Ideas for Civilization 4

[wtiberon]

Money should be a bigger part of the game...For example to build a road just having a worker do it is kinda rediculous. While manual labor is needed you also need to buy the supplies necessary and also pay to maintain it...This could be the case for any type of improvement...Of course the amount of money will have to be increased. And types of governments could reduce the cost of building improvements...for example Democracy would decrease the cost of creating improvements since private buisness would absorb some of the cost.

 

[Mojotronica]

funkymunky -

I like your idea of accumulating culture points in different catagories... I'm not exactly clear on the effect this would have on the game...

Would it affect the Civ's bonus characteristics? E.g. Commercial, Expansionist, Militaristic et al?

If so how would it be implemented in the game? I could see it done as a measure of comparative strength -- for example the Civ w/ the most Scout units gains the Expansionist ability, and the Civ w/ the most religiously derived cultural points gains the Religious ability... But no civ has more than two such bonuses at a time.

That way the game would include an additional competitive component. It's a neat idea, as long as it could be turned off...

 

[Laser guided]

Originally posted by wtiberon
Money should be a bigger part of the game...For example to build a road just having a worker do it is kinda rediculous. While manual labor is needed you also need to buy the supplies necessary and also pay to maintain it...This could be the case for any type of improvement...Of course the amount of money will have to be increased. And types of governments could reduce the cost of building improvements...for example Democracy would decrease the cost of creating improvements since private buisness would absorb some of the cost.

You should not confuse forms of government with forms of economic system. Just because a country is a democracy does not mean the state does not own most if not all of the industry and services. Prime example is India the largest democracy in the world has one of the lowest economic freedom ratings.

Besides that sounds like way too much detail and logistics. Yeah like I really want to go out and buy shovels and ashphalt. Is this Civilization or SimCity?

 

[Laser guided]

Originally posted by wtiberon


We have discussed this...I thought that mabye when a new unit is developed a screen will open that allows someone to modify a unit...for each increased stat it will increase the cost of creating each unit...for example you have just finish researching the tech needed to create knights. You can double click on the knight to adjust his stats and even the name of the unit. Its default stats would be 4 attack and 3 defense. You decide you want it to be a better defender so you add one defense point making it 4 defense or vica versa you can click lower to make a much cheaper version. Significant cost difference and caps can be added to prevent people from creating super knights that can take out modern armor like it ain't no thing.

If an idea like this were to be implemented it would only be practical to have the stats be able to only adjust downward and not up at all. Are you gonna put more armor on the knight to raise his defense? In that case you may as well take a movement point also, because that poor horse can only take so much on its back. Knights defense were in the armor otherwise why wear it?

The 4/3/2 could be the shell and you could feel it up any different way you wanted. Of course you might have to have different graphics to show the difference or how else would I know those knights knocking on my front door aren't the real macoy? I don't want to right mouse click every would be conquerer who comes a knockin'!

 

[thestonesfan]

That's actually a neat idea, about the stat changing. But I think it should be pretty limited. Maybe one time per era you can rearrange a unit's stats, or maybe it could require a great leader. Kind of a home-made unique unit. Not add them, because that could clearly get out of hand, but maybe take a point of defense away and give it to attack. Then you could rename it. Make a Knight 5-2-2 and viola, a Crusader. Make Infantry 8-6-3 and call it a Shock Trooper. That would add a great random factor in the game. You might have to have a limit on a stat, moves particularly.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. Whoever thought of that, great idea!

 

[funkymunky]

Originally posted by Mojotronica
funkymunky -

I like your idea of accumulating culture points in different catagories... I'm not exactly clear on the effect this would have on the game...

Would it affect the Civ's bonus characteristics? E.g. Commercial, Expansionist, Militaristic et al?

If so how would it be implemented in the game? I could see it done as a measure of comparative strength -- for example the Civ w/ the most Scout units gains the Expansionist ability, and the Civ w/ the most religiously derived cultural points gains the Religious ability... But no civ has more than two such bonuses at a time.

That way the game would include an additional competitive component. It's a neat idea, as long as it could be turned off...

