Open Letter to Firaxis

[King Flevance]

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?

I know there is more than one, but I own a game like this called Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne. Another one came out called Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic.
It is a fantasy game but there is a large map and when 2 unit stack merge for combat, you can command the fight. There are unit traits that benefit the unit inside field combat view, as well as ones that benefit the unit on main map view. Same with spells. SOme are for combat view, other for main map view, some for both.

PS: If anyone ever wants to play this game online or Rise of Nations, our group has 4 spots open. Max players are 8 on both I am pretty sure. We have modified Rise of Nations though to last longer. (Most wars are initiated between the Medieval-Enlightenment Age) Usually only 1 out of 10 games actually ever see the Information Age.

 

[Mat777]

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?

I asked for the same thing last year, and most ppl around here was not even interested in the idea.

For a game out for what you are looking for : Rome:Totalwar and Medieval: Totalwar

Rome came before mediaval so if you have a good and recent computer go ahead for Medieval: Totalwar
http://www.totalwar.com/

 

[Pawna]

I know there is more than one, but I own a game like this called Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne. Another one came out called Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic.
It is a fantasy game but there is a large map and when 2 unit stack merge for combat, you can command the fight. There are unit traits that benefit the unit inside field combat view, as well as ones that benefit the unit on main map view. Same with spells. SOme are for combat view, other for main map view, some for both.

PS: If anyone ever wants to play this game online or Rise of Nations, our group has 4 spots open. Max players are 8 on both I am pretty sure. We have modified Rise of Nations though to last longer. (Most wars are initiated between the Medieval-Enlightenment Age) Usually only 1 out of 10 games actually ever see the Information Age.

Thanks for that, Ill go look it up

mat777, yeah I dunno why its not part of the game. Maybe its too finicky, or would take too long in the average game? Though you would think an option could be put in to leave it on or play normal civ. Anyway, Ill go look up those games. Heroes of Might of Magic does some of the things but in a fantasy world.

Pawna

 

[Storminator]

I'd like to see religious schisms. I've put a tiny amount of thought into this, so here it is:

The first civ to move into the next age might create a schism. If they don't have the holy city, but DO had the religion in their civ, they can create a second holy city of the faith, and some percentage of the existing faithful defect to the new version of the faith. The new version acts like a new faith, and the new holy city acts just like a regular holy city of the faith.

If you do this at each age, it lessens the power of the older religions, because they have more chances to split.

And it would be cool to see the civ modifiers: "-4 You are heretics!"

PS

 

[civvver]

Lots of good ideas here. Guess I'll add mine.

1. Allow air units to destroy units when striking. Drastically decrease the amount of damage a bomber does to a unit under half health or something, like a thined out squad of infantry is harder to hit or something, but it seems kinda ridiculous that bombers can only bomb units to half health, and especially that air units can't sink ships.

1b. Allow specific air strikes against city improvements. Don't like that barracks in your opponent's city? Surgically bomb it! Make it some chance to succeed, maybe with a slight modifier for how much the building costs. So taking out a temple would be way easier than taking out a factory. Give bombers a higher chance to succeed than fights, and stealth bombers highest of all.

1c. Promotions for air units.

2. Make gunships better. They have crappy movement compared to land units moving over rails. Let them rebase like air units. Also allow them to enter coastal squares and possibly land on carriers.

3. Add a few more units. Someone suggested another mounted unit between knights and cavalry. Sounds like a plan.

4. Give units the option of occupying the square of an enemy. I know this could potentially drastically change game play, but it seems odd that I have to occupy the tile of the enemy I just killed. It should work that after you kill the unit you lose the movement you normally lose for your attack, but your unit can move to the tile of the unit you just killed for no movement cost, or cost minus 1 in the case of hills etc. Maybe this is too complicated, but I think it'd add some nice depth to unit strategies.

5. Add some more in between techs. Tech tree just seems small compared to the old civ and civ2. Maybe it's just me... anyway another 10 or so techs would be sweet.

