More intuitive and playable CiV through realism (focus: game philosophy and units)

[Darvi]

My game philosophy:
Civ is a fantasy game to me with intellectual stimulation. Its about believing Im really creating a historical civilization in a "what if..." -scenario. But since its a fantasy (about ruling, creating and controlling), the game must remain simple enough that the mental rewards are worth the intellectual effort (If I would really want to push the boundaries of my intellect and sweat through hard decision Id get a job =). Game can still be complex (more then now) providing that the complexity is intuitive. The way to achieve this is making it as real as possible. Because all people have a common reality the more real the game plays the more natural is to understand it. I dont want to memorize rules to play a fantasy. If you cant buy in to this philosophy for this thread you should stop reading now.

So the factors are:
1. Realism
2. Playability - simpler and easier
3. Meaningfulness - all the choices must have an effect to the goals

Goal of the game is to conquer the world. What about the the other victory conditions you might ask. Well lets go through them: Cultural and science victory are achieved going through lists. Not very exiting. The reason player cares about culture and science in the first place is because they improve our capabilities in the game. Social policies give bonuses to our civilization and science enables us to better units and better improvements. So they are building towards something. That something is to rule the world. So why cant you rule the world through culture or science? Ill bring the two other false goals to answer that: Time and diplomacy. These four have common a point system. That aint much of a fantasy. To lead and build a civilization through the ages against barbarians and other great civilizations to... get higher points? Point system are there to compare and compete fairly. To choose tools, tactis or reward employees. Points are never the goal. You use them to achieve the goal. Just like in the game itself we use points to determine which unit or building to produce. Points are abstract and even though the whole fantasy of the game is abstract, in the game world points are still abstract and the land, cities, units and leaders are concrete. That is way they determine the goal and why we care about them.

Dont get me wrong. I like the culture, science and diplomacy (or could if there was real diplomacy in the game). But I like them because they are realistic and they help me to reach my goal in the game. Best part of culture are the borders it creates defining your civilization. You also get nice bonuses from policies. Science is all about getting more efficient. Deadlier troops and more more gold, growth and production. Growth matters because it gives you more gold and production. With gold and production you can build units to destroy your enemies and help your allies. Diplomacy is also just a way to means. To acquire strong allies and weak enemies. Now I could accept a victory condition about shared win with a close ally. Last argument for the goal is that most of the time player is looking at the map where the cities and units are. Rarely we look at tech tree or social policies.

Ok so this post was more about philosophy of the game and on the next there will be more practical ideas about how to improve the gameplay. Any constructive, coherent and essential criticism is appreciated while other kinds are ignored. You dont have to be polite but dont have to be rude either. Im new to this forum so if Im doing something wrong tell me. Im not new to Civ though. Ive played all version from the very beginning.

 

[Darvi]

Dont have a clear vision of the whole yet and this thread is partly about clearing it. So Ill just start on what ever comes to mind first go on from there... and its happiness.

Dont understand why the number of cities would make a nation unhappy. Overpopulation is more reasonable source but that should be related to something concrete like lack of sanitation or order in the city (police station or a military unit). Instead unhappiness would come from famines, war and negative relations to other civs. Happiness would come from connections to friendly cities (roads, harbors, airports), military victories and the current luxuries, wonders and improvements. Happiness should also be city specific as before, but somewhat related to other cities. City should be more happier the more closer it is to other friendly happy cities and wonders. The distance should be measured with how many turns it takes to go to that city or wonder. Effects of happiness should be more linear. Not on/off. Happier cities should produce more of everything. Because one cities happiness would affect other cities this would generate a more natural golden age. The current golden age would have to go as its superficial and be replaced with the more synergetic golden age from direct decision the player made. The happiness and cultural effect of wonders should also be dependent on time. Both should diminish in time. So lets list em!

from:
1. City improvements
2. Luxury resources (this could be proximity related also)
3. Natural and man made wonders (with relation to how far they are in space and time)
4. Other happy cities (related to distance)
5. Military victories

from:
1. City population (without some improvements)
2. Enemy troops proximity
3. Distance to own troops (from cultural borders not occupied land)
4. Loss of men in battle

Wonders shouldnt be separated to national and world. They should all be the same and everyone should be able to build any of them with the knowledge and resources, but there would be a big difference in the amount of culture and happiness that is created on whether you were the first to build it. If the wonder would have a function it would remain like the Great wall. It would still restrict enemy movements.

That might be it for happiness.

 

[Darvi]

Lets start from the beginning: producing units. Units should require and to produce and maintain. The relations between the three depends on the unit. Riflemen would require more food, tanks more hammers and fighter planes more gold. Principle is the more men units requires the more food. More equipment the more hammers. More training the more gold. The main requirement should still be hammers overall. Maintenance should in the same proportions except for gold. Units with running costs such as oil and horses would cost gold. Trained units wouldnt require gold to upkeep training. No more buying units. You could hurry them by spending more gold but they would still take turns and resources to make. One implication of this would be cheap manpowered units like militia that could be used as a last defence of a city or supporting a big assault. You would produce them mainly with food and current population. They would be fast to produce, but not very efficient and losing them would cause unhappiness as mentioned in the last post. Level of unhappiness from a lost would be related to the food need and thus the amoun of men that unit contains. Losing a jet fighter wouldnt affect happiness but riflemen would. Same principles would work on buildings just minus the food. Producing a totally new unit should be more expensive and the more you produce the lower the price would go. As a result new tech doesnt change power balance so fast. Obsoleted units would still be useful to produce.

Unit is produced so time to move it. Gonna have to give the 1UPT up. You can stack units and move them as a group so there is less boring replacement, but not so much stacks of dooms either because there would be a penalty having more units in one tile. Every additional unit in the same tile would reduce its strength in battle (-10%?) either when attacked or when attacking the next tile from the stack. Also bombardment of the stack would cause additional damage (25%?) to all units on the stack not just the one attacked. So still a good idea to spread out in battle but the system would be flexible. This would also allow to fix the ranges of ranged units. Early ranged units would have a range of one. They are still useful because you can stack them with a melee unit to defend. Now we get more realistic ranges. Also early ranged units should be followed with later ranged units like snipers. A modern sniper could have a range of two as with early siege weapons. Three would be only for artillery and missile launchers. And for wider range units the damage should be related to distance and you could promote to better it.

Damaged units should not heal fully in the front line. Damage could be divided to two fields: permanent and temporary. Permanent obviously reflect the mortality and permanent injuries. Temporary would be exhaustion, loss of morale and treatable wounds. So only half of the immediate damage could be recovered in some time, but slower then currently. No immortal armies that only get stronger as they combat. Units should also get weary of war and suffer from long supply routs. A combined temporary damage to units depending on how far they are from fatherland. On the other hand morale boosts from winning battles and conquering cities. So as the permanent damage could be replaced only in barracks with a cost, there would be an option to merge damaged units together (for a unit with combined HP:s - half of what is over 100%) to continue the assault.

Promotions a bit more automatic. Units get better at what they do. If they get bombarded they get better defending against that, not attacking. Still promotion choices simply because they are fun. Just not instant healing or totally unrelated features. New promotion would be camouflage and the ability to spot camouflaged unit. Camouflaging would mean that foreign unit would only have certain chance to see the unit depending on several factors like terrain ability, distance and recent activity. Upgrading also more limited. Only possible in barracks and to a similar more trained unit. Melee to melee, cavalry to cavalry not melee to riflemen or cavalry to tanks. Archer to crossbowman to rifleman or sniper can do. Some skills just become obsolete.