General Philosophy Shifts for Civ5: Only Broad Changes Here

[cassembler]

EDIT: April 12
This thread has evolved into a 'micro vs macro' conversation, with strong arguments on both sides. I think the consensus is that we all want the ability for both. More updates to this post coming, as some strong comments have been made.

So, lots of threads have detailed stuff like "x should lead to y" or "Civ A should be included." That's all fine and good, but a lot of folks have some more generalized concepts to discuss.

Please BOLD any central ideas for quick perusing.

[EDIT: See Footnote]

For Starters:

• More Empire-Wide Policy: Civics are nice, and have lots of potential. Similarly groovy was SimCity's Ordinance system. Also, the EU series has some excellent ideas on domestic policy making.
  
• Less Unit Micromanagement: On some threads, the idea of going to an army system (as opposed to a unit system) is being kicked around. I'd rather carefully (and broadly) move eight larger branches per turn- especially late game- than dozens of units a couple of squares. It sucks my will to live.
  
• Shorter, more violent wars: Wars that last 600 years are square, and not in a good way. [Yeah yeah, The Hundred Year's War... ]
  
• Get rid of workers, spies, missionaries, and other "piddly" units: Without naming games, "society-level project programs" could nicely clean up unit clutter and streamline the turn.
  
• Better Demographics, histographs, and replay schemes: See Rewrite History: the Promise Since Civ1
  
• Fewer Buildings/ Techs/ Unit Types readily Available : PLEASE DON'T MISUNDERSTAND THIS: Choices are great, and I'm all for _more_ stuff, but make it harder to find... One chap suggested unlockables. I don't like deciding between fifteen buildings, eventually building most (or all) of them anyways. I'd like to decide between a handful of mutually exclusive buildings or techs.
  
• National Defense: Ties in with less unit micromanagement, but having a tax slider for national defense could _eliminate_ the need for units occupying each of your cities. When an enemy crosses the border, moves on your turf, or attacks a city, they suffer. And you pay money to keep it up. No money? Start selling or borrowing.
  
• More Stuff "Under the Hood": While knowing all of the statistics and formulas for everything is nice, I miss having to experiment. In fact, lots of us just kind of "know" that if you do X, then Y and Z will follow (as long as you have A, B, and/ or C in place). Leave some stuff to the "mysterious forces of the universe." [Edit: Blind Research, for example]
  
• Hex-based map: No explanation necessary. I just think Civ tactics would be better served.
  
• Grouping Cities: Group cities to assign orders, much like creating states. In fact, you could extend separate government/ policies to each state. Manage your colony in the new world differently, without having to "click n' tiddle" five different cities.

Credit to all of us here in our Ideas forum- no matter how jumbled, chaotic, and redundant. We will make Civ5 better than it is right now. ... ... which is really not existent yet, but you get the idea.

[EDIT: We all know that there's too many threads here, and I'm sorry I opened a new one for this. Problem is, when someone's light bulb goes off, they probably don't really like scouring the topic list to find the relevant niche/ thread. So goes the creative process. Perhaps some sub-forums (as has been suggested) could help form cohesiveness... $.02]

 

[cassembler]

{Reserved for indexing, maybe]

 

[Rotty]

1) If while playtesting any war lasts longer than the Hundred Years War, the game needs to be fixed so that does not happen.

2) Drafting needs to be how armies are raised from the beginning. Building units out of hammers should only be for ships and modern motorized/mechanized/air units. Your military needs to be capped at 1 unit per empire-wide population point and require supplies from your agricultural surplus or foraging.

3) Realistic treatment of agriculture. With the first irrigation technology, it would take 9 population points farming to support 1 population point doing anything else (or 1 pop of farmers to provide the supply train for each unit in lieu of making them forage). Later technologies would improve this to a high of 4 farmers per non-farmer in later pre-industrial times, while at the end of the tech tree only 3% of your population would need to farm to support everyone. Furthermore, your people would never, ever eat grass. The concept of a self-sufficient village on grass is absurd.

4) Get rid of worker units. When a population point works a tile, it should automatically be planted with one of the agricultural resources known to your people (which could of course be chosen manually). Road building and such should just take a click and drag, like the reported Civ Revolutions method.

5) Settlers should go back to costing a population point, but should pop out after 1 turn rather than costing hammers. Use more logical means to prevent Infinite City Sprawl.

