[PETITION] Bring the flavor back to Civilization!

[RomanHoliday]

Some good ideas. Some not so much (perhaps a custom toggle for each). But saying Civ lacks flavor? I disagree.

There is much diversity in the game; random maps, evolving units, large tech tree. So there is plenty flavor in my book. What draws me in is the strategic aspect. The bells and whistles make it just a bit more interesting. Of course, that doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to see many of the ideas posted here and in other threads incorporated into a future patch or version.

 

[Shirina]

There are so many things that could be done with the game. Unfortunately, most gaming companies seem to toss out a vanilla game and leave it to the modding community to add flavor. Unfortunately, mods are often a pain in the butt if you're not relatively experienced and comfortable modifying the program. The Civ franchise has become a zero-sum game. Instead of adding new stuff to old content, Firaxis seems to remove something old whenever they add something new so the game doesn't expand, it just changes.

So here are a few things I'd like to see in addition to the ones already mentioned:

1. A more detailed demographics model for cities. One thing I liked about Civ 3 is that there was a fairly detailed population given for your cities which I enjoyed knowing. It said how many people, to the nearest 100,000th, were living in your city.

2. Suburbs that could be built (or even spontaneously appear) in regions around the city, especially in unused tiles within your borders. Excess population due to starvation could be transferred to the suburbs, which would have a limited population capacity and generate commerce and hammers in that square. I always thought it odd that citizens would remain in a city that had a shortage of food, so why not move to the 'burbs?

3. Bring back the super highway improvement and make it an upgrade to railroads ... so instead of having railroads connecting your cities, you'd have interstate highways, which is more realistic in a modern environment. More commerce is generated by the trucking industry than the railroads. Plus the graphics would be more realistic to the eye, seeing interstates and cloverleaf intersections rather than railroad tracks. Perhaps a civ with a quarry could make concrete, which would make the highways available.

4. Internal migration. Citizens love to vote with their feet. If a city gets too large or citizens start becoming unhappy, they up-sticks and move to a different city. Why not? It happens in the real world. People go where the jobs are, where the food is, where opportunities exist, and even where the weather is warmer. Citizens in an old, over-crowded city might love to get away to a smaller, fast growing city on the 'frontier.'

5. External Immigration. Similar to internal migration, citizens from neighboring civs should flock to your empire if you're more advanced or more cultured than they are. Instead of just having a city flip to your side (which doesn't really happen in the real world), population from a rival can be siphoned off to your own empire through culture and tech wars ... one could even add a new tech advancement or wonder: the propaganda ministry, which acts like a magnet to draw citizens from other nations.

6. I like the idea of random events to keep things from becoming predictable. I know people who play with strict formulas don't like the idea of an uncontrollable variable in their equation, but I tend to find it refreshing. The key here is to balance bad events with good ones. Most games with random events saw 90% of them being a detriment to the player. While the game would have its usual litany of earthquakes, plagues, hurricanes and a meteor impact or two, those need to be balanced with random scientific breakthroughs, population booms, undiscovered resource deposits, etc. In addition, they should occur to the AI as well, and the AI needs to react to them. For instance, if the AI's capital is wiped out due to an earthquake, it should try to end any wars it is engaged in and try to settle matters at home.

7. Have an Alpha Centauri map. Instead of the game ending when the rocket blasts off, the game could continue as you colonize the new world. Sort of like combining Civ and Alpha Centauri in the same epic game, and techs would advance into the future (rather than just a generic "future tech")

8. Bring back variable game length. Some players like myself enjoy a longer game so that we can get the most out of it. Civ 3 allowed you to make the game like 200 or 300 turns longer than the standard game. To me, that made wars more appealing. I dislike getting embroiled in conflicts in the standard length game because it means actual empire building is going to get stifled as war weariness sets in and most cities are producing units instead of improvements. With a longer game, I know I have time for a war and can still max out an empire.

 

[PieceOfMind]

8. Bring back variable game length. Some players like myself enjoy a longer game so that we can get the most out of it. Civ 3 allowed you to make the game like 200 or 300 turns longer than the standard game. To me, that made wars more appealing. I dislike getting embroiled in conflicts in the standard length game because it means actual empire building is going to get stifled as war weariness sets in and most cities are producing units instead of improvements. With a longer game, I know I have time for a war and can still max out an empire.

