Elements You'd Like to See In the Next Incarnation of Civilization

[qwert]

But it would be odd at best, and denial at worst to not notice the prevalence of conquest in the histories, and doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

That´s because you see it through our western eyes.
It´s because almost any Universal history book you will find in your bookstore, could perfectly be renamed "history of Europe and the rest of the World".
Almost any history book and class in Europe and America has this defect and because that the average person in Europe and America knows much more about the conquests of the jews, the christians and the muslims than about the confucians, the bhuddist or the induist.
The reality is more that war has happened almost anywhere at almost anytime and that religion has almost always been use to justify it.

 

[T.A JONES]

Today I though Id get better milage from a condensed 2 post paper I wrote last night regarding a huge change thats needed. I think the more facets of conflict to counter in the arms race the better (Navy. air, spy infantry seige, COUNTER SEIGE. Yes we bring the Artillary system up to par and open up ther game to wonders not seen thus far.

*here on copyed from other thread*

Problem: Weak Artilary System​

No secret a lot like old arty system best. It wasn't perfect but bring it back improved to handle this idea and we got winner..

One key factor to consider with a good seige was the amount of patience and pain it took during 2 seperate stages of assult. Two units are missing to address this. One is the Ballista for counter trebs firing at your defences, while the other Boiling Oil unit, is to counter soldiers! attemping over the top. OK but First lets look at why Civ3's system of chance works best to impliment these missing links.
Its not like every projectile met its mark. It took many days of loaden er up and fireing upon the City or fortress before it was soft enough to attack with the troops.
If they improved the old model with being able change artys hit percentage with combat terrain modifiers not unlike before, but this time implimented to refelct enhanced seige combat. If the seige can be laid on higher ground the attacker should enjoy a higher hit rate and better chance of inflicting colaterial damage! On the opposite end, shooting trebs up hill would have less advantages for the attacker while sharing the same land level t would balance. The citys defensive structures still give a edge to the defenders so numbers would have be on the attackers side to balancer it out. He can place his units standing under cover of forest tiles to recieve a higher defensive bonus from counterseige projectiles like balistas

Its a bloody breakthrough! quite literally! This system justifys holding strategic tiles around the proximity of your city for its best defence!. Hills near by fallen in the wrong hands could give deadly advatages during a seige so now its about you setting up expansive fortifications! for the citys protection. Has this ever been taken to this level of stategy before?. They had a chance with the civ3 model but the opted for what? Suicide trebs??

OK, You get the picture This is big. )
I don't see why artys were done this way we have now. We need seige units progressing with additional possabilties along with natural increases in power. The choice to branch off research somewhere to hunt counter seige possabilties along the lines of "City protection" techs which include buildings and units that act defensivly along the lines of stationary units position in constant fortified positions like balistas, turrets ,boiling oil, even partisants(civillains) Add this with buildings like spiked wooded walls, moats, etc in which a constant pressure is exerted in a race to gain the step up in a new branch of the ongoing worlds arms race.
Cannons should be advanced for shooting through stacks for the 1st time aswell as doing more damage to City defeneces. Early models of seige weapons like trebs and cats should be limited only to city attacks (units buildings, whatever! aslong as their sitting in that city fair game! Its not like a cat trying to hit a moving target in the open feild! lol The unit mybe having a beer in the pub and WHAM-redlined!!!).

It comes down to making AI use em properly, Make them like any other unit and that way they could. What makes me wonder is whats all this Improved AI crap about, you know the AI knowing now how to play rock paper scissors? How come this coudn't be ported over with an artillary mode only using best % rate for hits? and programmed to be accompanyed with a standard stack to guard them with ?
Was that to hard?

PLAN OF ACTION​

Mybe with another tech comes castle defence where counter seige units like the the famous pot of oil can be mastered. Think the Balista was fired from the top of castles and could peirce two men at a time to the side of thier seige engine!. And the boiling oil, think of this, whenever any unit from an opposing force attacked a city 'close quarters', the entire square they stand on is auto bombardeded like Civ3 where a chance muilti hits could even be succesful.