6) Two religious phases. At Polytheism, you should gain access to your people's indigenous pantheon, with patron gods of cities and other mechanics. There would also be one world religion founded by an early technology: Hinduism. Others would pop up at technologies that the AI hits between 700 BC and 600 AD on Noble, converting people away from their existing religion, and offer new benefits at the cost of obsoleting pagan temples and wonders (i.e. Statue of Zeus, Temple of Artemis...). Note: each population point in your empire should have a religion, rather than the current vague system of "Well, this city has Hindu, Jewish, and Taoist symbols..." Note that this would encourage the designers to actually think about the nations they're including, as old standards like the Spanish would have be treated as a Celtic offshoot rather than predating their inclusion.

 

[cassembler]

1) If while playtesting any war lasts longer than the Hundred Years War, the game needs to be fixed so that does not happen.

Agreed. Obviously, at 2000BC, we can't expect a war to end by 1900BC, but perhaps an exponential "length of war" disposition modifier to encourage peace settlements... After a bloody mess, of course.

2) Drafting needs to be how armies are raised from the beginning. Building units out of hammers should only be for ships and modern motorized/mechanized/air units. Your military needs to be capped at 1 unit per empire-wide population point and require supplies from your agricultural surplus or foraging.

I like the idea of using the hammers to actually _outfit_ your armies, and drafting to actually _fill_ your armies. I think drafting should be on an empire-level, or state level. Having a nation-wide "pool" of military resources seems to be less cumbersome. As well, this could help the "obsolete unit micromanaging-upgrade" hell.

3) Realistic treatment of agriculture. With the first irrigation technology, it would take 9 population points farming to support 1 population point doing anything else (or 1 pop of farmers to provide the supply train for each unit in lieu of making them forage). Later technologies would improve this to a high of 4 farmers per non-farmer in later pre-industrial times, while at the end of the tech tree only 3% of your population would need to farm to support everyone. Furthermore, your people would never, ever eat grass. The concept of a self-sufficient village on grass is absurd.

I'm not sure about this one, though it's a nice thought. The abstraction of the agricultural sector, I think, is vital to keeping the game simple. But something like this "under the hood" could be worth exploring.

4) Get rid of worker units. When a population point works a tile, it should automatically be planted with one of the agricultural resources known to your people (which could of course be chosen manually). Road building and such should just take a click and drag, like the reported Civ Revolutions method.

I completely agree, but I think developments should take a few turns to be constructed, not just "place 'n use." A three-tile road through grassland may take, say, three turns. Or six, etc.

5) Settlers should go back to costing a population point, but should pop out after 1 turn rather than costing hammers. Use more logical means to prevent Infinite City Sprawl.

I dunno... Civ4 dings ICS pretty hard, and the settler is one of the units that I still enjoy "maneuvering" around the map, to avoid barbarians and what not. But that's because they are valuable- 10-30 turns early in the game is _huge_

6) Two religious phases. At Polytheism, you should gain access to your people's indigenous pantheon, with patron gods of cities and other mechanics. There would also be one world religion founded by an early technology: Hinduism. Others would pop up at technologies that the AI hits between 700 BC and 600 AD on Noble, converting people away from their existing religion, and offer new benefits at the cost of obsoleting pagan temples and wonders (i.e. Statue of Zeus, Temple of Artemis...). Note: each population point in your empire should have a religion, rather than the current vague system of "Well, this city has Hindu, Jewish, and Taoist symbols..." Note that this would encourage the designers to actually think about the nations they're including, as old standards like the Spanish would have be treated as a Celtic offshoot rather than predating their inclusion.

The way religion is modeled in the game is pretty much irrelevant to me- any tasteful system could be used. I like the current system. I'd also like each religion to be individualistically beneficial, but that's lots of worms in dat dere can...

 

[Rotty]

Agreed. Obviously, at 2000BC, we can't expect a war to end by 1900BC, but perhaps an exponential "length of war" disposition modifier to encourage peace settlements... After a bloody mess, of course.


I like the idea of using the hammers to actually _outfit_ your armies, and drafting to actually _fill_ your armies.

Yes... however, there's no reason it should ever take more than one of your decades-long turns to outfit an army of swordsmen. Now hammers being a limitation on how much ARMOR an army can be outfitted with, that would be reasonable and interesting.

I'm not sure about this one, though it's a nice thought. The abstraction of the agricultural sector, I think, is vital to keeping the game simple. But something like this "under the hood" could be worth exploring.

