General Ideas for Civ 5

[jma22tb]

I have been playing this mod for a while and I absolutely love it. Thal you kick major toosh. I am not a modder so I would have no idea how to do this in the game, but I have some ideas that I think would make the game more fun, more historical, and be malleable to any situation.

I. Leader Traits
I think this is the subject of quite a bit of debate and can be settled fairly quickly. There are three main yields of the map - food, gold, and hammers.

Even though it's not "sexy" the most balanced way to distinguish between empires is just focusing on these yields. The way you can handle this is extra yields per citizen for historically tall empires, extra yields per city for historically wide empires.

America - Production Wide - America's industry throughout the territories led to its superpower status
Arabia - Financial Wide - Caliphate had a very sophisticated macroeconomic structure
Aztec - Food Tall - Aztec cities with Chinampa beds could hold huge populations
China - Food Wide - Chinese cuisine and the fertile land have kept them the most populous in the world.
Egypt - Production Tall - Giza Pyramids. Still defies explanation. Major cities built huge monuments.
England - Financial Wide - Sun Never Sets. They had land on six continents and the pound was the global currency.
France - Food Tall - France has been the most populous area in Europe for most of its history but it's not a huge area of land compared to, say, Russia or the US.
Germany - Production Tall - German engineering has been renowned for hundreds of years but they've never been a huge territory.
Greece - Financial Tall - Ancient Greeks were highly skilled artisans and Athens was a booming trade port.
India - Food Tall - second only to China in population world-wide throughout history but with a much smaller stretch of land.
Iroquois - Financial Tall - For being small in population and not having technology, they were very influential politically.
Japan - Financial Tall - The center of trade in the Far East and has been for quite some time.
Ottoman - Financial Wide - The most distinctive part of their rise to power was their control over the sea. Arguably as influential as British empire in their height of power.
Persia - Food Wide - 20 percent of the world's population was in its borders. Only time of unified Middle East.
Rome - Production Wide - Roman military might and infrastructure were second to none in history. The model America and Russia were built after.
Russia - Production Wide - They were named Eastern Roman Empire successors and built a similar structure.
Siam - Food Tall - incredibly rich food supply in a small stretch of land.
Songhai - Financial Wide - Their and predecessor Mali's economic system led to immense wealth.

These are I think the best way to distinguish between empires historically in the most balanced fashion. Food translates into a specialist-driven and scientific advantage, Production allows for a culture-centered tall or military driven wide conquest, and Gold lets players and AI buy CS support and finance buildings/units. Neither have a gigantic disparity over the other.

II. Unique Buildings, not Units
I know this is a mainstay in Civilization throughout its history, but let's think for a moment about unique units and how they came to be.

An Immortal, for example, is a specialized Persian infantry unit. Is that not what Promotions create? I argue that the point of a unique unit is rendered moot when replaced by a different approach.

The Unique Buildings would be two different buildings - one peace-time unique to the Civ, and one war-time.

The war time would provide a free promotion already in the game, like Cover I for the Romans, or Rough terrain bonuses for the Iroquois or extra experience like the Dojo does for Japan.

The peace-time building would reflect the impact the Civ had, whether commercial, scientific, cultural, agricultural, or industrial. England's Stock Exchange, Greece's Academies instead of Library, etc.

These allow every empire to be powerful in both war and peace with more of a scaling means to its power than just getting access to a given unit and game over, war time.

III. Rethink Happiness

Civilization Nights is on to something with their happiness system, but I have a different take. I don't think people get happier with more population in one spot, but I don't think it's a cause for revolt either. The cause for revolt, to me, is oppressive government and war.

A. War
War can be handled pretty simply - for the first 10 turns the people are not going to be angry because that's not enough time to determine the outcome. After 10 turns though, you start accumulating unhappiness because their army isn't "winning." The longer war stretches out, the more pissed off the people get because their sons and fathers are away for too long and/or have been killed. Long wars become cause for revolt and that puts pressure on empires to end them quicker.

