretch, but here goes:

Currently, I think most can agree that the espionage system is unsatisfying. Spies are limited to boring and relatively inconsequential missions. The passive effects of espionage are good, but spying doesn't have much bearing on the game.

There is a lot of talk about making a whole new combat system ala total war. What I would like to see (and to my knowledge this has not yet been done in other turn based strategy games, probably due to the huge amount of effort it would require on the part of the game makers) is a whole new level of espionage/assassination/spec-ops where the player would enter an exciting, challenging, yet simple first-person/third-person mission, whereby the player would attempt to secure certain objectives that would have a bearing on the game. The circumstances and difficulty of the mission would be affected by the number of espionage points, number of units, result of the mission, etc. This would add a whole new layer to the game which, if it would not detract from the rest, would be pretty awesome.

 

[bob rulz]

This may be a huge stretch, but here goes:

Currently, I think most can agree that the espionage system is unsatisfying. Spies are limited to boring and relatively inconsequential missions. The passive effects of espionage are good, but spying doesn't have much bearing on the game.

There is a lot of talk about making a whole new combat system ala total war. What I would like to see (and to my knowledge this has not yet been done in other turn based strategy games, probably due to the huge amount of effort it would require on the part of the game makers) is a whole new level of espionage/assassination/spec-ops where the player would enter an exciting, challenging, yet simple first-person/third-person mission, whereby the player would attempt to secure certain objectives that would have a bearing on the game. The circumstances and difficulty of the mission would be affected by the number of espionage points, number of units, result of the mission, etc. This would add a whole new layer to the game which, if it would not detract from the rest, would be pretty awesome.

Sorry but if there were a first-person or third-person, or even RTS, element to Civ V, I wouldn't play it. It's nothing more than a distraction.

Civilization is an empire-building game, and while the concept of a "Total War" mode is intriguing, there absolutely should not be a first or third-person mode of any sort anywhere.

Also, I think that spies SHOULD be fairly limited in abilities. I don't know how powerful they are in BtS (I never got the expansions to Civ IV), but I've never heard of an espionage campaign that's inflicted that much damage on a civ. Maybe they should have more abilities but I think it would make the game less fun if they were a game-changer.

The most powerful things they should be able to do are sabotage, tech-stealing, and MAYBE implement some sort of assassination ability (although I'm unsure of what affect this could have on the game seeing as you only rule as 1 leader and introducing a leader system would probably be too complex).

 

[Camikaze]

There is a lot of talk about making a whole new combat system ala total war. What I would like to see (and to my knowledge this has not yet been done in other turn based strategy games, probably due to the huge amount of effort it would require on the part of the game makers) is a whole new level of espionage/assassination/spec-ops where the player would enter an exciting, challenging, yet simple first-person/third-person mission, whereby the player would attempt to secure certain objectives that would have a bearing on the game. The circumstances and difficulty of the mission would be affected by the number of espionage points, number of units, result of the mission, etc. This would add a whole new layer to the game which, if it would not detract from the rest, would be pretty awesome.

Welcome to CFC.

While the ideas you present may seem intriguing, they don't really have anything to do with civ. Civ 5 incorporating these things would be akin to FIFA '11 being all about Basketball. Civilization is an empire management and development strategy game, not a military tactics game. I don't really understand how you envisage 'first-person missions' working, but I can't see any possible way of incorporating them without completely breaking from what Civ is.

 

[sunshineman]

I want to create my own civ, have my own leaders, have my own kind of religion etc.

and whats the point of as having a chariot as the unique unit when its useless in a dozen turns...

if religions were customized, they could have their own ups and downs..
e.g. customized based on authority level, passivity/war proneness etc.

and also, there isnt a line between democratic or authoritative, there is a degree...

why not have decentralized societies? or ultra capitalist?
control of taxation would be good too..

i feel like most of civ4 revolves around religion...

 

[kochman]

if religions were customized, they could have their own ups and downs..
e.g. customized based on authority level, passivity/war proneness etc.

People would wig out. In Civ, all religions are created equal. In real life they are not, of course, but don't dare to point it out or the PC brigade will line up to swat you down.

 

[Vandal Warlord]

i feel like most of civ4 revolves around religion...

I don't mean to bring you down, but, NO. Civilization 4 revolves around building an empire, religions are just a nice little add-on that add flavor.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

I don't mean to bring you down, but, NO. Civilization 4 revolves around building an empire, religions are just a nice little add-on that add flavor.

