Civilization V

[paydro]

It's amazing that you wrote 500 words without providing any actual reasons why you prefer Civ III or dislike Civ IV. All you did was make up an argument (Civ III was weak because you need to mod it! Civ IV Is awesome once it's modded!) that no one actually made.

I didn't play very much Civ IV vanilla, but I played an unreal amount of Civ III, and loved it. But that game was nowhere near as good as BTS.

 

[Sinapus]

I guess I'll throw in one for air power:

Flight paths. Every attack gives a flight path into enemy territory, and any defending unit along that flight path (flak, SAMs, interceptors,etc.) can attack them.
Escorts. Let fighters escort bombers to the limit of the fighter unit's range.
Wild Weasels. Try to blast a path through all the flak, SAMs, interceptors, etc before sending your bombers in.
Doglegs? I.e., a flight path where you try to bypass flak, SAMs, interceptors, etc., but not too sure the AI can be programmed to calculate this and perform the missions that way.
I'd leave out aerial refueling and such, since it's like the support costs for military units in Civ4: abstract, in the background.

 

[T.A JONES]

It's amazing that you wrote 500 words without providing any actual reasons why you prefer Civ III or dislike Civ IV. All you did was make up an argument (Civ III was weak because you need to mod it! Civ IV Is awesome once it's modded!) that no one actually made.
.

OH G
I got every apect of that debate covered Thank you . pick any topic in relation and I have absoulte refuation on groundless attacks from these guys
When you done reading those 20 pages or so(don't xpext you to read them ) I'll pass you the other 40 or 50 threads like it where a I clearly argue every point for dismissing civ4 as the format to base civ5 on.

SO forgive me if I don't get into old news for the 100th time. I have the luxery of being able to copy n' paste from my wide ranging repitoure as I choose

THis topic is fresh and its reveling a recent trend a double standard composed from people like you who never had the patience to patch civ3 but are quick to point out how great Bhurics civ4 is.

I played an unreal amount of Civ III, and loved it. But that game was nowhere near as good as BTS.

Right here we go. "Nowhere near as good" yet can't find one thing to say to back this up. Find one fault with civ3 that was so decisive and all I'll tell you it was fixed in the unoffical patch. I won't even have to write one new word, just paste away you watch

Sure Yuu can have you own opinoin but you don't have the right to say its truly knowledgeable thats all

 

[alpha wolf 64]

This thread is about Civ 5. Can you take your Civ3 vs Civ4 fight elsewhere.

Thanks.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Another way of rephrasing that...

bye T.A Jones

 

[paydro]

If you mod the game extensively, and include a multitude of features from Civ IV, what counts as inherent to Civ III for me to criticize?

I played vanilla Civ III, and now BTS Civ IV. Bugs, to me, are irrelevant... either they get fixed or they don't. I didn't have any trouble enjoying Civ III, or Civ IV.

I went to look at that thread, and read a few pages of it looking for actual opinions and not flaming. Apparently the most common objection is "cartoonish graphics," which to me is silly, but 100% opinion, so I can't object. Civ V would not use the graphics of either game anyway. It's too bad a lot of computers can't play Civ IV, but I can't take that seriously as an argument either.

How about this... I like having national boundaries that matter, which the computer will not just randomly cross all the time and have to be asked to leave. I'm sure that's been modded out at some point, but that's an issue that was taken from the new game and applied to the old. The only thing the old game has going for it is performance and different leader graphics.

 

[Guerra]

I dont want to sound like those bitter Civ3 fans who still diss C-IV, but an expansion just came out how long ago? 6-7 mos? C-IV still has a long way to go for me, and I would hate them trying to shove another release up my throat now, cause I know I would still buy it ASAP. But I would grunt my way to the store.

If anything I would receive another expansion with open arms, with those and all the new features you want, they can even make it standalone if they want but dont name it Ci-V, just "C-IV whatever catchy phrase you like" period.