B. Government Oppression through Spending
In addition, purchases need to have happiness ramifications. This represents what the government is doing with taxes levied. People are not upset about having to contribute to society, but when the 'leaders' of that society are not building one that makes their life better, it gets old very fast. Infrastructure is good all around:

More Food means more health
More Production means more jobs
More Commerce means more wealth to go around
More Science means more knowledge and higher standards of living
More Culture means more social gatherings, art, and expression
Defense structures provides security, which is relieving.

When purchases go to the military and diplomatic relations, however, people get annoyed.

Diplomatic purchases is sending our money to foreigners. No indiginous people likes it.
Military units and buildings means war is on the horizon.

IV. Expansion
Happiness has been used to make sure cities do not get founded too quickly and that makes sense, to a degree. The problem with that is do people really get mad if there are more places for their people to go and different resources available through trade?

Expansion needs to be slowed, but not through Happiness.

Before going into that, I think 'city' is not the right word for these nodes of population, more like a state or a territory. This is because you can look at each tile from a distance and imagine that within that radius of the hexagon, there could be thousands of people that can fit in there. The 'city,' as we've come to understand it, is more like a capital of a state, where manufacturing, commerce, and food distribution is centered. Most of the people will live out where they work.

My idea is that in order for a civilization to justify starting a new city, there needs to be a good amount of people at the territories already established. I think we can start with 6 units of population, reducing that cap through Liberty policies to 4. It makes more sense for population to be the determinant than happiness because how is a very small group of people going to generate enough resources to build an entire new territory with a capital?

Unhappiness can and should be a factor though and that has to do with trade routes. If your family is spread out throughout the territories but there's no harbor or road leading to them, that's not good. You might not ever see them again in your lifetime if it's hundreds or thousands of miles away. People don't like that. So if a new city territory has been established and there isn't a trade route set up that causes unhappiness. Once they're set up though you're in the clear.

I don't know how feasible these ideas are, but I think they're valuable enough to share with you guys and, in particular, the architect of the mod I've been so consistently using to play Civ 5 with.

Thanks

 

[Txurce]

I. Leader Traits
I think this is the subject of quite a bit of debate and can be settled fairly quickly. There are three main yields of the map - food, gold, and hammers.

Even though it's not "sexy" the most balanced way to distinguish between empires is just focusing on these yields. The way you can handle this is extra yields per citizen for historically tall empires, extra yields per city for historically wide empires.

This is pretty close to what already exists. Where they diverge is what makes Civ 5 civs more distinct than in prior game iterations.

An Immortal, for example, is a specialized Persian infantry unit. Is that not what Promotions create? I argue that the point of a unique unit is rendered moot when replaced by a different approach.

The Unique Buildings would be two different buildings - one peace-time unique to the Civ, and one war-time.

A lot more than this is needed to justify losing traditional UU's. Again, one of the appeals of Civ 5 for me is that the civs really vary - including their suitability for war vs peace. A building for each flattens the differences.

War can be handled pretty simply - for the first 10 turns the people are not going to be angry because that's not enough time to determine the outcome. After 10 turns though, you start accumulating unhappiness because their army isn't "winning." The longer war stretches out, the more pissed off the people get because their sons and fathers are away for too long and/or have been killed. Long wars become cause for revolt and that puts pressure on empires to end them quicker.

But what if you're winning? Or you're ancient Sparta instead of modern-day Sweden? Instead of a universal approach to the effects of war, it would make more sense to have different governments provide different reactions. But this is beyond VEM.

In addition, purchases need to have happiness ramifications... When purchases go to the military and diplomatic relations, however, people get annoyed. Diplomatic purchases is sending our money to foreigners. No indiginous people likes it. Military units and buildings means war is on the horizon.

What if those diplomatic relations give you luxuries? Or those military units bring you conquests? In my opinion you're proposing a huge change for a very debatable proposition.

Happiness has been used to make sure cities do not get founded too quickly and that makes sense, to a degree. The problem with that is do people really get mad if there are more places for their people to go and different resources available through trade?

They do if the new city is a financial drain... which they usually are upon founding.

