Ideas for enhancing "A Brave New World"

[quidpronihilo]

I suggest to PLEASE replace the awful voice dubbing in Spanish Isabella has in the game. No emotions, dull and boring! Spaniards are known to put a lot of passion when speaking, she sounds so awful!

 

[Gucumatz]

I suggest to PLEASE replace the awful voice dubbing in Spanish Isabella has in the game. No emotions, dull and boring! Spaniards are known to put a lot of passion when speaking, she sounds so awful!

For Isabella it sounds fine... Sort of like how some people complain about Maria Theresa's voice . It sounds elegant - Perhaps a little elitist, but makes sense for Isabella and Theresa. No idea what you are complaining about here

 

[Sporally]

We are definately getting closer and closer to having all the features of Civ4. Yes, I believe Civ5 is better, but still missing a few things from Civ4:

1) Health (and health disasters like the black plague hitting a city or area)
2) Events (like the mentioned plague)
3) Slavery (would fit nicely with the World Congress as you could vote against it): Could work simular to Civ4, but also have a diplomatic impact, espcially the further into the game you come. Bad impact for civs of order but most bad impact on civs with freedom. Besides rushing buildings and units, you should also be able to just increase your production for each turn - think black people in the states before they were liberated.
4) More leaders for each civ: Based on a few observations I think they originally planned to include more leaders for each civ, but many opinions have changed in the last 3 years I really hope we will see this soon as I would like some great leaders from civs I know rather than civs I don't know. Each leader could have their own UU or UB, while the other UU or UB coule be civ-specific. You could even have a unique UA for each leader. Take England:
George IV (i think): Longbowmen
Elizabeth: Don't know, but there should be something to pick for her
Victoria: Man-o-war
Churchill: Spitfire
Their unique unit for the civ could for instance be the red coats (if they really were famous).
This could really be great if you ask me!

I've often thought about new features for an expansion pack, and here are a few ideas

1) Highway: Connect cities and gain a gold bonus (simular to railroad gives you production). Could be further improved if the city had a parking house (can't remember if that has been available before, but I guess it was Civ2 or Civ3 that allowed highway as a city improvement.

2) Fusion plant (no risk of breakdown compared to a fission plant)

3) Electric grid: My bess idea...
Coal power: One city / Pollution / Consumes coal
Oil refinerary: One city / Pollution / Consumes oil
Solar plant: One city / Needs desert
Wind mills: One city / Needs hills or water / Expensive (for instance)
Fission plant: Three cities / Needs water / Risc of breakdown / Consumes uranium
Fusion plant: Three cities
Now, if you were to build a fission or fusion plant, you could connect the cities via an electric grid. This way you could have only one plant for every three city. If you build more you would have surplus and could sell it to other civs (through the new trading system) or you could have it as a backup in case someone were to cut your grid.

4) Unions / federations: Simular to the World Congress we get, but now I'm pretty sure we'll never get them for Civ5. You should be able to build a national wonder that gives you the possibility to create an union / federation. From an option menu you could set up a handful of laws:
a) Leader selection (choose "Leader for lifetime" or "Elected leader" where you can select to vote every 5, 10, 20 or 50 turn)
b) New members selection (choose "Leader decides", "50% vote", "Anomious decision" or "Creator decides")
c) Policy selection (same as above)
d) Resolution selection (go to war, force peace among members, etc. - choose between the above mentioned)
e) Members leave ("Ignoring decision", "Leader decides", "50% vote", "Anomious decision" or "Creator decides")
f) Ignoring decision ("Kicked out of union" or "Not possible")

You could come up with more ideas, but the thing is that you can create any union you would like. Make an "European Union" with open borders and trade bonuses or create a "Soviet Union" with common policies based on the order policy for instance. After creating your union / federation you could ask others to join, they could ask you to become a candidate (and be full member through the given rules of member selection, or you could force other civs into your union (attack and settle the war with a demand for a union).

5) Independence: Possibility for your cities to revolt when angry. This would create partisans and for every turn there should be a small risk of they declearing independence. If they do so, a new Civ appears in the game, and they start up with anything from 1 to all but one of your cities (depending on the extention of the unhappiness). Think america - England exploited them and they revolted and finally decleared independence. Independence is an important thing in the world, and so it should be in Civilization 5. If you were at war, your enemy would be likely to ally the newly created civilization (think America and France again), and you could try and take it back or settle for peace and get the extra happiness.
Furthermore, civilizations not able to leave an union could declear independence from you (think Balticum in the Soviet Union)

6) Create colonies: Possible with the new african scenario. Create miniture cities to achieve slaves or increase trade. Possibility to enter a colonial war with another civ where cities are "immune".