I just feel that releasing a whole new game would whore the game too much, its a stretch that it already has made it through so many releases and its still succesful, by when we can tell we will be talking about CivX and that my friends lends itself to over exposure.

I agree with you entirely mate. If they made it, I'd be in line, but I wouldn't be happy about it.

Civilization series isn't quite like other gaming series, as it focuses much more on gameplay than graphics or such, and a Civilization V would most likely be a graphical thing. It's good they are planning for the future, since these things take years to make.

So overall, I'm not too worried. (by the way, am I the only one who didn't like Civ IV?, For me, Civ II was the peak, and Civ IV was a return to that with some new elements).

Even the last expansion pack was a bit overloaded with some useless content. I could be wrong, but I don't find the new espionage system very good. It just seems like a feature for the sake of having an extra feature. I would hardly want Civ V to be like that. Better they take their time and plan, so you get complex, in depth gameplay that still has a simple spirit to it.

Just my two cents.

 

[mice]

I could be wrong, but I don't find the new espionage system very good. It just seems like a feature for the sake of having an extra feature. I would hardly want Civ V to be like that. Better they take their time and plan, so you get complex, in depth gameplay that still has a simple spirit to it.

One thing with espionage, it can be used for good old 'information' when you are attacking. Spies can reveal tiles to show where the enemy stacks are. I swarm the enemy with spies in war to be able to make good decisions.I think that adds to strategy/tactics thinking

 

[Rusty Edge]

Getting back on topic-

Also, I think this was suggested, but again:
*Secret deals: using some espionage points, ask an AI to start a proxy war, to stop trading with someone, or fill them with oil, but nobody can see, so this can be your "best friend", without any diplomatic distress.

I have a sketchy idea for secret deals.

Basically it involves a new model for barbs. Once youy have a spy, you could send it into a barb city, and station it there as a liason for maybe 100 gold.
Once you have a liason, you could deal with the barbarians.
If a spy from another country arrived in that city, the newcomer would be mysteriously killed. If the barb city were destroyed, you'd lose your liason.
So you might want to establish relations with multiple barb cities, or even try to monopolize them.

All barb dealings would be secret. There would be no diplomatic penalties. However, you could only depend on the barbs to be discrete and greedy, not to be faithful, (unless you monopolized them). And if you went that route, you'd have to be vigilant about establishing liasons in new barb cities and/or destroying barb cities without liasons,destroying barb cities with other liasons and probably maintaining a privateer fleet to protect the barb islands and continents from attack. Monopolizing the barbs would mean that they almost certainly wouldn't have extra horses, iron or oil to sell to you.

Dealing strategic resources and techs to barbs would mean that they could do a better job, but it might also mean that they would have better units to hire to your enemies .

The barbs wouldn't negotiate, but they would offer multiple propositions. They would offer services in exchange for gold/turn, metal, horses,oil, wine or gems. They would also solicit military techs.
Of course, if you decline their offers, they might make similar offers against you to your rivals and enemies instead.

Examples of Barb propositions-


a) "You would face no threat from us if you provided us with wine"

b) "We could protect your coasts and frontiers from those medelsome foreign pests, such as settlers , missionaries , scouts, etc if we had horses"

c) "We would cripple the economy of your #1 rival, the Portugese, if we were given the secret of gunpowder."


d)" We have some idle mercenaries.You may have 8 macemen for gold/turn."


e) "Lyon is ripe for the plucking. We could capture or destroy it and your hands would be clean. All we need are 2 galleons and 2 privateers"


f) "We know how you hate Isabella. We could betray her with an all-out surprise attack for wine and Military Science.


g)" I see you have no oil. I could spare you some for gold, gems and horses."



h) "Obviously you aren't interested now. Another time or another buyer."