Expansion needs to be slowed, but not through Happiness.My idea is that in order for a civilization to justify starting a new city, there needs to be a good amount of people at the territories already established. I think we can start with 6 units of population, reducing that cap through Liberty policies to 4. It makes more sense for population to be the determinant than happiness because how is a very small group of people going to generate enough resources to build an entire new territory with a capital?

I don't follow where the people in the territories are (liteally), if not in the city.

 

[Ahriman]

Agree with Txurce. This sounds like a different mod.

 

[jma22tb]

I. I agree its close but the traits that are usually the source of contention are the ones that involve war advantages, culture, science, etc. China and Germany, for example, are pretty much no-brainers for warmongers because extra troops and better Great Generals. I think that's more of an advantage granted through the actions the civ and player takes, or, even better, something that could be granted as a choice at the end of completing a tree. If you could choose between those perks at the end of the Honor tree, for example, I think that would be cool as hell.

II. Yeah I know I'm going into those kind of waters with the units that get different artwork and something that's been around since the beginning but I honestly don't think it's that great. I don't think it flattens the difference because the bonuses could be more than just a free promotion. The point of it is that you want every civ to have the capability of bringing a powerful army to the table - none of them would be in the game if they had military capacity that was a pushover. I argue UU's don't do that anywhere near as effectively as an upgraded Barracks/Armory/etc. specifically for the civ.

III. Policies can influence that. Honor could extend that and Autocracy could even eliminate that element. So Sparta would be okay with a couple decades or a hundred years of war, but a Tradition civ would not. The point of that is to introduce a debilitation that has to be addressed and considered for making war for a long stretch of time, which no one really wants other than the leader of a nation or a small group of people. Happiness makes the most sense, but there could be yield penalties instead or along with it. It also makes it imperative that you are prepared for the war with plenty of units and it also counteracts the example given by Thal in the code where AI's stop expanding during wars. Historically they are not usually huge amounts of time spent fighting either.

IV. The happiness ramifications for spending would not have to be huge for the reason you just gave. If you get more out of it than you are giving, then there'd be happiness gained. An Honor or Autocracy policy could reduce or eliminate that effect too for militaristic CS support. It makes sense for tax revenue choices to have consequences on the people's morale though, and there are probably more sources for unhappiness than just those two.

V. There's also excitement about going somewhere new. That's one of the themes of American history, the thrill of the move out west. It wasn't pretty how it actually happened, kind of genocidal actually, but I'd say happiness wise it's breaking even more than becoming unhappy. Trade routes to me are more important happiness wise because if you can never talk to or trade with the new group that's a problem on many levels.

VI. If a citizen unit is working a farm on a river bank, why would they go out there and go back to the city at night? Someone could raid their land and they couldn't be able to stop them. Are the villages completely empty at night? People live in villages if I'm not mistaken. Usually the miners aren't going to go back and forth to the city from the mines if there's a village nearby. The city is more like a hub than a giant apartment complex, at least until population explodes in the industrial and modern age and there's so many people that the city does end up housing quite a few people. Until then, however, most people are working outside the city. The point with that distinction is that the city itself is not as important as the land that contributes to the individual city's economy and how it's being worked. It would be harder to start up a new city if you're barely making it with the ones you have.

 

[Txurce]

The point of it is that you want every civ to have the capability of bringing a powerful army to the table - none of them would be in the game if they had military capacity that was a pushover. I argue UU's don't do that anywhere near as effectively as an upgraded Barracks/Armory/etc. specifically for the civ.

None of the civs are pushovers now. And I have no idea why you're saying that "UU's don't (create a powerful army) anywhere near as effectively as an upgraded Barracks/Armory/etc. specifically for the civ." They're as good as the UU. In your scenario, they'd be as good as the UB.

Policies can influence that. Honor could extend that and Autocracy could even eliminate that element. So Sparta would be okay with a couple decades or a hundred years of war, but a Tradition civ would not....

It makes sense for tax revenue choices to have consequences on the people's morale though, and there are probably more sources for unhappiness than just those two.

Sparta is the default warmongering example, but I don't know of too many civs prior to representative government that reacted adversely to war weariness. That's why this would belong in government or "civics," rather than policies. Now could a tree like Freedom automatically generate war weariness? Possibly.

