Make Civ4 more like game X!

[Sirian]

Whose ideas are extreme and who gets to judge?

A lot of suggestions from Civ2 fans and SMAC fans were forwarded when Civ3 was in development, and the game came out well. I see no reason not to believe that Civ4 will follow a similar track.

What harm is done by the posting of any idea? If the developers are watching the forum, they'll have their own concept of good and bad ideas, or of ideas that might apply to Civ4 vs those that lead in some other direction and are not usable. Good ideas will bubble to the top, and they won't be aided by any sort of gimmick. Spamming an idea won't help. Hushing competing ideas won't help. Running polls won't help. Rancorous arguments won't help. Ideas need to stand on their own legs.

Anyway, that's my two bits for today. Now I'm off to see about working on my latest ideas.


- Sirian

 

[dexters]

Sirian, you make a good point. I promise to be less judgemental in the future.

 

[sir_schwick]

And when I say extremist, a good portion of my ideas fit in that category.

@Sirian

Does that mean I need to curb my shameless thread whoring?

 

[dexters]

@sir

Yes

 

[sir_schwick]

Tow which question

 

[dh_epic]

And just in case anybody was still insisting that "Civ needs to exist in a vacuum, and be its own isolated work of genius, and we should quarantine the development team from playing any game but Civ..."

The Lead Designer's entire GDC presentation on the Civ franchise made huge comparisons to Real Time Strategy games for overall strategy elements. Not to mention the fact that he mentioned he was inspired by certain RPG elements for Civ 4. (We very well might see the experience system for military units expanded.)

Does this mean he's making Civ into an RTS or an RPG? Hell no. Does this mean he's going to rip off other peoples' ideas in a completely unoriginal way? I sincerely doubt it. All he's doing is finding inspiration to add more fun ideas to Civ.

If some of those ideas are best described by using other games as examples, why is that such a bad thing? And it doesn't matter if you're Soren, a teenage Civ fan, or Sid Meier himself.

 

[mhIdA]

Civ is initially a inspired from SimCity, so:
- If players want MM cities play SimCity.
- If players want private sector and another production and traded system they play Capitalism.
- If players want near future era and futuristic techs and units they play SMAC or GALCIV.
- If players want great battles and hundreds of military units they play RTS games.
- If players want TBS and a littlebit of one of theses things they and a great game play CIV.

More seriously, Civ adopte the multiethnic cities from 7 Kingdoms, regards they don't explore too much this feature, but is a good start, and it don't turn it less Civ cause that.
So any features who bring more fun and playability to game is wellcoming (damn loading times).

Adding a more dynamic culture, religion, ethnicity. More fall and rising civs, blocs policy and a better space race/exploration, Civ4 would be better, fun and great, and it must should remain CIV.

 

[sir_schwick]

- If players want great battles and hundreds of military units they play RTS games.

Wrong - they need to be playing Total War, the only game series with truly great battles.

 

[mhIdA]

Sir Schwick
Since I don't play that kind of games, I put the genre as a whole, so maybe you'll right.

 

[dh_epic]

Civilization wasn't inspired by Sim City. It was inspired by war board games. Which explains why the game has a legacy of being so military driven. Also, making the original back in 1991, he was going to make it more based around things and actions, than people and interactions. Hence moving around units and erecting buildings, rather than managing people and manipulating attitudes.

I think that in an age where there are more than two decades between us and the pre-video-game era, and an age where processors are 100 times faster, the game ought to aspire to bigger and better goals?

 

[mhIdA]

I read that on Civ Legacy section in this site www.civ3.com (Sid words: SimCity inspired Civilization in a way)
Actually the PCs are more faster, but I'd never had experienced the loading times in Civ1 and Civ3, just how I have in Civ3, perhaps duing in 2 early civs we only play a max of 7 civs, but it's very annoyed.

 

[dh_epic]

Not that I've played it, but Civilization shares a lot more in common with Empire from what I've read about it.

Be that as it may, I don't want Civ to just be "what it is". As much as I think it's ridiculous for people to say "make Civ into an RTS" or "we need Civ to go FPS", it irritates me even more when people use "Civ is an Empire Game" to justify where it shouldn't go. Saying "Civ is a TBS" isn't very informative either. It uses turns? So does Chess. So does Magic: The Gathering. I don't want Civ to be constrained by those categories either.

But that doesn't mean that somebody couldn't look at a neat idea from chess, like a King unit (which they did in Civ 3) and tweak it and modify it into a way that fits Civ. Or take an idea from a Sim like setting a tax rate (which, you're right, is a fundamental feature since the original) and tweak it and modify it into a way that fits Civ. Or an experience system from RPGs, which they seem to be interested in for Civ 4 in some way.

The features seem uncontraversial. Like "yeah, those are pretty simple ideas that look like Civ features, not features from somewhere else". And that's the point. You draw inspiration for features from other places, not the features themselves.

 

[dexters]

I'm still waiting for someone to suggest we build workers and send them to resources to mine them just like an RTS game.

Now that I've mentioned it, maybe I won't have to wait very long.

 

[sir_schwick]

I'm still waiting for someone to suggest we build workers and send them to resources to mine them just like an RTS game.

Now that I've mentioned it, maybe I won't have to wait very long.

I smell a joke thread coming.

 

[mhIdA]

If Civ change battles to be like a RTS game, I aprove. I expected that since someone talk about squares in screenshots, this week. I think is an improvement. The battles on that way is a element I want see in Civ for many time ago, so if Civ is going that way is a good thing. This doesn't mean Civ are less Civ but add an RTS element could call RTS players to CIV and increase fun.