I've been thinking about a couple of these for a long time, and I was gonna put them into writing anyway, so what better place than the CF forums where I can get some great feedback?
Anyway, since the SDK is due out "soon", I got to thinking about fundamental gameplay changes that would elevate the Civ4 single player experience. I don't think I'm the only one who believes the single player game was necessarily dumbed down a bit in order to make Civ4 a capable multiplayer game. That's fine for people who like the MP style, but I prefer a game that has a more involving, intense, and epic SP mode (a la Galactic Civilizations II, which inspired some of these ideas).
I'm not saying that I'm definitely going to make these mods, since I probably lack both the talent and the time. In fact, I anticipate that in order for any of these to be remotely successful it would take a dedicated team of bright individuals to accomplish. But hey, I can dream right?
So, without further ado...
REAL CIV4
A series of epic SP Civ4 Mods.
Real Combat
Stacked Combat/Armies
Comparable to the fleet combat feature of GalCiv II. Allow for both human and AI players to group units together into armies in which each unit fights simultaneously, instead of the traditional one-on-one combat system. The goal here is to make combat more tactical and varied.
Real AI
AI Personalities
Every AI is a roleplayer. The goal here is to make the course of a game more historically flavored and epic, and to have the AI trigger world-changing events without relying on the human player for incentive. Each AI will play with a distinct style in all aspects of empire management, diplomacy, and war.
Some sample personalities:
Expanded Diplomacy and Relations
There will be more options in diplomacy and in the UN. More importantly, the AI will not differentiate between other AI and the human player.
Real Experience
Random Events
Allow for more interesting and random occurences to keep the game fresh and exciting.
So yea, it all sounds like pipe dreams at the moment, but if you take any of this seriously (as I do), you can see that there's an enormous potential for a truly epic Civ game just waiting to be uncovered. Vanilla Civ4 is really just scratching the surface as to what can be done with this game.
Of course, reading all this over makes me realize that I could also just go out and get GalCiv2 and have most of my wishlist complete.
Still, I wanted to share my vision with the rest of you people and get some feedback on whether any of this should actually happen, or what other features should be added. What do you think?
Anyway, since the SDK is due out "soon", I got to thinking about fundamental gameplay changes that would elevate the Civ4 single player experience. I don't think I'm the only one who believes the single player game was necessarily dumbed down a bit in order to make Civ4 a capable multiplayer game. That's fine for people who like the MP style, but I prefer a game that has a more involving, intense, and epic SP mode (a la Galactic Civilizations II, which inspired some of these ideas).
I'm not saying that I'm definitely going to make these mods, since I probably lack both the talent and the time. In fact, I anticipate that in order for any of these to be remotely successful it would take a dedicated team of bright individuals to accomplish. But hey, I can dream right?
So, without further ado...
REAL CIV4
A series of epic SP Civ4 Mods.
Real Combat
Stacked Combat/Armies
Comparable to the fleet combat feature of GalCiv II. Allow for both human and AI players to group units together into armies in which each unit fights simultaneously, instead of the traditional one-on-one combat system. The goal here is to make combat more tactical and varied.
- Maximum number of units allowed in an army goes up with logisitics skill, which increases with research and/or wonders
- Each round of battle, every unit in the army gets one attack on an enemy unit
- Targets chosen at random (can also implement algorithm here for greatest damage, attack weakest, etc.)
- Impose rules in certain conditions, such as
- melee units must deal with each other before being able to hit ranged units
- catapults do a small amount of collateral damage to all enemy units each round
- city and fort defenders get +1 army size
- bonuses against certain units translate to preferred targeting (i.e. cavalry +50% vs. catapults = cavalry more likely to target catapults)
- etc.
Real AI
AI Personalities
Every AI is a roleplayer. The goal here is to make the course of a game more historically flavored and epic, and to have the AI trigger world-changing events without relying on the human player for incentive. Each AI will play with a distinct style in all aspects of empire management, diplomacy, and war.
Some sample personalities:
- Gandhi loves peace and freedom. He will never declare war or enter a defensive pact, and maintains a minimal military. He will defend himself but will not send units into enemy territory, unless he is attempting to recapture a city that belonged to him or one of his allies. If he recaptures a city belonging to an ally, he will liberate it back immediately. He will come to the aid of weaker nations being picked on by stronger nations by donating money, tech, and units. He will attempt to hinder the efforts of overly agressive or imperialistic nations by negotiating trade embargos and asking for peace on behalf of the oppressed. He prefers high population cities with high culture. His preferred methods of victory are diplomatic and cultural.
- Napoleon is imperialistic and agressive. He will constantly attempt to increase the amount of territory under his control. He will maintain a large standing army and will attack weaker neighbors. He will make demands for cities and technology. He prefers to keep cities that he captures in order to expand his territory. He will not give back cities that he conquers, even if they belonged to one of his allies. His preferred method of victory is domination.
- Genghis Khan is agressive and ruthless. He will build massive armies and attack other nations. He cares little for keeping enemy cities, however, and will raze them if they are of no military value. He prefers many small cities over a few well developed ones. His preferred method of victory is conquest.
- Roosevelt is honorable and reserved. He will not declare war unless directly attacked, but if he is at war he will accept nothing less than unconditional surrender. He will aid his allies overtly if they are in need by donating money, tech, and units, and negotiating embargos and alliances. If he defeats an enemy in a war, he will give back any cities that originally belonged to them if they are of no strategic importance or too far away, but may occupy for a little while. He will liberate the cities of his allies after the war is over as well. He prefers a strong economy with high commerce, research, and production. His preferred methods of victory are diplomatic and space race.
Expanded Diplomacy and Relations
There will be more options in diplomacy and in the UN. More importantly, the AI will not differentiate between other AI and the human player.
- The AI will make the same demands and requests on any player in the game, not just the human player (i.e. it shouldn't know the difference)
- The AI will stay more committed to its decisions (no more 5 turn wars or flip-flopping religions)
- The UN (or something like it) will come earlier and make more game-altering decisions (check out the GalCiv system... need I say more?)
- The AI will take notice of troop buildups, cultural pressure, etc. and act accordingly
Real Experience
Random Events
Allow for more interesting and random occurences to keep the game fresh and exciting.
- City founding "events" a la GalCiv, or random events to make cities more specialized (ex: we have found a large supply of valuable metals under this city. If you choose to exploit it, we'll get +50% production, but at a cost of -25% growth)
- Random catastrophes and boons to make things unpredictable (ex: assassination leads to ruined relations/war, cache of minerals leads to +500 gold, spy activities lead to free technology or military units, earthquakes ruin cities and alter geography, etc.)
- On that note, plate tectonics/volcanos/meteors/etc. would kick ass.
So yea, it all sounds like pipe dreams at the moment, but if you take any of this seriously (as I do), you can see that there's an enormous potential for a truly epic Civ game just waiting to be uncovered. Vanilla Civ4 is really just scratching the surface as to what can be done with this game.
Of course, reading all this over makes me realize that I could also just go out and get GalCiv2 and have most of my wishlist complete.
Still, I wanted to share my vision with the rest of you people and get some feedback on whether any of this should actually happen, or what other features should be added. What do you think?
