Do you guys want civ 4 to be more realistic?

[troytheface]

A comment- it would be kinda cool to have battles a bit more strategic in nature if - say u are able to surround an enemy stack or attack it from the rear you get a bonus- in other words instead of -build giant stack - attack- there was more of "outflank- cut supply line ect. And reduce Calvarly attack stats against cities or mountains!

 

[Nachos]

i'd do anything for a more advanced diplomacy system! + power shouldn't be measured by size of territory!

 

[TheRockit]

I am enjoying just reading all of the points of view on the list here and wondering to myself "what DO they have in mind for Civ4???" It could turn out to be much like the previous changes from main titile to the next (not much different but still a different game, mainly improved and refined) or a total rework with only the spirit and concept intact. I think I'll enjoy it no matter what.

 

[afrorouge]

I completely disagree with the idea of unit-level control of combat. I couldn't imagine playing out a game where I have hundreds of units marching around, having to micro every battle. It would be awful.

I strongly agree that logistics (supply chains) should be introduced. Ancient era units are able to surivive off the land (although a big enough stack comes up against stacking limits) but as modern era units come along, those units need to be supplied.

I would also like to see a reworking of the leaders system. One potential alternative is to allow leaders to have an impact on units adjacent to them, not just right next to them, to represent the tactical impact a leader has on a wider area, not just on the immediate surroundings. There could be different levels which expand on the radius of this influence.

I think techs should gradually diffuse throughout the world once most players have them, so there are no powers permanently trapped in the ancient era because they start on an island.

Above all, though, I hope they work on the AI to give it coherent strategies in war (naval landings, concentration of force, attacking resources, etc.). Unfortunately, I have a feeling the multiplayer side will dominate their thinking so much that the AI will probably not be improved very much.

I like the civ trait points idea. It's in the spirit of the game (not too complex, but very flexible). A lot of the other suggestions here (making the economy much more complex) remind me too much of MOO3 for my taste . . .

 

[EddyG17]

You wouldn't have to micro manage every battle, Civ 4 programmers can look at Total War were you can fight the battle your self or let your computer do it, of course if you do it there will be less casualties.
For Civ 4 I want being able to build fleets and squadrons, I mean we already have Armies.

 

[TheRockit]

Personally I don't see the difference in having to micro manage a bunch of units in battle and having to micromanage a supply line to all of the troops you have in battle, especially in the modern age when there is so much going on every turn already. I like managing battles better if I have to choose between the two but neither are very attractive ideas to me.

Maybe a system where you can give armies a commander with certain traits (already mentioned) and/or issue a tactic to an army to fight a certain way that could affect the outcome of the battle based on the opponent's choices also.

A possibility for the 'supply chain' idea may be that flanking or isolating units/armies from supported territories could harm them... what do you think?

 

[Evie]

I think Civ III should remain as far as military operations go a game on the STRATEGIC level - that is, giving (large) units their missions orders, and let the commanders in the field handle the mission as best as they can (ie, tactical-level operations). IE, the way it is right now.

However, on the strategic level there are a number of new unit actions that could easily be added, both in terms of passive abilities and active actions, that would add more depth to the game without turning it from a strategic game into a tactical game.

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally posted by TheRockit
[...]
A possibility for the 'supply chain' idea may be that flanking or isolating units/armies from supported territories could harm them... what do you think?

That is another military concept of CTP2, which would be worth to be adopted in Civ(3+x), as I see it....

 

[Zier]

More realistic?

Hmm, if it takes away from the gameplay I would have to say no, if it adds, most definately. As long as it improves gameplay it's all good by me. I do hope that they will add in more units (air for example) and more techs, and maybe each civ will have 2 UU's? (all balanced offcourse)

Now that we're talking about civ4 anyways I might aswell ask it here, any clue on when it will be out more or less?

thnx

 

[Commander Bello]

Tavis announced it in one of his threads for late 2005 at the earliest

 

[Lord_Sidious]

really!?

 

[KaNick]

>Do you want civ 4 to be more realistic.

Not really, more fun would be nice. Not that it isn't fun now

 

[EddyG17]

I want hexagons, I don't know why people are against it but... I think hexagons will be a great Idea long overdue to appear in the civ series

 

[Evie]

Regarding hexagons, we're against them because they are ENTIRELY NON-INTUITIVE when it comes to using the keyboards for movements.

Squares works perfectly with number-pad movements - each square points in the perfect direction for each command. Up arrow leads up, down arrow down, etc.

Hexagons simply have no such advantage going for them. And with the scope of civilization, a COMPLEX movement system where you have to carefully remember which key do what to even do something as simple as move units (or worse, to mouse-move all units) is a very, very, very bad idea.

