Make Naval More Important

[rysmiel]

Well I know the team had good intentions, but what their philosophy is one thing, what was produced is quite another.

I think that philosophy is actually the source of most of what's wrong with Civ 4, myself.

There are two perfect examples of this. One is improvements. In civ3 you had 4 improvements, a mine, a farm, roads and railroads. Now you have lumber mills, waterwheels, workshops, forest preserves, and cottages, not to mention improvements on strategic resources.
The second are promotions. In civ3 you had four levels, conscript, regular, veteran, and elite. Now you have XP, levels, and promotions which give you a multitude of different abilities.
Exactly what came out of the game when these two examples were put in?

Pollution, corruption, unhappiness leading to civil disorder and possible revolution, unit strength varying in more than one dimension, and a number of diplomatic options. All of which were IMO mistakes.

I'm not saying I don't like it. HELL NO. I love it! It makes the game feel more like SMAC which had lots of options, units and buildings (though the unit builder is something we need to revisit one day because it was much fun!).

Aaaaaaaagh no please no. I want Civ to be a game, not a toy like Spore.

 

[rysmiel]

Not sure I really agree with you here. It's neither an entirely new concept nor all that complex. Take workboats: You build a physical unit and send it to a particular tile, where it gets converted into a "fishing zone," "whaling zone" or whatever that operates autonomously for the rest of the game (or until pillaged).

How is that really different from creating something, call it a merchant vessel unit, that travels to another port and on arrival, converts to an active trade route that provides ongoing benefits and requires no further action on the player's part, but can still be pillaged or defended?

It's not. This is not a defence of traderoutes, to my mind, so much as a critique of a problem with the workboat concept as implemented in Civ 4.

 

[rysmiel]

true, such system is more complex than the 4 rank system, but is it better (e.g. better suited to the civ series)?

No, it's not. IMNSHO.

i think that leaving the 4 rank system, but increasing the differences between the ranks would suffice.

I think the differences between the ranks should increase over time, as units become more advanced.

by founding a religion and producing a great prophet? and yea, you have to spread your religion, or better yet, have neighbors convert to it. so they can spread it themselves.

I'm all for religion as a mechanic, but I do think the Civ 4 version needs serious tweaking.

 

[rysmiel]

This could definitely be adapted into it. Just assign these visual caravans and merchant vessels (which you don't actually control)

But I want to actually control them. Or at least have the option to.

 

[Camikaze]

Ah, well, we just completely disagree then. And I'm afraid to say that a fair majority of players would be on my side. There could be some scope for control of the individual units incorporated, I suppose, but the necessity to control them and product them is something that I and many other (see Polycast for starters) are adamantly opposed to. It would add a huge amount of unnecessary micromanagement to the game, for not much reward. I would probably not play the game if that much micromanagement was required, assuming, of course, that these caravans and vessels would be widespread.

 

[Truronian]

I think a good way to make navies more integral to the game would be to allow land units to cross sea tiles in makeshift transport vessels. eg. Axeman wants to invade across the sea, so he enters a port city and can then move into sea tiles. When he steps onto land again he is effective land ridden until he finds another friendly port. These transports could maybe move slower than Civ4's and offensive ships could have a ZOC, so naval combat would become more about securing routes than the random hit and running the current fast movement ZOCless system encourages.

 

[miramira]

What would be a lot more fun would be to literally have merchant ships moving from city to city sort of like Great Merchants, making you money and conveying resources, but having to be protected. Maybe you should have to make a trip betwen two cities to establish a trade route, and they expire after a number of turns so you have to keep doing it.

On a vaguely related topic, a lot of mods include future eras, to a lesser or greater degree, but one thing that could clearly exist in the future is underwater or floating cities. Yet, while it is pretty easy to mod in the ability to found cities on water ( a single word in Python and a few lines in XML) the AI will not use or deal with this correctly so it is unbalancing and must be left out. Sea cities were a big part of Alpha Centauri, and should be possible in a future version of Civ.

I think one good way to do this is to simply make water terrains just another kind of terrain, like land, with Terrain Impassables to prevent battle ships in the desert and such. What I'm saying is get rid of Domains. The other effects of sea could be produced also by other mechanisms, and of course the graphical look would have to be produced.

Good idea, I suggested elsewhere having shipping lanes marked out on the map with dotted lines, showing what resources are going where, and then you can send your ships to protect the shipping lanes or skin/harass enemy cargo.
This would be great for modern pirates acting out of a lawless country!

 

[Camikaze]

Or more to the point, it would be great for privateers acting out of a well-organised civ.

 

[Spartan300]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tholish
What would be a lot more fun would be to literally have merchant ships moving from city to city sort of like Great Merchants, making you money and conveying resources, but having to be protected. Maybe you should have to make a trip betwen two cities to establish a trade route, and they expire after a number of turns so you have to keep doing it.

Good idea, IMO, but it would probably chew up a lot of production, and require a lot of micromanagement. To operate a successful empire, you would have to have many of these ships active, and this would require a long time on the user's part to move from city to city. Plus, the production of such merchant ships would perhaps be troublesome and place too much importance on trade. So, while I agree that it is a good idea, maybe it should have a slightly lesser impact. And perhaps these merchant ships could be produced similarly to great people (with a much greater frequency), with each coastal city having 'merchant ship points', leading to the occasional merchant ship appearing in a city. Also, if this much importance was placed on intercontinental trade, there would also have to be something similar for domestic and intracontinental (if that is a word) trade.

how about with certain improvements your trade increases? (already partially featured but hear me out)
so with the market improvment you would have 1 caravan route, harbor small merchant fleet, large harbour bigger merchant fleet etc.
also once a certain number of improvements are made (such as 6 markets) a centre of commerce could be made (as often happens) with say 3-4 caravans and if 12 markets are built you have 2 centres of commerce, same with harbours.
you could have automated merchants or not, if you dont then unprotected merchant ships could be captured with cargo and taken by the civ who captured it, or they could be sold to other civ's same as workers used to be in civ 3.
another point mentioned earlier in the thread was tariffs on specific resources, you could make it so that more commerce is generated in civs that have a lower tariff but obviously weighed against by demand.
it would be interesting if you have 5 silk and the other civs do not as you would have a monopoly on it and profit more by it.
needs a lot more thought yet admittedly.