Our compiled list of demands for the Ptw

eli_co:

I do get it. you seem to be under the impression that you hold some towering power over a game-maker, and I simply don't think that's the case. I don't think they'll "listen to it" and I think the only way they'll be rolling on the ground is if they're laughing at the audacity of a single consumer demanding concessions in their next game. . . not begging.

As for the money issues you keep bringing up, I'm not rich. Nowhere near it. Full-time college student+ stay-at-home-dad=$0 income. I don't buy games often because I don't have that much free cash lying around. BUT, I will buy games which I feel are worth it. Problems and wishes aside, this is one of the most engrossing games I've played in a long time. Judging by the post counts on this site I'll assume I'm not the only one who actually likes the game. As many complaints as there might be here, it doesn't seem to stop people from playing or buying the games.
As talk radio host Tom Leykis always says "I don't care if you like just as long as you listen so the advertisers keep paying me."

As I said before, it's a major step that Firaxis even cares about fan input; most don't.

They will be able to tell from sales records whether the expansion was good enough or not. I don't think they need demands to do that for them. If you are truly that upset about it, learn how to make games and make one the way you think it should be. And I don't know where all of this about beating people up came from; wasn't from me.

The "threat" of not buying the game is meaningless; people actually not buying the game would mean something but the liklihood of that happening is slim (remember that nationwide boycott X gas station on Y day a few years back?. . . total failure) because whatever good ideas or points you might have, you don't have the "pull" of a disciplined marketing staff.

And again, even if it does have flaws it is still a fantastic game.

By the way, a good solution to the problem you seem to be having would be to simply wait until the game has been out for a bit and check fansites (like this one) to see what is being said about it before committing to a purchase. Or rent it...I dunno, can you rent PC games? or borrow it, you get the idea.

Panth
 
I think that Firaxis is doing something right, look at the numbers this game sold. They may take a look at a site and see that there are people b**ching at them, but these people say they dont play the game, yet they hang around. They must be doing something right. This is the same problem that there was with Diablo 2, if you could call it a problem. The game sold so many copies that there were a few morons who thought that because there was stuff in the game that they didn't like the company MUST change for them. And give me a break, buying the game again. If you are unhappy then dont buy it, get over the fact. I have been ripped off many times. I buy music cd's, the cd is sub-par, i then dont go on a protest infront of music stores or right irate letters to the band. I just shut up, get over it, and live my life.

WHy do people feel that companies owe them anything? You buy the game, how long did you play it for? I mean roughly calculate how much it cost you per hour. For instance, on average a movie will cost me 7.50 an hour here in BC canada. Now civ 3 is probably at 10 cents an hour or less. But even if you play the game for around 50 hours thats roughly a dollar an hour. Thats pretty cheap entertainment.

Sorry if i came off too strong, but honestly, the game sells millions and one person can honestly think that getting even 100 people to sign a petition, or right letters/emails, to firaxis is going to change their opinion on how they make the game.


Quote:
about the expansion pack, it is nice you give add-on to the fanatic fans , like multiplayer, flag wins, and so on, but now most of us wish there wouldnt be one anyway, because it seems that when you release the game, you think on things you can exclude from it so people will buy the game again... and in any case this forthcoming expansion has some changes like radars, airfields and more civs that are going to change the game and its unfair for people who wont buy it, DONT expect that people buy the game twice, we dont want to, and dont have money... give respect to people who already bought the game and dont start talking a few months after the release about all those new things you forgot about , and will release soon, once again, most of us dont want to buy the game twice, i really am upset about this all thing.(it will sadly work this time, but dont pull it off on civ4 again)

Mr Sid, why does it hurt you so much to let us have about 40 civs?
how many hours of programming does it take, come on, in one day you can get all the 40 in, so do it!
Well first of all, the expansion pack is not as expensive as the game, so you are not buying the game twice. Next, multiplayer was not included in civ 1 or 2 the first time around, it came in the civ 2 Xpac. And Civ3 is a turn based game, it takes time to come up with ways to make the game work well with MP. Also 40 civs in 40 days, well think about it, thats 40 days that they are not making units, 40 days that people are not actually programming the game, thats over one month of a delay. And do you think that they can come up with one unit a day animate the unit and animate the leader head all in one day? If you take into account the time it would take to add everything in the expansionpack into the original version of the game then you would probably save a total of $10 plus the taxes. The people get payed no matter what, so they need to get payed for the work they do. Icreased hours of work, increased pay, increased price.

