Independent Civilization ideas

[Takhisis]

Wasn't the Pontus considered pretty wild?
I'm pretty sure the 'Greeks' were a loosely affiliated collection of city-states with marginally more love for each-other than the barbarians?

A bit, but 'Barbarian' back then meant 'non-Greek-speaker'. The Egyptians and Persians were 'barbaroi' but not uncivilised.

But each city state was very independent from each other. It was nothing like later colonialism with a central government.

I was being sarcastic, the Greeks were always at loggerheads with each other. Kinda like now.

I think revolution should also depend on the government, if you have far away colonies but your government is a confederacy there is little chance of rebellion but you have less control over production and taxes. And war wariness is higher.

Yes, government types could have a 'unitarism/federalism' slider.

I have one question I would like to ask about this project:
Will it be better than FreeCiv?

It's the intention. But FreeCiv is a Civ2-based game.

 

[KevinLancaster]

I still find FreeCiv incredibly awkward compared to regular Civ2, though. It still feels like they haven't captured the "spirit" of that game, whatever that could be, even after years of development. Hopefully this project will succeed in doing that with Civ3. Thanks for the answer!

 

[Jorsalfare]

In case inputs still are welcomed, I have some suggestions:

It would be nice if citizen specialists can produce culture - both positive and negative. Also, improvements should have the possibility to have negative impact on production, tax and science. This would IMHO give more variety and choices to the modders/players.

 

[T-mun]

Not sure it has been discussed here: jimmyh, did you think of making this game an open-source project, like 0 a.d. ? This could bring you some help and let the game expand in some direction you wouldn't have thought of. Just a suggestion.

 

[Takhisis]

Make it open source lik Open TTD? Nice, after the basics (such as an in-built cheat that states Takhisis wins all multiplayer games) are set.

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe you could work together with the other programmers in this site, if you want to keep more control of the project.

 

[nick0515]

It's probably a given but as with everything else there should be no limit on the number of barbarian units. Civ 3 only allowes two.

Also land transports should be able to be used by the AI, and a unit that can transport should be allowed to be loaded itself into another transport. Eg: helicopter with ground units inside it loaded onto a boat. There should be specific options for what types of unit can be transported and how many of each. Eg can transport 4 infantry or 2 tanks etc.

For what it's worth I agree with Tak about armies. I think they suck and unbalance the game. Also, for the record they are used by the AI given the right settings, just ask Ares, and I don't mean limiting them to 1 unit only, although that is another method for getting the AI to use them well.

All city sizes should be able to have the wall effect with a graphics change not just level 1 as in regular civ 3. Would be nice eventually if a variety of different buildings could appear on the map as part of the city with different graphics.

Upgrade paths for units should not have to be a one-way linear path. Eg unit A can upgrade to unit B or unit C dependant or not dependant on resources, techs etc.

All graphics should be able to be different for each era, culture group and civilization. Ie as usual no limit is much better. Options to have variation in all terrian overlays like you can with irrigation. Ie. not every mine should look the same even for one civ in a particular era.

Ability to add in new terrain buildings with options for what they do as you can with city improvements. Eg I can add something called fortified manner house that works like a fortress, and gives bonus food and gold.

Units should be able to have multiple AI strategies and the AI use them for both. Eg offensive and artillery flags for tanks.

Well that's enough for now. Hope I didn't repeat already mentioned stuff.

 

[Takhisis]

Maybe we could have cities overflow… I'd really like it if we had cities on both sides of a river or a strait. Instead of placing a bonus resource called 'Eastern Constantinople' and a VP location to force the AI to defend it, you could just have the city grow to the other side of the river/strait/lake and you could use a special action to ferry them across the city. And you'd have to defend both tiles of course!

 

[Quinzy]

Hmm... I have given Civ 5 a go recently, and have found some issues that I really like that would work very well in a game like this.

Purchasing squares/hex's of territory; city states; resource allocation.
All things worthy of consideration.

 

[Bengal Tiger]

Maybe we could have cities overflow… I'd really like it if we had cities on both sides of a river or a strait. Instead of placing a bonus resource called 'Eastern Constantinople' and a VP location to force the AI to defend it, you could just have the city grow to the other side of the river/strait/lake and you could use a special action to ferry them across the city. And you'd have to defend both tiles of course!

Or simply allowing 2 cities to be directly adjacent to each other.

And purchasing tiles(especially in the aftermath of a war, as a concession) sounds great.

 

[nick0515]

I think city states would be great! One of the only features of Civ 5 I liked.

Oh, I liked it how in civ 2 you had partisans appear when you lost a city sometimes. Can't remember exactly how it worked but would be cool to have that in the game at some point.

 

[Takhisis]

Oh, and m-units. They should be completely IN! Special units like an ambassador, a scout, etc. could be 1 unit (i.e. one person) and troops and workers could have many people in them. Formations and such would make it very realistic, a la Rise of Nations.

 

[Moosezilla]

I like the idea of cities next to each other, ala Detroit and Windsor.

 

[Takhisis]

Or Buda+Pest.

 

[Takhisis]

This is a neat idea that could be incorporated without that much fuss: Sea (or River) bridges.

 

[Kyriakos]

Also you could have different fort/barricade gfx for different cultures

 

[Takhisis]

Expanding on that, a little script could enable you to have a different sort of irrigation tied to the culture of each enclave. And so on for most other improvements!

 

[Steph]

Or have a kind of "graphic override".
Example of how it's down in Napoleon Total War
By default, the game engine look for a graphic file like
"Irrigation.png"
Then, if you have a civilization, add the name of the civilization as a prefix/suffix.
Exemple if you play has Britain and the engine can find "Irrigation_Britain.png", then it uses this specific graphic.
If you play as France, and there is no "Irrigation_France.png", then it uses the default graphics.

This way, in the rules, you can enter irrigation only once, but the graphics can be easily made specific to a civilization/culture with no rule changes.

Of you can allow in the rules to have different improvment, each with different bonuses, and then tell what civilization are allowed to build it.

Or have a generic improvment, but give bonus to each civilization, like "agricutural" gives a bonus to farms...

And fo course you can have different improvment levels with different techs...

So many possibilities

 

[Civinator]

Or have a kind of "graphic override".
Example of how it's down in Napoleon Total War
By default, the game engine look for a graphic file like
"Irrigation.png"
Then, if you have a civilization, add the name of the civilization as a prefix/suffix.
Exemple if you play has Britain and the engine can find "Irrigation_Britain.png", then it uses this specific graphic.
If you play as France, and there is no "Irrigation_France.png", then it uses the default graphics.

This way, in the rules, you can enter irrigation only once, but the graphics can be easily made specific to a civilization/culture with no rule changes.

Of you can allow in the rules to have different improvment, each with different bonuses, and then tell what civilization are allowed to build it.

Or have a generic improvment, but give bonus to each civilization, like "agricutural" gives a bonus to farms...

And fo course you can have different improvment levels with different techs...

So many possibilities

Yes, great suggestions.

 

[Balthasar]

I like Steph's idea too. Nice way to maximize graphic choices with minimal necessary input. I hope Steph is looking for ways to incorporate some (any) of these ideas into his editor as well...