Concepts for Civilization

These are a list of ideas that I'd like to see incorporated or at the very least contemplated for the first expansion pack for Civilization 5. Feel free to comment, criticize, praise,add to, troll or scrutinize my ideas below, and please feel free to add your own.

I'll add to my list as I see fit. All of these concepts are ones that I've come up with alone while thinking on my experience with Civ, but I'm unsure how many have come up in these forums before, so sorry for any repeats, If I have an idea that was added onto with the forum, I'll give the forum credit.



MULTIPLE WINNERS/DYNAMIC SCORING SYSTEM

The issue with the methods of victory Civ presents us with now, is that they directly contradict its gameplay concepts and force unnatural specialization on us. I'll get back to the specialization later, right now I'll discuss the contradictory gameplay elements. People complain that Civ 5s AI deimmerses them because it plays to win. The fix to that isn't creating dumber AI that plays simply to act as filler, but rather to create win conditions that encourage the AI to embrace every gameplay concept in a way that can immerse us further.

The reason an AI that plays to win doesn't develop long lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the player is because at the end of the day, Civ only has one winner. Diplomacy and alliances are useless when only one person can take the crown home, and while that kind of a mechanic may add tension to a game like Defcon, it single handedly ruins the entire concept of Diplomacy, which is already almost insignificant considering how the victory conditions influence the player to act in unnatural ways.

Because the victory conditions have preset rules such as the Space victory, Cultural victory and the Domination victory, all of which are tied independantly to mechanics that require a Civilizations focus, (A space victory requires a complete focus on Tech, Domination on military, Cultural on culture, etc, etc.) playing to win with any of those presets forces the player to specialize and ignore all of the other elements. As if that weren't gameplay crippling enough, these victory conditions are really poorly balanced, just as they have been in every Civ game to date. This makes potentially brilliant aspects of the game completely obsolete.


The solution? One win condition, multiple winners. A score that takes into account technology, size, culture, military, infrastructure, cash flow, alliances, happiness and every other essential aspect of your Civ, all players are ranked and the game itself dynamically decides the primary and secondary victors (and losers) through a variety of factors. Lets say we're playing in a game of eight Civs and we both have exceptionally high scores compared to everyone else, but only minutely different from each other, and we're allied. The game will end declaring the two of us primary victors, and then any smaller nation allied to us as secondary victors, and then all other nations as losers. Now lets say the two of us are not allied, but both have several smaller nations allied to us. If the game has a turnlimit enabled in the menu, it ends as a draw, if not, the game continues until one nation outsmarts the other through ANY means available to gain a significant score advantage over the other, and the smaller nations that are competing for secondary victories are still actively engaged and become a very interesting and dynamic element to what is essentially a virtual cold war. This idea still has to be ironed out, but I think its basics allow for a much more interesting gameplay focus that isn't just unnatural specialization.




MORALE


No more dice rolls in combat. Morale essentially act as a minor factor in battle that takes into account a huge amount of aspects. Things that can affect morale includes but isn't limited by: Distance from home, climate, overall war condition, Unit condition, Unit position, technology, nearby units, hometown condition, religious standing, enemy nationality, nearby improvements, nearby cities, nearby battles...

A unit will only route if they are in an absolutely atrocious situation, so that an unexperienced player isn't forced to micro every unit's morale. However, morale should give an experienced player an edge, and in rare conditions determine the outcome of a battle.




REBELLION


Rebellion would act in conjunction with Morale and Religion. Rather than either City or Global happiness, neither of which are ideal, I propose territorial happiness, in which cities are grouped together by how close they are in sets of threes and automatically named. I think names are a very easy way of really immersing a player, I'm no longer fighting over generic hilltops towards a city, but rather I'm liberating Alsace-Lorraine. Regardless, Territories are far less intrusive and micro intensive as city happiness, and far less convoluted and nonsensical than global happiness.

When every city within a territory is rioting, that territory goes into rebellion, and all city garrisoned military become Rebels. Any other territories that are in full riot, or are captured afterwards also become part of the rebellion On top of that, one citizen per city is drafted every few turns, the number of turns being dependent on the size of the city. As the initial bulk fighting finishes, you will be able to contact the rebellion via a normal diplomacy window, where you can negotiate the terms of them rejoining your nation, or if they're winning, recognize them as a sovereign nation, at which point they will be added to the Score tab as a normal civilization which you can interact with like any other. This is the first step in a Civ game towards immersive and realistic Civil war.





RELIGION

Religion in Civ 4 was a bad joke, it could have simply been replaced with a generic nameless diplomacy civic. The concept I have for religion in Civ 5 is similar to a mix between Civ 4 culture and Civ 5 City States. Imagine if you are on the northernmost section of a Pangaea alongside 3 other nations and The Vatican. To the east are other nations alongside Mecca. Since Christianity has spread throughout your land, it has become your state religion, however, Mecca has converted your border cities on the east. The Vatican sends an Envoy that essentially tells you to inquisition your border cities or pay higher tribute per turn, or have them turn their back on you, causing mass riots in the most pious cities that could lead to a northern rebellion and a civil war. You inquisition the cities, but that leads to serious distrust and bad relations with Mecca. Suddenly, all Islamic nations are less likely to trade with you, as Mecca is forcing higher tribute from them for trading with the infidel. An allied crusade, and a medieval World War becomes an inevitability. Think about the diplomatic depth that would add to the game, and how interesting a game-changer Religon would become because of that.


The incentive for tolerating religion and not destroying a city state is that it would create a population explosion, RAPIDLY increasing the growth rate the more pious a city becomes. This concept needs refinement, but I think is a very interesting idea.

-notes:






Trust me when I say that I have alot more ideas to write down, but its 12:30 in the morning and my ability to be mildly coherent is fading.

 

To give an idea for religion, i proposed in a previous thread:

 

I like the idea that a rebellion has a source, and that it spreads from an origin, rather than simply spontaneously begins at once around the country. I think territories can also serve another purpose, Global happiness is silly as it doesn't take into account occupied cities, and city management is too tedious, it becomes a chore. I think territories would be a great compromise, and could also factor into other facets of the game, such as the happiness of occupied cities. If a player has captured one city from a territory, then that city could retain anger over being separated from the other two cities. Players could also bargain away territories during wartime, which would feel much more realistic than individual cities scattered around the land.

Thats an interesting concept, but it doesn't portray religion as something that naturally grows and spreads through nations, which is really what I wanted to convey with my concept. The other thing I wanted religion to do is create and encourage alliances and wars that feel organic and realistic.

Also, with multiple winners, the AI could both play to win and still be diplomatically linked with the player in a way that isn't forced.