We want to get more attached to our units,they are not just pawns on the board but citizens from our empire.
first of all, and easy to implement is the ability for us to give our units names(The second battalion for example) this feature is very important for most of us.
most of us eh? wheres the research of most of us? and i thought this was a strategy game, not an rpg. Also getting too attached to your units will cause you to loose view of your objective :)

There has to be much more bigger role to barbarians, or as we call it in our days Terrorists , for example you can fund and harbour terrorism against your neighbours(see iran helping terrorists, pakistan supporting "freedom fighters" against india and so on)
well this company must be politicaly correct, people will buy the game without terrorists. But if you add terrorists, then people may not buy the game. This is a company after all, not a charity. Also, there is an editor, so you can add terrorists if you want them, thats what i did. Problem solved no need to demand anything.

There should be more representation to Intelligence in the game, its a very important feature, if your neighbour is preparing for war,and producing lots more units than the usual , and sending terrorists against you, then your Intelligence(C.I.A, satellite system and so on) will notify you about it.
the quality of the intelligence should be as good as the amount of budget they get.
isn't this in the game? You can buy the plans for the civs beside you, you can use your spy from espionage to look at the number of units. you can use explorers to go in neighboring cities territory to look at what they are doing without too much trouble from them unless you realy pissed them off earlier. So it seems you may need to play this game a bit more or read some of the strategies people post

There must be new units in civ4, and the ones that were mentioned the most in the forums are :Ballistic Missles that are not nuclear(scuds for example), 2 kinds of radars, and mine fields(which could be tough to add , cause it can make the game get stuck although there could be a way to defuse them, by a special unit, for example, in iran iraq war, the iranians compiled a brigade of 15 year old kids, whose job was to be the first to walk on mine fields, and defuse them, it was an effective unit, but not many volunteered to it...
Dark sheer made a scud missile, i believe it was him. Thus you can go in the editor, make this missile have infinate range, give it a huge bombard stength

Talking about realism, whats more important in our world today then religions? this is a delicate subject, but there must be a role for religions in the game.
The basic idea is that your civ will choose its religion for example-christian/muslim/ jewish/ atheist/ pagan and so on...
Muslim countries are more likely not to attack other islamic nations, and attack israel instead, and so on, there can be a lot more added on this subject.
Talking about realism, how realistic is it for someone to live for 6050 years, ruling their country? This game is obviously unrealistic just as the predesessors were.



Now i do agree with some of your points, Such as a UN system similar to that of SMAC, and i would like to see dont declare war on so and so. But realy that isn't that much of the game that is missing. Remember that the editor is there so you can change the game to your liking. Also, some of your rant, oh i mean demand, has been implemented already. In PTW the diplomacy and espionage system is easier to use, not nearly as much clicking around, its all done from one screen.

Edit:
some of your minor demads are in the game. There is group movemnt and there is group fortify.
And yes, the wonder movies were a nice touch, but usualy i just ended up skipping them anyways, but honeslty, how much of a loss was not having them?
 
I just want to change dates and diplomacy options in modded scenarios. Then I will be happy.

Not a demand, just a very nice to request to my special friend Mr. Meier, thank you in advance, oh mighty sir. :D

Oh and PS - add a virus to eli's copy, will you? We shouldn't give the impression that the civ community negotiates with a gun to its head....
 
...but i'd really appreciate some feedback.

1st. Food.
Cities should be able to share food. This would help to make stable populations in tundra or desert. Some kind of empire's storage.
Soldiers must eat, no just get paid. They can get their meal by hunting in the wilderness, by sacking the fields from the nearest enemy city (of which you're at war with) or by the empire's ration provided by the government. You, as the leader, may choose to give food to the soldiers and starve your civilians if you think is necessary to do so.

2nd. Shields.
Rushing a project would not buy the remaining production to complete the box, instead it should left unbought the production that will be filled by the normal means in the next turn. This is, by example: you want to rush a warrior in a city which has 2 production/turn, you will only buy 8... because the other 2 will be provided naturally by the city.
If you cut a forest, and you required less than the production provided (including the previous condition)... the remaining production (and the city's production of that turn) must go to the next project (unless it's a wonder, of course).