Really Im surprised counter seige operations wern't adminstered through a tech in "Warlords"!. If it were made like using the earlier model, the Oil would rain down destruction only if another unit is fortified to do this So, Even if you redline all the defenders in the city, for every turn it takes to finish off one redlined unit standing guard, a counter seige unit can deliver massive multi hit damage to th entire "attacking" force! (aka stack situated on the tile in 1 tile distance from city-- upgrade would increase dist to 2 or 3 tile aswell as the amount of explosion that ripple from a succesful hit )
Once the attackers kill that last guy, all the Pot o oil units are captured as spoils of war.(using Civ3's, "dispand" function to recycle into new improvemnets or units))


You see it works good matched with a Balista. The defender can fire freely enjoying a higher hit percentage untouched while the attackers below fumble through turns fighting agaist odds to garnish enough hits to soften the defences for a over the top attack.
No one can kill all defenders and take a city with bombardment alone. Its time to get 'dirty' and take more mass damage when they meet the 'Oils Bringers' to finnaly claim the city. (It dosn't have to be Oil. Oil its like a symbol of the Battle of Stalingrad and what horrific pains goe into taking a city)

See Whats so hard with that? Sure It could be improved somewhere with a lil time but the Civ3 system was the better way to start. Im sure a team of pros could have made better then a bunch of rambo trebs on suicide missions. They got lazy man.

I agree the old engine was heavily patched and fallin apart but they could have build a new chasis. Rebuild the same design that was fit for real stratgy with more room for a host of 'luxery' options. What they did, its like trying to rebuild a Bently on a Lambo frame. It can't maintain or support the essence of ether and Instead, what we got was a suped up two seater blazing fast on the MP highway. Almost arcade but really nether, its always gota stall for another quick "breather" and it sure ain't dispensing any 'champange' from a backseat theater.

 

[Skirmisher]

Agree with a revamped arty system. Presently (especially in multiplayer games) there is not much you can do to counter a huge stack of arty units taking up camp outside your city. This I feel breaks the game somewhat.

In fact sometimes it is harder to take a city that is reduced to rubble, because the possible angles of attack from the defenders become completely counter intuitive.

 

[RVallant]

The problem with religion is the aggressive/war outlook of them are taken to mean that by certain people not all of them and likewise the view of what religion is militaristic is situational as well. Plenty of people consider Islam to be a militaristic/terrorist religion at present time due to our perceptions of what's going on, just as people would have viewed the Crusades (and thus Christianity) as a religious war/religion.

Thus a militaristic religion is completely out of the question imo without at least stepping on some toes or conforming to current beliefs.

However, what could and should work is a new feature:

"Religious warfare"

Basically this brings into effect State Religion + War. When you declare war on anyone, provided all cities under your control and all units from those cities are under the influence of the state religion they may be boosted strength wise.

In general I think that would cover most nation-triggered religious warfare; example: Crusades, Islamic "holy wars" etc. It would also fall in line with the concept that religious wars occured more often back in the day more so than they do thesedays "my elitist western beliefs" not withstanding obviously =)

 

[SilverTab]

That´s because you see it through our western eyes.
It´s because almost any Universal history book you will find in your bookstore, could perfectly be renamed "history of Europe and the rest of the World".
Almost any history book and class in Europe and America has this defect and because that the average person in Europe and America knows much more about the conquests of the jews, the christians and the muslims than about the confucians, the bhuddist or the induist.
The reality is more that war has happened almost anywhere at almost anytime and that religion has almost always been use to justify it.

It's really 'forward-thinking' and politically correct to say that, but it is still incorrect. For one thing, the histories of Judaism and Islam would be middle eastern history, not European.

You come up with a list of wars (particularly of conquest) that have been ACTUALLY JUSTIFIED by the doctrines of Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confuscianism, and I'll come up with a list of wars that have been justified by the doctrines and theologies of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and let's see whose list is longer.

 

[SilverTab]

Plenty of people consider Islam to be a militaristic/terrorist religion at present time due to our perceptions of what's going on, just as people would have viewed the Crusades (and thus Christianity) as a religious war/religion.

Thus a militaristic religion is completely out of the question imo without at least stepping on some toes or conforming to current beliefs.

It's not just considering Islam to be militaristic...if you take a look at the Koran you would see that it's not a matter of opinion that Islam is doctrinally militaristic. And if you take a look at history, you'll see that it's not a matter of opinion that Islam is historically militaristic.

But yes, I suppose stepping on toes is something the developers have to take into consideration. I still think it would spice up the religion situation to make them different.

What kills me is that people arguing against the idea seem to hold an unspoken maxim that militaristic = bad. I've said nothing of the sort, and from the standpoint of a religion's success, militarism is good. I suppose in the 21st century mode of thought, militarism is seen as a negative, and that's understandable, because war is bad (mmmkay?). But for me, the fact that some religions have spread by the sword more often than others doesn't make them any better or worse. They're all equally kooky to me.

 

[Chemtech]

I have to disagree with the posts regarding the attacker gaining some sort of initiative - unless an attack is a "surprise attack" then historically it has been the defender that gets to choose the battlefield - hence they typically achieve a superior position both in terms of unit placement and terrain.