It's not abstraction when only a few percent of the tiles in your empire are actually growing crops while on the rest, people eat grass. I think the tile-working citizens actually planting known resources is critical to verisimilitude.

I completely agree, but I think developments should take a few turns to be constructed, not just "place 'n use." A three-tile road through grassland may take, say, three turns. Or six, etc.

I agree.

I dunno... Civ4 dings ICS pretty hard, and the settler is one of the units that I still enjoy "maneuvering" around the map, to avoid barbarians and what not. But that's because they are valuable- 10-30 turns early in the game is _huge_

It just doesn't make any sense that it would take a thousand years of doing absolutely nothing else for a city to convince a point of population to uproot and become a settler.

The way religion is modeled in the game is pretty much irrelevant to me- any tasteful system could be used. I like the current system. I'd also like each religion to be individualistically beneficial, but that's lots of worms in dat dere can...

The big glaring problem as I see it is that Buddhism and Judaism have to be founded 2-3000 years before they actually were (on _Noble_!) in order to have multiple early religions. That just should not be, so let's have national pantheons for the Bronze and Iron Ages that the world religions compete to supersede once they arrive on the scene.

Two more paradigm shifts I'd like to see:

1) Now that we have multiple leaders per nation, you should no longer be starting as the all-powerful leader of a pre-unified civilization. The sense of reshaping history would be greatly enhanced if you started as leader of 1 of 3-4 Sumerian, Egyptian, etc. city states and your first goal was to eliminate those rivals to create a universal state of the <adjective> people. This would be the first of the ERA VICTORIES to achieve. The first would be to become the first ruler to create a universal state, with a conquest and diplomatic victory (using a mini, national wonder version of the AP/UN) option. After that, era victories would become increasingly grandiose, until in the modern era you have to either dominate the world through conquest, getting yourself elected world leader, or cultural domination or winning the last tech race with the spaceship victory.

2) Mortal leaders. It's never made sense than you're taking on the role of a historic king or queen, yet the overriding concern for rulers of marriage and succession never comes up because you're immortal. Really now, let's have the player play a dynasty rather than a single immortal leader, needing to have heirs he can pass the empire on to.

 

[cassembler]

Yes... however, there's no reason it should ever take more than one of your decades-long turns to outfit an army of swordsmen. Now hammers being a limitation on how much ARMOR an army can be outfitted with, that would be reasonable and interesting.

Yeah, in general, instead of cities producing something (in and of themselves) be it a building or unit, their production actually goes straight to a "national pool" that a player can allocate as they wish. Then, a ruler may distribute production into tile improvements, set an "army outfitting" level, and placing certain building in cities. Same goes for food- a ruler could allocate surpluses between building settlers, growing cities, raising troops for armies, etc.

{Side note: to build wonders, a ruler could take a city "off-line," so to speak, and it produces a building within itself. Retains wonder racing.}

The main point is that instead of driving little "city-cars" all over the place, we're putting a player into the driver's seat of the empire they're building. Macro-management!

It's not abstraction when only a few percent of the tiles in your empire are actually growing crops while on the rest, people eat grass. I think the tile-working citizens actually planting known resources is critical to verisimilitude.

I'd _love_ to never see another screen with individually worked tiles again. I think the population density should spread around ALL workable tiles from day one, so cities benefit from ALL workable tiles (within expanding radii, of course). As the cities grow and technology advances, tiles become more beneficial. Techs could even _unlock_ some tile usages. Think of the possibilities!

The end results are almost the same, except city placement has a more dramatic effect on the city, earlier. And I don't have work two river-grasslands before I can work on the mined hills, so to speak. On day one, I get a _small_ benefit from all three, plus all the other legal tiles.

It just doesn't make any sense that it would take a thousand years of doing absolutely nothing else for a city to convince a point of population to uproot and become a settler.

If all cities' food surplus went into an empire pool, and allocated as desired, then forming a band of settlers could be as easy as a "Form Settler" button. For gameplay purposes, let's say this costs X food surplus. This food is taken off the top before any cities grow. If you don't surplus enough food, then it will take a few turns. New cities consume more food than they produce, thus your empire's food surplus is temporarily reduced, instantly limiting ICS.

The big glaring problem as I see it is that Buddhism and Judaism have to be founded 2-3000 years before they actually were (on _Noble_!) in order to have multiple early religions. That just should not be, so let's have national pantheons for the Bronze and Iron Ages that the world religions compete to supersede once they arrive on the scene.