3rd. Gold.
A treasure can't not be hold if you don't know what it is. Before currency, taxes can't be stored as money (of any kind). They may be any good (not only gold), because of barter economy.
Once currency is discovered, it must have a name (first coins of gold or any other metal, after printing press some fancy name) and can be stored as money.
A strong economy will have a strong currency. So that international trade will lead to use it as a trade standard (like US dollars or Euros) are today.
It would only be posible to buy another country's good with its own money. No reserves of foreign money... no trade posible.
That would make money a new special tradable resource.

4th. Special abilities.
The six existing ones (commercial, expansionist, militaristic, industrious, religious and scientific) clearly covers the most.
Of course industrious should get lower costs of building production related structures (mines, forests, factories, offshore platforms, manufacturing plants and some others i may forget, but not wonders)
instead of having workers double rate. It really unbalances the game.
It would be nice to include agrarian and happy.
Agrarian civs are devoted to the feeding of their people, allowing them to lower their cost to related buildings (like granaries) and giving them better yieldings. As expansionist they start with pottery.
Happy civs are devoted to keep high the spirits of their people, allowing them to lower the effect of overcrowding, war weariness and drafting (note i don't mention despotic rush) and increase the effect happy related buildings, luxuries and entertainers. As religious they star with ceremonial burial.

5th. Scientific advances.
Some of them, just like replaceable parts increase workers speed, should automatically increase the yielding of food, shields and gold.
Ancient times
Mysticism was very much like a primitive religion based on nature cycles. This advance should allow to recognize the seasons, therefore increasing food yielding.
Iron working provided people with better tools increasing their ability to grow crops and work mines, therefore increasing the food and shield yielding.
Currency provided people with a better way to measure wealth, therefore increasing gold yielding.
Middle ages/Rennaissance
Feudalism was a major economical improvement, with the uprising of the guilds and the making of a better division of the labor, therefore increasing food, shield and gold yielding.
Engineering completely transformed the construction labors, providing people with better buildings and roads, therefore increasing shield and gold yielding.
Chemistry provided better fertilizers, therefore increasing food yielding.
Printing press created a way to get money out of paper, providing an easier way to do trade, therefore increasing gold yielding.
Industrial ages.
Motorized transportation provided both crop growing and mine working with big machines to raise the productivity, therefore increasing food and shields yielding.
Scientific method discovered that old resources could be used in new revolutionary ways, therefore increasing shields yielding.
Mass production was a major upgrade in manufactured goods productivity, therefore increasing shields and gold yielding.
Modern times.
Ecology brought up a new way to think economy: the sustenable developement, a major revolution in every area, therefore increasing food, shields and gold yielding.
Computers increased the information storage, that way corporation were enable to better now their markets and raise their sales, therefore increasing gold yielding.
Genetics provided crop yielding with fast-growing and high-tolerant varieties of plants and animales, therefore increasing food yielding.
This exhaustive list provides 7 automatic yielding upgrades for food, shields and gold. This upgrades made throughout your empire, providing small increases to each city's total.

6th. Combat.
Just add a missile weapon value to each unit. Every ground unit with no missile weapons will make a check (based on unit speed)each round to see if they made to go into close combat. If not, the missile weapon value is used and the next round begins. If the check is passed, normal weapon value is used until the end of the combat.
This will create a new category of units: ranged. It will include archers and bowmen, musketman and musketeers, riflemen, infantry, tanks and modern armor and some i may forget.
Of course the normal weapon value of all this units will be lower than their missile weapon value.
A modern armor will certainly crush a poor (and dumb) warrior band, because it will fire her massive bomb shells before the warrior can even think to hit the "metallic monster" with his small axe. But a smarter warrior (one that knows how the "metallic monster" works) can manage to evade the explosions and reach the "weak point" (like some motor part) of the "metallic monster" and plunge his small axe there and "kill" him.
I know this sound weird. But just see how palestine warrior manages to take down hebrew "metallic monster".
Of course this also depends on the terrain and the technological gap between two civs. In open terrain (a plan) with a huge gap (three eras), chances for the warrior are close to zero. In a hard terrain (a jungle) with a small gap (just a few techs), chances for the warrior may get really higher.
 
