Civilization+Age of Empires+First player gameplay

[joyming]

Here's an idea my brother and I came up. It may bring great changes and may be revolutionary, but we think it will bring civilization a lot of new players.

Heres the idea - when to different warring civilizations' military units meet, the player will have 2 choices: to auto resolve the battle, meaning doing the battle the old way with odds, or fighting the battle yourself, which is like many real time strategy games like age of empires or warcraft. then, if u choose fighting the battle yourself, then u move into the screen where u control your armies real time. here, u can switch to another mode - in this mode u literally fight the battle, pick a soldier in your army and control him as you fight the enemy lines. now of course the player is gonna be alot better than other AI controlled soldiers. if your soldier dies, just pick another one. u can switch back and forth between this mode and the real time strategy mode. theres also always gonna be a retreat button.

so, wat do u think?

 

[mgsmuhammad]

Great idea, right up until the whole "you fighting" bit.

I'd love to see the option to lead your troops strategically to beating a superior foe, heck, I can even kind of see it taking a first-person perspective as your commander, provided he is no more competant or tough than the others.

Then you'd have the challenge of giving your leader a good commanding view, while not exposing him to harm.

But once you can hotswap to any old grunt and make him instantly better than the AI, you get a serious problem.

Star Wars Battlefront had this problem. So did Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. Even the Dynasty Warriors series has been plagued by it, to an extent.

So.. In conclusion, i'm totally with you, apart from on the Hotswapping. That i'm not so hot about.

 

[joyming]

yeah i failed to see that bit, but if the player's strengths and abilities is level to that of the AI, the player should still have an advantage, since the player is a human. for example, the player won't go into a suicide attack and will know how to creep up to an enemy. and for the real time strategic mode, the player would be viewing the battlefield from a birds eye view, so no commander getting hurt problem. thanks for agreeing.

 

[Centurio]

If this idea appeals to you, I suggest you buy a Total War series game.

 

[joyming]

If this idea appeals to you, I suggest you buy a Total War series game.

Well, i dont think total war has the complex design of civilization, like i want the many technologies and civics and complex diplomacy and stuff.

 

[civ_king]

Here's an idea my brother and I came up. It may bring great changes and may be revolutionary, but we think it will bring civilization a lot of new players.

Heres the idea - when to different warring civilizations' military units meet, the player will have 2 choices: to auto resolve the battle, meaning doing the battle the old way with odds, or fighting the battle yourself, which is like many real time strategy games like age of empires or warcraft. then, if u choose fighting the battle yourself, then u move into the screen where u control your armies real time. here, u can switch to another mode - in this mode u literally fight the battle, pick a soldier in your army and control him as you fight the enemy lines. now of course the player is gonna be alot better than other AI controlled soldiers. if your soldier dies, just pick another one. u can switch back and forth between this mode and the real time strategy mode. theres also always gonna be a retreat button.

so, wat do u think?

I can see controlling the battlefield as a commander, but not first person, the player obliterates everything with practice

Great idea, right up until the whole "you fighting" bit.

I'd love to see the option to lead your troops strategically to beating a superior foe, heck, I can even kind of see it taking a first-person perspective as your commander, provided he is no more competant or tough than the others.

Then you'd have the challenge of giving your leader a good commanding view, while not exposing him to harm.

But once you can hotswap to any old grunt and make him instantly better than the AI, you get a serious problem.

Star Wars Battlefront had this problem. So did Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. Even the Dynasty Warriors series has been plagued by it, to an extent.

So.. In conclusion, i'm totally with you, apart from on the Hotswapping. That i'm not so hot about.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 was broken, I could easily finish the battle without dying on elite

 

[LDiCesare]

This has been propsed many times.
I personallly would hate to see developper and art resources wasted on an RTS inside Civ. Civ is not all about warfare by the way.

 

[B-29 Bomber]

This has been propsed many times.
I personallly would hate to see developper and art resources wasted on an RTS inside Civ. Civ is not all about warfare by the way.

yeah I actually posted this idea on the 2k forums just after the feb. 18 announcement and no one liked it.

 

[joyming]

ok... i see the disadvantages of the firstplayer fighting thing... but i think RTS could still work, it could add a lot of dynamics and strategy to the combat, no just the odds. and i agree with LDiCesare that Civ is not all about combat, but it is an important aspect and can be improved.

 

[PeterWimsey]

I think this isn't a good idea, for a couple of reasons.

The first is that the player is the leader of the entire civilization, not the general in a particular battle.

The second is the RTS part of it. Even if the player did have the option to resolve battles on a tactical screen, why should it be RTS and not turn based? A lot of people play civ because they *don't* like RTS style click-fests, so making it a part of the game would be a mistake.

And there are a lot more realistic ways of conducting a battle than RTS anyway.

Third, it would probably double the cost/development time of the game - it would have to be both a complete RTS *and* the Civ that we have now.

Fourth, what units are involved in the tactical resolution? In 4, you could just take the units from the SoD...although that would leave you sometimes with 100 units per side, half trebs and half, say, swordsmen. In 5, would you have a separate resolution for each attack (there will be more since it's 1upt)? And how do air units fit in?

Although it would be cool to see tanks and machine guns vs. longbowmen and spearmen in a RTS-style battle.

 

[P-Dubya]

I dont think it would hurt Civ to have an RTS element in it, but the first person battle participation would be too far. That's what I have dynasty warriors for

But, the RTS element would have to remain elective. My dad loves Civ because its turn based. He simply doesnt like having to keep up with lots of armies in real time (even if its for individual battles).

I would love to be able to see soldiers do a bit more battling, though. Having things a little bit more dramatized might actually be more entertaining, to a point. I suppose that would depend on if you can still build 500 tanks just to fight a human opponent. . . God, I hope Civ5 reduces the number of armies needed to fight wars....

 

[En_Dotter]

Makes no sense. This is the game of politics and strategy, but not the game of tactics. Tactics are to be auto resolved. It would make game heavier for the cpu, gpu and hdd for no reason, also it would make it last for ages, like civ doesnt last long enuf like this.

 

[LDiCesare]

I don't like RTS very much, and wouldn't buy Civ if there was one inside. For one thing, I think they are very very unrealistic and in Civ would break the immersion for me.
Real battles are often fought in hours, sometimes over several days. The 'real' part only makes for a click-fest in my opinion. Captains and lieutenants must react fast on a battlefield, as in within a few seconds or a minute. Generals must take more time, if only because communication between different parts of the army take a lot of time, particularly before radio. Battles are often decided by how the generals prepare the battle, and RTS doesn't simulate battle plans at all.