You'll have to elaborate on this. I don't understand yet.

Two more paradigm shifts I'd like to see:

1) Now that we have multiple leaders per nation, you should no longer be starting as the all-powerful leader of a pre-unified civilization. The sense of reshaping history would be greatly enhanced if you started as leader of 1 of 3-4 Sumerian, Egyptian, etc. city states and your first goal was to eliminate those rivals to create a universal state of the <adjective> people. This would be the first of the ERA VICTORIES to achieve. The first would be to become the first ruler to create a universal state, with a conquest and diplomatic victory (using a mini, national wonder version of the AP/UN) option. After that, era victories would become increasingly grandiose, until in the modern era you have to either dominate the world through conquest, getting yourself elected world leader, or cultural domination or winning the last tech race with the spaceship victory.

This could be really interesting... If I understand, the game starts with a city- maybe you place n' grow it yourself- and a small handful of closer "colonies," or even other cities. You can conquer them, or ally with them and eventually absorb them. They differ, I guess, from other civs in that they are the same ethnicity and culture- less war weariness, easier negotiations, etc... Sounds very yummy! Of course, the size this entity should be optional...

On a re-read, I really like your idea of era-based victories. You could win the ancient era, lose the next, win the third, etc... we should think about this.

2) Mortal leaders. It's never made sense than you're taking on the role of a historic king or queen, yet the overriding concern for rulers of marriage and succession never comes up because you're immortal. Really now, let's have the player play a dynasty rather than a single immortal leader, needing to have heirs he can pass the empire on to.

This idea has been kicked around for quite a while. My favorite concept has rulers choosing a mate (Diplomatic effects), having kids (Let's keep it rated G), and selecting which child gets the throne. Each kid has perks/ weaknesses. Thus, you can coarsely shape your leadership to the current environment...

Nice...

 

[rysmiel]

The main point is that instead of driving little "city-cars" all over the place, we're putting a player into the driver's seat of the empire they're building. Macro-management!

But there are plenty of games that do that, and they aren't Civ. What makes Civ Civ is managing the cities and having the empire emerge from the decisions you make at that level, having to think at both scales at once.

I want workers and spies and missionaries and, indeed, caravans. I want more choices for what building I can make - seriously, at any given point in the game, how often do you have more than two or three options that are equally useful to your short and long-term goals ? I want a game where the big things come from the little things working together, and where you have detailed enough control to make it possible to do really satisfying big things by paying attention to the little things.

People keep saying eliminate this factor, eliminate the other factor, eliminate micromanagement - and the way Civ Revolutions appears to be doing things looks very much to be going in that direction. If Civ 5 does that I won't be buying it; options for less micromanagement if people want them, fine, that's what city governors are for, but a game you can master without putting actual thought and concentration into might as well just be a big red button to push saying "Show Victory Movie Now."

 

[Rotty]

People keep saying eliminate this factor, eliminate the other factor, eliminate micromanagement - and the way Civ Revolutions appears to be doing things looks very much to be going in that direction. If Civ 5 does that I won't be buying it; options for less micromanagement if people want them, fine, that's what city governors are for, but a game you can master without putting actual thought and concentration into might as well just be a big red button to push saying "Show Victory Movie Now."

You're assuming the only way a strategy game can be challenging is through mandating lots of micromanagement. That's crazy. The whole premise of the Civ series is playing the ruler of an empire: show me one ruler who ever ordered laborers to chop down forests for 100 years, stop with no apparent effect on the forest, then go back later and spend 1 more turn chopping to make a city rapidly complete its current project. Nonsense like that really should be eliminated in favor of real imperial concerns like diplomacy, preventing rebellion, and marriage and dynastic succession.

 

[cassembler]

People keep saying eliminate this factor, eliminate the other factor, eliminate micromanagement - and the way Civ Revolutions appears to be doing things looks very much to be going in that direction. If Civ 5 does that I won't be buying it; options for less micromanagement if people want them, fine, that's what city governors are for, but a game you can master without putting actual thought and concentration into might as well just be a big red button to push saying "Show Victory Movie Now."

I completely understand where you're coming from. A lot of folks like tinkering with this toggle, and switching that switch, so to speak. This is all fine and good.

I'm not one of these people. I want to group my cities and assign directions, even if I only have five. I want to direct armies, not units. I don't want to hold the hand of a missionary to spread religions, I want to tell the head of the church to "spread X towards the East, as best you can with 150 gold," and let them handle the details.