All I want to add to the game is an option to

a) turn off the screen where you get humiliated (lose), because that is a real moral-buster for newbies (first game, I lost - I was thinking of breaking the CD into two pieces because I tried hard but now was being humiliated?)

b) to be able to standarize all games (options-wise) to all the same options. Sometimes I'll want to turn on an option and want it in all games but have to remember to do it individually

c) Somehow let espionage be discovered before democracy so I could iniate some propoganda (every game everybody's democracy so I can't do any propoganda)
 
Diplo-
They fixed that screen in PTW, there is a new option on top of the diplo screen which says "More Civs"
And i think the reason why the new espionage and trade system was made because of the More Civs option, like say America was on one screen, and France was on the other, and they were in war. We wouldnt even know they were in war if they hadnt developed the new espionage and trade systems
 
Well, I have a number of SUGGESTIONS, based off the original post, and some other ideas that popped into my head.

40 civs? It takes forever to play a game with only 16!! Name all our units? What're you, nuts? Putting names on the map, to like label your major continents and oceans and stuff, that would be nice, but I don't have time to label 1000+ units. The naming system as it is is kinda silly, but it's nice to know when a unit has produced a leader already.

Drafting units DOES decrease the population, or haven't you done it?

Giving military support should be done in the same way that Workers are sold; you move some to your capital, you sell them to some one, they are magically transported to their capital and you never hear from them again. However, all such units should lose 2 experience levels if the receiving Civ can't build them and 1 if they can.

Don't need volcanoes. Maybe a couple extra types of events, but that's it. Don't need provinces. That's a whole different game (called EU).

All UN ideas I've seen don't look like any fun, just tedium. Don't bother. Let's look to AC for a couple ideas tho. Like "Please stop attacking my friend".

An option to try to destabilize an enemy gov't would be a nice addition to Espionage. The cost goes up with the size of the enemy civ, and it effectively adds an UNhappyface to each city. Do this enough times and you start forcing him to put people on Entertainment detail, and may eventually cause a revolution. Unrest might also cause some Partisian units to be created in enemy territory... the city(s) they spawn from will lose population.

Ballistic missiles.... = Cruise Missile??? Yeah, that's right. Just bump the range a little.

Don't need religion. Culture's just fine.

Sentry command? Who wants that? Fortify is the same, but better! Leave this alone. Maybe you mean Patrol? I think you're thinking of a different game then; I don't remember that in Civ2, but I do remember it in Empire.

Movies: You watch them ONCE, and then never want to see them again. Was a nice touch, but I don't miss them. Would've been nice to try and get some real pictures into the Civilopedia though, or diagrams for those that no longer exist.

Borders are fine, but you should get the option to ask intruders to leave or tell them to leave, not the way it is now, and be allowed to attack them if the warning is unheeded without starting a war.

Less AI cheating, fewer AI bonuses, more difficulty based on AI intelligence! And let's implement multi-threading and multi-tasking while we're at it. Would like to use both CPUs, and would like to let the AI do its thinking during animations and during my turn.

Neutral cities should also be independent from each other. They are like seperate nations, but can all be represented with the same color, since we know they're independent. Don't even need to tie units to a particular city either. You kill one city, the other units can still be used by the others. It's LIKE another civ, but not really. Killing all the indy cities doesn't get rid of the straggler units either.

Would like a multi-unit command option. Say I got a stack of enemy workers and I have a railroad to build. You want them to operate in groups of 12. Merge them into a super-unit and give the super-unit the order to build a road/rail.

You can build canals. They're called cities, though. And you have to place them on wasp-waists. I would like to be able to go catacorner again, so I can make navigable rivers.

Screw Fascism already!! It's just a freakin Despotism! There's nothing special about it except that the most famous example was run by a bunch of insane killers. Real Nazism was just SOCIALISM. That's how they got the name, from National Socialism. Communism is basically the same thing as Socialism. One wonders why Commies and Fascists disagreed so vehemently, till one looks at Sunni and Shi'ite, or Catholic and Protestant.

I think we need a Lorraine Project wonder. I don't know about in-game effects, but it made computers cheaper and more powerful than they otherwise would've been.

Let's not go overboard on the war weariness. It's not bad as it is, it's just a little more overpowering than I like it. It should slowly build over time to a fixed point (double for Democracy than Republic) and if you were DOWed, it takes a few extra turns to start kicking in. If enemy units are in your territory, then it slows down, but it still keeps rising.