You want to keep movement simple there.

Now, back to my main post.

More musing on how civs, traits and UUs could be handled...

There is actually what pretty much amounts to a way of having your cake and eating it too.

The first step would be to cut the present ANCIENT age in two - Ancient (Sumeria, etc) and Classical (Rome, Greece, Han China, etc).

Then the game progress as follow :

At the start of the game, you chose a CULTURE GROUP you are part of. All other players are randomly atributed one (there are no limits). These culture groups have very limited differences between them. The culture groups would either be named after regions, or after "Ancient" civilizations of the region.

ONCE you reach the Classical Age, you get to chose one of the civilizations withing your culture groups to play for the rest of the game. The choice would then be dictated by what ressources and location you have available at the time - most of which SHOULD be visible right off the bat. (Yes, you get to chose which civ you become - I mean you make that choice based on what is visible around your starting location).

Now, that begs a few questions. For example, what happens when two or more players want to pick the same nation?

Simple enough. They get exactly what they want, just with alternate names. For example :

Germany (Civ) - Leader Barbarossa.
Alt 1 : Prussia - Leader Bismarck
Alt 2 : Austria - Leader Franz Josef.

(Repeat as New Germany, New Prussia, New Austria as needed, with "II" tagged at the end of the names. Alternate names - whether colonies, dynasties, clans, tribes, states, related countries or so forth - could be found for most countries)

Also one note that civil war are a lot more interesting - and a lot truer-feeling if handled this way. If cities splits off the main civilization, then they don't simply becomes a fully irrelevant civilization (as per Civ II), but rather a closely linked civilization.

Each of the available civilization could then have very definining, separate traits (in fact I'd envision every civilization at this point having its own unique sets of advantage and bonuses - as per RTS such as the Age series - rather than broad traits), unique units, and so forth.

As for leaderhead, I say get rid of them anyway. They takes a whole lots of art dept work, they takes a whole lot of disk room better spent on stuff that adds to the gameplay, and they make adding in new civilization that fits seamlessly with the game one hell of a job. They add some modicum of graphical prettyness (if one wants to define Cathy in any such way), but really, their benefit to the game is minimal, whereas the possibilities in both the core game and customization are far better if you trash them.

Just this Civer's line of thought - and part of a big article on how I envision Civ IV I'm presently working on. Currently trying to work out how cities should be handled.

 

[The_Oakster]

Here's my two penneth'....

I think that everyone agrees that the espionage system needs to be updated, and that the diplomacy system has so much unused potential that a complete re working is necessary.

But ideas such as the hex system would definitely be bad. I don’t need to say why as others already have done but simplicity is the key.

3D fighting system would also hinder game play for many reasons.

Firstly, the same people that are arguing against micro managing cities are asking to micro manage battles instead and as Oda said Civ is a STRATEGY game and not a tactical game. Yes, military actions are commonplace in Civ and are necessary for most of the ways to win but it is definitely not the be all and end all of it.

Secondly, when the pesky Persians bring their tower of 50+ Immortals into battle would you really want to fight the same battles over and over again?

This situation will happen more in Civ 4 as the game engine will be different and the AI will realise that this is the best way to fight.

You may be saying – “but it could be turned off if you want” but that is another problem. The sheer size of the engine that would govern the 3D fighting would be too costly in terms of percentage of overall programming ( bearing in mind that it would have to draw the terrain accurately from all the potential types and then accurately draw the units in the battle and then have an intuitive system of combat that would allow you to do all the things that an army is capable in a war) that to just be able to turn it off would waste resources that could be used for other stuff such as a better espionage and diplomacy section.

I would also like to see the Civ trait system added. The argument for Civ is that it is not a reproduction of history as we know it but as a hint at what could have happened. So to say that a Civ is sea faring or militaristic from the start based on our history is wrong. Most people play on random maps so how can a Civ that starts in the middle of a mountain range on the edge of a desert be a sea faring civ. I see it having to work based on your start position, then by your actions. But, I do agree that everyone will end up as militaristic, expansionist and scientific; so there definitely needs to be a lot of work and thought going into this.

Minor changes that I would like to see are:

Improved world map – one that can be rotated cos I hate it when you start on the edge and your civ spans both sides

Improved foreign advisor screen that shows all the Civs and not just 8.

Better military advisor screen so that you can see where all your defences are not just units. E.g – a map overlay that shows where all your SAM sites are or where all your coastal fortresses are. Strategy hints such as “Land your troops there Sir because that city is only lightly defended…” etc.

Rant over - who's next?

