Ideas for Civilization 4

[NankingDan]

First of all, I'd like to apoligize for another "ideas for Civ 4 Thread" and thank everyone who can sit through the length of this post. Also, your feedback is appreciated, especially if you work for Firaxis and want to give me lots of money. Without further ado:

1)Improved Units: How about making marines and paratroopers A bit more powerful? How about making infantry units less defensively powerful and making machine-gunners the main defenders of the era ( though machine-gunners could not upgrade. )
I'd like to see the range of cruise missles increased a little too and make them able to launch from carriers or Aegis cruisers. One thing I would love is for the Guerilla ( Hopefully a tad more powerful)able to execute ambushes. The way I see it, Guerillas could be INVISIBLE on jungle and mountain terrain, thus suprising any enemy unit that passes into those tiles (perhaps they could get an "ambush" combat bonus). I can also see other units able to, instead of "fortify", "ambush" with similar effect. Perhaps the moving player could use some sort of "scout" command to foil ambushes...I'm getting carried away here. Helicopters that can pick up wounded units would be very nice too. Lastly, Krytan's style of having more than one unit in a tile creating a formation is brilliant.

2) The concept of Immigration/emmigration. How about instead of just culture-flipping a neighbor's city, You will be awarded for high culture, luxuries, and happiness by having a neighboring city actually lose population, form an "emmigrant" unit and have it join your population? Of course, you could always turn them away at the border....

3) A city rife with poverty, unhappiness, and corruption could have "criminals" in their population. Criminals don't do any work, and can't be converted into entertainers etc. Only a police
station, courthouse, or expensive sting operation
can remove them ( maybe into a "prison" improvement?").

4) A concept of individual rights! I'm thinking six or eight "rights" on the domestic screen.
Giving people more rights would make them more happy, and people would protest often about them.
For example, if you outlaw slavery, you will not be able to use captured workers. However, ethnic minorities in your cities would no longer be pissed off about you enslaving their nationality's
workers and people would be happier in general. It
would be a cause and effect relationship.

4) New Units: Already mentioned the machine-gunner. Perhaps a commando that is powerful, can do airdrops and amphibious, and has a free pillage ( I.E. pillaging improvements does not cost them their turn or movement.) Of course, new units to go with new civs.

5) Equipping units: Make your units more powerful
by spending gold to give them the most modern tools, providing you have the resources. This is done from the military advisor's screen. An example is "equipping" all your fighter plane units with torpedos to give them a 50% combat bonus against ships.

6) Improved diplomacy: How about mutual non-agression pacts? Secret alliances? Police actions like telling another leader "stop your war against India or feel my wrath!"? The ability to give your allies military units like in Civ 2? How
about peace treaties that place restictions on how
many military units an enemy can have (like the treaty of Versailles)?

7) New great leaders! My favorite, if least practical idea. Don't even begin to ask me how these new "great leaders" would be created, cause' I have no idea (though I would love feedback)!
:A great religious leader that causes an overwhelming cultural force in the city he resides. Neighboring cities could be gobbled up, or many people would Immigrate to your city on a pilgramage to see the great prophet. Likewise, you could use up (martyr?) your prophet and potentially spark off a golden age. He could maybe have a lifespan of 20 turns, a novel concept!
:A great political leader that drastically lowers corruption in the city he resides. He could be used up by "stealing" gold or a resource from
another civ. Also, if he is captured or bribed (see the "improved espionage" section below) he potentially could start working for somebody else!
:A great scientific leader. He could double science output in the city he resides or be used up to gain a free advance. He too could potentially be captured or bribed by an enemy civ
(my inspiration was the fight to employ German scientist after WWII).

8)Improved espionage. Assasinate enemy leaders. Bribe enemy leaders or units to defect. Try to copy or steal a resource.

9)Revolutions, like the American or timor revolution. Instead of just going into anarchy for awhile when your people grow so unhappy they revolt, the revolting city would actually declare itsself independent and a new civ would appear! The newly formed nation would be one of the same culture group as you that is not already in the game. Perhaps such revolts could be tied heavily to the concept of "individual rights" mentioned above...

10)New resources, techs, units, civs, terrains, wonders, improvements ets. Everyone has ideas of their own about these that are all good, so I don't feel the need to elaborate.

Phew... That's about all, If you're still here.
Sorry, again, for the length of this thread and thanks for sticking through it! I hope you all give me feedback about these ideas, and I would be delighted to here some of yours. Hopefully, at least a few of these will make it into the next installment of Civ....

