Open Letter to Firaxis

[Öjevind Lång]

No, CivII.

They had the animated Council, yes - and I want it back. It was so much fun. The same goes for the throne room. Optional, of course. And more consideration for builders and single players, please! The warmongers and multiplayers have been spoiled silly lately.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

Perhaps opium, hasheesh and cocaine? And its existence would lower your production, and you could go to war with other civs to force them to allow you to peddle it to its citizens. It has happened in history, after all. And, of course, being able to declare war on a civ which refuses to stop peddling the stuff to addicts in your country. Hmm... special Dope Peddler unit? It has a chance of crossing borders without getting caught... Hee hee hee.

 

[NYHunter]

However, isn't it realistic to allow this exploitation? Throughout history, sides have violated agreements and gotten away with it. The penalty could affect your relationship with ALL civs. Attacking during an official peace agreement could take -4 from civ you attacked (if the civ is still around that is) -2 from those who were good friends with the civ you attacked and -1 from all other civs. They could also make the penalties much more harsh to try and discourage players from making a habit out of it.

no! that can be exploited.
1) declare war.
2) take/raze their cities but one or two
3) call for peace (and take their golds and techs)
4) the next turn declare war again, finish them off. since they are annihilated the penalty does not matter

 

[scooter]

In case Firaxis really pays attention, a couple more points re. barbarian:

I understand some players enjoy barbarian activities. They even love raging barbarians. However, I think many players are also like me -- love some degree of barbarian activities that result in an increase in game variation/randomness and therefore create more fun for the players in early game. I don't believe they are included to restrict the early game strategy.

However, at higher difficulty levels (emperor and above, sometimes monarch in larger maps), barbarian/animals can become more than a nuisance. The main issue is, the AIs have all those huge bonuses vs the barbarians/animals (I just saw how an AI scout won a battle vs the barbarian archer, with only a loss of 0.3 strength last night), and they were given an archer to start with, and they expand much faster as well. On the other hand, human players generally start with a pathetic warrior. So often my warrior was killed in the first 20 rounds by those bears and panthers, which popped up so early in higher levels.

To make it worse, the goodie huts generate negative outcomes so often if you don't use scouts. Without a scout, popping a goodie is like taking a poison pill -- you may quite likely pop hostile barbs or if you leave it, the AIs will pop another tech. We know, AIs are given scouts, so as if they don't have enough early bonuses, they usually have a couple more techs and a hundred more pieces of gold than the human players because of that. That's just crazy.

So it basically comes down to one solution -- research hunting and archery early (hoping for copper or horses popped up in the map next to your first city IMHO is highly unreliable), then bronze work almost ASAP for whipping/chopping. I know, I know, people will tell me I need to adjust. My point is, if a game forces player to go a certain route at a higher level, it is not a well designed game.

Add a few more levels of barbarian activities, instead of only 3 levels (no, standard, or raging). Give more choices for players who like some barbarian activity but not too much.

First, higher difficulty levels is harder, so I disagree with your statements on the AI expanding too fast and stuff, but I don't think that was your point. The point of more options for barbs, the last paragraph I do very much agree with. One more would work fine, two would be ideal (resulting in: no barbs, low barbs, medium barbs, high barbs, raging barbs, or something similar). Would be nice to even see that rolled out in a patch (across the board patch would be nice but I'm not counting on anything)

What successes?

Heh, I'm not gonna get into a political debate here, especially with the wide range of countries and political views represented here

 

[scooter]

Perhaps opium, hasheesh and cocaine? And its existence would lower your production, and you could go to war with other civs to force them to allow you to peddle it to its citizens. It has happened in history, after all. And, of course, being able to declare war on a civ which refuses to stop peddling the stuff to addicts in your country. Hmm... special Dope Peddler unit? It has a chance of crossing borders without getting caught... Hee hee hee.

That gave me a laugh... something tells me that idea won't make it into the expansion, but it sure would be funny... could be a funny mod...

 

[SLM]

What I'd really like to see is a system like SMAC where you could develop your own kind of weaponry putting emphasis where you want it yourself, but then it wouldn't be Civ anymore most of you would think.

Even without this, I personally miss a sense of gradualness in developing arms. The difference between knights and cavs is simply huge and the same goes for warrior - axeman and axeman - maceman. In stead of learning a new type of arms/weapon gradually (ie. Axe 1, 2 & 3), beelining to a certain tech gets you not just an edge over your opponents, but a major and groundbreaking advantage. Esp. for the AI on higher levels because they can easily upgrade their entire army. This is also a result of the lack of diversity in units in Civ.

Next, I don't see why buildings that are rendered obsolete cannot be built anymore. Even without its obsoleted benefit, they can still be usefull. When you get gunships and somehow you were stupid or unlucky enough to lose the strategic resource needed to build them, you can build cavs again but you can't build stables anymore.