Let's say for instance WW generates 1 unhappy face per turn. For Rep, we limit this to a total of say 10. For Demo we limit it to 20. If there's enemy troops around, then we get our unhappy face every other turn.

I would like to know what the "Happyizers" are. EG I want to see how many people are born Content, see the effect gained from hi-population, wonders, improvements, troops, war weariness, foreigners, and espionage attacks (see destabilization idea above).

I want to see a chart (or several) showing what the relations are between all civs, and some useful info, like how much money they have on hand, what their best 2-3 techs are, their ratings (hit F11 for your ratings), attitudes towards everyone, resources/luxuries to trade, and whatever else should have been depicted on the F4 screen, but for ALL civs, not just 8. FUNCTIONALITY is important. That screen blows if you want to see everything it shows. CHARTS. Sleep on it.

2 leaders, not 3.

Don't think we actually need spy units; it's time has passed. Same for caravans. RIP.

Who really cares about airfields? They don't get you anything useful. Maybe in a limited circumstance I might be glad to build one, but MY combat forces include workers ONLY if I am trying to build a railroad. I don't use "Combat Settlers", though I admire the idea.

In another post, we/I came up with the idea that there were way too many roads and railroads clutterig up the countryside. At the time, I didn't have a real good suggestion on how to fix this, but now I do:

First, building roads and rails are good only for their transportation and connection effects. They provide no bonus to trade or food or shields. Second, we don't want to go back to the Farmland fiasco, but we still need a way of bumping up those values at appropriate times. The solution, maestro, is with some city improvements.

The Rail Network Improvement would become available at the same time Rails are, and what it does it invisibly connects each square of your city's radius to railroads. No need to draw them on the map and clutter it up. Mines produce an extra shield, irrigation produces an extra food. Of course, in the editor, we can select how much of an improvement this makes. For instance, we would want 2 extra shields when mining hills and mountains, but only 1 from plains. We'd want 2 extra food from flood plains and grasslands, but only one from all others.

The Road Network Improvement would be something we get early on, and what it does is put a Trade in each square, just like a Road does now. The difference is we don't have to build all those roads. Think about it. Is every little street and avenue printed in a US atlas? But people get to places by using roads other than highways... So let's just assume that there's already roads there.

What we're left with is lines of roads/rails instead of covering the countryside with them. Having some one come in and pillage a rail connection is more important now.

We also need to let units pass THROUGH each other, even if owned by other civs. Of course, if they're ENEMY units, well... I guess we gotta stop, but it's really annoying to have my early road and rail lines blocked by some idiot with a ROP and no sense of where to go.

Here's another idea: You don't have to move every unit every turn, and you don't have to give them brand new orders every turn, and you are allowed to have units already at a destination handle the situation instead of making them all criss-cross my territory for the sheer joy of it. Why are we wasting so many CPU cycles?

One more and then I'll go: If there's a battle, there should be a chance that the defender's square got "pillaged" (damaged in the battle). This would make you a little more leary of letting other people fight their wars on your soil. You would of course be able to ask them to leave, or attack them without DOW if they refuse.

Sorry for the long post.
 
TheDS, sentry was in Civ1 and Civ2. I dont know what this guy is complaining about though, since we now have wake all there is no problem. Sentry was a command that was similar to fortify, the only catch was that if an enemy troop, make that any other civs troop, came next to the sentried unit, it would automaticaly wake up. It isn't realy needed though, i am fine with waking them up on my own.
 
If you think they are making a mistake, you are certainly at liberty to tell them so. But in a free market, if their product is not satisfactory to you, don't buy it. It's really that simple. If enough people are unsatisfied, then their game won't sell, and they will get the message loud and clear.
Amen. Couldn't have said it any better myself. That's the one thing that I've never understood about "gamers" and their relationship to gaming companies -- a goodly chunk of folks always expect the companies to tailor the game to their tastes.

What's easier? Firaxis attempts to pander to every wish/demand from every player, or the player decides whether the game is right for him/her (and makes his/her purchase based upon that decision)? My money is on the latter.

Out,
Volstag
 
Not any demands, but some things I would like to see:

Most, if not all, of my wishes are things that can't be changed in the editor. The editor is a god-send as this enables so many more people to enjoy this game by tailoring the game to how they want it to be played.