I don't have specific plans with how this should be, but I was thinking that perhaps those culture specific bonuses that already exist would be applied based upon the dominant culture. So maybe if one has a dominant culture of "commercial", then perhaps market place would be cheaper and banks would be cheaper. In a sense it sort of encourages one to support their dominant culture even more, but if one really wants to change that, they can with alot of effort. I think my main beef with the way things are now is if you play a certain civ, it has cultural bonuses that are predetermined, and you are either given an advantage or penalized due to that, but you can't do anything about it. If you're expansionist and start off on an island, you're kind of screwed and your bonuses go to waste, and there's nothing you can do to change that. But in real history, I think alot of societies adopted a certain culture based upon geography and their interactions with their neighbors, and so I thought that based upon circumstances in the game, one could take steps to promote a culture as they saw fit to the environment they we're working with. However, I think every society has a tendency, based on their leadership, toward certain ideas and practices, so I thought that leader-traits would be sort of a seed that makes a culture tend toward one way or another, but doesn't fix the civ to a certain type of culture. So you may have a civ with an expansionist leader, but if they start on an island, they would quickly find that trait to be useless and may instead start building up science improvements which would make the culture turn into a scientific society, which would benefit the nation more since it's isolated and can't expand beyond the island. Then perhaps the civ would gain certain science bonuses due to it's scientific culture. I figure this way, all societies could develop some kind of advantage for themselves, rather than having to deal with an inherent disadvantage that they can't shake.

 

[funkymunky]

There's another idea I wanted to throw up for a new version of civ. I think the resource/trade model is a bit underdeveloped in the civ3 game. It seems a bit ludicrous that having one strategic resource would be enough to power all the military and economic needs of a country, no matter how big they are, which is the model that exists now.

I think that in a new version, this model needs to be expanded. What I was thinking is that instead of having one resource square supplying all the needs of a nation's military, each resource square would have the ability to supply x number of units that depend on that square. So, for example, one oil square would give a civ the ability to produce 10 units that use oil. Two oil squares would allow for 20 units. Obviously, there should be a tally of units that use these resources, but your trade advisor should be keep track of this, or maybe the military advisor.

I think this would make trade a little more interesting, as every resource square in the game now has a use, and it would be up to the owner of that resource to decide whether he wants to use that for his own military strength or sell it of as trade to gain more economic strength. It also makes it more important to acquire as many resource squares as possible, whereas now the only reason to acquire extra resource squares is to prevent your enemies from having them.

Right now if your adversaries gain a resource you have extra of, you can't trade with them because they already have all they need. But with this new model, you can still trade extra resources because even if your adversary has some of that resource, they gain benefits from trading for more, as it allows them to strengthen their military even more. And loosing even one resource square will have negative effects on a nation. This makes pillaging even more valuable, and an even better strategy. I think it's a pain to have to find every salt peter tile the country owns before my economic pillaging strategy can have any affect on them. I think it makes more sense if pillaging just one of those tiles would have some kind of affect, even if it's only a small effect. Deminishing one of their many resources should disrupt their military production abilities a little. So if my enemy has 3 salt-peter tiles, and I pillage one, the max number of Cavalry and Musketmen goes from 30 down to 20. They'll still have the ability to create these troops (unless all their salt peter is plundered), but just not as many. Obviously, though, this should only apply to new troops, so if they already have 30 and one salt-peter gets plundered, they won't loose existing military, but just won't be able to create more until they're below their ceiling.

Sorry for such long-winded posts, I just like to make myself clear.

 

[thestonesfan]

Excellent suggestion. I feel the same way about the resource model.

One idea of mine was to implement "Manufactured Products" that could be traded. For instance, Steel was vastly important in the two World Wars, but in the game units such as ships, tanks and artillery don't require it. How would you make steel?

I'd say if you have access to nickel and iron, you could produce steel if you had a certain improvement. Probably a Steel plant, or you could just say a factory. It would be just the same as having the resource, but you produce it. Other examples:

Timber + Mill = Lumber

Granary + cattle/wheat/fruit, etc = Food

Tin + Copper = Bronze

Flax + Weaving tech = Linen

Bauxite + Nickel(I could be mistaken) = Aluminum

Steel + Factory + Assembly Line tech = Automobiles

There could be many more. A lot of countries' economies are based on production and not resources, so I feel something like this is a must.