There are already 4 game speeds: quick, standard, epic and marathon. If I remember rightly, marathon gives a very long game, with units built faster proportionately when compared to other game speeds. I think marathon gives something like 1200 turns.

 

[Codex]

3. Bring back the super highway improvement and make it an upgrade to railroads ... so instead of having railroads connecting your cities, you'd have interstate highways, which is more realistic in a modern environment. More commerce is generated by the trucking industry than the railroads. Plus the graphics would be more realistic to the eye, seeing interstates and cloverleaf intersections rather than railroad tracks. Perhaps a civ with a quarry could make concrete, which would make the highways available.

I'd like to see highways, too, if only to eliminate the "all-rail" overlay that is currently the best way to move troops, with a production bonus to boot.

Maybe add highways as an improvement, but where you can have highways, or rails, but not both? Highways could provide a commerce bonus (to commerce tiles, & maybe to food), and rails a production bonus (to production tiles). [This would encourage city specialization -- at the level of tile specialization -- & it's in keeping with the way railroads have worked in the series to date. Alternatively, you could flip it, so that each transportation system made up for what specific tile lack; that is, a highway could add commerce to a production tile, and a railroad add production to a commerce tile. That would discourage city specialization, since each tile would wind up looking rather like a watermill or a windmill in the current game.]

If you wanted to add a strategic dimension to this, you could allow movement bonuses only to certain types of units on certain types of transportation systems. EG, you've got to have an engine to make best use of a highway. (You could, alternatively, make it differential, so that some kinds of units get more of a boost from some kinds of transportation networks.) This might encourage unit promotion, and it could force some complicated strategic decisions: Do I want a railroad or a highway through that chokepoint? Do I need the tile bonus more than rapid movement in the core? At the borders?

It seems to me that the developers tried to move us away from "all-rail" (and "all-road") empires by eliminating their commerce boost, and by nerfing the RR production boost. Ironically, perhaps, the transformation of the RR movement bonus from infinite to x10 has the opposite effect, making it more important to build RR everywhere, since the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

- Codex

 

[Codex]

6. I like the idea of random events to keep things from becoming predictable. I know people who play with strict formulas don't like the idea of an uncontrollable variable in their equation, but I tend to find it refreshing. The key here is to balance bad events with good ones. Most games with random events saw 90% of them being a detriment to the player. While the game would have its usual litany of earthquakes, plagues, hurricanes and a meteor impact or two, those need to be balanced with random scientific breakthroughs, population booms, undiscovered resource deposits, etc. In addition, they should occur to the AI as well, and the AI needs to react to them. For instance, if the AI's capital is wiped out due to an earthquake, it should try to end any wars it is engaged in and try to settle matters at home.

I don't think that anybody is proposing to get rid of the RNG altogether, which is probably the only solution for the pure strategy player who wants something more like chess than like Risk.

My feeling about this is that I can handle random events, but that I can accept them with better grace when they are logically connected to some other aspect of the game, and when my own decisions have some influence upon them. Combat is probably the best example of this: I cannot control the outcome of a battle, but my decisions do influence the probabilities. [The accurate combat calculator in CIV4 is, I have to say, a tremendous feature for those of us who haven't the patience to do endless battle odds on our own.]

Jungle growth, the CIV3 chance of disease for settling near swamps, forest growth, volcanic eruption, spontaneous resource generation and depletion, global warming, nuclear meltdown, pollution, city flips, goody huts ... I can cope with all of them. But if the actions of my civ (and others) have comprehensible and measurable influence upon the probabilities, I'm going to enjoy the game a lot more. If the events are reversible (I can chop that jungle again, I can clean up the pollution in a few turns) or subject to control (I can invest in clean technology and city builds), then the random events can come relatively frequently without harming the game balance. If the events are irreversible (I'm left with useless desert) and/or cataclysmic (the volcano wiped out my science city, a meteor sank Atlantis, the Martians invade), then there should be a game logic that allows me a great deal of influence upon the probability of the occurrence.

For the record, I think this applies equally to good events; if my arch-enemy is crippled by a random event that could not be predicted and was not strongly influenced by her behaviour (or that of another civ), then I'm not really going to savour the victory much.

 

[Cannae]

That's it someone should send a letter or e-mail Firaxis and give them a link showing them about this because I personally think this is an issue that has nagged me me for centuries.

 

[mynystry]

i think it would be very cool if they made some flavor units depending of the ethnicy of the civ, like that DYP mod... I mean that a mediterranean spearman look different than a germanic or native american, or asiatic... i just think that was cool in that mod.