I wish.....

In the editor you could make small wonders give an improvement to all your cities. Right now only Great Wonders can do this, so only one civ can take advantage of this. Great wonders, small wonders and improvements should all be possible to use the options of each other.

Improvements that can add an extra food/shield to LAND squares. If you build an improvement that would add these, you could take out the railroad bonus, so railroads are meant for transportation only. I wish the rail food/shield bonus would be adjustable.

Have the Railroad movement editable in the editor. So we all aren't forced to play by the 0-turns movement of rails.

A specialists that adds shields. Also, specialists should be multiplied by improvements (but of course, still immune from corruption). A scientist adding just 1 beaker is worthless. If that 1 beaker would get multiplied by libraries, universities, etc, it might be a little more worth having a few specialists in every city.

Be able to change the ending date (like 2300 A.D.) without having to use a save game editor.

Culture can extend onto ocean. Perhaps a flag for this? I realize on tiny/small maps it is there so your culture can't extend across the atlantic for example, but on huge maps, my culture should extend out more than 2 squares without the ocean stopping it.

Have a flag so that if we want all cities to start out at the 21 square size immediately upon settling we can. This would enable some to eliminate culture if they want because they could set all improvements to generate 0 culture and still get all cities to utilize the full 21 squares.

EDIT TERRAFORMING! Probably available with a modern age tech or Future Tech, allow workers to change terrain. Plains to grassland, for example, or Desert to plains. Maybe the more future techs you get, the more severely you can alter the terrain? If you get future tech 25 you should be able to change mountains to grassland!
 
Furry Spatula, the sentry command is available in CIV3 as well - but only by using the keyboard. Y and shift-Y IIRC.
 
Meh, i still wont use it as i am used to fortify but that is yet another nail in Eli_co's arguments coffin. It turns out that if he played the game a little he would realize he didn't need to make so many demands.
 
I think they did a great job!! I do beleive that if one thing is to change that they allow us to:

1.Allow us to be in allied cities (peacekeeping or what not..) of course if the alliance is cancled your troops get kicked out of there city and to your capital or whatever.

2.allow us to trade give units away to other civs i think that would be alot of fun and incorperate stratagey alot more you for ex. you could give england 15 destroyers to declare war on germany that would be great

i know some ppl have already stated this on other forums but that is what i would like to be done .. Great job Firaxis

thanks
 
Sentry is useful for units that have a higher attack than defense.
 
Originally posted by warpstorm
Sentry is useful for units that have a higher attack than defense.

I think there should be command that you could put units into guarding certain hex. Example you could put units to your fortress and be able to guard some hex that is few hexes away. I mean that when "on guard" or "on patrol" command would give them little bit more range for their normal scouting range...and you wouldn't have to yourself move the units back and forth.

Most of the changes that are asked would be nice to have available in the editor. I mean those that aren't extremely big...however it's always questionable are expansions worth to buy or are they just small upgrades. Example even though there are new civs made by Firaxis...fans could make those civs themselves with units of course for free.

So what I'm saying is up to every customer themselves to decide whether to buy certain product and whether to support it.
Making "demands" is crazy...
Just look EA Sports NHL series...were many Hardcore fans of the series have wanted certain improvements year after year (example more realism and such) and still they aren't implented...only hope is always say: maybe next year.

So even though it sounds rough but we are just minority of gamers here posting on the forums asking for someone to improve the game. Most of the gamers just play without even thinking improvements. They just decide is the game good or not in their opinion and that's it.
 
Originally posted by ViceRoy

So even though it sounds rough but we are just minority of gamers here posting on the forums asking for someone to improve the game. Most of the gamers just play without even thinking improvements. They just decide is the game good or not in their opinion and that's it.

This is a fact that is lost on a lot of forum members. We are in a small minority of Civ players. A vocal minority, but still a very small minority.
 
a) i must agree with most of the suggestions i read here, especially those intended to improve the 'reality' of the game.

b) also many features that were present in smac are disappeared.

c) i bought alien crossfire and was really happy with it. i think it's gonna be the same with ptw.

d) multiplayer, new factions etc.. require an expansion cd, right. but most of the changes proposed can be fit in future patches, so don't despair..
 
demands..thats a strong word to be using to a powerful game maker like firaxis..
 
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