Obviously this is a generalization but trying to create a combat system based on one set of rules means this makes the most sense over historical time.

 

[Chemtech]

One thing I WOULD like:

Some sort of "stack attack" bonus - if I commit an entire stack(s) to attack of a single target square then all units in the attack gain a small bonus for having "support" - best attacker vs. best defender would still be worked as it currently is by the computer BUT once the attack is ordered ALL units engage until they have expended their attack points.

So, no more waiting an extra two turns for a new swordsman to arrive to lead the attack - I've commited to total attack and we're either winning it or losing it right now.

I think part of the allure of this idea is how fast you could resolve a larger battle - quite often I don't need the strategic bonus offered by hand selecting my units one at at time - although I would HATE to see the combat based only on stack attacks - basically I want my cake and I want to eat it too if I so desire

 

[HalfBadger]

You have a point, but the doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam specifically encourage warfare.

Hmmm some of the ten commandments are, you shouldn't murder, lie, steal, that doesn't sound very warfare encouraging to me.

Also Christianity's main/only true 'doctrine' is to follow the life/teaching of Jesus the messiah, (WWJD) and Jesus didn't encourage warfare AFAIK. Other than like the crusades, which didn't start as a religious thing, I don't know why people think Christianity is militaristic, or warmongering. Usually it's nationalism or the people in power that encourage war.

Especially when you consider the thousands, possibly millions of Christian missionaries in the world, that spend their time, resources and life trying to improve the lives of people, sometimes in far off countries or people that their home country/society despises or looks down on. Some even go to leprosy colonies, just to make the lepers lives a bit more comfortable before they die and after being exposed to the disease so long, probably won't/can't ever return...

 

[ViterboKnight]

Combat initiative has partially been implemented with First Strikes: some units attack before other units. I think it could be enough, the game risks to become extremely complex.

A combat feature I'd like to add is something involving the Flanking promotion.
For example, some units (like Spearmen, who have a formation that protects in only one direction) could be extremely vulnerable to attacks by units with Flanking; I mean, if all their spears are directed in one direction, I can attack from their left side, and hit them with no problem.

 

[mitsho]

Better economics & diplomatics, regulatory system:
- Manufactured Goods and a benefit for the second resource f.e.
- Multi-civ negotiations,
- A system that benefits the ones on the last place and punishes the top dog so to even out the games. (see other thread)

mick

 

[nstutt]

Ive bought every single version of Civ. I still like it but if I was to buy another it would have to be a hell of a lot different from previosu incarnations. Otherwise I would say there isnt much that can be changed for the better without making it a game that it isnt. One thing that has always bothered me is the repetitive nature of the advancements and creating buildings in cities which after a while becomes pretty dull and linear. I would definitely like to see more branches of advancements so you can go radically differnet ways from other civs and see a real difference in your units and cities etc. Rather than following the same path every game for every city for every civ.

 

[SilverTab]

Hmmm some of the ten commandments are, you shouldn't murder, lie, steal, that doesn't sound very warfare encouraging to me.

Christianity is certainly much less militant (doctrinally) than Judaism or Islam, but you must remember that Christianity is based on Judaism. The tendency to completely ignore the aspects of the Old Testament that 21st century western culture considers unpleasant is a recent trend.

Not very warfare encouraging? Well you haven't read the bible cover-to-cover. Just try reading the book of Joshua or Judges and you'll find all the warfare encouraging you ever wanted to read about.

Exodous 15:3 - The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
Psalm 144:1 - Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.

I have yet to find anything militaristic in the doctrines of Buddhism, Taoism, or Confuscianism (I admit I'm not as familiar with Hinduism as I should be). The seeming non-militarism of Christianity is a development of recent history. Don't take my word for it... read some history.

Look, I understand the tendency to not want to believe that certain religions are more militaristic than others. That's nice...but just not true. Read the Bible, read the Koran, read about the histories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and you'll see for yourself

 

[Holycannoli]

Quote:
Originally Posted by SilverTab
I think that maybe Hereditary Rule, Slavery, and Serfdom should cause some unhappiness after the discovery of Liberalism. Some civics are incompatible with the modern political modes of thought. The persistence of said civics certainly caused civil disorder in real life as liberalism spread.

I disagree. It's mostly western culture who have had these examples of disorder. A large part of the rest of the world have existed without this. A cruel dictatorship can keep the populace ignorant through propaganda, maybe a spy option to spread "own propaganda" to cause unrest instead with said civics?