6. Add a few more civics. The more civics, the more ways of playing, the more fun.

7. Allow unit trading through diplomacy. Countries sells arms to each other all the time irl, why not let Russia buy bombers from Spain or whatever? I don't really see this being exploited in multiplayer since you can already gift units to other civs.

8. Let resources play a bigger role in the game. It seems odd that my entire civ can crank out tanks and aircraft because I found one tile of oil. Maybe cap the numbers of cities that can produce resource requiring units per tile of such resource. To compensate, add a few more resources to the world. I think this would reflect the real world a bit better. For example, America has oil locally, but stills imports tons because its local oil can't meet its consumption. This would add new depth to diplomacy imo.

 

[Storminator]

What if you could assign workers to a tile, and get one more point of something out of it? Instead of sleeping a worker, assign it to a farm and get +1, assign it to a mine and get +1 , a cottage and get +1.

That way you have something to do with all those sleepy workers.

PS

 

[Gaius Octavius]

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?

This is something I've wanted to see for a LONG time.
Before I got interested in Civ in 2003, I used to play another game made by a friend of Sid Meier's which was very similar, and it had this. RTW also implements it fairly well. You developers should pay attention! You could always give us an option in the menu to check "auto-resolve combat", where it would work just like it does now, with percentages, etc. That way we can have the best of both worlds.

 

[Pawna]

Yeah, I dont FEEL like a great general if Im only pointing-and-clicking. Mind you, I am aware that Im not, in fact, a great general. But then I suppose thats why I play civ.

Another suggestion: Commemorating certain battles. If thyere was some way in the game to have spectacular battles remembered for all time. Remember the Battle for Liverpool in the great Indian-English war in 1982? Me neither.


I have to get out more.

 

[The Flame]

8. A proper game editor! Like what you had in Civ3!

Ya, I miss that one.

 

[mice]

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?

Rome total war, but get the Rome total realism mod. You really need this.
It's at Rome total realism.org (not .com)

If you're into tactics it's got endless depth. Only thing is the strategy map is too simple after Civ.

 

[Mat777]

This is something I've wanted to see for a LONG time.
Before I got interested in Civ in 2003, I used to play another game made by a friend of Sid Meier's which was very similar, and it had this. RTW also implements it fairly well. You developers should pay attention! You could always give us an option in the menu to check "auto-resolve combat", where it would work just like it does now, with percentages, etc. That way we can have the best of both worlds.

But we can say that Firaxis created some tactical possibility in civ4. The new units promotion can be view as tactics. So we can say Firaxis already did something to give more tactical possibility in the game.

Anyway, i don't ask for something like totalwar, it would be too much, but just something more like facing units in tile so we can flank would be great.
I don't want a tactical view in civ like totalwar, this is way too much.

 

[T.A JONES]

Whats with these compaints on battle sequences?. All you who complain have not seen how Civs battles are ideally played out, on a Civ3 engine!.
Im askin we return to nicly sized smoothly rendered units that can be shown with a 'health' bar or 'people' bar...but with a higher grade 3d (I know the kids need 3d so its a must otherwise, enhanced 2d would be best only this time the emphasis on heavily flavoured terrain like multi-look mines eco-diverse terrain, farming etc..)) .

All this talk of adapting another games style is bogus. . Next we will want are citys shown through "SimCitys" eyes. No! No! this will not do! Civ is Civ not some other game. All the concepts should stick with what made it the best game in the history in the first place. Graphics were never part of its success. The stuff of Civ1, 2, and 3, Im talkin fast responsive battles that optimized quick decisons in high volumes was part the right forumla. Its part of the process that lead to addictive "one more turn" behavior Civ4 marketed but became the first in the series to go without. Opting instead for a heavily burdened eye-candy engine that rotted away replay value. Adding a fancy war view is doping up the game just the same. Its Dressin up Civ as somethin its not meant to be.

Why should they change the implimentation of how wars are played out just because someone else has done it in another more shiny eyecatching way. Have these new 3d graphics we got now made Civ4 much better to play? ..