I must admit that macro-management does, in fact, require thought and concentration, IMHO. Seriously, does it require MORE thought and concentration to build a granary in the capital or to direct the four cities on the eastern side of the continent to prioritize population growth, then defense, then culture? This is a valid question.

You're assuming the only way a strategy game can be challenging is through mandating lots of micromanagement. That's crazy. The whole premise of the Civ series is playing the ruler of an empire
...
[Micromanagement] really should be eliminated in favor of real imperial concerns like diplomacy, preventing rebellion, and marriage and dynastic succession.

While I agree to a point, I'm NOT saying "Get rid of micromanagement altogether."

I'm for systems that put micromanagement "Under the Hood." If you want to get your hands dirty to squeeze out 20 more horsepower, super. Really. But I just want to drive.

 

[rysmiel]

The whole premise of the Civ series is playing the ruler of an empire

Not exactly. That's kind of my point.

show me one ruler who ever ordered laborers to chop down forests for 100 years, stop with no apparent effect on the forest, then go back later and spend 1 more turn chopping to make a city rapidly complete its current project. Nonsense like that really should be eliminated in favor of real imperial concerns like diplomacy, preventing rebellion, and marriage and dynastic succession.

If you want a realistic simulation of the life of the ruler of an empire, you'd have a great deal less information about what was actually going on in detail than any Civ game gives you, particularly in the opening eras, and a game that involved waiting to hear reports back from the frontier that are already out of date and seeing nothing but your desk and a stack of paperwork; this does not strike me as immense amounts of fun.

 

[rysmiel]

I completely understand where you're coming from. A lot of folks like tinkering with this toggle, and switching that switch, so to speak. This is all fine and good.

I'm not one of these people. I want to group my cities and assign directions, even if I only have five. I want to direct armies, not units. I don't want to hold the hand of a missionary to spread religions, I want to tell the head of the church to "spread X towards the East, as best you can with 150 gold," and let them handle the details.

Sure. And options to do just that, in the same way you have the options to use city governeors now, I'm all in favour of. So long as they are options and I can switch them all off easily for every game I play.

Seriously, does it require MORE thought and concentration to build a granary in the capital or to direct the four cities on the eastern side of the continent to prioritize population growth, then defense, then culture? This is a valid question.

That's not quite an apt comparison, though. The difference is between "you four cities go do population growth first, then defence, and then culture" and choosing whether it's worth say, building granaries in those four cities or transferring your population in from elsewhere, what defensive units make sense and how many, which may vary depending on how near the neighbours are and how friendly, how near the sea they are, and so on; and you may also have a number of options for getting culture, each also with different other benefits [ in Civ III terms, a temple or a library both get you some culture relatively quickly, but one gives happiness and the other science. ] And any or all of those might want rush-buying in a specific city.

It's possible an AI "governor" might be able to make a reasonable guess at how to do "population growth, then defence, then culture", but I very much doubt it can have as much flexibility and capacity to fit its detailed strategy to the conditions as a human who understands how the game works and is putting together the right combination of actions to get that result.

I'm for systems that put micromanagement "Under the Hood." If you want to get your hands dirty to squeeze out 20 more horsepower, super. Really. But I just want to drive.

That seems entirely fair to me; I just want the 20 more horsepower to be meaningful and fun and worth attaining, rather than something as easily got for free by flipping a switch.

 

[cassembler]

Sure. And options to do just that, in the same way you have the options to use city governeors now, I'm all in favour of. So long as they are options and I can switch them all off easily for every game I play.
...
That seems entirely fair to me; I just want the 20 more horsepower to be meaningful and fun and worth attaining, rather than something as easily got for free by flipping a switch.

Then we agree on some things. In fact, you have a great point about _how_ to attain priorities; the example you give is culture. Library or temple? Great example.

So allow me to select, say, three cities, group them into a "state" or "territory," and allow me to go to a "Territory Management Screen," with the following sections:

• Assign Building Priorities-Set up a standard "Building Queue" for all of the cities.
• Allocate -Distribute production between each city's building queue and the empire's "production bank".
• Allocate -Likewise: distribute a percentage of food to city growth, or to the empire's "food bank."
• Allocate -Again, use the commerce for territory-specific happiness or to the empire's bank.

(Note: I think culture should stick to it's originating location. It's hard to imagine transferring culture between cities...)