 

[farting bob]

good ieas, especially ambush attacks. but for number 2, youwould have to say ye or no to every immagrant that wants to come in, but when you have large culture, on a huge map with miles of borders, presumably it would be easier o get 1 population point to defect to you than a whole city, so more would be doing it, you could be geting it 4 or 5 time per turn, and that wold just slow the game down to much.
for number 7, who would you trigger these great leders? in batle, dominating culture, not sure anything would work for science, cause it wouldnt be i your way ahead in tchs, cause then the free techwould be pointles, and it couldnt be anything else.
maybe you should get them in normal battles like other GL's, but when they enter a city, you can chose to change them into whatever GL you want.

 

[Grey Fox]

I would want the units to be better against some units and weak against others.

Like Pikemen are better against Mounted units, like they get 50% defense against them.

Longbowmen get a higher Attack against infantry... maybe...

Well, you get my point.

 

[Gregski]

You seem to have two #4 points! Use the vbcode lists next time... Good ideas though.
As for the first point #4, I often considered this as well. Could be more broad as well, like a sim city thing. Say you enact a rule, you get a benefit at a certain cost, like less corruption/waste or whatever for say 1,2,3 gold / turn / town,city,metro or so.

4/5. We definitely need more units and ways to train them (add HP or ADM points) in my view.

8. Agreed.

9. Would be cool, though we would need very well defined and understood rules and results for this.

10. Goes without saying. Prefer if strategic resources ran out due to overuse as opposed to random timing.

As for the rest, they are good as well.

 

[Dragon67]

Originally posted by Grey Fox
I would want the units to be better against some units and weak against others.

Well, you get my point.

Yeah, I totally agree. A new battlesystem would be great.
Like the navy ex: Destroyers good against subs. Subs good against battleship/transport, and Battleship beats destroyers. Then you have to build up a combination of different units to get a strong navy. As it works now, you just need a huge amount of battleships and you rule the sea.

 

[Quentin]

The equiping idea makes me think of RPGs. Maybe the units could learn magic! Okay that's out of place in a civ game. Maybe elite units could be made to learn or randomly will learn special abilities. I can't think of any right now.

 

[troytheface]

Guerilla idea is great
Machine gunner idea as well, like a hoplite of
the industrerial era
Marines and paratroops should fullfill any special force roles.
Slaves to Criminals to terrorists path could fulfill the "prison" idea
Biplanes to start Flight

 

[wtiberon]

Originally posted by NankingDan

7) New great leaders! My favorite, if least practical idea. Don't even begin to ask me how these new "great leaders" would be created, cause' I have no idea (though I would love feedback)!
:A great religious leader that causes an overwhelming cultural force in the city he resides. Neighboring cities could be gobbled up, or many people would Immigrate to your city on a pilgramage to see the great prophet. Likewise, you could use up (martyr?) your prophet and potentially spark off a golden age. He could maybe have a lifespan of 20 turns, a novel concept!

Perhaps if there were certain events within your empire. One event could be a religious revolution led by a religious leader...for example your domestic advisor pops up..."sir a peasant named Muhammed is leading our other citizens in a Religious revolution." You could have a choice to embrace the revolution and name Muhammed your religious leader....or attempt to stifle the revolution. The chances that Muhammed will join you depends on your Reputation (which could include human rights) however this may not always be an advantage...you'll have to take a chance either way. One disadvantage of having Muhammed as a religious leader (and would only be appliciple in Democracy or Republic Governments) is a diminished capacity to run your empire. The advantage would decrease the number of unhappy citizens in your empire.

 

[farting bob]

elite units should be able to have increse attack or defence when they wi here first battle as elite. so if any elite swordsman won a batlle you couldhave an option to increse it's atack or defence, so instead of 3/2/1, you could have 4/2/1 or 3/3/1. this would only be avalable once per unit, and reset when upgraded.
another idea would be to have a city defence, even when there is no uit in garrison, the cityshould be able to defend itself. the citizens inside could slow down the attack until defences arrive. this would increse with every pop point, but when a city defends itself, if it's successfl, manycitizens would have ied, like starving does. walls and allother defence bonuses could apply.

 

[Turner]

Originally posted by farting bob

another idea would be to have a city defence, even when there is no uit in garrison, the cityshould be able to defend itself. the citizens inside could slow down the attack until defences arrive. this would increse with every pop point, but when a city defends itself, if it's successfl, manycitizens would have ied, like starving does. walls and allother defence bonuses could apply.

