Feature Requests

[Quintillus]

"Still in use" is relative. I think longer-term, we'll need to have threads for specific features that are planned as relatively near-term additions. I like tjs282's cultural-building-trait suggestions, for example, and when we are thinking of adding buildings (quite possibly for "Dutch"), we should have a thread for building-related suggestions. The problem here is there might be a great suggestion buried on page 4 related to buildings. It's better to have it written here than not at all, but if we reach 400 pages, it will be hard to dig up ideas.

I also like the goody-hut suggestions, which bring to mind a potential problem: if we add goody huts before techs, they can't spawn techs. We'll run into a lot of these egg-before-chicken problems along the way.

And there's always the "we still have over 9000 features to add to match Civ, adding more than that which expand it will slow down those first over-9000". I haven't been lurking in this thread because time spent philosophizing on features beyond what Civ has also means time not spent matching what Civ has.

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I'm skeptical of the resource limits. I like the idea of multiple instances of a resource having some value beyond trade. But I'm not really a fan of how later Civs did it. A horse resource only allowing e.g. 3 horse units is a pretty low, and IMO un-fun, limit. But I'll admit I'm not a fan of Civ5/6's "fewer but more valuable" outlook in general, IMO they tend to go "too few". It takes forever to build units in those games. If there is a limit, I'd favor a generous one. One horse unit is enough for a nice mixed-arms army featuring horses, but if you want 100% horses like the Mongols, you might need more. Or something of that sort.

For luxuries, I like how Old World has done it, with each luxury giving you enough to assign to one city. Thus, luxuries are a rare and valued commodity, more so than in Civ. That would probably change the character of the game too much. But perhaps there is a middle ground. And I'd also like things to be more configurable, e.g. the Civ3 system of a market giving 1-1-2-2-3-3-4-4 happy faces should be configurable.

In both cases though, the as-Civ3-does-it route should come first.

1 UPT... I'm with Tak, if I liked it, I wouldn't still be in the Civ3 forums. Though as I've posted in the Old World forum, it actually works in that game, with lots of open spaces between cities and all units having multiple moves per turn. IMO, the most critical flaw in Civ5/6 with 1 UPT is the cities are still so close together (with another candidate being the AI not knowing how to use it).

But generally, if you want 1 UPT/3UPT/9UPT and/or resource limits, you should probably be playing Civ5, or Unciv, an open-source game inspired by Civ5.

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Also gave a few "likes". We'll definitely need to comb through this thread once we're at a stage where we might be able to add some new things. Realistically I don't expect that to be for another couple years, though.

 

[register]

I do not know how this might benefit you but when I seen the results I decided to post it here. I'm having fun now with MidJourney https://www.midjourney.com/home/#about
It use AI to generate in seconds concept images. I typed there words there like civlilization 3 pc game and see your yourself what results it gives.

 

[Kyriakos]

Ai drawing is great.
Only problem is that the buildings (in higher resolution/larger pic) look more like termite hills
Still awesome, of course.

 

[Vuldacon]

"Termite Hills"... maybe the images are of the future where the termites became Giant from Radiation

 

[register]

I did not mean take this images to the letter and put them instead let's say main screen but take it as the concept images where you can place your buildings, landscapes, etc and build your scene. This gives you the general artistic plan, sense of balance, colors, contrasts and so on.

 

[Takhisis]

Not sure if this thread is still in use, but I had another couple of thoughts the other day regarding Civ-traits.

First of all, goody-huts: in the epic-game, GH results tend to get worse with increasing difficulty, but (AFAIK) the only trait-related result is that Exp-Civs won't ever pop Barbs. Buuut... what if the most likely GH result(s) were instead all related more directly to the traits of the Civ which popped it? That is, while all GH results would still be possible for each Civ, the 'possible-outcome' table would be differently ordered/scored for each trait such that the most likely result(s) might be (e.g.):

Mil = Warrior (or "Worker(Barbarian)")
Ind = Worker
Rel = Worker (i.e. a "convert") or even a town (buffs Rel)
Exp = Settler, or a town (buffs Exp)
Comm = Gold-payment
Sci = Tech, or maps
Sea = Maps (or a boat, if the GH is coastal?)
Agri = Barbs (nerfs Agri, arguably the most OP trait)

...with the proviso that, since each Civ has (at least) 2 traits, the possible-outcome tables for each trait would need to be combined/averaged per Civ.

