I know that this might be haughty, but I developed a full religion system when the "player's suggestions" topic was open on apolyton for Civ 3. (year ago
)
Anyway, my friend and I had a conversation how should CIV 4 look like and finally agreed that we should make our own CIV, as Firaxis will blow it again.
the issues we discussed:
* tile based vs vector-based * The first one sux from point of "realism", second sux from point of "unit movement and overall civ feeling".
* 3D map * will it be full 3D so we can watch sattelite views with zoom in-out and different types of views, or will it be the same thing again (heroes 3 type view)?
* cities * yet again will cities be of a size of a small country or will they be dots like in real world with zoom-in ability so you can see them at decent size
* combat * press key 7 and pray OR strategic placement of units defending / attacking? simplfied of course.
* decision-making * will civ leave you again with "matter of fact" decision making (i.e. you move a scout two tiles and see the terrain immediately) or will it be flexible. "Yo, scouts, see those hills? Go in that direction from here and return after 3 months to tell me what you saw."
* time * will they stick to turn-based and the stupid -4000 start again or will we get an event-based counting system. I.e. no counting at all until our "wise men" discover calendar. And time stops on events you define. By this I don't mean RTS, but UFO: Enemy Unknown style of play.
I personally prefer the vector-based, event-based game where armies will be amassed on some point you decide, and borders are watched only by scouts and border guard (which cannot stop an invasion of course). This could be great if the game would be (to some point) comic, so the following example could be fun:
You play as egyptian and you have a huge army of war chariots in Thebes. Your spies in Hitti warn you of an upcoming invasion. The spies say their forces will be at Suez in est. 2 weeks. You order your army to use the road to alexandria and then to break for suez. The amry is described by a banner on the map, but when you zoom in you can actually see a swarm of chariots moving thru the desert. But your spies were captured a month before and the information was false. The Hitti actually payed the greek a hefty sum use the greek navy to land west of alexandria. You turn your armies back in hope you can meet them in desert, before they can cross the Nile and pray that the ambassador you have in Carthage is doing his job (you gave him privileges to "react on events" and spend money as he see fit). With a relief, you see that a Carthagean fleet of warships is reaching your shore and is starting to bombard with greek fleet fire the greek navy. You regroup your chariots and send for reinforcements and storm into the beachead to stop the eventual landing of Hitti forces. You are victorious but swear that the greek will suffer as well as hitti. Although you payed a hefty sum to the Carthageans, you send emissaries to Romans and Babylonians for an alliance against the Greeks. You hire mercenaries from Numidia and pay the Carthageans once more. The numidians will attack the greek harbors while your chariots swarm through Carthage (right of passage) and to the hitti lands... where the bribed carthagean diplomats told Mursilis that his plan was succesful and Egypt lay in ruins... Next time Mursilis will know better than to leave the army campaign to some general. You personally led your army to victory