I like this. Maybe have increased war weariness too, or in fact, decreased if the town is rather successful at repelling invaders. Kinda like since they're part of the action they get a more patriotic feeling.

 

[taper]

Something I've been thinking of lately is to divide the units into several groups. Close to along era lines, but a little moving back and forth. A unit from the first group would then be unable to attack or defend against a unit from a group two or more levels up. Takes care of that spearman vs. tank issue, and adds a bit of realism. A spearman could defend against any mounted unit, and a mounted unit could attack say, an infantry, but a spearman wouldn't have a chance against the infantry.

 

[Quentin]

Originally posted by taper
Something I've been thinking of lately is to divide the units into several groups. Close to along era lines, but a little moving back and forth. A unit from the first group would then be unable to attack or defend against a unit from a group two or more levels up. Takes care of that spearman vs. tank issue, and adds a bit of realism. A spearman could defend against any mounted unit, and a mounted unit could attack say, an infantry, but a spearman wouldn't have a chance against the infantry.

I really don't like this idea. That something will always win or always lose against something else is simply unfair. There has to be some way to make the "spearman defeats tank" phenomenon less common but yet not totally non-existent. Maybe tanks and the like could have an "armored" quality that makes they're defense double against most units, mounted units could have they're defense halved against infantry units, melee units could have halved defense against ranged attackers, etc.

 

[Pembroke]

This idea was inspired by the "foreign worker prejudice" thread, although I remember reading similar ideas before:

Slave Worker Additional Goodies:

Currently a slave worker comes for free, so let's juice him up a bit. Slave revolts did occur in real history so why not in civ, too? There could be a small percentage change proportional to the number of slave workers that they revolt. It should be _small_ because revolts should not occur too frequently or no-one would use slaves in the game. In a revolt all slave workers would then turn into barbarians (of an appropriate tech level) and start wreaking havoc around your Empire. To compensate this danger the 50% slave efficiency could be dropped entirely.

I also read from the above mentioned thread that keeping slaves causes the former nation of the slave to dislike you. This was news to me and I don't know whether it's really true. Be that as it may I think the dislike effect should not be that simple. 8,000 years of slavery testify that slavery is not necessarily viewed as an evil (unless you are the slave in question, of course ) even if your neighbour has slaves coming from your people. In ancient times slavery was just a fact of life.

However, values and attitudes can change. Therefore there should be a new small wonder: Emancipation. With it you declare slavery an evil and after it can't have slaves any more. It has to be a small wonder, because I think every civ (that wants to) should have to "build" it. After, and only after, a civ has built the Emancipation that civ will automatically dislike (some negative modifier to relations) civs that haven't built it yet. Of course, if you want slaves and don't mind being shunned by others nothing forces you to free your slaves. Just don't whine when your neighbors ally against you.

Captured workers after Emanipation would be POWs. This means that as long as the war lasts you can use them, but when you make peace both sides get their workers back. Disbanding or joining captured workers during the war would be an atrocity. (E.g. Stalin transporting conquered people to some Siberian backwater town.)

An extra level of Emancipation: There could also be an earlier similar small wonder (any good names?) that would forbid you to enslave workers from the same cultural group. This would simulate well the medieval opinion of slavery where Christians didn't (or weren't supposed to...) enslave Christians just like Moslems didn't enslave Moslems, but each happily enslaved people from each other. And, of course, both of them enslaved blacks...

 

[West German]

Originally posted by 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!

Each unit should have a total number of points(example: Knight 9)
and could become 7-1-1 or any other combo of 9. I think this idea is good, but it will make the game very unrealistic.

 

[wtiberon]

Originally posted by West German


Each unit should have a total number of points(example: Knight 9)
and could become 7-1-1 or any other combo of 9. I think this idea is good, but it will make the game very unrealistic.

Its a good idea but you right it would be unrealistic...the whole Idea comes down to production cost...For example (a default knight would cost 70 shields to produce...now if you were to tweak the stats and give it one more attack then that would raise the production exponentially making it 105 shields (70/2 + 70) or something like that...

 

[Turner]

Originally posted by Quentin

Maybe tanks and the like could have an "armored" quality that makes they're defense double against most units, mounted units could have they're defense halved against infantry units, melee units could have halved defense against ranged attackers, etc.

So something like the 'mounted' class in the Civ3/PTW editor. I like it. Bonus for and against each unit type. That could work.

