Dear developers, if you are reading this, please consider...

szabolcs85

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 3, 2007
Messages
6
Please. I'm begging you and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

For the love of everything that is good, holy, sacred and honorable on this world. Don't implement this "only one unit per hex" mechanism. The hexagons are fine, but this idea of only allowing one unit per hexagon is simply awful. Many Civ veterans are going to hate and loathe it. Or am I the only one who does?

Don't change the combat system from Civ 4. Each unit only having one basic number for an attack/defense value, the promotions and the rock-paper-scissors mechanism was good. The only thing many people did not like was the artillery bombardment system. And the air combat could have used some improvements, but that was all. But don't change something that was good.

On the other hand, while it should not be changed, it should definitely be improved. Like, different types of units should have certain different types of attacks available. For just an example, a light cavalry unit should have either a "skirmish" type attack that doesn't damage the enemy unit too much, but improves the chance of the cavalry retreating from combat in case it suffers too much damage, an "encirclement" attack that damages all enemy units in a stack, but reduces the chances for a successful retreat, and a standard attack, and so forth.

By the way, please keep that feature that allowed us to NAME units.

And speaking of units, don't take any one that was in Civ 4 out. Don't reduce the number of units, improve it. Especially when it comes industrial/modern age units. Combat engineers with a bonus at attacking forts or cities, assault guns with a bonus against tanks but a penalty against anything else, flak tanks, attack planes, etc... So many more could have been included...

Also, please, include a good, I mean a GOOD scenario editor. One that can actually be used. Like the one that was in Civ 3. The one that came with Civ 4 was completely useless.

Furthermore, please bring back the era-specific leader graphics from Civ 3. If America is still in the Bronze Age, why do we have to see George Washington in a 18th century officer outfit? Also, please bring back the unique quotes for each leader, like it was in Civ 3.

Also, please keep the religion-system from Civ 4 and improve on it a bit to make it more realistic. Also, civilizations should naturally go for religions that they would choose in reality. European civs should naturally choose Christianity, Middle-eastern ones should choose Islam and so forth. Unless being forced otherwise, but that's a different story. And each religion should have it's own spreading rate and unique bonuses.

The Great People-mechanic was good about Civ 4, please keep that one too.

Also, please, please don't touch the "random event"-mechanic either. It was great about Civ 4. And so were the occasional quests that were offered.

The espionage-system was also good about Civ 4, just the way it was. I, and many other Civ fans would want it to remain.

Furthermore, please introduce a new mechanic for unit maintenance. I dunno, like, mobilized and combat ready units should cost more per turn than the ones that are not mobilized for war, but should be stronger.

Also, please improve the diplomacy too. It's great if a weak civilization becomes a vassal state, but in Civ 4, I was stuck with it because there was no option to just let the particular civilization go free. (Or maybe there was, but I just missed it).

It would also be great to include more European civilizations. Who cares about the insignificant Mayans when Austria-Hungary, Israel, Poland or Italy is missing? (If any person of Mayan descent is reading this, than sorry, I meant no offense)

Also, please, bring back the palace feature, and most importantly, the HIGH COUNCIL!

Civ 5 would otherwise seem such a great game... But please, think about what I wrote.

Sincerely,
Szabolcs85
 
Chill man :), Firaxis have been developing this game for 2 years - I think they've had some long and hard discussions regarding many of these points. They're trying to bring out a fresh, revamped Civilization, not a mashup of all the previous versions. It's got to be radical, and they have to try new things to make it worthy of being a successor in this popular game series.

To be honest, I don't think anyone can properly criticise the new game concepts and conclude they are stupid/game-breaking until they have actually played with them. Voicing opinions and apprehensions is fine, but determining that a certain change is rubbish based on only pieces of second-hand information just doesn't make sense!

Civ4 is brilliant and has excellent gameplay - it sure will be hard to beat. But going by Firaxis' track-record, I'm confident they'll pull this off.

