Open Letter to Firaxis

[Gaius Octavius]

Ranged bombardment (1 is fine), allowing ships and artillery to shoot at units not in cities.

Let air units destroy buildings and railroads.

Let air units sink ships.

These are the easy ones... now for the hard one.
EDITOR!!!

 

[Hero]

Ranged bombardment (1 is fine), allowing ships and artillery to shoot at units not in cities.

Let air units destroy buildings and railroads.

Let air units sink ships.

These are the easy ones... now for the hard one.
EDITOR!!!

Sorry. All air units are to be eliminated.

 

[Markus5]

Allow missionaries to enter barb cities and try to convert them. Small odds, but if they convert, they join your civ.

New unit similar to missionary, the statesman, that can be used to bring an enemy to the negotiating table early, temporarily improve relationships with other civs, reduce the anarchy time in captured or revolting cities. Only three can be built at a time.

Windmills spread irrigation.

When DOW on you, besides "So Be It" selection, there is "What can I do to avoid war?" selection which gets you into a negotiation session. (Usually the AI will make steep demands to allow you to settle.)

More advanced improvements in the late industrial and modern era. Modern farms, mines, windmills can be built. Workers need to be kept busy. Desert reclaimation. Greenhouses on tundra.

Wildlife tourboat for whales in modern era.

Workers can be meaningfully retired. Worker upgrades?

Transport units can be automated to provide a ferry service. Issue a GoTo command to a unit and it will try to use a ferry if necessary.

Recoup some cost when a unit is disbanded.

Great Farmer?

Neutral status. Defensive bonuses, limited offense, can't declare war. Penalty if you revert to non-neutral status.

 

[NYHunter]

Seasons for scenarios would be good. Especially for historical scenarioes where seasons did impact a lot of events.

Yo flyingchicken, actually no. Not for new games, but for scenarios. It's possible now to designate a turn as a year, a month, or a week. Am suggesting the ability to designate a turn as a quarter. You can still designate the total number of turns. I've seen a number of posts wanting seasons. Nah, I won't want thousands of turns either! My computer is struggling as it is.

 

[coffeeholic]

How about some way to share food on a continent? That would be cool and allow further city specialization

who knows if this is a good idea or not but I remember a caravan in Civ II I think that could transport food.

can't wait for the new expansion

AJK

 

[Dutch Canuck]

We have many interesting buildings to make in our cities, but there is one building that is really missed: the Railroad Station! Since we have Airports and Harbours that deal with air and sea trade, what about overland? We have the workers laying the tracks but nothing to complement that inside a city. What is remarkable is how significant railroad stations are in major cities - yet where are they in CIV?

A railroad station could provide the following proposed benefits:
+1 to city pop (a one time boost to the city it is built in to reflect the historical influence of rail upon city growth)
+25% to trade route income/turn
+10% to production/turn
+1 culture/turn
+1 specialist can be an engineer

Maybe even have a Grand National Railway as a National Wonder.

I think the influence of rail has not been adequately covered in CIV within the concept of what CIV is supposed to be. It would be great to see the Railroad Station as a sensible addition to cities!

Cheers (choo-choooo! )

 

[NYHunter]

1. Dark skin for Mali and Zulu units. I don't necessary want more ethnic units I just want African civ units to have dark skin.

2. Right now, I am annoyed at the naval units. Naval operations are currently boring but having a good Navy is often needed in the game. So please make naval operations more fun and interesting.

3. A cavalry unit between Knight and Cavalry.

4. Unique builidings and unique units that make MORE sense. How does a stock exchange replace a bank? There is nothing you can do about that now but please make the UB for the new civs make more sense. As well as the UU, Navy Seals replacing Marines makes very little sense.

5. MOST importantly an improved AI

6. I know some people don't like this but I always thought that revolting cities made the game MORE REALISTIC AND CHALLENGING. I would also very much like the possibility cival wars/rebellions.

7. Regional unique units In addition to each civ having it's own UU. For example a UU for European civs, UU for Middle Eastern civs, and so on.

8. The return of colonies.

In addition to that obviously more units, civs, leaders, resources, buildings, technologies and terrain improvements.

 

[mice]

How about some way to share food on a continent? That would be cool and allow further city specialization

Agreed. We should be able to buy food somehow. Imagine Las Vegas without much food. It's in the desert. The AI would be able to make huge cities all over the place, which would improve it's capacity all round

 

[Ultraman]

This is great, guys! Keep 'em comin'! Yo, Firaxis ...

NYHunter, good ones, esp the revolting cities. Either as one city (revolt) or several cities (rebellion) or half the empire (civil war). Yup on seasons!

Dutch Canuck, Grand Central Station! That's a generic name for the wonder! ;p

coffeeholic, hey cool. I like that too. In a previous Civ (probably II), I used that as a way to grow new cities quickly, transfer population from the core cities via caravan.