 

[wtiberon]

Originally posted by Laser guided


You should not confuse forms of government with forms of economic system. Just because a country is a democracy does not mean the state does not own most if not all of the industry and services. Prime example is India the largest democracy in the world has one of the lowest economic freedom ratings.

Besides that sounds like way too much detail and logistics. Yeah like I really want to go out and buy shovels and ashphalt. Is this Civilization or SimCity?

Although many areas of India's economy are still relatively closed, the government has long been encouraging foreign investment in India's infrastructure. The government has gone so far as to develop broad incentives for foreign investment, especially in India's power industry.

One of the many problems with Civilization is its generic development of economics which should play a larger role in the game as it does in Real Life. Perhaps there should be a way to chose what type of economic system you have or better yet the game can describe the type of economic policy your using...If you micromanage your economy then it would be socialism, if you allow private industries to run it then it would be capitalism, obviously communism could only be used if the government was chosen, if you trade with other countries you have a free market, and if not then its a closed market. Economies could also be described as Agrarian, Industrial, etc...To be honest I don't really know how it could be done but I think that Economics should more complex than generically building a market place, bank, stock exchange, roads, and the weak trading system that I barely use because the AI is always so poor.

 

[wtiberon]

Originally posted by Laser guided


If an idea like this were to be implemented it would only be practical to have the stats be able to only adjust downward and not up at all. Are you gonna put more armor on the knight to raise his defense? In that case you may as well take a movement point also, because that poor horse can only take so much on its back. Knights defense were in the armor otherwise why wear it?

The 4/3/2 could be the shell and you could feel it up any different way you wanted. Of course you might have to have different graphics to show the difference or how else would I know those knights knocking on my front door aren't the real macoy? I don't want to right mouse click every would be conquerer who comes a knockin'!

Whose to say the defense only means armor plating...It could also stand for the training the Knight recieves in order to defend himself. As far as the graphics I do feel that EACH civilization should have it's own set of graphics for each type of unit, and it really wouldn't be hard to destinguish between a Knight and horseman...anyway I think that stats should be kept secret anyway as it would make you think twice about attacking before gathering Intellegence through spys about the unit types and stats.

 

[wtiberon]

Originally posted by funkymunky

I think that in a new version, this model needs to be expanded. What I was thinking is that instead of having one resource square supplying all the needs of a nation's military, each resource square would have the ability to supply x number of units that depend on that square. So, for example, one oil square would give a civ the ability to produce 10 units that use oil. Two oil squares would allow for 20 units. Obviously, there should be a tally of units that use these resources, but your trade advisor should be keep track of this, or maybe the military advisor.

This was discussed earlier....however your idea is very valid. A cost should also be placed on producing oil from these wells. Also the more oil wells you own or import the cheaper the cost of oil would be to support each unit. Perhaps you might find it is cheaper to import oil than to produce your own as the U.S. does.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Originally posted by wtiberon
As far as the graphics I do feel that EACH civilization should have it's own set of graphics for each type of unit, and it really wouldn't be hard to destinguish between a Knight and horseman...anyway I think that stats should be kept secret anyway as it would make you think twice about attacking before gathering Intellegence through spys about the unit types and stats.

I like the idea of semi-secret stats (semi, because we all know that it's based on the vanilla knight stats). But I think your approach to customization could be improved. Instead of trading off stats against one another or adjusting shield costs, I think it ought to be research-based.

In addition to researching whole new technologies, you can perfect old ones. You direct this just as much as you direct "whole new tech" research (which should be more a matter of chance than it is in Civ3 -- but I digress). If you want a faster horseman, that's one option; if you want a defensively stronger horseman, that's another. The new sub-discovery might initially come at some performance cost (say, you get stronger attack but weaker defense), but if you keep at it, you can overcome that. There should probably be some upper limit for each unit type ("Sire, short of a new breakthrough technology, it is impossible to improve the attack strength.") Perhaps in some cases (e.g. the move from horseman to knights), developing a technological breakthrough could require developing refinements of the old tech first.

