Civilization 5

[Humble Humbert]

I guess there is a lot of things I'd want to see but there is one thing in particular that comes to mind. Have you ever noticed how every square inch of the map is filled, every game. It's absurd! I can see how a lot of land would complicate things but I really think it'd be for the better. Something similar to Total war would be nice, spacey and not nearly as messy as the civilization look. I mean, mines, farms and cottages are all over the place! Why can't they let the square system retire and redo how city production and food works. If one city produces loads of food while another is starving, why can't I balance the food distribution of my empire? It makes no sense...

And the military system is kinda flawed as well. Why couldn't they create armies instead of huge stacks? Ghengis Khan conquered with an army, not 40 separate units stacked together. Maybe they could make armies more like cities, with a population. The bigger the population of the army, the more numerous it is, obviously. Also, decrease the amount of troops in usage. I'm a great fan of how they managed to decrease the amount of cities built in civ4. It greatly enhanced the playability and lust for micromanagement. Why can't they do something similar to that with troops as well? Instead of having 20 horse archers in a stack, why not make it an army of population 4 or something like that. It would make great sense to not have to move millions of units as you invade another country. Instead make it 4 armies(divisions, platoons perhaps) and use them to hit strategical positions. This would open up new possibilities like having to support your armies with a route back home for supplies, morale, army composition and much more.

First port btw!

 

[rysmiel]

I guess there is a lot of things I'd want to see but there is one thing in particular that comes to mind. Have you ever noticed how every square inch of the map is filled, every game. It's absurd!

Some of us see getting to this point as the major challenge of the game, and most of the fun. A square unused for something is a square wasted. (I am all for the notion of designating certain unworked squares "parks" and getting benefits from them in the later game).

I mean, mines, farms and cottages are all over the place! Why can't they let the square system retire and redo how city production and food works.

Because if it did not have squares it would not be Cuiv any more and, Total War already exists for people who prefer things to work that way.

If one city produces loads of food while another is starving, why can't I balance the food distribution of my empire? It makes no sense...

I'm all for this; bring back food caravans.

I'm a great fan of how they managed to decrease the amount of cities built in civ4. It greatly enhanced the playability and lust for micromanagement.

Some of us think this is Civ 4's biggest flaw. If you can;t have hundres of cities, it's not really much of an empire.

 

[Humble Humbert]

I do realize that these changes might upset some. It's just what I think would make civ5 a better game. And I'm not looking for another Total war, of that I can assure you.

I think the game would benefit from a little bit more realism and empire/war management as opposed to worrying over individual squares or a million just-another-city settlements. Feel free to disagree.

 

[rysmiel]

I think the game would benefit from a little bit more realism and empire/war management as opposed to worrying over individual squares or a million just-another-city settlements. Feel free to disagree.

Realism is worth having only in so far as it is good for gameplay. And to my mind the thing that makes Civ Civ and makes it worth playing and distinct from all the other empire management games out there is how much you do the empire management as an emergent property of managing your cities. (Even typing this sentence fills me with an urge to go finish some Civ 3 games).

 

[chauism]

In a situation like a Chinese attack on Asia do you really think China's ability to veto things as a permanent member would mean anything? I doubt it because even recent permanent members may be kicked off the board for aggressive actions.

I guess you don't know how toothless UNSC is to do anything against its permanent members.

China being a member of NATO is only fairly recent- China being a member of NATO is only fairly recent - it was after 1991 that China joined NATO and even then China still hasn't abandoned its regional claims to Taiwan...

NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, just by the name alone China is not eligible for it let alone being a member. I think you meant UN. China(Republic of China) was one of the founding members of the United Nations and a permanent member of the Security Council from its creation in 1945. It was only after October 25, 1971, Resolution 2758 was passed by the General Assembly, withdrawing recognition of the ROC as the legitimate government of China, and recognizing the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China(that includes Taiwan).
China and the United Nations
PRC's claim over Taiwan also goes both ways because under the constitution of ROC, it also claim over mainland China as the legitimate government. ROC is currently only recognized by 23 states as sole and legitimate representative of China. The rest recongnize PRC as sole and legitimate government of China and do not have diplomatic relations with ROC.
Foreign relations of the Republic of China

 

[chauism]

I have a idea for resources.

