Dear Firaxis...(the Civ4 comprehensive poll)

[maddman75]

I'll confess to checking 6, then scrolling down to read 'please check no more than 4'. Oops, too late now. Sorry.

I'd like for the advisors to actually tell you something useful. The only one I really use is the military advisor to see if someone is stonger/average/weaker than me. I like that the science advisor always asks for more funding.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

I proposed 4 choices to curb the enthusiasts that would vote for all options, but I still think that as long as choices stay under 10 the trends should be visible although it would muddle thinks for optoons under the fifth place
Despite that i still would like to limit the choices to 4

 

[EzInKy]

Dang, I ended up checking six options too but my top choices are bringing back wonder movies and the council. I know many people think they were a waste, but I think they added a certain professionalism and charm that made a great game fantastic.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

I think that the first clear trend(if we consider AI improvement a permanent demand) is that the majority chequed the Dynamic optons, clearly related to claims that the game is decided at a very early stage...

 

[IBARRUTI]

major diplomatic choice, as in Alpha Centauri

 

[dh_epic]

Wait, how many options was I allowed to choose? I just picked them all.

LOL Just kidding. I picked economics, dynamic civs, better control (e.g.: less micromanagement), and finished goods / resources.

More specifically, I'd like to see trade and unemployment and resource management modelled. I would put dark age under dynamic civs as something that's not random but calculated, a product of poor civ management.

One thing missing that should be there:

play balancing, to make sure no one can run away with the game

 

[Dell19]

Considering that Dynamic civs has nearly double the votes of any other option other than improving the AI I wonder if it would be a good idea for a separate poll on how people view dynamic civs being implemented, just civil war or civs splitting and rejoining?

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

@ dh epic:... you had to see my face reading the first line of your post. positively green

@dell 19 . My idea is to wait for 100 votes and then have a small discussion, but it's really a random number so...:

I think that all ideas that will have a high number of votes should be closely examined. Dynamic is especially tricky because it relates to a variety of long posts, so we have to be sure what exactly we are asking for-assuming that the people of civ has read the relevant threads...lets find some good questions then...(pm or public-I dont think there is spamdanger about it) and everybody is welcome...(I dont qualify as an expert on polls )

 

[dh_epic]

I think before there can be a poll there needs to be a roadmap of many of the suggestions. Most are compatible, some are not.

I've heard nation splitting used in the same discussions as:

- dark ages (the value of which is both supported and questioned, but intimately tied to the idea of an empire split / civil war)

- culture (people are enslaved or assimilated, but then emerge later as a nation once again, in another age ... depends on how culture might be calculated differently)

- trade (as it ties to culture, in particular what happens when an empire starts importing all kinds of outside influences, and its culture begins to become more scattered)

- domestic economics (as it ties to how you treat certain ethnic or worker groups. e.g.: all greeks under romans rebel, all farmers and workers under russia rebel)

- government (likelihood of big changes durring anarchy and government change)

- imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, commonwealths (rather than fighting a war through every one of a nation's cities, you basically make a deal with a civ-leader to "surrender" and you get some or all control over his wealth and resources... and colonies will not remain passive forever, they will eventually fight for independance. this encompasses combining as well as splitting)

- ages (you have to meet certain requirements to make it to the next age, e.g.: buildings. if those buildings are lost, then you might end up in a dark age ... and potentially a civil war / empire split, a la ancient rome)

- great leaders (stimulating a civil war in a rival nation, or to a colonial ruler if your nation has turned into a colony)

- domination victory (how do you dominate if civil war is a probable effect of trying to control too many geographic regions?)

You can see how everything's very interconnected... and I don't think I addressed all of the basic ideas / tie-ins. I'm not sure a poll is practical at this point.

 

[Milan's Warrior]

How can one restrain the vociferous and multifaceted crowd of Fanatics? Alas for my statistics...and please use my full name,it took generations for the Garbar- part, only ,to be formed...( )
anyway I will repeat my humble request:

Please choose no more than 4 (four-quattre-tesseris) options

hope this works

Oooops
I did not read it on time. You should have put this warning in the question rather than your top post. Something like
"If I could change MORE THAN ONE thing (but no more than 4 things) in Civ4, I would..."
I was too eager to answer

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

I did not read it on time. You should have put this warning in the question rather than your top post

Turner_727 did for me . no more excuses from the uncontrollable crowd please...

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

@dojoboy

You've got to throw "Everything AI" out. Its a given. Chose new government controls,but would've also like to have an opportunity to vote for civil war/culture groups/schisms as well.

we can continue here, sice this an expansion of the previous poll...

 

[LLXerxes]

Improving the AI is something that most people are going to vote in general as it should always be the aim to see better AI... Interesting to see that dynamic civs is next most popular option. Perhaps because there has been a lot of discussion over it...

Yup, that's what I voted.
BTW, Dell19, I saw you changed your avatar.
I think the other one looked better.
But, back on topic, we could use better AI

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

@Dell19 I agree the the AI question is probably the more generic one because AI encompasses all aspects of gameplay, but since ppl had 4 votes you can say that 1 vote was thus lost towards the obvious...but then it was overcompensated by the fact that few people(mea culpa too ) chose only 4 options. I think dynamic should be explored more (and some othr questions too) not only for the number of votes but for the complexity of the issue.And I will repeatolls show trends and they should be used in focusing, and not in prioritizing issues...

 

[burning_phoneix]

Bringing back wonder movies and Dynamic civs were my top 2 choices.

Having Dyanamic civs makes the game a lot more realistic and the wonder movies would bring back memories of civ2(or SMAC)

 

[Dell19]

Polls show trends and they should be used in focusing, and not in prioritizing issues...

I agree, you are never going to get 100% accurate results from a poll especially when the number of participants is likely to be limited and also only coming from a specific group of civ players which also post at CFC...

 

[warpstorm]

The AI is not an obvious choice, IMHO. When prioritizing, all things that would take time to implement must be considered so that the proper amount of effort can be expended on them. (Consider, also, that most casual players of Civ (the vast silent majority) play on the easier difficulty levels. Would they vote for more competent AIs? I think not. A lot of them are struggling on Warlord.)

 

[Dell19]

I feel most people realise that the AI can be easily manipulated to make the game easy by buying off a couple of AIs into a war perhaps or how the AI will waste movement points when moving a stack and not go for a place that would cause the most damage and thse things are noticeable even on the lower levels and besides they may also have read other people's comments and felt that it was a good idea to improve the AI...

 

[warpstorm]

Sorry, Dell, I disagree. AI improvements aren't a given. To date, Firaxis has not expended the amount of effort to give Civ3 a good AI (sorry, Soren, but it is only as good as a mediocre player, at best). Why do you think that they will automatically come to the conclusion that it is important to their franchise to expend that kind of effort?

Like I said, a lot of their players don't ever progress beyond Warlord. They are already accusing the AI of cheating at that level. These players (who are most of the people who are the target audience for Civ4) probably don't want an even harder AI.

I think it is important, that doesn't mean that it is a given that it is a priority to the guys down the street making the game.

 

[Garbarsardar.jr]

@ Dell19 and Warpstorm.
I think you are both right and the problem lies with the poll question which (as poll questions usually go) has many interpretations.
I believe that ppl voted AI because:
A.either they are more experienced players and they want interesting challenges
B.either they are at entry level(target audience etc) and although they dont want more difficult AI, they feel bored by the monotomous and repetitive AI "behaviour".

(But this a constant problem with polls....)