Then you certainly will be upset when culture flipping gives away your only source of oil to the enemy. Have fun in your upcoming wars my friend. May they be plentiful. Anyway I am just joking it struck me funny is all. I hate culture flipping and would not care to lose my wonder to an earthquake, but I would grumble a bit and live with it.

Has anyone mentioned anything about culture flipping?

I suggest to PLEASE replace the awful voice dubbing in Spanish Isabella has in the game. No emotions, dull and boring! Spaniards are known to put a lot of passion when speaking, she sounds so awful!

... and Harald Bluetooth! He just sounds too much like a 35 year old desk clerk playing role playing games in the woods on his sundays Be glad you aren't danish and have to listen to that..

 

[Sporally]

Feel free to comment on what you think about these changes

 

[blackcatatonic]

Well for starters, George IV having Longbowmen is all kinds of wrong historically. Besides, George IV was actually pretty useless. Edward III or Henry V would be the classic leaders to have a Longbowmen UU - and I actually think it would be really, really neat for England to have a medieval leader.

That aside, I don't think multiple leaders is ever going to happen in CiV, and I for one like it that way. It's far, far too big a change for an expansion pack. I don't think I could rule out them bringing them back for Civ VI, but I really love how the leaders look in CiV and somehow I just can't see them putting in that kind of effort or more to create multiple leaders for every Civ in Civ VI. Put another way: I think that multiple leaders for Civ VI would come at the detriment of the leader screen quality we've come to expect from CiV, and that would make me sad.

 

[mitsho]

1) Health will not be in. They would have announced it. Anyways, you'd need a good gameplay reason. Also, negative events will not be in (as they are mostly a hassle)
2) I suggest you take a look at the GEM mod which introduces Events/Opportunities. The thing is, they'd need to spin them positively (remember, negative = hassle and unfun) and that may impact game balance. Also, what would they bring to the table besides immersion/flavour?
3) Slavery is controversial and they chose to set these things aside in civ5. Again, what's the gameplay effect? That is the important thing.
4) Leaders are the most time consuming thing of creating a new civ. They won't include secondary ones for existing civs because of that. Also, the civs in 5 are heavily customized, so that it wouldn't change much. Also if you add Unique Units, why wouldn't you want them be available in each game?

All the other points: Again, nice for flavour, but you need a thought out gameplay effect for these new systems to make sense. Also, less is often more, so do we really need all this stuff? Remember, civ5 is not a simulation, but a game.

 

[blackcatatonic]

On the subject of the voice acting: I don't like Isabella's voice, but I think it suits the AI personality quite well (whiny and huffy). I only understand English, French and Spanish, so can't comment on any of the others (people have commented on how it's strange that Napoleon 'tutoyes' but I think that suits his arrogant personality quite well).

I find it really jarring that Ramses speaks Arabic, though. I wish they would fix that. I'm pretty confident they won't, however.

 

[Sporally]

Well for starters, George IV having Longbowmen is all kinds of wrong historically. Besides, George IV was actually pretty useless. Edward III or Henry V would be the classic leaders to have a Longbowmen UU - and I actually think it would be really, really neat for England to have a medieval leader.

That aside, I don't think multiple leaders is ever going to happen in CiV, and I for one like it that way. It's far, far too big a change for an expansion pack. I don't think I could rule out them bringing them back for Civ VI, but I really love how the leaders look in CiV and somehow I just can't see them putting in that kind of effort or more to create multiple leaders for every Civ in Civ VI. Put another way: I think that multiple leaders for Civ VI would come at the detriment of the leader screen quality we've come to expect from CiV, and that would make me sad.

Yeah ok, I guess I was actually talking about Henry V Historical accuracy isn't always my very best side in all aspect.

It depends on what expectations you have from such a change. I REALLY like the animations of Civ5 aswell, but I don't expect them to drop that. First of, "all leaders" was never mentioned, but more like top 4-5 leaders to begin with, and if it becomes a success they could add some more. To me it doesn't really matter THAT MUCH if we get a new civ or new leader. OK, rather a new civ than a leader, but rather 5 new leaders than 3 new civs to be honorst They could drop them as DLCs since I have a feeling they don't dare releasing them in an expansion as some people seem to want new civs. But with all animations that we currently have and people would put some hapiness in getting new leaders rather than civs, I think this would be easily implementet.