I can't remember which thread prompted it (apparently not this one), but the other thought I had (/stole?) recently would be to have the Civ-traits modify Cultural output from buildings, e.g. by +1 Culture-point per trait per building. So buildings with nonzero Cultural values, such as Temples and Libs, would become more Culturally valuable to Rel- and Sci-Civs, respectively. But the trait-specific Cultural boost would also apply to zero-Culture buildings — and could also be cumulative, so a Harbour might give +2 Culture to England (Sea + Comm), but only +1 Culture for Carthage (Sea + Ind).

(I think) It would also improve the game if nonzero-Culture buildings which matched a conqueror's trait(s) were not destroyed on capture, e.g. if the Greeks captured a town from Babylon, they would get to keep the Lib/Uni (Sci) — even if not the Temple/Cathedral (Rel). And then (rather than being forced to rebuild that building from scratch) after a reasonable delay, the captured building's Culture-points could now begin accruing to the conqueror instead, e.g. once all resistance was quelled — or after the majority of citizens held the conqueror's nationality (similar to how the "Xenophobic" gov-flag works).

The Cultural changes would compliment — or possibly even replace — the halved building-shield-cost by trait, which provides a significant benefit only during the early game when shields are scarce (and provides no benefit at all to Ind-, Comm- and Exp-Civs).

Giving people free settlers is always overpowered. Already the expansionists' ‘no barbarians ever’ trait is overpowered. It nearly cost me the game when the Vikings spawned next to me in Emperor, with extra units and also they were boxed up against the sea so the only thing they could do was come at me and steal my goody huts which I could only pop one at a time with a large band of warriors.

 

[general-jcl]

Among the possible improvements over Civ3, I was wondering if it was possible to better simulate nomads, i.e. civilizations that live in movable camps and not in cities. We can mention all the barbarians of the Roman Empire, but also the Mongols, Tatars, Cossacks and other steppe peoples. One could imagine cities that remain small (impossible to exceed the size of 3) and that could take the form of one or more settlers to establish themselves elsewhere. Of course, this kind of people could settle down by capturing cities, but without having the possibility to produce cities like the other civilizations (except maybe at the end of the game?)

 

[Ozymandias]

I toyed with:

1. No "Reveal Map."
2. A "zigzag" of Tiles, using impassable terrain, with the # of tiles = # of turns before appearance, with a full stack of "Barbarians."
3. Each Barbarian group is a Civ with:
   • An "Invisible" City, which can only build a single Thing timed to be finished when your Hordes enter onto the map, proper.
   • Barbarians cannot build Settlers.
   • Use the "Sub Bugs" to trigger wars.

 

[WildWeazel]

I know some Civs and other 4X games have had some nomadic mechanics but I never looked into how they worked. It seems like an important but thorny concept.

I should probably play more games.

 

[Takhisis]

Among the possible improvements over Civ3, I was wondering if it was possible to better simulate nomads,

Yes, yes, I posted a lot about that last year! Just browse through the thread and read through it and let me know what you think. Crate minds think alike.

 

[WildWeazel]

I looked it up, and the example I was thinking of from Civ4 was in a Mongol scenario where you start with a "camp" unit that spawns other units as you move to different terrain, which you then use to conquer cities. Interesting, but not much of a nomadic civ.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

1. exploration of hypothetical technology: cyborgs, nuclear powered military vehicles, and so on
2. an optional supernatural game mode that seriously considers the effects historical magic and monsters throughout mythology would have on society if they were real. mixes with the normal game really well

that's what i want in Civ 7. I think they fit, because it's good to think about how civilization will change in the future, and various 'what if' scenarios

 

[Takhisis]

1. exploration of hypothetical technology: cyborgs, nuclear powered military vehicles, and so on

A bit of this shows up in some Civ3 mods.

2. an optional supernatural game mode that seriously considers the effects historical magic and monsters throughout mythology would have on society if they were real. mixes with the normal game really well

Have you tried Thelen Epres Mrel Nelthelrinae? It's a special mod. There's also some LotR mods.

