If you could improve Civ 4 in any way, how would you do it?

Here's a thought experiment. In my line of work, I get to do a few of them.

Let's do this one for fun. :)

If you could improve Civ 4 in any way that you wished (gameplay, mechanics, graphics, anything at all). What would you do? And I don't mean by modding. If you were Firaxis and were doing a reboot of Civ 4, what would you correct/improve/retain?

I'm sure we all have good ideas. Let's see what we come up with, shall we?

I'll start:

1. I would have a mechanism where you can send food to a starving city
2. I would have a requirement that stacks in the field needed logistical supply to be at full strength

There's two. Let fly! :)

Your #2 above, for sure, and:

A mechanism whereby cities are not the best places to mount a defense after, say, gunpowder. Medieval cities were often strongholds against enemy attack, but in the last several hundred years, the majority of significant battles did not have cities as their battlegrounds.
 
Make the UN more in-depth. More resolutions, more diplomatic options (like bribing AIs to support resolutions and stuff).
 
Armies. Ala Call to Power 2, I would directly implement the same system.

Enough said.
 
All good ideas from the above honorable posters (We'll table the dreaded hex vs square issue for now) :).

I'd like to see a vast improvement of processing TT's, especially on huge + maps.

What my drool factor would be is to allow select modcomps from various modders on these boards, instead of only being allowed to have one mod active.
 
What my drool factor would be is to allow select modcomps from various modders on these boards, instead of only being allowed to have one mod active.

Lemon made a compiled core dll with another mod added to better BAT AI for me once.

I've been :love: ever since.
 
I'd like to see -

1. More Civilisations. There's already a good number but a few more fleshed out Civs would be great. Notable absentees include Poland, Sweden, Great Zimbabwe, An Aboriginal and/or Polynesian civ and perhaps some other American native civs: Olmec, Zapotec.

2. Better colony mechanics. I know that colonisation isn't a feature of every game (only really being a major component in Terra and Earth maps) but I think it could be improved. Perhaps you could place a building or unit on tiles to extract the resource without needing a full city. Perhaps your colonies could build up desire for independence instead of you just choosing when and whom to set free. There seems to be very little benefit to setting them free also. You'll lose a lot of research and income.

3. Make sure each civ has at least two leaders. It's unfair that a couple of civs - England, France and America - have three leaders, offering a host of different playstyles, whereas the likes of the Vikings and Aztecs only have one.
 
Lemon made a compiled core dll with another mod added to better BAT AI for me once.

I've been :love: ever since.

She is a compiling Goddess now, isn't she :D

Actually, what I would really love is to be able to have 5 or 6 of my favorite modcomps in one mod. Of all the mods I've played, only one or two come close to what my "dream mod" would be.
 
There is one way for me and that is make the Ai even better.
The cosmetic stuff is a blip on the radar compared to opponent AI.
 
I think the later game can be improved by being less static. There are already mods that include revolutions and collapses (like RFC of course). I think the only fundamental problem with civIV is how the snowball effect can easily become unstoppable, where in real life, over-expanded empires generally fall. It is far too difficult and rare in civIV to have your empire collapse, its generally only early game before currency and alpha.
 
I think the later game can be improved by being less static. There are already mods that include revolutions and collapses (like RFC of course). I think the only fundamental problem with civIV is how the snowball effect can easily become unstoppable, where in real life, over-expanded empires generally fall. It is far too difficult and rare in civIV to have your empire collapse, its generally only early game before currency and alpha.

Hmnn, that's actually a good observation. Other than Forbidden Palace and Versailles, there is no governmental building assisting in reducing rev's and empire collapse in base BTS. Especially if you are playing on Huge + or greater size maps.
 
trading techs seems to easy and often and the ai is always at the same level for each civ. instead of some gimmieys and tough &*^&&*$#
 
Here are some thoughts:

1. To make expansion slower (and more realistic)
Make expansion harder. For instance, increase the cost of producing settlers or limiting the number of settlers (maximum one active).
Make improvements more difficult – it could be by making them take longer, by costing money (each improvement would cost X) or reducing the worker movement speed.
Bulding units should have a negative impact on the city population. For early units, the city would reduce one in population each time one unit is produced.