Combine this idea with multiple simultaneous research projects, to make the most sense out of it. For example, I might spend 20% of my research trying to improve swordsmen by making them cost fewer shields, 40% trying to get the Chivalry breakthrough, and 40% trying to get the Banking breakthrough. (And wind up getting Printing Press first -- but I digress again.)

The unique unit system could be revised so that, for example, the Persians start out with a better-developed swordsman-type unit (and maybe get higher upper limits on it too).

 

[West German]

You should be able to build mountain cities. Like La Paz, Bolivia or Lhasa, Tibet.

 

[roddy]

I haven't got anywhere near enough time to read this whole thread so hopefully these ideas haven't been posted before.

1) When you have an alliance you should be able to see what your allies military is doing, at least its battles, so you know the state of play - some kind of sharing of military intelligence.

2) You should be able to sell all of your resources - even if I only have one incense, why can't I sell it if I don't need it.

3) This one has been suggested before. Under democracy/republic foreign workers either return home or need to be paid for.

4) A 'National Service' Small Wonder which makes all drafted units regular (3 hit points)

5) An option to place cities under 'martial law' - this eliminates civil disorder and partially reduces corruption - which would allow far flung cities to produce something. Perhaps not possible under certain Republic/Democracy. You would need x number of military units for a city of size y.

6) Specialists gain experience with time - so a scientist who has been a scientist for 20 years generates more science than a new scientist.

7) When cities are linked by rail, agricultural production is pooled - any surplus in one city will prevent starvation in the other. Remember, no democracy ever suffered a famine.

 

[roddy]

mountain cities could be limited to a certain size

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Originally posted by roddy

2) You should be able to sell all of your resources - even if I only have one incense, why can't I sell it if I don't need it.

You already can. Just click it to trade it as you would any other resource. This is useful to trade away anything you don't need, such as horses or saltpeter in the modern era, etc.

 

[Laser guided]

Originally posted by wtiberon


Whose to say the defense only means armor plating...It could also stand for the training the Knight recieves in order to defend himself. As far as the graphics I do feel that EACH civilization should have it's own set of graphics for each type of unit, and it really wouldn't be hard to destinguish between a Knight and horseman...anyway I think that stats should be kept secret anyway as it would make you think twice about attacking before gathering Intellegence through spys about the unit types and stats.

Me believes that training is represented through the use of hitpoints i.e. conscript, regular, veteran and elite.

The reasoning behind not allowing points to be added to a unit and only taken away is simple. 4/3/2 would represent the best training and money a monarch could buy. If you can just add a point taken from defense and make the unit 5/2/2 then why not do that in the first place??? Hello???

Besides that it doesn't make any lick of sense that one point of defense equals one point of offense. I guess you're taking some armor and giving the guy a bigger sword? It seems to me if he could wield the bigger damage sword he would do that in the first place.

 

[Laser guided]

Originally posted by roddy
4) A 'National Service' Small Wonder which makes all drafted units regular (3 hit points)

5) An option to place cities under 'martial law' - this eliminates civil disorder and partially reduces corruption - which would allow far flung cities to produce something. Perhaps not possible under certain Republic/Democracy. You would need x number of military units for a city of size y.

6) Specialists gain experience with time - so a scientist who has been a scientist for 20 years generates more science than a new scientist.

7) When cities are linked by rail, agricultural production is pooled - any surplus in one city will prevent starvation in the other. Remember, no democracy ever suffered a famine.

National Service small wonder??? Me believes that drafted units are compelled to join military service which is why they are given a conscripted status because they don't want to be there like the regulars or veterans.

Since when does martial law reduce corruption? If anything martial law would kill any type of economic activity by preventing the people from moving around as freely as needed. You want martial law take a look at what the Israeli's sometimes do to the Palestinians.

Specialist gaining experience with time???.... hmmm... Civ-RPG? I think only the leader is allowed to be immortal in this game.