I think we should have Civ5 an RTS, which would make the game go faster, and open up a lot more possibilities.

 

[hewhoknowsall]

I think we should have Civ5 an RTS, which would make the game go faster, and open up a lot more possibilities.

Definitely NOT the main part of the game. That would reduce your ability to take your time and plan out stuff and would instead add in the unrealistic sense of urgency even when you have 1 - 50 or so years to burn for every turn.

 

[hewhoknowsall]

Sorry but if there were a first-person or third-person, or even RTS, element to Civ V, I wouldn't play it. It's nothing more than a distraction.

Civilization is an empire-building game, and while the concept of a "Total War" mode is intriguing, there absolutely should not be a first or third-person mode of any sort anywhere.

You wouldn't even play it? I mean, it's not like as if it makes the game WORSE, they would just add in an auto resolve option.

To make it RTS like in a C&C style would probably SUCK, but Total War style could be awesome IF they actually do it right, which is unlikely. They would need to GREATLY increase the number of units, add in MULTIPLE unique units for each civ, add in morale/weather/etc., and all of this for multiple eras.

 

[Vandal Warlord]

You wouldn't even play it? I mean, it's not like as if it makes the game WORSE, they would just add in an auto resolve option.

To make it RTS like in a C&C style would probably SUCK, but Total War style could be awesome IF they actually do it right, which is unlikely. They would need to GREATLY increase the number of units, add in MULTIPLE unique units for each civ, add in morale/weather/etc., and all of this for multiple eras.

Which would take quite some time and energy.

 

[EmperorFool]

Someone should build a game like that and call it Total War. That would be awesome!

Not to rain on your parade, games specialize into genres for a reason. If you make one game with all that in it, you'll end up with a bunch of mediocre features, each one half-assed. Instead, I'd rather have a great RTS and a great turn-based empire-builder in two separate games.

 

[Camikaze]

What EmperorFool and I (retroactively) said.

 

[chrissifniotis]

I've just had an interesting idea after reading an article about climate change making natural disaters more likely, it got me thinking about doing the same thing to the random events, whereby when an event triggers climate change, the likelihood of the tornado/hurricane/tsunami/etc events increase very gradually and increases or decreases with certain units, buildings, civic and so on.

 

[Camikaze]

That could be a good idea and would seem to solve the problem of unrealistic global warming (random desertification) in the game. I think that instead of being proportional to units, buildings and civics, it could perhaps be proportional to forestation, pollution and production.

 

[chrissifniotis]

Yea, this looks like it needs more thought. I'll try to refine this further.

 

[Terrance888]

Maybe there can be a 'Assassination' mission: you stop the work of a Great Specialist for X turns, you can force a great person to be sleep for x turns, maybe kidnap a great person!

There are also should be a way for spies to 'Infiltrate' an army so that it doesn't need to follow it and risk detection to find stuff out.

Finally, in the modern age there should be a 'Special Operation' spy-like unit that can also participate in combat. It would be weaker unless jumping out of stealth, which gives a str bonus, and you can ambush an enemy by scattering them with these Spec Ops, or you can use them to kill a small group of SAM inf guarding an oil well.

 

[Argetnyx]

There are also should be a way for spies to 'Infiltrate' an army so that it doesn't need to follow it and risk detection to find stuff out.

Finally, in the modern age there should be a 'Special Operation' spy-like unit that can also participate in combat. It would be weaker unless jumping out of stealth, which gives a str bonus, and you can ambush an enemy by scattering them with these Spec Ops, or you can use them to kill a small group of SAM inf guarding an oil well.

Too tactical, in my opinion.

 

[Chairborn Rangr]

Msybe I'm just being snarky, but some of the promotion choices are ridiculous. I had my warrior beat off an attack while on a barren mountain surrounded by other mountains and desert and my choices for promotion were:

1) Unit strength; or

2) Woodland.

If your unit is eligible for promotion based on combat (not leaders), the promotions available should bear resemblance to that combat. If you fought in mountains, the mountaineer promotion should be available, along with the more general ones, i.e., medic or unit strength. City defense or woodland, in such a case, should not be available.

Similarly, if you beat an Axeman and got a promotion as a result, you should not be able to choose a promotion which gives your unit increased effectiveness against archery, gunpowder, mounted, or siege units.

 

[Healz]

In a city with barracks though, should all promotion choices be open depending on whether an example has been won? Ie. if you had a unit that won the mountaineer promotion, it would be available from a barracks to reflect members of the unit that won the promotion passing on their experience...