Yes, but what if education minimizes the effects of things like propaganda ingame? Maybe the more universities etc that are built the greater the amount of unhappiness after the discovery of liberalism? It could be a balancing effect: Do you want a highly educated population that will find unrest with nearly everything? Or an uneducated population that you can "fool" and pretty much abuse all game?

 

[NYHunter]

I think the reason why people take issue with calling their religion militarisitic is that they think people are accusing their religion of preaching war. They think people are calling them crazy warmongering radical fundamentalist, when every religion has those people. Personally, I don't really care about the religion aspect of the game, it is almost irrelevant to the way I play so unique effects or not, it doesn't make a difference to me.

 

[Eagle'sStrength]

i like Holycannoli's idea. There should be a time when the focus of civs in the game will shift from the religious to the rational.

There are a lot of benefits from religion and it associated buildings, but enlightenment will come at the price of its clash with doctrines of faith - until such a time or event that things are clarified (such as holding Synods or the like).

At this point, a civ must choose whether to embrace Secularism or continue as a Theocracy.

The perceived 'violence' of certain religions can also be tied to the fact that there were also geographic and economic struggles underlying this. Religion was only used as a convenient motive.

Religion is jsut one aspect of a lot of things that can still be improved.

STACK ATTACK!!! I can't over-stress the importance of this aspect in CIV that needs much much improving.

 

[Darwin420]

I'd like to see something more than just "unrest" with my citizens. Something that makes them feel more, well, alive. There are stats for literacy, popular opinion, happiness, and whatnot, but it all really doesn't mean a thing. Granted, yes, Civ is a game where I play as Absolute Ruler, regardless of what civics i play. But, still... there's no reality to the effort I'm putting into my cities. Problem is, I don't know where to start, or how something like this would be ultimately beneficial to the game itself.

Oh, and I'd like to see a sensible map editor and scenario creator. You'd think they'd have gotten it right by now. Give me a stand-alone program, a la Civ 3, and more user-friendly options to create scenarios. And let it all translate to both the single player epic, and multiplayer.

And if I had to choose one of these things for the next incarnation, I'd go with the latter, first.

Cheers!

 

[SilverTab]

I like Holycannoli's idea, too, and I've thought of that before. More educated populations are historically different from lesser educated populations. And when uneducated populations learn about the prosperity, knowledge, and opportunities of more educated (and affluent, because these two seem to go hand-in-hand) peoples, they tend to get a little grumpy, to put it mildly.

 

[brianshapiro]

Designating religions are militaristic or non-militaristic is silly and inaccurate. Need I remind you that the Samurai were practitioners of Buddhism, and the Samurai ethic which grew out of this fusion was responsible in large part for the fanaticism that consumed Japan in the early-20th century and abetted the commission of terrible crimes. Gandhi was murdered by a Hindu extremist. By the same token, the religions you pegged as "militaristic" have pacifistic elements. What I'm saying is that every religion has wackos and considering that Civ isn't reconstructing so much as recreating history from scratch, it is absolutely ridiculous to pre-define religions. If you replayed history differently, you could have well seen a militantly-Confucian Korea dominate the Near East and force Confucian teachings on its conquered peoples, including peaceful Islamic Russians and devoutly pacifistic Jewish Japan. You can already set the character of your religion by utilizing religious civics...

Don't forget that Chinese rule was justified and fought over in terms of divine right, a mandate of heaven, which was connected to religious ideas. That they didn't invoke the name of a God (besides the founders of the empire who were considered deities) is not necessarily relevant.

 

[brianshapiro]

Christianity is certainly much less militant (doctrinally) than Judaism or Islam, but you must remember that Christianity is based on Judaism. The tendency to completely ignore the aspects of the Old Testament that 21st century western culture considers unpleasant is a recent trend.

Not very warfare encouraging? Well you haven't read the bible cover-to-cover. Just try reading the book of Joshua or Judges and you'll find all the warfare encouraging you ever wanted to read about.

Exodous 15:3 - The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
Psalm 144:1 - Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.

I have yet to find anything militaristic in the doctrines of Buddhism, Taoism, or Confuscianism (I admit I'm not as familiar with Hinduism as I should be). The seeming non-militarism of Christianity is a development of recent history. Don't take my word for it... read some history.

Look, I understand the tendency to not want to believe that certain religions are more militaristic than others. That's nice...but just not true. Read the Bible, read the Koran, read about the histories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and you'll see for yourself

As much as the Bible talks about just war, there is little that can be interpreted as a justification for conquest, which is what militarism is, even though there are some selections that can be used. I do think its clear that Islam has a lot more justifications for militarism, and I'm not using this to attack Islam, I don't necessarily think this means anything without interpretation, although it was a motivating force when Islam started.