 

[Wejer]

Before starting on Civ V the developers should read this thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=264289

 

[paydro]

Rusty Edge: Those ideas are brilliant. In real life "barbarians" didn't completely exist outside of civilization, there was plenty of dealing and trading and diplomacy. I only object to the secrecy feature, or that all leaders can't try to manipulate the same barbarian tribes. I don't see why that should be the case.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Rusty Edge: Those ideas are brilliant. In real life "barbarians" didn't completely exist outside of civilization, there was plenty of dealing and trading and diplomacy. I only object to the secrecy feature, or that all leaders can't try to manipulate the same barbarian tribes. I don't see why that should be the case.

Thank you. It's just an idea to fill some of the gaps. I welcome any discussion. It's an outgrowth of thoughts I often have when playing, such as
"Where are those Hessians for hire when you really need them?"

"I wish I could give the Iriquois gunpowder so that they could drive these other tribes out for me"

" Why can't I buy off these Barbs ? I mean The Barbary States of north Africa were into piracy, extortion, and the slave business, but in this game only the civilized nations do it."

"I wish I could whack those invading priests without a diplomatic hit, or stop those foreigners from backfilling and stealing my territory.

"If I can have secret privateers to slow Joao down, why not secret cavaliers, too?"

Actually, I think the barbrian tribes share intelligence, and act as a collective or pseudo-civ. I've never seen them fight each other. So I don't know whether they can be dealt with as individual tribes or not.. I don't know what would be practical from either a gameplay or technical standpoint.

 

[paydro]

I believe they do act as a pseudo-civ... also when you take a barb city the units that were obviously spawned/from that city do not disappear. It's certainly silly that you can't buy them out... that was one feature from Civ III that I liked.

 

[T.A JONES]

If you mod the game extensively, and include a multitude of features from Civ IV, what counts as inherent to Civ III for me to criticize?

No, unofficial civ3 lowered corruption with higher maintence. Civ4 has unreal levels of maintence and no corruption losses which is unreal.
Civ3 plays better on expanding empires so real equals more fun in this case.
On top of a general tone down to elimate a sea of red when you travel to another continent, you also have things like prisons to take out corruption but add maintence charges. Its easy to build because corruption ain't the crippler it once was. See this is how it should be for civ5

I played vanilla Civ III, and now BTS Civ IV. Bugs, to me, are irrelevant... either they get fixed or they don't. I didn't have any trouble enjoying Civ III, or Civ IV.

Thats cool but so what? These wern't bugs these were balance issues that got sorted out. Thats what civ4's unoffical patch did aswell.

Apparently the most common objection is "cartoonish graphics," which to me is silly, but 100% opinion, so I can't object.

The gameboard flaws really kill the game. In civ3 you can have your stack of workers chop a whole jungle in 1 second. Thats 10 chops rapid clicked. Not so with civ4 no matter the specs. The same with unit movement or scrolling the screen fast. Civ3 gameboard is rapid response and in civ4 ITs all bogged down with deleys.
NO big deal you say? Well with 500 turns consisting of thousands of individual movements, you don't think we got a lil problem here?
So its not silly. The cartoon graphics cost you.

Civ V would not use the graphics of either game anyway. It's too bad a lot of computers can't play Civ IV, but I can't take that seriously as an argument either.

Right back to what I said. Ditch the animated kiddie stuff and go back to the tactioners function for the main board. We don't need that kind of distraction I talked about that results when plotting and moving.

The solution as I said was in civ3's cityveiw window. Its common knowledge everything looked better in civ3 arial veiw then on the big poly mainmap.
Let the modder add his buildings to the arial veiw and soon youve got distinct city scapes the likes the game has never seen..Best none of it effects performance as each window is a seprate offshoot, not one giant map to weight down with the stacks of visual effects for units, terrain improvements, naked tiles, citys animations, all running on one giant pallete file. IS it any wonder you can't play a huge map late into the game

What that? Someone having a BAD computer is not your problem? OK you can 'print screen' a 400+ city globe from your game then please. Ya Didn't think so. You must like small maps .