Another thing is that it would make sense that a civ besides being able to have its special unit, it could be also the normal unit available to everyone.

I also would enjoy natural disasters, they have really played a big role in the advancement of civilizations... just look at pompeii!

earthquakes, plagues, hurricanes, drough, tornados, tsunamis, volcanos, floods... give me all of them!

 

[Elhoim]

That's it someone should send a letter or e-mail Firaxis and give them a link showing them about this because I personally think this is an issue that has nagged me me for centuries.

I´ll try to get their attention.

(don´t worry, I won´t do anything drastic!! )

 

[Technocactus]

The problem for me is, whilst I would enjoy ethnically diverse units, cultural building styles, and improved forts, I think that random events and landmarks are a bad idea. I'd have preferred the poll to be multiple choice, and be able to tick the "flavours" I want.

 

[Chuggi]

The problem for me is, whilst I would enjoy ethnically diverse units, cultural building styles, and improved forts, I think that random events and landmarks are a bad idea. I'd have preferred the poll to be multiple choice, and be able to tick the "flavours" I want.

That's the next poll Who wants to set it up?

 

[cabert]

I voted yes.
Not because I'm Ok with all the suggestions, but because like Ojevind Lang said, the game feels a bit like a spreadsheet sometimes.
I've got a very got indicator of flavour : my daughters don't look at the game when I'm playing!
They look at other games like HoMM, or even Master of Magic (yes I still play this one, once in a while) with wide open eyes. The bad guys (= all other civs ) aren't mean enough, I don't even have an excuse to hit them .

OK now for some more serious suggestions.
I like the game very much as it is.
I think there is already to much put on the graphics.
But some "flavour" from the throne room, the high council (already discussed) or a newspaper showing what's important out there (another thread mentionned this, and I must say I like it a lot!) would make it feel more "personnal" without changing anything to game balance.

I never switch on the random events if I can leave them out (and if I can't I reload after a cataclism!). This need not be in the game IMHO.

 

[aelf]

But some "flavour" from the throne room, the high council (already discussed) or a newspaper showing what's important out there (another thread mentionned this, and I must say I like it a lot!) would make it feel more "personnal" without changing anything to game balance.

It would certainly satisfy every bit of one's megalomania. Gettin messages like "The people worship you. They wish to improve your throne room" or reading newspaper clips that go "Prime News: Cabert declares himself dictator of France" are quite satisfying, don't you think?

 

[onedreamer]

I voted yes and I would add: add more flavour to eras ! Unique stuff that can happen only in certain eras, not just cities and improvements changing appearance.

 

[Franks]

3. Bring back the super highway improvement and make it an upgrade to railroads ... so instead of having railroads connecting your cities, you'd have interstate highways, which is more realistic in a modern environment. More commerce is generated by the trucking industry than the railroads. Plus the graphics would be more realistic to the eye, seeing interstates and cloverleaf intersections rather than railroad tracks. Perhaps a civ with a quarry could make concrete, which would make the highways available.

I agree 100%

 

[SwordofStriker]

I miss the old throne room. It was very satisfying to have my people show their appreciation of all I did for them :cough:BS:cough: by giving me new additions to my already fabulously well-appointed home.

 

[Mano3]

Make the game less war-oriented than it is on 2.08. That will bring out enough flavour.

I agree with you 1000000% on this one. My old builder/REX habits are taking a beating now a days.

 

[binhthuy71]

They look at other games like HoMM, or even Master of Magic (yes I still play this one, once in a while) with wide open eyes.

Thank you! I thought that I might be the only person still playing Master of Magic. As for war, when I want to play a war game I still play Total Annihilation (With the Core Contingency xp) - now there's a game that doesn't pretend to be about anything more or less than pure bloody-minded destruction.

 

[ZB2]

i vote for Sea Terrain aswell. to break up that 'little inland lake is now an ocean' phenomina

 

[mrt144]

im still tickled by the fact people bought an expansion called "warlords" and complain about war being a major factor in it.

 

[Gwil]

im still tickled by the fact people bought an expansion called "warlords" and complain about war being a major factor in it.

That's a redundant argument though - people buy the expansion pack for the extra civs, the great generals and new wonders etc.

Why should people who prefer a more balanced game be forced to adopt war as the "only doctrine" when they just wanted access to the extra civs, new wonders or new campaigns?

See, it's a redundant argument.