So for each resources you have, each turn it produce certain amount of units of the resource type. For units that require certain types of resources like iron, it will cost certain amount units of iron to build those units. You trade units of resource instead of resource itself with other civs.

 

[patheslip]

chauism: like your idea of units of resource. It makes a lot of sense.

I wonder how it would work in practice.

 

[EmperorFool]

chauism: like your idea of units of resource. It makes a lot of sense.

I wonder how it would work in practice.

There is a (or a few?) mods that implement what are called Quantitative Resources, for example having a national Oil reserve that is expended while moving and building units. No need to wait for Civ5 to try it out.

 

[RichardMNixon]

On the debate about number of cities.

I think their intention was to have cottages represent a sprawling empire while the cities were just major metropoles (sp? been a while since I took Latin). Like for my part: Baltimore, MD is a city with industrial production; Hunt Valley is a town and produces gold in the form of videogames, and the rural town I live in a half hour away is a farm or village.

I think it would be interesting though to have two or more distinct classes of city. You could found a metropolis, it would work much the same way founding a city works now. Or you could instead (possibly using a worker or different type of settler) found an outpost or something. It could harvest resources, spread culture, and have trade routes, but have severely restricted building options (maybe just culture and defensive structures?), maybe work a smaller grid, and incur a lower upkeep.

My initial reaction to distributing food is very positive, mainly for the "well, duh" level of realism. I'm not sure it would be great for the game though, once you start spreading around production I worry that your cities would all become somehow monotonous.

 

[UWHabs]

On the debate about number of cities.

I think their intention was to have cottages represent a sprawling empire while the cities were just major metropoles (sp? been a while since I took Latin). Like for my part: Baltimore, MD is a city with industrial production; Hunt Valley is a town and produces gold in the form of videogames, and the rural town I live in a half hour away is a farm or village.

I think it would be interesting though to have two or more distinct classes of city. You could found a metropolis, it would work much the same way founding a city works now. Or you could instead (possibly using a worker or different type of settler) found an outpost or something. It could harvest resources, spread culture, and have trade routes, but have severely restricted building options (maybe just culture and defensive structures?), maybe work a smaller grid, and incur a lower upkeep.

My initial reaction to distributing food is very positive, mainly for the "well, duh" level of realism. I'm not sure it would be great for the game though, once you start spreading around production I worry that your cities would all become somehow monotonous.

Yeah, that's the sense I get. You build "New York", but that includes Long Island, New Jersey, etc... Heck, probably even Albany could be considered part of New York's BFC.

I wouldn't mind going a step further in civ 5. Maybe instead of having a few big cities, you would found some sort of outpost thing on each square. Then, you would define a region which would act as the current "cities" do (ie. defining what to build, etc..). Then, through some random parts, some outposts might merge together to create municipalities. With extra roads, they could combine into towns. Once you get railroad, for example, they could grow into metropolises, and act as they do now.

The way this would be interesting is that you wouldn't know exactly which of your towns would grow into the metropolises. And you'd probably have to adjust the units to be able to defend the whole metropolis, which would probably end up changing the whole area into one square, and end up being basically like it is now, but something along these lines would be kind of cool. Maybe all it would end up doing is not making cottages grow quite so regularly into towns - you'd have to make sure to utilize the square, connect it to your empire, and then it would eventually develop.

Although, that's probably getting more into a city management/region management game, and probably gets away from the basics of Civ (which as far as I understand, dumbs down a lot of city micromanagement with regards to the mystical "trade" and "Growth" functions, but plays up empire and troop management).

 

[Onionsoilder]

I agree that the 'fewer is better' system is good for cities. Would you rather have 6-8 small cities with little production, or one large city with good production? I personally would rather have one city making a Cavalry every 3 turns, then 6 cities making 6 Cavalry every 18 turns. In a way it could be seen that towns/villages are contributing to the production of a large city. Maybe they could provide hammers in addition to commerce?

 

[RichardMNixon]

@UWHabs I think outposts merging into cities would be a little too random unless resources were worked differently. It'd be really frustrating to have your city "rise up" a square away from the cow. Then there are the diehards who are even upset at the random element to combat, they would flip out.