What I talk about is the type of idea that would improve the look and performance drastically on todays rigs. Best, they could add more places where the worldwide artists can collectivly refine the graphics overtime like they did with civ3 but this time on a grand scale, not grand skinning

Im talking about potential to fill out city sets, production stamps, irrigation stamps, forts, but mostly the arial city graphics.
Have the flavour be spread out for potentially more variety in 'distinct era look' and 'culture look' in as many aspects as possable for This equals better historical representation not just eyecandy.

How about this... I like having national boundaries that matter, which the computer will not just randomly cross all the time and have to be asked to leave. I'm sure that's been modded out at some point, but that's an issue that was taken from the new game and applied to the old. The only thing the old game has going for it is performance and different leader graphics.

......Ok kids take out your text book and read pages 17-20 on BTS thread

THe main thing is civ3 AI respects you borders. Yet you have to respect thier strenght because they respect yours and thats why this system is real and why its the system civ5 should improve on.

First off Why don't you sign a RP with them? Whats the problem? Must be something you want to keep them away from I guess, but why should they let you keep them away from an enemy or a much need resource on the other side of you border?

If they are weak tell them to leave. Congrats you've got them out of you territory!!. But what If they are strong..stronger then you atleast? Well here you risk getted called out if you try to push them out. You can lower that risk by building strength and payin the cost of that strength not puttin up some magic wall that keep them from whatever you want for yourself at some conveinent later date.
In civ3 ITs a risk that encourages you to know whats going on around you. IT makes it a strategy game worth playin over n over.

As for plain clothed intrusions.... You think its not fair some civillian can walk across you borders? PLease! Half the time they are there to help with joint trade projects like roads where you both benifit. Pretend your advisor autherized it cuz all its doing is saving you resources.
Now You can't complain at all because the program lets you both sneak workers on 'business trips' across the border without official pacts and this is what real AI spying is about! This is how you check out AI battles unlike waiting for the spy in civ4
ITs how you know when to let a civ past through or even join him to share the prize. Its how you know its safe to kick him out. It cost populaton points but seeing the big picture is a part of the game and why Civ3's border sytem puts Civ4's to shame

As for settlers.... Well when settler are crossing you really think you have a safe cultural border? Its before the middle ages and you think some settler should not plop down because you have a few tents already in place in the area? Go kick his ass fool! If you fell that passionate about it do something about it, Jeez what a wimp! lol.
This lil 'securty blanket, this 'magic wall'. you feel you need in civ4's border system makes me understand why they call it Sesame civ. It has nothing to do with the graphics. lol

 

[Sam_Yeager]

It seems clear that we'll have to ask TF to create another CFC. In the new CFC T.A Jones can spend his time telling everyone how brilliant Civ3 is, why 2D is the best thing since sliced bread and 3D beyond the pale, and how everything going forward should be based on Civ3.

In the original CFC those of us who have adapted to 3D & Civ4, who understand there are tradeoffs that we are willing to accept, can have a discussion without T.A.Jones poking his oar in with monotonous regularity.

 

[Ammar]

It seems clear that we'll have to ask TF to create another CFC. In the new CFC T.A Jones can spend his time telling everyone how brilliant Civ3 is, why 2D is the best thing since sliced bread and 3D beyond the pale, and how everything going forward should be based on Civ3.

In the original CFC those of us who have adapted to 3D & Civ4, who understand there are tradeoffs that we are willing to accept, can have a discussion without T.A.Jones poking his oar in with monotonous regularity.

Exactly. This is becoming incredibly annoying and is also off-topic here. Could you please get out of here, T.A.Jones?

 

[Rvil Plum]

Really like the idea about the Barbs, but:

g)" I see you have no oil. I could spare you some for gold, gems and horses."

Wouldn't be very useful, as you would need to keep the Barbs alive into the modern era for it to have any benefit. Theoretically possible, but a real nightmare at the higher difficulty levels.