If a citizen unit is working a farm on a river bank, why would they go out there and go back to the city at night? Someone could raid their land and they couldn't be able to stop them. Are the villages completely empty at night? People live in villages if I'm not mistaken. Usually the miners aren't going to go back and forth to the city from the mines if there's a village nearby. The city is more like a hub than a giant apartment complex, at least until population explodes in the industrial and modern age and there's so many people that the city does end up housing quite a few people. Until then, however, most people are working outside the city. The point with that distinction is that the city itself is not as important as the land that contributes to the individual city's economy and how it's being worked. It would be harder to start up a new city if you're barely making it with the ones you have.

I get the picture, but still don't know what the point is.

 

[KidJustKid]

I think that it's plausible to have social policies with downsides which could include war weariness (say, increased per citizen during war when Freedom is enabled) but that would be shockingly difficult to balance given Thal's policy on social policies or some use for many, great use for some which encourages non specified empires to dip into many trees so, say, grab half of Tradition to boost food, freebies in Liberty, right side of Freedom for specialists, Commerce's trading post buff, and any new ones in Enlightenment. Again, when you focus negatives of certain strategies, they compound - it's similar to Firaxis' old balancing model - if it works, NERF! It's a very negative way to construct the game. Yes, it would give some extra strategic decisions, but that should be included in the main game: "Do I settle this city before I get NC/the policies I want" as a link. As a rule of thumb, penalties aren't fun, but limiters that function well can be (Civ4 maintenance as opposed to Civ 5 happinness).

The idea of implementing it though is I think and as Txurce said, outside the remit of the mod.

@Txurce, separate from the 'realism' point I think what he's getting at is sensible - economies change. Tiles to specialist economy is a fairly common switch to make in high food low hammer locations.

I also agree with the sentiment that Civ 5, despite the nationalised mechanics, often feels like cities are disconnected - they can operate independently and don't interrelate well. Someone more creative and with more (ie any <_>'') modding experience could tell you how to change that though. May be global level religionesque stuff? I think the idea is interaction between cities - it simply doesn't happen enough.

 

[glider1]

A good way to enjoy civ is to spread cities out and play on bigger maps but it takes a bit of modification. You can try out this concept under VEM variants in this forum. It's working really well and the AI is playing better that way as well because it has more tiles around the cities to organize armies. I think of the cities in civ as regional centers. I scale them up in my mind. You can also do this with buildings that we build. It's not so much that we are building a specific building, but that we are creating a productive flavor for the regional center (a factory represents industry).

The way to make civ more interesting in the future is to turn villages into dynamic tiles that contribute to the economy according to desired direction. The village tiles become one tile cities within the region, that contribute to the growth of the actual regional center. The AI pillages these tiles and attacks the regional center (as it does now). The ways to make these village cities more dynamic is that they contribute to the economy of the big city in the regional center in different ways. You could right click on them and dynamically allocate them a flavour, such as the ability to produce +1 culture, +1gold, +1science, +1production on top of what they already contribute.

This is very much what happens in real life. The really big cities are connected to smaller cities that are still absorbed within it. The big city will allocate areas of the city to certain ends, industry, high tech, finance, high density, entertainment. It takes a bit of modding and rebalancing. Until then, think of each city as a region and play on bigger maps for higher tile resolution at standard speeds, with village tiles as cities in your mind, and you will begin to experience the future of the civ series, where regions come into play and the resolution of the map starts increasing. Check it out under VEM variants.

Cheers.

 

[jma22tb]

I didn't mean effectively like how they fight as much as how effectively they apply to a given group of units. For example, you could have a Roman Unique Barracks that gives Cover I to every infantry unit made, not just the Swordsman, recognizing the Roman tactical advantage through the testudo formation. This lasts even until the modern Age, which gives Rome an effective infantry throughout the game.

On a historical note, there was a lot of assassination and infighting that you could say represented the war weariness that during the rise of representative governments became more peaceful. Also soldier companies that didn't get compensated enough or weren't happy took on their leaders, examples being the Janissaries and the Roman legions.

