Diverse civs or open gameplay?

[Naokaukodem]

The same units for all civs would make the generic units to disappear. But it would also make the UUs to disappear. What i want is all civs with heteroclit units that give us a good feeling of the overall history and geography, not just some different civs with just some thin elements of it and a bunch of generic and less charismatic units than those i cited.

 

[ComradeDavo]

'None of the above' option for me.

I like my civs to be as unique as possiable!

I mean, I'd like there'd to be some shared units, but generally different. Such as having a couple of UU's each (per era preferrably) then alot more depending on what resources you have, such as mentioned in another thread having an elepahant resource lets you build war elepahants, then as with civ anyway horses let you build knights and so on.

For the things (buildings, wonders) well some shared are ok, but generally more variety the better, and like to see alot more wonders needing specific resources and perhaps a unique wonder per civ.

 

[GeneralZed]

Restriction is a completely nonsense. If one can build a wonder with the best things you can have and you civ is not allowed to build it, would be very unbalanced.
Wonders and buildings are to be shared, though the buildings need to have different lookings. Units need different lookings and attributes till the mid industrial ages. After then bombers, ships and armors would have quite the same design, so it wouldnt make sense if every civ had a different one. And today many nations have the same types of units.

 

[mastertyguy]

You should ACQUIRE UU and civ traits. If you are particullarly good at early war, made you'll get legions instead of swordmen, and if you blitz with your tanks in industrial, you can get panzers. You may also, if you discover lots of techs @ 1st civ, you become scientific. I'm not sure if there should be a limitation in UU or civ traits, since it should difficult to acquire them, but anyway, this is, to my opinion, a good idea.

 

[Idylwyld]

Ahhh, here we are again with an opportunity to advance my pet idea.

Certain historical Civs should be available in the game. The militaristic Romans, the seafaring Norse, the scientific Greeks, etc... These "historical" civilizations should have traits and UU's that reflect their historical tendencies. If you want to play them, go ahead, they're there.

In addition to the "Historical" civs you should have the option to play your own "Custom" civ. By picking your own traits, choosing a generic leaderhead (or adding your own graphic), and selecting a UU (or 2) from a list made available by your trait choices, you create whatever civilization you want. Now, you can play however you want. Allow a "custom" opponent option so the AI can randomly determine your opponents. Historically accurate games can be played or you can try your hand against whatever the RNG throws at you. I feel a much deeper level of satisfaction could be achieved versus having to play to history.

Finally, for all of you who are getting sick of hearing this idea I say this: A good preacher doesn't stay in church, he finds every venue for his message that will allow him to plant his feet and speak.

 

[sir_schwick]

All of us who remember Civ 2 remember a time before hardwired settings, or any non-gamecourse differentiation at all. In SMAC the vast diversity in factions made perfect sense b/c of the complexity of the SE system. However in Civ 3 it seems a bit superficial considering the rather superficial government model and the fact that real earth history has happened while SMAC was controlled by game authors.

_________________________________________________

Civ 3 took the path I consider the worst of any, creating artificial differences without adding to the replay value or diversity of the game. All Riflemen look alike, all MA looks alike. You have to play a certain way with each faction to get their most effective use. This means you can only really play China or Egypt or any other civ at most one or two different ways. Additionally, it made games with ridiculous numbers of Civs a pipedream. Adding new civs to the game involved rebalancing it against the existing set of Civs. Obviously we see that this system is not adequate for the needs of a Sid Meier's Civilzation game and should be abandoned.

__________________________________________________

Gameplay Templates:

However many who have not played Civ 2 are leary of trying something in which they have no experience. For those people I propse this compromise that will increase diversity and allow you to keep the well balanced UUs and traits: gameplay templates.

There is no reason a specific Civ needs to have its traits hardwired for all eternity. You could think of Civs as a juxtaposition of two pieces: the template and the asthetics. The asthetics of Babylon are its king, the GL names, the city names, the architecture, etc. The template would be Scientific and Religious with a (2/2/1) unit that replaces the Archer. If those pieces are not hardwired together, then you could have the Romans with this template, and they would have Scietnific and Religious traits with a (2/2/1) ardcher unit, probably called the Auxilla.

This means that the only play-balance you ever have to do is between 15-25 game templates(depending on what makes sense). Adding new civs means only adding the city name lists, the leader portraits(the heads are a waste of HD space), and other asthetic features.

Additionaly that would allow you to be much more diverse with presentation of each civ. Imagine these features that can be as universal or unique asthetically as one wants:

* The tech tree would be the same, but each tech could have different pics and names for each Civ.
* Units would all have the same stats(save UUs), but the graphics and names for units could be unique, meaning each military you face is diverse.
* Because the UU is one of all units that appear unique, it would be much more difficult to tell when an opponent is using their true UU.
* City graphics could all be diverse.
* Buildings could all be named and look different.

_____________________________________________________

I do like the idea of evoling civ traits, units, etc. Gameplay decisions and planning should effect what you get access to. Also, it sounds as though Civ 4 will differentiate units through training methodology as much as anything else, something that is realistic rather than artificial. However fully dynamic systems tend to produce clear paths to victory, even if they are numerous. A combination of pre-balanced and dynamic features is the key to making this a fun game rather than a simulator or mindless.

 

[dh_epic]

Sir Schwick, you've put more thought into this than I have, but I definitely agree with everything in your most recent post.

Flexibility is a virtue.