Then, on an empire level, I can allocate all of the surpluses directed to the empire how I see fit: Commerce to science, espionage, coffers; food between army divisions, or to grow territories; production to army equipment or infrastructure development...

Again, the end result is the same, and I've visited 50% fewer screens and performed 50% fewer mouse clicks (at least). And the game turn has been reduced from X minutes to X/2 minutes. Plus, I've arguably made just as much quantitative impact.

EDIT: I love the idea of "territories," or "states" so much because most games I play, I have cities in similar locations that I'll make virtually _identical_ choices for. For example, border cities may all get walls, interrior cities may all get libraries. But to have to open up each freakin city screen, even if it's only three of them, every time I discover a new tech or circumstances change just chaps my hide.

 

[rysmiel]

Then we agree on some things. In fact, you have a
So allow me to select, say, three cities, group them into a "state" or "territory," and allow me to go to a "Territory Management Screen," with the following sections:

Thing about this is, the way I play, if I had to do this, I'd be changing the definition of the states/territories so often it would not really gain me anything.

I am talking in a context of games with closing on two hundred cities to manage by the halfway point, fwiw, where splitting into six regions would be useless, and splitting into fifty would make for a lot of complication; I can see how this might be a different argument if your preferred style of play didn't often involve much more than a dozen cities.

• Allocate -Distribute production between each city's building queue and the empire's "production bank".
• Allocate -Likewise: distribute a percentage of food to city growth, or to the empire's "food bank."
• Allocate -Again, use the commerce for territory-specific happiness or to the empire's bank.

This, otoh, I think I like as a notion. Particularly if the country-wide production bank was limited to specific things, like Wonders. (And with the repeated observation that hammers are a Civ IV barbarity and I want shields back now. Delenda est malleum. )

EDIT: I love the idea of "territories," or "states" so much because most games I play, I have cities in similar locations that I'll make virtually _identical_ choices for. For example, border cities may all get walls, interrior cities may all get libraries.

And how long will a border city stay a border city in an empire doing serious expansion, or a city's surroundings stay of the sort to favour production of one kind of improvement over another while you are doing serious terrain improvement ? One of the emergent properties of Civ IV that I would really like to see go away is how much it forces cities to fixed specialisation.

 

[cassembler]

Thing about this is, the way I play, if I had to do this, I'd be changing the definition of the states/territories so often it would not really gain me anything.

I am talking in a context of games with closing on two hundred cities to manage by the halfway point, fwiw, where splitting into six regions would be useless, and splitting into fifty would make for a lot of complication; I can see how this might be a different argument if your preferred style of play didn't often involve much more than a dozen cities.

??? I would think that splitting a 200-city empire into, say, 10 regions, 20 cities each, and assigning commands to the 10 regions would be _a lot_ simpler... But, to keep going:

...
And how long will a border city stay a border city in an empire doing serious expansion, or a city's surroundings stay of the sort to favour production of one kind of improvement over another while you are doing serious terrain improvement ? One of the emergent properties of Civ IV that I would really like to see go away is how much it forces cities to fixed specialisation.

Let's say at point X, you have 9 cities on an eastern front that are your "border" cities. You group them into a region, assign "border city" commands as you see fit. But then you're at war again, and the 9 cities are now interior cities. The beauty of this whole system: you can re-assign commands to these 9 cities without having to visit each of them. Does one of these cities stay as a border city? Then re-assign it into a new "border city region."

At this rate, 5-10 cities per region, you're looking at 20-40 regions. I can't see how assigning commands to 20-40 regions is worse than 200 cities, save for micromanaging, which should still be possible. (Side idea: what about having a toggle to set a city as a "directly managed" city, where you are prompted to visit or can cycle through them, but otherwise the regions take over?)

But to go from a different angle: let me step back then to an earlier notion I had, about setting empire-wide adjustments. What are your thoughts on empire-wide policy, beyond Civics, tax rates, and what not?

For example, building units (armies) at the empire level.

A % of production get allocated to the empire's "hammer pool," (Where MC Hammer hangs w/ the ladies... ) and then you allocate the hammer pool between, say, armor, weapons, transportation, tile improvements, and wonders.

A % of food similarly goes between raising troops, forming settlers, feeding selected cities or states, or trading.