I looked it up, and the example I was thinking of from Civ4 was in a Mongol scenario where you start with a "camp" unit that spawns other units as you move to different terrain, which you then use to conquer cities. Interesting, but not much of a nomadic civ.

Sounds a bit like a ripofff from homage to the barbarians' ‘horde’ mode in Rome: Total War®'s Barbarian Invasion expansion.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

Thelen Epres Mrel Nelthelrinae

will check out when i get the will to.

 

[tjs282]

Have you tried Thelen Epres Mrel Nelthelrinae? It's a special mod. There's also some LotR mods.

I second the endorsement of TEMN (created by @Nathiri).

I'd also recommend Tides Of Crimson (created by @haluu).

 

[Blake00]

Probably already been covered and is too hard to do but good zoom options and rendering quality (for far out zooms) is another area I've always felt Civ3 was lacking in eg Civ3's predecessor Civ2 had heaps of zoom levels and so did Civ3's sequel Civ4 (albeit using 3D camera zoom). Civ3 only has the 1:1 and a reasonably far out zoom so it would be cool if like Civ2, Civ3 went from a very close up 2x zoom all the way out to a full world map zoom with a bunch of zoom levels in between. And if the zoomed out technique/rendering of assets could somehow be a bit smoother/softer it would be even better as some things don't look too good on Civ3's current far out zoom with chopped up pixels.
.

 

[Civinator]

good zoom options

Especially zoom-in options. I never understood why this was possible for the Civ 3 editors, but never for the Civ 3 games (especially C3C) themselves.
And I want to remember the Civ 2 Helicopters - in my eyes the best setting for helicopters in the complete civ series.

 

[Takhisis]

How did the Civ2 helicopters work compared to the ones from civ3?

 

[Quintillus]

Probably already been covered and is too hard to do but good zoom options and rendering quality (for far out zooms) is another area I've always felt Civ3 was lacking in eg Civ3's predecessor Civ2 had heaps of zoom levels and so did Civ3's sequel Civ4 (albeit using 3D camera zoom). Civ3 only has the 1:1 and a reasonably far out zoom so it would be cool if like Civ2, Civ3 went from a very close up 2x zoom all the way out to a full world map zoom with a bunch of zoom levels in between. And if the zoomed out technique/rendering of assets could somehow be a bit smoother/softer it would be even better as some things don't look too good on Civ3's current far out zoom with chopped up pixels.
.

To some extent we already have this, with the exception being legible city text when zoomed out. Here's a zoomed-out example:

The city labels clearly don't zoom out well, but you can zoom out to an arbitrary level (not just the one fixed zoom-out level as in Civ3) and everything other than text works well enough. We probably need to have special handling for city labels, perhaps with decreasing amount of information as you zoom out so what is there can still be legible while not covering the whole map with city labels.

Here's a zoom-in example:

It's a bit pixelated since there's only so much resolution in the source assets, but is working today. Long-term, we hope to have higher-res art assets as well, which in theory should work automatically once we have a few to plug in.

This is also a good opportunity to mention that it is now easy to add custom art assets, such as Plotinus's Carthaginian settler pictured above. So, if someone were to create higher-res art assets, we could plug it in and test that theory pretty quickly.

 

[Civinator]

How did the Civ2 helicopters work compared to the ones from civ3?

In short: Much better.

Civ 2 helicopters can do normal moves over every terrain, even land and water (in Civ 3 terms: Coastal, sea- and ocean terrain). They can defend against attacks of other units (especially normal landunits), can capture cities of other civs and they can attack each unit. Each turn they operate outside own cities, airfields and carriers, Civ 2 helicopters automatically loose one hitpoint due to "wear and tear", but they can heal each turn stationed in a city, an airfield or a carrier. The AI loves its Civ 2 helicopters.

In Civ 3 terms they partly work like Civ 3 aircraft, set from immobile to mobile in combination with the all-terrain-as-roads-flag, but they don´t loose automatically each battle by an attacking enemy unit as they can fight and defend like Civ 3 land units, they can be "stationed" in each city, airfield or carrier (but no rebase command) and additionally they can attack each other unit (not only land units, but also ships and planes) and also additionally they have the 1-HP-penalty for each turn they are operating outside own cities, airfields or carriers.