I thought about something else while reading your ideas though, what if really huge cities could begin expanding into nearby road or railroad networked squares and forming a sprawling metropolis? Then you would need multiple units to defend each square and you could siege your way through enemy capitals, maybe capture their factory on the outskirts to slow their production or burn their temple to upset their population. Expanding your metropolis to the full BFC could also be a cool OCC win condition.

@Onionsoldier I think the outposts would continue to promote a few well developed cities with higher production even more so since you won't need to found a city in the ice caps just to grab that silver and fur.

 

[Tholish]

"Maybe they could provide hammers in addition to commerce?"

With the right civic, they DO.

 

[Bob the Barbari]

I thought about something else while reading your ideas though, what if really huge cities could begin expanding into nearby road or railroad networked squares and forming a sprawling metropolis? Then you would need multiple units to defend each square and you could siege your way through enemy capitals, maybe capture their factory on the outskirts to slow their production or burn their temple to upset their population. Expanding your metropolis to the full BFC could also be a cool OCC win condition.

I thought of something like that as a sort of a city district system. It would allow you to expand your city to surrounding tiles (8) after it grows to a certain level (say 6 people per district).
You could build some buildings in more than one district (for an increased cost, quite like in Final Frontier) but you would also have to defend them. If the city population falls below the required number of residents (say 11 and you used to have 3 districts) then you can't add new building to the last added district.
However I was thinking about it more as a mod, because it could get too complicated for a standard game. I haven't come up with a solution for a fact that you would loose a tile to make a district and what if it would be an irrigated wheat farm for example.

 

[exhile]

I think a city should have 3 levels of growth similar to cultural growth. Let's face it, cultural growth can go 6+ levels of beyond it's regular border size growth.

Level 1: 8 tiles (foundation of city)
Level 2: 20 tiles (1st growth)
Level 3: 32 tiles (2nd growth)

I like specialized & fewer cities than many cities of the same kind.

 

[rysmiel]

I agree that the 'fewer is better' system is good for cities. Would you rather have 6-8 small cities with little production, or one large city with good production? I personally would rather have one city making a Cavalry every 3 turns, then 6 cities making 6 Cavalry every 18 turns.

No, what I would rather have is two or three hundred cities, of which a core of fifty or so have excellent production at the one-cavalry-per-turn level, and much of the challenge of the late game is in tuning and developing best-possible out of another hundred or so - some of which is done by means leaning on the small peripheral production-weak cities like Civ 3 specialist-farming.

 

[GoToParaguay]

No, what I would rather have is two or three hundred cities, of which a core of fifty or so have excellent production at the one-cavalry-per-turn level, and much of the challenge of the late game is in tuning and developing best-possible out of another hundred or so - some of which is done by means leaning on the small peripheral production-weak cities like Civ 3 specialist-farming.

I guess that is where opinions differ, micro management like that would kill the game for me. 20 cities is already bordering on too much micro management.

My main wish is for armies. Single unit combat is unrealistic, frustrating and takes too much micromanagement. This is a game of controlling a civilization from 4000BC to 2050AD, while developing a country having wars and conducting diplomacy. There shouldn't be that large degree of micro management

 

[rysmiel]

I guess that is where opinions differ, micro management like that would kill the game for me. 20 cities is already bordering on too much micro management.

This, IMO, is what small maps are for.

This is a game of controlling a civilization from 4000BC to 2050AD, while developing a country having wars and conducting diplomacy. There shouldn't be that large degree of micro management

I'm fine with the game being playable, and indeed winnable (at easier levels) without micromanagement; I'm not fine with the notion that it should be possible to always win, or to master it in general, without putting the time and effort into attention to detail, or with any changes that prevent me from fine-tuning as I want to rather than making it optional.

 

[Bob the Barbari]

And if 20 cities is too much there is always OCC available.

 

[rysmiel]

And if 20 cities is too much there is always OCC available.

Yep.

It seems to me a lot easier to play small-empire options in games designed to work for big empires than big-empire options in games designed to work for small empires; Civ 2 is a really expansion-heavy sort of game but it's still possible to have a great time playing and winning OCC in it. So I suspect game design focused on big empires is more likely to give a result that everyone will be happy with.