Another example: National Policies:
(These are just examples, not for specific debate)

• Crop Rotation- Tiles with farms produce 10% more , -10%
• 8 Hour Workday- +10% , -10%
• Child Labor- +10% , +15%
• Free Health Care- +20% , -20%
• Mandatory Retirement- -10% , Libraries produce 20% more
• Mandatory Military Training- allocated to raising troops gets +20% bonus, allocated to or -10%.

(Note this list assumes that Civ5 will deal with decimal values of hammers, food, and gold as produced by terrains... a whole separate topic, but still up for discussion).

Ether way, I still wonder how you're not more for less micromanagement than I am... I have 10 cities and I feel drained by the persistent clicking... my lord, the clicking...
BTW, if I startup a company, you'll be on my list for quality control...
200 cities... crazy I tell you! (At least at the current tedium)

 

[rysmiel]

??? I would think that splitting a 200-city empire into, say, 10 regions, 20 cities each, and assigning commands to the 10 regions would be _a lot_ simpler... But, to keep going:

Having to check every city every turn for whether it really best belongs in that region any more, or whether it might do better with slightly different priorities ?

Let's say at point X, you have 9 cities on an eastern front that are your "border" cities. You group them into a region, assign "border city" commands as you see fit.

I'm not convinced a game where the terrain and other condtions are uniform enough to allow that would be fun.

The beauty of this whole system: you can re-assign commands to these 9 cities without having to visit each of them. Does one of these cities stay as a border city? Then re-assign it into a new "border city region."

Either you have to stay aware of which region every sity is in every turn and compare your regional objectives to that ctiy's best objectives, or you risk losing out compared to how well you could do managing each city individually. I'll take managing each city individually over that additional level of fussing about any time.

(Side idea: what about having a toggle to set a city as a "directly managed" city, where you are prompted to visit or can cycle through them, but otherwise the regions take over?)

If you're going to have regions at all, that seems a very good plan.

For example, building units (armies) at the empire level.
A % of production get allocated to the empire's "hammer pool," (Where MC Hammer hangs w/ the ladies... ) and then you allocate the hammer pool between, say, armor, weapons, transportation, tile improvements, and wonders.
A % of food similarly goes between raising troops, forming settlers, feeding selected cities or states, or trading.

I have mixed feelings about this, because what it would basically boil down to in practice is some way to take production and food from where you have a surplus and put it in where you don't, and I'm not at all convinced that earlier models for doing that are not entirely adequate. [ Some better balanced take on the Civ II food caravan, for example. ]

Ether way, I still wonder how you're not more for less micromanagement than I am... I have 10 cities and I feel drained by the persistent clicking... my lord, the clicking...

Ten cities ? How long is that game going to last you ? I'm still happily chewing away on a Civ III game on a huge map that's about sixty hours in, and I expect that to go over a hundred hours' playing time easily, which fit around my life is many weeks of real time enjoyment.

 

[Coast]

Not to make comparisons, but I think Gal Civ II has a good system for production.

Each planet (or city, if we translate) has social, military, and research production quantities. In this system, you can produce military units at the same time as building that aquaduct, and depending on the balance of resources you devote to each, get each done appropriately.

And it makes total sense. A forge could add base production points. A barracks might add a couple of 'military' production points. a library, research points.

 

[Deep Thought]

I would like to get rid of the grids and the turn-based time-system.

 

[warpstorm]

Personally, I hope the crew removes (at least) one complex thing for every new complexity that they add. More, more, more is a horrible design for the long term. It alienates new comers and makes for a shrinking user base (and that's all we need).

Now for the (inevitable) expansions, Pile it on!

The expansions are typically bought by the hard core elite (like us) and they can handle the added complexity.

Note: I am not saying make this a simple brainless game (nobody would be served by that), just that they should think about complexity of all new (and all existing, for that matter) features.

 

[Refar]

I would like to get rid of the grids and the turn-based time-system.

You should play Age of Empires then. No offence, i like AoE myself on occasion, but beeing turn based is THE key element of Civ games.

 

[jkp1187]

Personally, I hope the crew removes (at least) one complex thing for every new complexity that they add. More, more, more is a horrible design for the long term. It alienates new comers and makes for a shrinking user base (and that's all we need).

Now for the (inevitable) expansions, Pile it on!

The expansions are typically bought by the hard core elite (like us) and they can handle the added complexity.

Note: I am not saying make this a simple brainless game (nobody would be served by that), just that they should think about complexity of all new (and all existing, for that matter) features.

I have to agree with this....although for that reason I kind of hope that the next Civ-for-PC iteration is an expansion pack.