No democracy ever suffered a famine? US Dustbowl of early 19-something was a big famine. Plus, plenty of famine producing democracies in Africa. Your form of government has nothing to do with how much corn you grow.

 

[wtiberon]

Originally posted by Laser guided


Me believes that training is represented through the use of hitpoints i.e. conscript, regular, veteran and elite.

The reasoning behind not allowing points to be added to a unit and only taken away is simple. 4/3/2 would represent the best training and money a monarch could buy. If you can just add a point taken from defense and make the unit 5/2/2 then why not do that in the first place??? Hello???

Besides that it doesn't make any lick of sense that one point of defense equals one point of offense. I guess you're taking some armor and giving the guy a bigger sword? It seems to me if he could wield the bigger damage sword he would do that in the first place.

Well Lasor guided...Perhaps the unit choses to use less armor in order to be able to move faster ergo a better offense. Alexander did this when he used his Hoplites, you see Lasor guided most other nations were using heavily armored slow moving infantry, so then Alexander striped some of the armor from the Hoplites and moved them into smaller more mobile Phalanx. This strategy allowed Alexander to conquer the known world...I mean use your imagination dude their are hundreds of ways to explain why a units stats would change including a better Military Strategy on the battlefield (since in civ units only bang against each other ). Don't think of offense and defense as strictly weapons and armor.

 

[wtiberon]

Originally posted by Laser guided




Since when does martial law reduce corruption? If anything martial law would kill any type of economic activity by preventing the people from moving around as freely as needed. You want martial law take a look at what the Israeli's sometimes do to the Palestinians.

Specialist gaining experience with time???.... hmmm... Civ-RPG? I think only the leader is allowed to be immortal in this game.

No democracy ever suffered a famine? US Dustbowl of early 19-something was a big famine. Plus, plenty of famine producing democracies in Africa. Your form of government has nothing to do with how much corn you grow.

Martial Law has historically been used successfully to suppress criminal activity and uprisings, however the drawbacks is that it retards the economy and personal freedom...As far as Isreal and Palestine that is more a war than a simple case of corruption or a civil disorder...I don't know how you would confuse those two issues but I'm sure you realized that as soon as you posted it

And here is the History on the Dustbowl:
As In the 1930s, drought covered virtually the entire Plains for almost a decade (Warrick, 1980). The drought’s direct effect is most often remembered as agricultural. Many crops were damaged by deficient rainfall, high temperatures, and high winds, as well as insect infestations and dust storms that accompanied these conditions. The resulting agricultural depression contributed to the Great Depression’s bank closures, business losses, increased unemployment, and other physical and emotional hardships. Although records focus on other problems, the lack of precipitation would also have affected wildlife and plant life, and would have created water shortages for domestic needs.

Effects of the Plains drought sent economic and social ripples throughout the country. For example, millions of people migrated from the drought areas, often heading west, in search of work. These newcomers were often in direct competition for jobs with longer-established residents, which created conflict between the groups. In addition, because of poverty and high unemployment, migrants added to local relief efforts, sometimes overburdening relief and health agencies.

Many circumstances exacerbated the effects of the drought, among them the Great Depression and economic overexpansion before the drought, poor land management practices, and the areal extent and duration of the drought. (Warrick et al., 1975, and Hurt, 1981, discuss these issues in greater detail; see the reference section at the end of this article for the full citations.) The peculiar combination of these circumstances and the severity and areal coverage of the event played a part in making the 1930s drought the widely accepted drought of record for the United States. To cope with and recover from the drought, people relied on ingenuity and resilience, as well as relief programs from state and federal governments. Despite all efforts, many people were not able to make a living in drought-stricken regions and were forced to migrate to other areas in search of a new livelihood. It is not possible to count all the costs associated with the drought of the 1930s drought, but one estimate by Warrick et al. (1980) claims that financial assistance from the government may have been as high as $1 billion (in 1930s dollars) by the end of the drought. Fortunately, several lessons were learned that were used in reducing the vulnerability of the regions to future droughts.
IT WAS AN ECONOMIC LOSS NOT A FAMINE