Markus5, hmm. A Great Statesman? Yes, makes sense to getting something back when disbanding - even somethng for scrap metal if nothing else. I think we had that in CivIII.

Hero, thanks for your post.

Gaius Octavius, yes, those are mods I see all the time too.

flyingchicken, exactly. Just like Dale Kent's Ranged Bombardment mod.

mice, good stuff. Never got the hang of the Plot List Enhancements, but sure.

Comrade Aart, err, tanks for your post? ;p

Onagan, right on! Air power should rock! Be good to be able to "destroy fighters on the ground" by air attack.

ChicagoCubs, thanks for that. Ship movement, I recall someone did a mod that did exactly that. Yeah, just try to move your fleet across a big ocean on a huge map ... takes fer ever ...

Plotinus, I think indeed you are right that it was CivII.

 

[King Flevance]

We have many interesting buildings to make in our cities, but there is one building that is really missed: the Railroad Station! Since we have Airports and Harbours that deal with air and sea trade, what about overland? We have the workers laying the tracks but nothing to complement that inside a city. What is remarkable is how significant railroad stations are in major cities - yet where are they in CIV?

A railroad station could provide the following proposed benefits:
+25% to trade route income/turn
+10% to production/turn
+1 specialist can be an engineer
+1

I like it! (with some personal modifications)

 

[AnitaGaribaldi]

I really hate having to wait 10 turns until I can declare war again after a peace trade. We could only get a minus modifier like "You are not trustworthy".

 

[feldmarshall]

I really hate having to wait 10 turns until I can declare war again after a peace trade. We could only get a minus modifier like "You are not trustworthy".

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]

I really hate having to wait 10 turns until I can declare war again after a peace trade. We could only get a minus modifier like "You are not trustworthy".

that's what a cease fire's for...

here's my biggest request (not rant):
1. please don't throw in features just to make the bulleted list of features longer, please make all new features work and make sure they're balanced before you ship it. this isn't me getting ticked, it's just a request, I'd happily have fewer features if I knew they would be very well done then to have tons of new features that are best described as "beta."

 

[Ultraman]

Yo flyingchicken, modern artillery has a typical maximum range of 40km or more. At least the South Africans are developing enhanced ammunition that can go up to more than 53km. Rocket assisted artillery (using shells with little rockets attached) could go even further. The Iowa class battleship's 16 inch guns are rated at 39km. For game balance purposes, when I had my own mod in CivIII, I designated modern pieces as two tile range, and ancient pieces all as one tile range. One thing nice about Dale Kent's mod was that it allowed you to XML any unit to have ranged fire capability, and you can designate whatever range you wanted. Wish I could code half as well as these guys!

 

[flyingchicken]

Alright, convincing enough.

Suggestions for tile bombardment: it ought to do percentage damage, because it's easier to avoid artillery the fewer a troop is, because they'd most likely thin out and scatter when getting bombardment.

As a side-effect of spreading out to take fewer damage from artillery, tile bombardment should also temporarily weaken a tile's defensive value, like in city bombardment, because an enemy's position (represented by terrain advantage and fortify bonus) is lost.

 

[Newbunkle]

I preferred the Civ 1 and 2 method of flying units. Bombing runs etc. is boring.

 

[nstutt]

Hmm my wishlist for Civ 5:

1. Random Events would make the game far more enjoyable and less predictable

2. Try to get away from the endless city upgrades after a while these just get monotonous and you dont even bother looking at the city half the time before making a choice. Cities should be larger, less numerous and should play more importance in the overall game so you dont end up having loads all the same.

3. Bring back the palace building bit.

4. Bring back the detailed 3d city view.

In my view Civ has gradually moved further and further away from its basic design which is a civ building game and more into wargaming realms which is bad in my view. Future games should avoid this tendency for attacking people and concentrate more on the building and creating aspects.

One major thing that barely gets in the game is social interation with your citizens. I would like to see advisors proving the info that the static screens do at the moment and a screen where your citizens can speak to you.

 

[eldar]

A great idea for a Railway Station improvement, but I'd like to see it work like this:
- Any unit in a city that has a Railway Station, may move instantly to any other friendly city on the same continent that also has one. Limit of 1 unit per turn per city may make this move.

Plus a worker improvement:
- Railway Junction. Takes (x) turns to build, give +2 commerce to the tile, acts in the same way as a Railway Station.

This will finally make more sense of actually connecting cities with rails. Right now, it's daft... you get railways, you stick a single rail on a mine to get the +1 Then to the next hill, lumbermill....

 

[Swedishguy]

I want the Radar Artillery back!

But I strongly doubt Firaxis will listen to any of these suggestions.

 

[Comrade Aart]

I want the Radar Artillery back!

But I strongly doubt Firaxis will listen to any of these suggestions.

Firaxis has better things to do than that. Like working on BtS!