I do see your concern if it's on the behalf of good animation and comprehensive discussion on UA, UU, UB and UI, but that's no different than adding a new civilization.

1) Health will not be in. They would have announced it. Anyways, you'd need a good gameplay reason. Also, negative events will not be in (as they are mostly a hassle)
2) I suggest you take a look at the GEM mod which introduces Events/Opportunities. The thing is, they'd need to spin them positively (remember, negative = hassle and unfun) and that may impact game balance. Also, what would they bring to the table besides immersion/flavour?
3) Slavery is controversial and they chose to set these things aside in civ5. Again, what's the gameplay effect? That is the important thing.
4) Leaders are the most time consuming thing of creating a new civ. They won't include secondary ones for existing civs because of that. Also, the civs in 5 are heavily customized, so that it wouldn't change much. Also if you add Unique Units, why wouldn't you want them be available in each game?

All the other points: Again, nice for flavour, but you need a thought out gameplay effect for these new systems to make sense. Also, less is often more, so do we really need all this stuff? Remember, civ5 is not a simulation, but a game.

1) Probably right. Guess it was mostly some wishful thinking Hassle - don't we need a hassle sometimes? I would call it a good gameplay reason, but depends on what you think is a good reason. Not exactly necessary to have a victory condition for it if you ask me, but still...
2) Would definately thing a hassle could be fun - at least if you make it optional at game start Some events are totally random while events would only hit the biggest civilizations and thereby level the game a bit. Essentiel thing in the world history, you can ask the minorians about that Like things officiel to be sure everything is balanced, but I like options the best as long as they are officielt. Mods are a good idea thoigh
3) Controversiel yes, but they implemented it in Civ4, so I figure they could implement it in Civ5 aswell. It could be as important as any other social policy in the game.
4) Today you don't have all the uniques in the game at the same point. Playing at the largest map doesn't give you all unique units and civilizations at the same time. I don't really see why anyone would hate to play a leader of a civilization that already exist. If both the UU1 and UA are changed you almost have a whole new civilization - what's the difference then? New civilization icon, color and UU2 / UB / UI in case you choose to have one common unique. Everything else has changed. I would consider that close to being as good as a new civilization, and unless you live in a country not represented in the game I don't see why anyone would want a civilization they've never heard of rather than a leader from a great nation they know. The argument with people living in countries of barely known civilization is the only reason they would want more in my eyes - which is fair and why new leaders only isn't the final solution but a supplement.

Hey, I'm not talking a whole expansion based only on health, events and slavery, just some changes along the lines of the new trade system, which doesn't directly lead you towards a victory condition. Just a larger change. Is that one a waste of time?

It's a good point that less is more. We don't need a simulation, no, but I would cheer for any flavour that would make the game more historically realistic while not breaking the game mecanism. Religion could be left out forever, but that was more and gave it a nice flavour. The more advanced you make the game while still being easy for beginners to get into, the harder it would be to consider yourself an expect on the game and the better I find it. Just don't make it Victoria-like. Good game, but too much simulation I can agree on that. That's why I prefer Civ

 

[Laokong]

Though I am thrilled with many features announced for BNW (especially trade routes and ideologies), I am worried that adding a new layer of complexity to the game as-it-is will only make it more dysfunctional.

AI Improvement
Frankly, I'd rather see Firaxis invest more energy, time and money to fix some basic flaws with the AI than to graft new features on a faulty engine. At this point in the development of the game I would have expected that the most egregious tactical and strategic mistakes by the AI would have become a thing of the past. Yet, defenseless seaborne units and exposed ranged or great people units are still common sights. As long as as the "I" in AI doesn't get beefed up AI CIVs will remain dependent on production/gold bonuses to be competitive. These bonuses tend to create behaviors like perma-war, rabid units proliferation, humongous treasuries or ridiculously fast tech advances that I find frustrating/annoying (I usually play Emperor or Immortal else it's too easy) and which have led me to repeatedly leave the game aside for months in between updates or expansions (never happened when I was playing CIV I-IV). I understand that the move to 1UpT (which I enjoy) constitutes a challenge for computing compared to just stacking units, but I think there is still much improvement to be done here before adding new features.