2. Units correction
Guided Missiles have ‘lethal’ abilities. That makes no sense for me. Either from a realistic point of view as from a game point of view.
Change\Reduce the maximum colateral damage made by Catapults\Artilllery\Bombers, etc. I like the idea and I think that having colateral damage is a great way of trying to reduce those SoD’s, but I think that the maximum damage that they can do is exagerated. I also would make those units more vulnerable to being attacked (-50% when defending for instance).


3. Resources
I would limit the use of the resources. With 1 iron you can build infinite number of units. Don’t have a clear idea on how to implement this one, but I do think that it is unrealistic. Maybe it could be done like this: you could build any unit but iron would reduce the’hammer’ cost. For instance, to build one sword (which would cost much more than today), you could get a discount for each iron resource you owned (could be something like 20% for 1; 30% for 2; 35% for 3; 40% for 4 or more).
I lke the Corporation system because it makes the surplus resources available but there should be an early version of Corporations (Guilds for instance), to create ‘greed’ over resources. The control of resources were (and are!) the source of many disputes, so I would like a system where controlling more and more resources would give extra advantages.


4. Others
I also like the hex system more. I would say that it’s not a big issue for me, but I would prefer it
Off course the spying should be changed somehow. The minimum would be to make the Civic or religion change MUCH more expensive.
I would GREATLY increase the cost of each tech. It seems that the Era's go too fast, there is little time to enjoy the uniqueness of each tech.

Better even - it should be be possible to choose different speeds for different items! This way each player could choose their own. My settings would be:
* Marathon for Techs
* Marathon for Golden Age Duration :)D)
* Normal speed for building buildings (and projects, I guess)
* Normal speed for building military units
* Marathon speed for building Settlers and Workers
* Marathon speed for workers building improvements (and why not?)


.
 
Luthor_Saxburg,

I think your ideas to make expansion slower would utterly kill the game. Especially the units take city population mechanic. Far too draconian.

Regards
 
Small change related to Luthor Saxburg's post: I think archers/longbows should have more power in the field. Now, people only use them as city defense. In real life medieval times, longbowmen were quite powerful, being able to pierce armor and having an extraordinary range. I guess maybe something like the artillery mechanic in Road to War where the archers would automatically participate in the battle as supporting units. They would causing significant damage without actually participating in the 1v1 melee, like how archers worked in real life. To counter this, they should be able to be flanked, like siege weapons.

This would allow the field power of siege weapons to be reduced, without letting megastacks be OP
 
Small change related to Luthor Saxburg's post: I think archers/longbows should have more power in the field. Now, people only use them as city defense. In real life medieval times, longbowmen were quite powerful, being able to pierce armor and having an extraordinary range. I guess maybe something like the artillery mechanic in Road to War where the archers would automatically participate in the battle as supporting units. They would causing significant damage without actually participating in the 1v1 melee, like how archers worked in real life. To counter this, they should be able to be flanked, like siege weapons.

This would allow the field power of siege weapons to be reduced, without letting megastacks be OP

I think this is a great idea. I've always thought that archers/longbows should be useful outside of cities.
 
To represent the historical power of mounted archery horse archers should do max 10% collateral damage on offense.
 
Longbows are not that bad outside cities, with their 25% bonus defense on hills + 1 first strike. Lowest hammer cost also.
Well if they would be even more useful..they are already the most op city defenders ;)
 
Haven't thought through the implications for gameplay, but to me it would seem more logical that your army wouldn't burn down religious buildings of your own state religion when you capture cities.

Speaking of not burning down buildings, I'd boost protective by giving them a slightly higher chance of keeping buildings when capturing cities. For example increase odds of keeping buildings from 66% to 80% (=40% less likely to lose the building). It would give protective leaders an ability useful for offense, which fits the theme of PRO.
 
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