Edit: is anyone else with me and looking forward to some fresh changes?
 
Fair enough, Jamesds, I see that they need to try out new things, but I see that they are taking out a lot of old things that were good. I think that city states, a few fixes here and there and the new, hexagonal maps are enough for innovations.

Maybe the new game is going to be good, but at this point I feel that it's only going to be a bad/mediocre game with some good ideas.

I know that Firaxis has made some really great games, but each of these was full of some really terrible mistakes.

By the way. Archers shooting across two hexagons? I can imagine an 1930's railway gun doing that, but not archers.
 
Fair enough, Jamesds, I see that they need to try out new things, but I see that they are taking out a lot of old things that were good. I think that city states, a few fixes here and there and the new, hexagonal maps are enough for innovations.

Maybe the new game is going to be good, but at this point I feel that it's only going to be a bad/mediocre game with some good ideas.

I know that Firaxis has made some really great games, but each of these was full of some really terrible mistakes.

I see what you mean, but I remember Soren Johnson saying that in Civ4 they applied the thirds rule. Keep 1/3 of the good stuff, take out a 1/3 of the bad stuff and put in a 1/3 of new features.

By the way. Archers shooting across two hexagons? I can imagine an 1930's railway gun doing that, but not archers.

Units
- Basic military units move two tiles in combat instead of one.

GamePro mentioned that in it - the archers shooting distance makes more sense now. Maybe these maps will be on a grander scale. That would make sense with the 3 tile city radius.
 
By the way. Archers miles tall?
 
You both are right. No one played Civ V so we simply can't say it (those new things) will be awful, but also when I think about "one unit per hex" I pray it won't happen. Civ IV was much better than Civ III - I (like probably all members here) only wish Civ V will be better than Civ IV. But my thoughts and my vision of Civ V, and developer's may not be the same. Right now I really doubt I will consider "one unit per hex" or "no religion" as an improvement of the game.
 
I am also worried about the elimination of unit stacking, but perhaps we are all being a bit premature to assume that its removal will "ruin gameplay." As a simple matter of mathematics theory, unit stacking would be less important on a hex-based map than on a grid-based map. Let's wait and see how it works. I love the idea of moving the combat focus away from simply capturing cities. Fighting in the countryside and on the outskirts of town is more realistic, and it also allows for greater strategic diversity than the city-focused combat prevalent in Civ 4.

By the way. Archers miles tall?

Is this a serious criticism, or are you actually in favor of making units so tiny that they are only visible if you zoom in to ground-level?

Come on, man. Even the units in Civ 2 were larger than trees, mountains, and other terrain features.
 
I love the idea of moving the combat focus away from simply capturing cities. Fighting in the countryside and on the outskirts of town is more realistic, and it also allows for greater strategic diversity than the city-focused combat prevalent in Civ 4.
Not thought about it that way before, but I am in agreement with you there.

Is this a serious criticism, or are you actually in favor of making units so tiny that they are only visible if you zoom in to ground-level?

Come on, man. Even the units in Civ 2 were larger than trees, mountains, and other terrain features.

I think he was making a sarcastic comment about szabolcs85's disbelief of archers shooting 2 tiles away... ;)
 
It sounds like the OP would prefer Civ5 just to be Civ4 with updated graphics. Which would be lame.

I'm skeptical about 1UPT, but I'm willling to try something different. Major changes are needed to justify a new version.

Stack of Doom combat sucks. Its boring as hell.
 
Not thought about it that way before, but I am in agreement with you there.

Thanks. All too often in multiplayer Civ 4 (especially on random maps), the outcome of battles depended almost entirely on the comparative size of each player's stack. This, in turn, depended more on the players' land and starting resources than on actual strategy or tactics. I suspect that I speak for a lot of online veterans when I say that I am very excited that combat in Civilization will finally move beyond droll "stack-slapping."