The point was to make a distinction that a city in Civ is more of a territory and that expanding more cities requires more resources than the disposition of the people. I don't agree with the concept of happiness as a barrier to expansion and the state/region distinction goes toward explaining why it would make sense that a reasonably developed state/region is more effective at capping growth than planning around getting luxuries to sustain growth.

Another idea is to change the effect of unhappiness on the empire in question. I think hitting the pocketbook of the civ would be more effective than capping growth. You could imagine it being the rise of crime, political infighting, lower incomes of the people making their tax contributions smaller, etc.

Another entirely that might be a lot easier is to raise the gold costs of maintaining all military units. After all, they do have to be fed, housed throughout their use.

I like your idea of dynamic villages glider and the concept that big cities are like a connected network of what in Civ are improvements. Visually it would be like houses spreading throughout the territory as your population expands. If you have 32 population, for example, your borders would be littered with houses amidst the mines, farms, etc.

Well in terms of ease of implementation, I think the yield based trait system and unique building instead of unique units would be possible more so than the expansion/unhappiness ideas. I've seen the unique buildings changed for Japan and America before and traits are changed all the time.

Would there be support for those ideas?

Thanks

 

[MantaRevan]

I was thinking along the lines of making the game more RPG like in the sense that your in-game actions will drift you towards a particular alignment. Establishing strong navies might lean you towards 'being' Britain. Building wonders aligns you towards Egypt. Conquering barbarians shifts you in Rome's direction and so forth. At the end of the game it would tell you who your civilization *was*.

 

[Txurce]

I think that it's plausible to have social policies with downsides which could include war weariness (say, increased per citizen during war when Freedom is enabled) but that would be shockingly difficult to balance.

Agreed.

The way to make civ more interesting in the future is to turn villages into dynamic tiles that contribute to the economy according to desired direction.

This would be a lot of fun, and may even be something Sneaks could do with his modmod... but it sounds awfully tough given lack of code access.

I didn't mean effectively like how they fight as much as how effectively they apply to a given group of units. For example, you could have a Roman Unique Barracks that gives Cover I to every infantry unit made, not just the Swordsman, recognizing the Roman tactical advantage through the testudo formation. This lasts even until the modern Age, which gives Rome an effective infantry throughout the game.

I've seen the unique buildings changed for Japan and America before and traits are changed all the time.

In addition to the Shinto Temple and the Frontier Fort, there's also the English Mill. But none of those are examples of what you're proposing: "Golden Age"-style UB's that boost a civ in a certain era. In theory this could be great... but so is what's there now, in my opinion. Regardless, I doubt that wholesale trading UU's for UB's will ever fly.

On a historical note, there was a lot of assassination and infighting that you could say represented the war weariness that during the rise of representative governments became more peaceful. Also soldier companies that didn't get compensated enough or weren't happy took on their leaders, examples being the Janissaries and the Roman legions.

Sure, but these clearly aren't enough of a reason to justify ancient war unhappiness.

The point was to make a distinction that a city in Civ is more of a territory and that expanding more cities requires more resources than the disposition of the people. I don't agree with the concept of happiness as a barrier to expansion and the state/region distinction goes toward explaining why it would make sense that a reasonably developed state/region is more effective at capping growth than planning around getting luxuries to sustain growth.

Another idea is to change the effect of unhappiness on the empire in question. I think hitting the pocketbook of the civ would be more effective than capping growth. You could imagine it being the rise of crime, political infighting, lower incomes of the people making their tax contributions smaller, etc.

Presently lack of gold wrecks science and army size, and excess unhappiness shrinks the population and army effectiveness. That works pretty well, so I don't think a completely new system that may or may not work is worth pursuing.

I was thinking along the lines of making the game more RPG like in the sense that your in-game actions will drift you towards a particular alignment. Establishing strong navies might lean you towards 'being' Britain. Building wonders aligns you towards Egypt. Conquering barbarians shifts you in Rome's direction and so forth. At the end of the game it would tell you who your civilization *was*.

That would be a great game to play... but it would not be Civ!