Tying back into Farting Bob's idea. . .maybe have the obsolete unit disband into the town, and become part of the pop (temporarlily or not, it can be hashed out) and the some kind of bonus for it, since you don't have as many 'untrained' people in the city as before the unit was disbanded.

 

[Illustrious]

Originally posted by corgiman
Great Naval Leaders
Elite Naval Units create naval leaders that start armada's or "Great Fleets" that could have either 1) a unit attack/defense of signficant value for the time/technology level of your civ or; 2) be used as a current leader to hurry an improvement.
When they appear on the bridge of the elite unit, to make a fleet or hurry an improvement, they must be brought back to port safely. Would be cool if they could transfer to other ships...

I agree that naval units should be able to produce a variant of Great Leaders. However, I agree with Laser Guided that producing fleets in the same way as land armies isn't necessarily a good idea. Sometimes you need to spread the ships out and cover some territory.

My suggestion is that if you decide not to use a naval GL to rush-build, it instead functions as an "admiral". It can transfer from ship to ship (even ships that can't normally carry units should be able to carry an admiral), and its function is that any of your ships within (say) five tiles of it gain a +25% defence bonus and a ZOC. This simulates the idea that these ships are better able to manoeuvre together and co-ordinate their actions because of having centralised leadership.

Naval Warfare
Naval units should bombard land (as they do now), however, when fighting against one another, their ranged attacks should be lethal. Right now, you have to drive your battleship right up next to whatever your target is. That completely takes the advantage of the battleship (increased range) away.

I agree. When attacking other naval units, don't call it bombardment, make it the actual attack. Perhaps early gunpowder ships (caravels up to frigates) hit at one tile range but stay where they are if they kill; 19th century units (ironclads through pre-dreadnoughts) two tiles; destroyers and cruisers 3 tiles; BBs 4 tiles.

Carriers should be able to carry more units, BUT I wouldn't go much above 8. Remember, each aircraft unit is effectively a squadron (no single aircraft could do so much damage), so an air wing of 8 squadrons is pretty powerful.

And no, you can't put helos on carriers. That one really needs to be sorted out.

Also:

The most sensible change they could make to early naval warfare would be to make galleys work the way Civilopaedia (inaccurately) says they work: never capable of sailing ocean safely, even when you've got Nav and Mag. It really is pathetic that once you've got Navigation any old bathtub can sail the deepest oceans in complete safety.

This would also enable the use later in the game of purely coastal units such as monitors.

BUT the biggest improvement to naval warfare would be to have proper maritime commerce. If all your navy is doing is protecting troopships, it's a shallow mockery of a navy. Give them some shipping routes to defend or attack; give them some coastal trade to interdict; most importantly, make it hurt if you're blockaded.

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by Illustrious
. . . BUT the biggest improvement to naval warfare would be to have proper maritime commerce. If all your navy is doing is protecting troopships, it's a shallow mockery of a navy. Give them some shipping routes to defend or attack; give them some coastal trade to interdict; most importantly, make it hurt if you're blockaded.

YES!!

I posted as much a year ago; of course Firaxis did nothing about it. Naval warfare in Civ 3 is pathetic - and the CRUCIAL role of trade and commerce is far beyond Firaxis' ability to understand.

Privateers and subs were in reality built to atack MERCHANT SHIPPING - not enemy warships. Many hundreds of privateers in the American Revolution were very important to winning that war as it sunk so many British merchant vessels, and caused shipping insurance rates to skyrocket.

But if we had a hundred privateers directly on a trade route in Civ 3 it would NOT effect the rival civ's wealth of shipping at all.

It is nonsense the naval system we got with civ 3, and worse than Civ 2. This is one of the top three problems with the game as far as I'm concerned.


Oh yes. Has anyone from Firaxis responded to this thread? I doubt it.

 

[Zouave]

We had countless long threads discussing a possible Civ 3 after Civ 2 came out. The reality is Firaxis ignored the vast majority of those good ideas, but added some goofy ones of their own. I see no point in spending time on such speculations unless I know the designer of Civ 4 will, this time, pay attention to us.

 

[TheCrusader]

1. secret police like the KGB or Gestopo wher when a city gose into unrest the ppl that revolt will be killed and will be an example to othe citys not to revolt, whil this prevents revolts it can caus ppl to be unhappy and worker efetivness is slightly less

2. death camps! u can send unwanted ppl ther to well get rid of them...

3. the abilty to set up pupit goverments like for ex germany invades france and the curent franch gov is gone and a new gov is instaled which is greatly influenced by germany.
i think of more soon