Major changes
- Further tweaking of diplomacy to make peace more valuable. Hopefully, international trade and the Congress will encourage AIs to end pointless conflicts, but other mechanisms (war weariness?) may be needed.
- Make "Terran Maps" an interesting game environment by tweaking the size/shape of the Old World continent, accelerating open sea movement and providing some incentives to settle to New World. The new "Exploration" social policy is intriguing, but I think we'll have to wait for a full "Colonization" expansion
- An option to make combat between two human players "turn-based" instead of the current, ineffective and frustrating, click-fest.
- Improve survivability of culturally-oriented AIs on larger maps (focusing on 1-3 cities early in the game often results in rapid demise on anything else than Standard-sized maps).

Minor improvements
- "Recon" action (i.e. creating a turn-long line of sight over the recon'ed area) for air units.
- "Can Move After Attacking" promotion for all submarines, currently they're sitting ducks or kamikaze, especially in multiplayer settings.
- Diplomatic option to trade world maps between CIVs.
- Allow civil units to go through neutral/allied military units.
- Prevent new citizens from becoming automatically unemployed under certain city production preferences.

Bug Fixes
- Fix a bug that allows for 2 allied CS to remain at war or give the option to broker peace between two warring CS when their patrons are no longer at war.
- Fix a bug that leads a CIV to declare war on a recently eliminated CIV (usually as a result of an agreement to enter war after x turns)

 

[BrentH]

1. Add: an information age naval melee unit (stealth destroyer)

2. Rename: the machine gun (Great War) to the maxim gun

3. Add: a modern (WW2) ranged unit (machine gun) and an information age ranged unit (?)

4. Remove: the marine (frivolous unit)

5. Remove: the minuteman (unsatisfactory American UU)

6. Add: a buffed marine UU for America (replaces infantry)

7. Change: India's UA into something useful pertaining to religion

 

[blackcatatonic]

Laokong gives a pretty effective summary of the problems of the AI as it stands.

When Gods and Kings came out, they introduced some changes to make peace with the AI more viable - DoFs needed for research agreements and so on. But as the AI still wasn't good enough at playing the game peacefully, they decided they needed to beef up its aggressiveness all over again with the fall patch.

I'm still hoping that the new trade and commerce mechanics will make the usual descent into an endless war pattern less likely. But I'm not holding my breath.

 

[BSPollux]

Some of the natural wonders are actualy man made, or better: man defined. Like all the holy sites. They are not holy by nature, but men decided to make them holy. Therefor: constructable natural wonders!

Like you construct 'Holy mountain' and it turns one normal mountain to a holy mountain on the map and gives it the tyle yield

 

[Sporally]

@Laokong
Important that they improve on this, and they might, but I guess not since that would be an thing that's probably would have been announced by now. But to be realistic - this would never come as a stand-alone expansion. Either they should do it in a fix update or as part of an expansion, but announcing it wouldn't get people to buy it. Just too difficult to do promotions on it.
Just like this one is important I also consider it important that Firaxis spent some time updating their DLCs to work with G&K and BNW when it is released. You pay money for something but it doesn't get updated. I never played the Korean scenario and one more because the G&K-expansion was announced. Now I only get the civs and the three wonders for the game. OK, I admit getting these civs/wonders into the standard game is the main reason I bought it, but still.. Wonders of the ancient world is the best scenario, and I would really like to play that again with the 100HP feature of G&K at least.

 

[lp_04]

Why not to have some more relation with the natural world, I mean, the maps could have mountains, plains and seas related to a Geotectonic padron (specific of that map). The forests, rivers, lakes... would be generated according to the mountain/plain/sea destribution. Furthermore, weet/arid/cold/hot climates would appear associated to coordenates but to the geotectonics as well. This idea gives te option of creating "natural events" (and other events could be created IMO) related to the climate, geology and geotectonics. The game would become more dynamic if the resource followed a certain rule like stone near geotectonic frontiers (or something else, it's just an example and not even a accurate one). Then, the paces where vulcanos or tsunamis are more frequent will be the places with more resources and people would search for that places. Of course that the geotectonic/climate map wouldn't be visible, but after some years (maby with a pre-industrial technology, "Geology") you could really see that map and go to a screen with "chanes of vulcanism", "chances of earthquake", "chances of flood"... and the capacity of the city to control the natural disaster (related to buildings).

It's just a small idea

 

[micbucci]

I think the inclusion of Corporations would be an excellent addition and would help reinvigorate the series much like Civ IV. It adds a whole new layer of gameplay and helps make use of useless late game resources like horses and iron which I seem to always have an abundance of. Since there may be those who oppose this idea then at least make it optional for those who dislike Corporations. There currently is a Corporations mod for Civ V which I would recommend to anyone looking for that Corporations "fix". Still though, I really want to see Corporations be included in the BNW expansion.