I think he was making a sarcastic comment about szabolcs85's disbelief of archers shooting 2 tiles away... ;)

Oh, nice! At least based on the screenshots that Firaxis has released, a two-tile range for archers appears to make perfect sense. And even if it didn't make proportional sense, it would be odd to me for Firaxis to introduce ranged bombardment while denying a ranged-attack feature to the first ranged-attack unit in the history of warfare!
 
I completely disagree with the part of having the game comprised almost exclusively with European civs. This game is "Civilization", not "State" or "Country". But, if you mean only including well-defined civs instead of large semicivilized tribes, such a claim would be more legit IMO.
 
It sounds like the OP would prefer Civ5 just to be Civ4 with updated graphics. Which would be lame.

I'm skeptical about 1UPT, but I'm willling to try something different. Major changes are needed to justify a new version.

Stack of Doom combat sucks. Its boring as hell.

Yes, it is awful. There's nothing fun about sitting in an online teamer and just waiting to see which side has more catapults when an attacker moves in. In the past year or so, it got to the point that people basically would say "Well, looks like player 1 has 35 units and player 2 has 19. Let's call it a game and head back to the lobby." At that point, it isn't gameplay; it's just a really big waste of everyone's time.
 
I have an idea.

Listen closely.

Civ 5 should have two game modes with slightly different game mechanics. An "updated Civ 4" game mode for conservative-minded civ fans like myself and a "Civ 5" mode for those who want something radically new. Let's say, I start a new game and before I choose the difficulty level and which civ I want to play, it simply asks me which mode I wish to play in.

How does that sound?
 
I have an idea.

Listen closely.

Civ 5 should have two game modes with slightly different game mechanics. An "updated Civ 4" game mode for conservative-minded civ fans like myself and a "Civ 5" mode for those who want something radically new. Let's say, I start a new game and before I choose the difficulty level and which civ I want to play, it simply asks me which mode I wish to play in.

How does that sound?

I leaned very closely to my computer screen. I'm sorry, but I couldn't hear anything...

As for the idea that you just typed, you basically want them to re-release Civ 4 alongside Civ 5? Uhm, no. Just stick to the old game if you are one of the "change is bad" folks. I hated Civ 4 for the first month that I played it, because I thought they had changed the wrong parts of Civ 3. I don't even remember what Civ 3 was like anymore.
 
Screw more European "civilizations". I'm sick and tired of getting tiny European nationlettes like Holland and Portugal instead of distinctive actual historic civilizations like Srivijaya, the Khazars, and so on.

But I do share reservations about the single unit thing. I think the developers are just reacting to the SoD "problem". Some people have expressed the opinion that most of the potential complexities of civ gameplay have had to bow before the great SoD. It is risky as they may screw up the whole of Civ5 if they get it wrong ... but they have a good record of introducing new game concepts ...

... I think they could solve the SoD problem realistically by introducing provisioning/attrition as a concept. You have thirty units in the desert, they start to die every turn. Each tile should need to be provisioned for unit survival. That's just my opinion though ...
 
I have an idea.

Listen closely.

Civ 5 should have two game modes with slightly different game mechanics. An "updated Civ 4" game mode for conservative-minded civ fans like myself and a "Civ 5" mode for those who want something radically new. Let's say, I start a new game and before I choose the difficulty level and which civ I want to play, it simply asks me which mode I wish to play in.

How does that sound?

Theres no point remaking Civ4 when civ4 already exists.

Theres no point in making two games and selling them as one.

Your idea is "nice" but wholly impractical.
 
It blows my mind how some of you are so against the change in civ 5. I"m excited! its going to be a fresh new change. Civ 4 is boring now.

ALso, I think civ 4 was the worst of all the civ games made. I only 90% of you will disagree, but it just didn't have a kick to it.
 
The OP must be crazy. Don't change combat but make changes to it? Put in European nations who've lasted the blink of an eye against Civilisations that have lasted thousands of years?

If you want to play Civ4, go play Civ4.
 
I love the bit where Israel is listed as a European civilization. Really? I had no idea the levant was in Europe.
 
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