Go buy that game you say is better optimized for battle and go play it. I'll bet you'll find its a whole differant feel then Civ(Much more battle geared over Civ's diverse strategy options) and you be wanting the simple but more decisive and more stratigicly vaiable option that plays through 500 plus turns with hundreds of units in way that keeps you trained on the larger objective not sidetracked with unimportant, shiny, meaningless details that were drownin in already.

 

[Mat777]

Whats with these compaints on battle sequences?. All you who complain have not seen how Civs battles are ideally played out, on a Civ3 engine!.
Im askin we return to nicly sized smoothly rendered units that can be shown with a 'health' bar or 'people' bar...but with a higher grade 3d (I know the kids need 3d so its a must otherwise, enhanced 2d would be best only this time the emphasis on heavily flavoured terrain like multi-look mines eco-diverse terrain, farming etc..)) .

I was saying the same back in the days, it took me a while to get use of 3D and today I like it. For now, the 3d graphic may look odd or childish for you but they need to start somewhere. The next civ will be greater and you will probably like it. Its what happened to me for other game that moved from 2d to 3d.

Why should they change the implimentation of how wars are played out just because someone else has done it in another more shiny eyecatching way. Have these new 3d graphics we got now made Civ4 much better to play? ..

Like I said, i don't ask civ to be like totalwar. They already implemented tactical options such as promotion for units, and I think everybody like that.
If we had just some more tactical possibility like facing in tile, I think the game would be awsome. But this new change are needed only because of the new mp part of the game. I wouldn't care at all about tactical options if the game was only sp. Because the game now have a MP part, I think it need more option and ability, otherwise, having tactical skill give no advantage.

 

[Pres. Slayback]

If not already mentioned

Possible leaders changing appearance through history like Civ III

 

[flyingchicken]

having tactical skill give no advantage.

Civ is a strategy game, not a tactical game. You have to have skill in strategy (logistics, foresight, et al) instead of tactics.

 

[NedRise]

This is something I've wanted to see for a LONG time.
Before I got interested in Civ in 2003, I used to play another game made by a friend of Sid Meier's which was very similar, and it had this. RTW also implements it fairly well. You developers should pay attention! You could always give us an option in the menu to check "auto-resolve combat", where it would work just like it does now, with percentages, etc. That way we can have the best of both worlds.

I think there is already a decent tactical element to warfare in CIV...
positioning your units on hills is possible,
attacking in a particular order with different units is possible,
digging in behind rivers or on hills is possible...
it really depends what you do with those possibilities.
I do play both RTW and MTW, and they are great games, but they are very different games as well...
Think about this: would you want either of those games to have the same in depth economy/city management/diplomacy/research paths as CIV ?
Covering all of civilisation's history?

 

[Mat777]

Civ is a strategy game, not a tactical game. You have to have skill in strategy (logistics, foresight, et al) instead of tactics.

But the game already tactical elements. And the new units promotion system can be view as tactics.
Civ is not only a strategy game, even more since the four.

 

[Danielos]

Keep improving and evolving Civ 4 with 1-2 more expansions after Beyond the Sword. Don´t start from scratch with Civ 5 yet!! Civ 4 has so much unused potential, already looks and sounds great, has 3D and steep system requirements, so why not a new expansion pack 2008, and another 2009 before a Civ 5 is considered? As seen in this thread and the "Ideas and suggestions" forum, there is so much more to do with this brilliant game.

 

[flyingchicken]

But the game already tactical elements. And the new units promotion system can be view as tactics.
Civ is not only a strategy game, even more since the four.

Nay. Tactical games are games like the battle mode of RTW, no more. The promotions thing is still part of the strategy--you just turn them into "different" units.

 

[Skirmisher]

More sea based health resources - shrimp, squid, seaweed

Sea based luxury goods - pearls, seal (fur)

Sea improvements - aquafarms, offshore windmills

New sea units
Fireships - ships that selfdestruct causing collateral dammage
Frogmen - infantrytype unit that can "swim" using minisubs
Ekrano-planes - extremely fast troop carriers for surprise raids
Torpedo bomber - plane designed to sink ships
Sea mines - hidden units
Minesweeper - detects mines

New buildings

Naval academy - plus 2 experence for ships