How about different types of Barbs in different areas of the map, with different attributes. For example the Barbs in a Desert may offer you camel archers, Barbs on an island would offer you naval raiding units, Barbs in a jungle would offer you poison potions to assassinate enemy units, (spy would double as assassin and gain experience from successful missions).

-------

Mercenary units / armies were a really important part of world history, but if Civ5 includes the ability to hire them from rival AI or Barbs or off map, we end up with yet more fighting. Many of the interesting new elements in Civ4 / BTS were not do with the military, and I hope we see the non-military side of the game expanded and evolved further in Civ5.

---------

The largest evolution in Civ5 will be in the intelligence/behaviour of the AI, but I don't know enough about the current developments in game AI to guess at what might be in store for us. or make a wish list for it. I wonder if the Civ series will be the first game to fool us? It won't be Civ 5, but perhaps Civ 6 or 16 will produce a game, whereby we can't tell if the rival civ is controlled by a human or by the computer.

Regards - Mr P

 

[paydro]

I apologize for encouraging him, I did not realize what I was dealing with until it was too late.

Rvil Plum, I realize the barbs-until-modern-era thing is unlikely, but that's because you're working off of Civ IV. I think the biggest thing that's wrong with Civilization is that the game simplifies the real world into 7 (or 18 or whatever) nations, whereas in the real world it was always dozens at a time. There are two ways to deal with this... the first is to see civilizations as an abstraction of many states; thus the "Russian Civilization" would theoretically contain many smaller states at once (Ukraine, Belarus, etc.). The second would be to have many small civs between the big civs that you can try to manipulate/attack/fight over.

To operate the first system, I would like to see more conflict/fighting WITHIN your empire. Invasion from abroad is one thing, and could bind your empire together, but if you're at peace for centuries, Athens and Sparta might end up fighting.

To operate the second system, it would require some clever game mechanics to avoid it being too complicated and require too much micromanagement. But it would make diplomacy much more important... you could have multiple vassals, who switch sides frequently, get influenced by culture, etc.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Really like the idea about the Barbs, but:

g)" I see you have no oil. I could spare you some for gold, gems and horses."

Wouldn't be very useful, as you would need to keep the Barbs alive into the modern era for it to have any benefit. Theoretically possible, but a real nightmare at the higher difficulty levels.

How about different types of Barbs in different areas of the map, with different attributes. For example the Barbs in a Desert may offer you camel archers, Barbs on an island would offer you naval raiding units, Barbs in a jungle would offer you poison potions to assassinate enemy units, (spy would double as assassin and gain experience from successful missions).

-------

Mercenary units / armies were a really important part of world history, but if Civ5 includes the ability to hire them from rival AI or Barbs or off map, we end up with yet more fighting. Many of the interesting new elements in Civ4 / BTS were not do with the military, and I hope we see the non-military side of the game expanded and evolved further in Civ5.

---------



Regards - Mr P

Well, Id like to see more non-military development myself, including more civics ( maybe a labor union , which would improve heath and safety , but sacrifice productivity & bring back Federation as a form of government which allows you to set the sliders individually for each city, and make unhappy cities more likely to flip in or out of it).

In my vision the barbs evolve into 3rd world despots of sort, who have no constraints of public or international opinion, including UN nuclear bans.

I like your ideas and I take your point about difficulty of barbs survivng. Perhaps the mechanism would be for a city or two on the fringe of a declin ing empire to break away and turn "barb" , playing that part. If these modern despots were to switch to more of an espionage role, offering espionage rather than military services, or black market for and uranium stolen techs, I'd be cool with that.

 

[T.A JONES]

Exactly. This is becoming incredibly annoying and is also off-topic here. Could you please get out of here, T.A.Jones?

Why is it OT? Is it because it was my idea to base civ5 on civ3 not civ4?
You seem like a troll