Do you guys want civ 4 to be more realistic?

[Veteranewbie]

Personally I want civ 4 to be more like real life sim in terms of nation building, war and landscape wise.
I certainly hope that in civ4 empire improvements and developments would strengthen a civ more than by the mere size of a less developed empire, in economy, production power, and technology. I also wish that if they can let the cities to develop itself with more population ( maybethe cities will gain some basic improvements when the population exceed certain level? which will certainly help in highly corrupted cities) instead of having to use the city shields to build all the improvements for the cities.
In war, I wish that you will be allowed to have 'generals' and 'commanders' which varies in different quality, that allow a good quality commander with less troops can defeat a bad commander will larger military.
In landscape, I wish that they can make landscape more relate to real world, so that in the editor i can place cities in real life position without having to suffocate the growth of nearby cities.
Anyway, do you guys think that civ 4 should be more realistic?

 

[Commander Bello]

I agree with the idea of improved military commanders. Some civilian "commanders" or advisors would be nice, either.
The corruption issue of course should be completely be revised.
The game should become more "evolutionary" in it's whole.

 

[Hellpig]

Originally posted by Veteranewbie
...when the population exceed certain level? which will certainly help in highly corrupted cities)...
Anyway, do you guys think that civ 4 should be more realistic?

Personally I'd like to see the whole corruption system rewamped. Perhaps it should be more dependent on the governement than it is now. I mean; like are the cities far away from Washington DC really corrupted? I don't think so. In old USSR perhaps that would be true (distans from Moscow then) but not in a modern country like US or ... pick your choise of modern western countries.

 

[ComradeDavo]

My biggest hope for Civ4 is more individualised civs, with unique tech trees and far more special units.

 

[Bart2k4]

I think they should change the whole "City" style system. Where the "city" icon represents a city region. And population expands around(or inside) the region. So it would look something like this ...

 

[akillias]

Corruption in a Democratic Governement shouldnt be the same as in a Communist Governement

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

My biggest hope is realistic landscapes - less "representation" and more "re-creation". The world map should look like a satellite photo, not a rough sketch. The cities should develop in their own (fairly) unique way, they should have sub-cities stretching out into adjacent squares.

More individuality for the civs is also a big hope. Ancient Greece should be a loosely tied together collection of city states with no single capital city in contrast to the Soviets ultra-centralised communist government. This should all be optional however (i.e. I should be able to play as Russia and adopt the Greek city-state system).

The units should all vary according to the civ, in appearance at least (even if only according to culture group).

And finally I really hope that diplomacy is dramatically improved (not because it sucks now, but because there is so much more potential). There were many improvements in this area in SMAC that were left out, such as multi-lateral negotiations (the UN should be so much more than a way to win), surrender (must have!), trade agreements, peacetime alliances, ideological allignment and conflict (there must be more control over your form of governance and ideology than just choosing between a list of vastly over-simplified governments - bring back Social Engineering and ideological hatred!) etc etc.

And I'll just sneek in one more: Nuclear deterrence!!!

 

[akillias]

an unit without any artillery support should suffer from a penalty

 

[Black Waltz]

I love the UN idea. I think to add onto that it would be nice that victory conditions didn't occour until nearer the end of the tech tree. As it is now a game can be ended without reseraching most of the Modern Techs, which I find rather iritating.

 

[teknalee]

For the most part i would have to agree with u guys only i think that a whole new military system needs to be made. The whole thing with a superpower with only like 500 units is messes up. Now im not saying that it is bad right now, i really like how the game is set up. But anyway if guys have ever play total war or something like, the game doesnt compare in any aspect except for the miliatary. For those who havent played it, it uses generals and and army with a counter for troops ( up to 17 thousand) in one army. That fix and inproved map and terratory set up should make up for a killer civ4.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I want Civ4 to be less realistic. I'm just playing a game; reality has nothing to do with it.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

I'd like it to be more realistic (especially the role of the UN: it shouldn't just end the game, but you should have sanctions, resolutions, etc.) but not to the point of a simulation. I want to actively play the game, not be constrained in what I can do by history or just watch events unfold.

 

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by akillias
an unit without any artillery support should suffer from a penalty

If that is the way you feel about it, then just consider that every unit has artillery integrated into it.

Optionally, you can consider the artillery units to be special independent artillery groups.

--
Actually, what you are suggesting would be dependent on greater AI sophistication, which is an issue of time & financial resources.

 

[EddyG17]

the resource system should change, you have no iron well you can build swordsmen which cost more than a regular swordsman.
If possible i wish rebellions, civil wars.
Something like an archers workes well agains a spearman but not as well agains a horseman which isn't good against a spearman.

 

[MusicLaunch]

there should be different tech trees:
(for example)
the chinese invented gunpowder way before the europeans got it; therefore, they should have gunpowder in their tech trees before (maybe not just for the Chinese, maybe for asian civs??)

also, there should be mini-civ-UUs:
euporeans get better knights, and the south american units get a bonus if they have alot of the same unit (sort-of like nationalism from command and conquer....)

just a thought....

 

[Evie]

Civ is about historical-based gaming, not about faithful recreation of history. Thus while some ideas are workable (especially regarding corruption), others just don'T fit in Civ. Ideas like each civ having their own set of techs and units works great for RTS like Warcraft III, Empires : Dawn of the Modern World and such, but it would not work in Civilization III.

The difference is simple : these RTS are about capturing small-scale battles at this or that point in history (fantasy or otherwise). In that kind of scope, it'S perfectly logical that civs would have what they historically had.