 

[Evie]

As I pointed out in my post just above yours - there is actually what amounts to a way to have your cake and eat it too for the whole "unique, specific civs" vs "But that's not necessarily how it would have happened" debate.

Again, essentialy what would happen is that rather than chosing your civ (and thus traits, UU etc) right off the bat, you chose which civilization you represent upon leaving the ancient age, which makes a certain sense as it is only with historical progress that the various civilizations begin to branch off from their common roots.

This allows you to select a civilization which suits your current in-game situation (thus making sure you don't have civilization with horse UUs that props up in mountainous, horseless areas), while still giving all the players who wants them unique, well-defined civilizations.

Note again that you (just like the AI already is) would be able to see MOST strategic ressources right at the outset. That is to say, you know ahead of time that there is saltpeter and oil and whatever else in your territory - you just can't do a thing with it. These ressources would then be REQUIRED to research (but not trade) technologies such as gunpowder and refining (rather than appearing when you research them). You would also be unable to trade the ressource until you have researched gunpowder/refining, and then only to civs which have researched it.

IE, rather than make sure than the Civilization IV Mayas grow up (as a civ) in a way according to the place they would have grown in, we instead make sure that the mayas grows up in a Place where it would make sense for our mayas to have grown in. That way you get both historical common sense AND unique, differiated civilization, and mostly everyone is happy. It's also an idea that run around the abuse problems of the trait system (ie, picking always exactly the same set of traits), as well as the micro-management this would have involved.

That, and with the addition of the "alternate names", it allows one to have virtually every country or civilization in the game without having to design too many unique civilizations, thus killing two birds with one stone.

Another idea I throw out : for *SOME* ressources, you should become able at one point in the game to build city improvements which nullify the need for that ressource in the city.

IE, horses. Say you have a deal for horses with another civ - well, then you could have some of your cities build STABLES - at which point these cities are able to produce horse-requiring units even if you don't have the ressource. This represent essentialy using some of the horses you were given to set up a breeding program to produce your own horses.

Now of course this would not apply to ALL ressources (read : no fake oil), but it would be a very useful improvement for a few of them.

 

[EddyG17]

you can still use the keboard with hexgagons, the number pad.
8 go up
2 go down
1 go downleft
7 go up left
9 go up rigth
3 go down rigth

 

[EddyG17]

i think horses are the only resource that applies, but not if you include bonus resources. if a city has no cattle it could build a cattle ranch, if it has no sheep a sheep ranch(?) or if it has no wheat a barn(?) all of wich over time will produce more food.

 

[The_Oakster]

The Civ trait idea is a definite yes for me , although I think that knowing in advance which resources you have would need to work this way:

Some are always visible - iron, coal and horses etc but some are still hidden because they are extracted by technology such as oil, and i do agree that some advances require resources to discover. This would also place more emphasis on trade. Especially if the advance required allows major changes but you didnt have that resource, such as oil again.

I like the idea for the 'homegrown' resources too, although it wouldn't cover many - horses, rubber and uranium which could be slightly changed so that if you have a nuclear power plant then it produces plutonium as in the game uranium is only used for nuclear weapons.

Another tweak which would help for troytheface' supply line idea, is to sort out the infinite road and rail building syndrome the workers suffer from.

If these caused a negative effect to the land its on (say for arguments sake less food) then less roads would be built. This in turn would allow for proper supply lines. There would still be an obvious need for them as there could be no trade without them. For larger cities that would require more connections, if the negative effect was lessened by larger populations they would still function as major supply points.

 

[Evie]

Eddy - you don't get it do you?

I know it *can* be done, but if it is done, it will be in a counter-intuitive way. It's NOT ovious which squares do what in a hexagon system. Oh, people would eventually get used to it I suppose, but unlike a straight up conventional square system, it's not easy to do and remember, and it's not something people can remind themselves off with a simple glance at the keyboard or screen.

In other words : with the sole benefits of hexes being that you get easier distance calculations for those dedicated players who want to make them (not that they are hard to make in the present game - each diagonal move count for 1, each horizontal or vertical move count for 1.5), there is simply no reason to abandon a very simple keyboard control system for a more complex one.

Other, that is, than the desire from wargames lovers to have Civ looks more like one of their own games, which it is not, should not be and hopefully will never be - civilization is much more than a war game, and cannot go joking around with a more complex movement system when it brings little to the game, instead of adding depths to things that matter (combat, cities, diplomacy, etc - not something as inane as units movements).

-------

I disagree that oil should necessarily be invisible - at least they could be PARTLY visible (representing oil bubbling to the surface, which has been known to happen IIRC in central asia among other places).

But in the end oil isn't really the most important ressource there anyway - by the time it becomes a strategic ressource, you should be able to trade for it.