 

[mice]

A Mastery victory condition , a la Sevo.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

What I'd really like to see is a system like SMAC where you could develop your own kind of weaponry putting emphasis where you want it yourself, but then it wouldn't be Civ anymore most of you would think.

Even without this, I personally miss a sense of gradualness in developing arms. The difference between knights and cavs is simply huge and the same goes for warrior - axeman and axeman - maceman. In stead of learning a new type of arms/weapon gradually (ie. Axe 1, 2 & 3), beelining to a certain tech gets you not just an edge over your opponents, but a major and groundbreaking advantage. Esp. for the AI on higher levels because they can easily upgrade their entire army. This is also a result of the lack of diversity in units in Civ.

Civ II had a Dragoon unit between Knight and Cavalry. I think reintroducing it would be a good idea. Also, halberdiers might complement macemen and crossbowmen and as really tough offensive infantry unit.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

A Mastery victory condition , a la Sevo.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is Sevo?

 

[mice]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is Sevo?

Sevo is a modder who has since given up modding. He made the famous Sevomod way back. His parting shot was the mastery victory condition. you can find it Here

Firaxis, really, put in a mastery victory condition, please

 

[Markus5]

I'd like to see Animals and Barbarians attack each other, too.

There should be an early promotion (perhaps enabled by Animal Husbandry) that gives a bonus vs Animals. Or, it might cause Animals to attack less often. Lion-Taming?

I miss suicide galleys.

And, I still like my idea to let Missionaries enter and attempt to convert Barb cities.

 

[Loknar]

Just one:

A city project layer that allows to dotmap in-game.

Would be awfully nice if it showed the unimproved/maximum improved F-H-C for each city placement tile while hovering over it - and for the exisiting and projected cities.

(Something like that must be already coded since you can see the fat cross area of the cities when you activate a settler.)

 

[King Flevance]

Oh yeah, a major request from me. Do something with the Financial advisor screen. Only 1/3rd of it is currently being used. It would be nice to see a more in depth explanation of finances.

Add a command that simulates building a city to generate the new cost calculations. As, when you build a city, it calculates the costs before you finish naming it currently. However, clicking this new command would merely calculate the cost but not actually place the city. That way you have a better control over knowing how much your next city will cost without overexpanding too rapidly. (This calculation will be shown in parenthesis next to your current treasury) Will look something like this after you push this new command:

This basically calculates everything it would if you place a city just without actually placing it.

-OR-
Make it so that you can cancel a city build. Since you can see the calculations before you enter the name to the city. Having a system similar to 3's where you could cancel out of the city build before you finalized the name.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Make it so that you can cancel a city build. Since you can see the calculations before you enter the name to the city. Having a system similar to 3's where you could cancel out of the city build before you finalized the name.

That would be very nice.

 

[Neoclast]

Just one:

A city project layer that allows to dotmap in-game.

Would be awfully nice if it showed the unimproved/maximum improved F-H-C for each city placement tile while hovering over it - and for the exisiting and projected cities.

(Something like that must be already coded since you can see the fat cross area of the cities when you activate a settler.)

This would be awesome. The tools used to "draw" in game now are weak since you have to zoom out so far to use them. Planning cities out is an esential part of the game and should really be more doable in game.

 

[Mat777]

3. BetterAI. A comment I see often is "stupid AI!"

I think the AI reflect well the stupidity of the leaders in the ancient time.

Also, i don't think Firaxis is good as god to programs bots, nobody is anyway. Its not the AI of civ4 that might be stupid, its all AI created by mens. I never saw a very good and very intelligent AI in any games I played in my life.



---------
9-Ability to nuke fleets.

 

[Jaca]

...
Give workers a bit more to do. Right now you need a lot of them to get tiles improved in the early game, then you can put them to sleep till the discovery of replacement parts and railway, then you can put them to sleep again. I guess I don't mind getting a job like that.

For that reason, and to make faster use of technolognical advances, and to avoid moving these fellows around, I would advocate to get rid of workers all the same and replace them by "regional city projects". Then you can spend your hammers (and food) partly on a city improvement (granary, barracks, military units,...) and partly on improving the countryside (farms, pastures, mines, cottages,...).

I prefer taking decisions by more general means rather then by moving units.

Jaca

 

[kristopherb]

more UU's and UB's per civ

 

[Swedishguy]

I have a pretty good suggestion.

Listen to us!

 

[Pawna]

Hey

what about some tactical element to the fighting? Instead of dry percentages, if you could zoom in to the battlefield and give direct, simple orders eg. leave artillery (?) on the hill there and soften up the enemy, cavalry to move down the hill in a flanking attack, infantry to hold back to defend artillery against counter-attack etc.

With percentages alone, you get very little control over your troops as opposed to, say, city development. As the warfare side is so important in civ (most units are military), it seems that the tactical side is the major down side.

Just a thought

Pawna

PS is there a game out there that does what Im looking for?