However, Civilization III is not about capturing large scale battle ; it's about capturing the growth of a civilization from a tiny group of hunter-gatherers to a sprawling civilization, on worlds that are often (but not always) different from ours.

And, the one important things many seems to forget is that the ENVIRONMENT is a driving force in making civs become what they are. Even traits are already an iffy notion in that scope : a group of hunter-gatherer is not INHERENTLY prone to such things as seafaring and expansionism. They will DEVELOP these tendencies over time, based on what is found around them. A civ that is caught on a tiny, yet sea-open territory will likely become seafaring ; a civ that is in a widely open plain with no close neighbour will likely have very expsensionist tendencies. A civ that is set in flood plains will likely develop in an agricultural society, etc.

That's the way history went. The English became Seafaring because they were an island nation and taking to the sea was a mean of survival for them ; they didn't settle on the island because they were seafaring and wanted to stay close to the coasts.

Similarly, knights. If the Aztecs had lived in Europe (which is entirely possible in the scope of Civ), what would there be to prevent them from developping knights? Nothing! The primary reason why certain groups did not develop certain technologies/units/developped them later was not that "They were the Aztecs" - it was that they didn't ahve the ressources. When you are caught in the middle of jungles, what's the point of wheel-building? If you don't have horses in your continent, you don't build knights. That's why the natives didn't have knights. As for other continents, Africa (Songhai, etc), Asia (Japan) and many other nations *DID*, in fact, have heavily armored cavalry. They may not be called knight, but the notion of heavily armored cavalry (which is what Knights represent) is hardly something unique to Europe.

As for China having gunpowder centuries before Europe...in the game, that's simply represented by being the first player to research Gunpowder. It's plenty feasible in a game for a civ to know a particular tech centuries before the others. There's no need for china to have easier access to it. If history had been different (and in Civ games, IT IS - that's the game's whole point), there's absolutely no reason why another civ would not have gotten gunpowder first.

As for the notion of making Russia "ultra-centralized communist civ" - that's, entirely pointless. Governments are supposed to do that ; not the civs own settings.

 

[Goober]

I agree with the new terrain improvements.

But I mostly want to see improved batles. When 2 units fight, I want to see it all in 3-D, with hordes of Tanks attacking hordes of Mech Inf, or whatever. I wanna maybe even be able to direct the battle. Now THAT would be cool . . .

 

[Veteranewbie]

Yeah I know, but what with 'build a city using a settler"?
At most its actually just 'settle there and create a village', which is the same in size as the barbarian huts!
But then, when I went to EB and decide to purchase an empire-building game, I am faced with the choice of Civ Gold+Conquest and Rise of Nations. When I am deciding which one to buy, I am actually thinking 'which one will gimme a more realistic life simulation of empire building?'. In the end, I choose civ 3.
Having able to see your empire develop and prosper, building a powerful military, and watching the busy life of your people with the real-life simulated landscape is damn satisfying. I hope Civ 4 will evolved and make civ a more fun, lrealistic game to play.

 

[alpha wolf 64]

Originally posted by RealGoober
But I mostly want to see improved batles. When 2 units fight, I want to see it all in 3-D, with hordes of Tanks attacking hordes of Mech Inf, or whatever. I wanna maybe even be able to direct the battle. Now THAT would be cool . . .

I loved the combat in Caesar 1. There were too many units to control every one individually but you could control enough to influence battles. That was the best simple combat system I've seen.

 

[ZXTT]

The problem with a more "realistic" civ is that the game should go like this:

4000BC Civ founded.
3800BC Famine kills 1/3 of pop.
3650BC Plague kills 2/3 of pop.
3625BC Neighbors invade - are repulsed.
3600BC Primitive hill dwellers sweep in and kill all men and enslave women and children - game over.

Not much fun, is it?

For me, Civ is about strategic gameplay - so I don't want time-consuming battles. The only game where strategic and tactical worked for me was MOO (1), and that was because the battles were simplistic and the hook was that your ship designs mattered.

So, bearing in mind that Oda Nobunaga hit the nail on the head with his description of what Civ should be, I would like to see:

- Some of the features mentioned above from SMAC.

- Vassal states - we take a few cities from a much weaker civ and then hand them back in return for the entire civ becoming a vassal and contributing a proportion of their taxes, research and resources to us. If we get into a war and are doing poorly, they might rebel on the side of the enemy, though. If they do rebel, we can raze without permanent diplomatic penalty (muhahahaha) and then they can't rebel for n (quite a few) turns.

- More realistic cities - cut the micromanaging tiles. Cities grow initially based on local food and compete with other local cities. Roads make locality of food less important and railroads make it unimportant. Cities then grow based on civ's food/traded food and resource (iron, coal, etc.) availability, with capitals always growing large. There should be a wider distibution of resources, but the amount should vary so some areas may be rich in a resource compared to others that have it. Allow sliders to change shield/commerce/food production, based on available resources.

- As mentioned in a post above, resources should be available at high prices if not found within borders or traded for - that represents smuggling/black market.

- Adjust culture flipping - become less likely as civs advances and cannot happen when under occupation. For occupation, allow resitance to slowly deplete occupying troops until the situation is under control or occupiers are gone if they don't replenish.

- If a one civ conquers a foreign civ's city, that city should be able to retain at least some of that civ's abilities. The citizens should become loyal over time, but should never be completely assimilated. [This idea certainly needs more thought].

Of course, I can't say if any of these ideas will be any good. That's what play-testing is for.