 

[Securion]

How about fixing Multiplayer, making the AI smarter and adding some nice Diplomacy options?

Kinda what we have asked for for years now.

 

[anandus]

A little idea just had:
Maybe introduce relics, the religion-equivalent of Great Works.
With religious building having one or more spots and maybe Great Saints (or something) that can make a relic (eg Shroud, Hair of the Beard, Tooth, etc.)

 

[Luckystrike77]

No but seriously, please make automated trade units not add 30 seconds to the turn times please.

More to do per turn is only positive. The worst thing is to just sit there ending turn and ending turn with almost nothing to do, decissions to make.

 

[Sporally]

@Lp_04: Sounds like a big deal of work, but very realistic and interesting. I also like that you don't know anything before you research geology. Build next to a mountain and gain your science from observatory, but see it explode as a vulcano the turn before you finish your observatory
@Micbucci: Prices need to go up - simply too much money at the end game.
@Anandus: Definately me, as long as we keep it realistic and not like magic (sorry, meant "religious miracles" ).

How about fixing Multiplayer, making the AI smarter and adding some nice Diplomacy options?

What kind of diplomatic options? I would like the unions / federations as mentioned. I really like how it seems they've changed WC since Civ4, but even better if you could make these for just a handful of civs and control it as you want (if anyone would join freely).



Furthermore, I have also thought about these ideas:

Expeditionary force
Global warming [Civ2]
Global view [Civ4]
Nuke attachments

• Rockets (only work if a nuke is attached) [short range]
• ICBM (only work if a nuke is attached) [long range]
• Bomber (+ B52 bomber)
• Strealth bomber
• Nuclear submarine
• Strealth fighter??

This way you can build several nukes and use them as you want, but you need to find a way to deliver them.

 

[SMA333M]

There are some small things they should change/add... like:

- the option to choose in each era to stop the game; maybe I want to play starting in Medieval era and stop in Renaissance (just saying). I want this especially because of the "sci fi" units. I want to be able to play without them, when I feel like it, without having to change the files...

- I was always wondering: why is there a notification that says a city population increased... but it's only until level 5 (or so). It should announce us even when population reached 20 or so. I find that useful for my way of playing.

- I want Recon mission back (for fighters); just like in Civ 4

- I think missionaries and prophets shouldn't disappear after you spread religion; instead of having to keep recruiting them, they should just use belief every time you use them and they should be a permanent unit

- there should be no limit on how many civilian units you can have on a hex; 10 workers on same hex won't make a stack of doom or something; also, civilian units should ignore military units (unless at war or barbarians)... they should be able to stop anywhere on map, even if there is an unit from another civ there

- a new Carrier... for Modern Era; I mean, they added robots lol... why is so hard to add a Modern Carrier (which will be much better as a unit in Civ than robots and XCOM units pf). Also a way to level up them and some useful promotions (advanced sight, anti air, etc)

- a new future era "melee" ship, since there is none... aka an upgrade for Destroyer... again, better and more important than robots.......

- new diplomatic options... like the option to ask AI (or other human players) to remove units from your borders.

- maybe promotions for Generals / Admirals... that would be something (check heroes from Endless Space)

- maybe a Stealth Fighter (like F117 - bomber) or a new type of bomber which can destroy improvements and buildings in cities

- maybe an option to actually use Satellites (after you get the tech) ... like "Reveal Area"... revealing the area you want for several turns, for some gold (I mean, without the fog... so you can actually see units, etc).

- make the AI have a balanced army - ground troops, aircraft, warships... they tend to do things like building too many warships and too few airplanes. also improve the way they use aircraft / anti-air

- make the AI defend units better.. like ranged units, carriers, artillery... maybe introduce "formations"... so you can actually move your army with 1 click, keeping the speed and formation. Maybe this way, the AI will know how to protect certain units too.

- maybe random events... why not ? all 4x games got random events and Civ 4 BTS was great with them.

- make the game work faster... no more 2 minutes turn time please (future era); that kills the game.

- unit changes: Battleship should upgrade to Missile cruiser OR Missile Cruiser should ask for Aluminium.... OR both. Chariot should upgrade all the way to Machine Gun; Machine Gun shouldn't upgrade to Mech Infantry