I'm a lifelong Civ player going all the way back to Civ I and, for me, this franchise and what it tries to model is the best game of all time. That said, like alot of people, I was underwhelmed and, frankly, disappointed when I played my first game of Civ 5. It seemed very watered down and lacked the "depth" that has always made Civilization thee game. The graphics and everything were terrific, but the game play seemed boring. I read a post on here that tried to explain CivV vs CivIV from a physiological perspective (i.e. dopamine release) and how every turn mattered more in CivIV and the computer AI was more aggressive and smarter. In CivV, the computer doesn't even bother to colonize other continents or develop navies it seems.
Anyway, since the last patch the gameplay seems improved and there's some promising modpacks out there that make the game more interesting and much better, but I'd still love to see the following aspects re-integrated into CivV to make the game more multi-dimensional and funner on more levels:
* Replace "social policies" with "government laws" ... it seems weird not to have governments. It makes more sense to pick government types and within those adopt laws that yield various benefits (and/or penalties). The social policies screen is great and so could work well for picking laws within different categories (economic, social, military, education, etc.). There should be lots of possible laws to choose from (maybe 10-20 instead of the 5 or so currently available under each social policy category) and require much less "legislation points" to unlock them than the current cultural points required to unlock social policies. I do like the idea that they're branched, though, and certain laws could only be picked if certain pre-requisite laws were previously unlocked at some point as well as some laws could only be unlocked after a certain age and/or tech was reached.
* Culture should work more like it did in CivIV ... that is, instead of leading to social policies (which should be changed to government laws) culture should impact borders, causing them to sway back and forth between players and even cities can be swayed to switch civilizations if culture is influential enough; also, even though culture wouldn't be used to directly adopt social policies, extra culture points could be
"spent" on legislation points for a penalty (say, trade-in 50 culture points for 25 legislation points that could be used to 'hurry' a new law, for example)
* Bring back religion ... how can there not be religions? I liked how CivIV had different religions available but instead of treating them like a tech that you research, have them be discovered or revealed via "ruins" (ancient religions) or "holy resource icons" (modern religions). For more modern religions, certain techs would have to be known to see the holy resource icons (but don't make it just a matter of researching a tech to gain a religion like CivIV). Depending on the age you're in, resource bonuses would be gained by building improvements on the sacred location (tent > temple > church > cathedral > megachurch) each with progressively more happiness, coin, and culture points. Also, you should be able to build priests and evangelicals that can spread your religion to other cities within your empire as well as outside (with open borders, until internet is researched in which case even closed borders would not defend from it) whereby the more cities that have a church for your religion the more happiness, coin, and culture you earn. But, be careful, there should be "skeptics" that other nations could buy (with the right tech) to counter your religion you spread that leads to diplomacy penalties. Conversely, you could build/buy skeptic units and station them in your cities to protect against foreign religious influences. You could earn a science bonus for every foreign cleric they intercept. Finally, like culture, religion points produced from your religious buildings and units could be converted and spent on legislation points. They could also be spent to improve relations with other nations that endorse your religion(s). Though, only have about 10 based religions to go around. Don't make there be so many like CivIV. Make it so it might - or might not - be ok for multiple players to share the same religion(s) as well as a happiness penalty for a nation that has too many itself.
* Bring back health points ... just like CivIV ... sigh ... required for growth
* Bring back corporations ... similar to how CivIV did it and similar to the religious concept above; could only operate within open borders, granting production and coin bonuses, but decrease health through pollution; corporations can produce more legislation points with lobbyist units
* Make the computer AI smarter when it comes to battles. It seems like they just move around "randomly" with no purpose
Anyway, since the last patch the gameplay seems improved and there's some promising modpacks out there that make the game more interesting and much better, but I'd still love to see the following aspects re-integrated into CivV to make the game more multi-dimensional and funner on more levels:
* Replace "social policies" with "government laws" ... it seems weird not to have governments. It makes more sense to pick government types and within those adopt laws that yield various benefits (and/or penalties). The social policies screen is great and so could work well for picking laws within different categories (economic, social, military, education, etc.). There should be lots of possible laws to choose from (maybe 10-20 instead of the 5 or so currently available under each social policy category) and require much less "legislation points" to unlock them than the current cultural points required to unlock social policies. I do like the idea that they're branched, though, and certain laws could only be picked if certain pre-requisite laws were previously unlocked at some point as well as some laws could only be unlocked after a certain age and/or tech was reached.
* Culture should work more like it did in CivIV ... that is, instead of leading to social policies (which should be changed to government laws) culture should impact borders, causing them to sway back and forth between players and even cities can be swayed to switch civilizations if culture is influential enough; also, even though culture wouldn't be used to directly adopt social policies, extra culture points could be
"spent" on legislation points for a penalty (say, trade-in 50 culture points for 25 legislation points that could be used to 'hurry' a new law, for example)
* Bring back religion ... how can there not be religions? I liked how CivIV had different religions available but instead of treating them like a tech that you research, have them be discovered or revealed via "ruins" (ancient religions) or "holy resource icons" (modern religions). For more modern religions, certain techs would have to be known to see the holy resource icons (but don't make it just a matter of researching a tech to gain a religion like CivIV). Depending on the age you're in, resource bonuses would be gained by building improvements on the sacred location (tent > temple > church > cathedral > megachurch) each with progressively more happiness, coin, and culture points. Also, you should be able to build priests and evangelicals that can spread your religion to other cities within your empire as well as outside (with open borders, until internet is researched in which case even closed borders would not defend from it) whereby the more cities that have a church for your religion the more happiness, coin, and culture you earn. But, be careful, there should be "skeptics" that other nations could buy (with the right tech) to counter your religion you spread that leads to diplomacy penalties. Conversely, you could build/buy skeptic units and station them in your cities to protect against foreign religious influences. You could earn a science bonus for every foreign cleric they intercept. Finally, like culture, religion points produced from your religious buildings and units could be converted and spent on legislation points. They could also be spent to improve relations with other nations that endorse your religion(s). Though, only have about 10 based religions to go around. Don't make there be so many like CivIV. Make it so it might - or might not - be ok for multiple players to share the same religion(s) as well as a happiness penalty for a nation that has too many itself.
* Bring back health points ... just like CivIV ... sigh ... required for growth
* Bring back corporations ... similar to how CivIV did it and similar to the religious concept above; could only operate within open borders, granting production and coin bonuses, but decrease health through pollution; corporations can produce more legislation points with lobbyist units
* Make the computer AI smarter when it comes to battles. It seems like they just move around "randomly" with no purpose
