Anthropoid
Grognard fantome
More stuff . . . sorry this is so much, I just have lots of ideas, and your previous mods have been so amazing, you are my only hope!
I think ROP abuses should still be an option; albeit one which will stigmatize you forever.
The reputation and friendship things still need tweeking.
The idea that an artillery unit has to frontally engage an opponent to the extent that the unit is routed and evaporates is lame.
All of these lame elements are simply reflections of them attempting to achieve game balance. The game is balanced, but at the cost of certain tactical and strategic avenues being made into farce.
The real problem here is that many of us like to use smart tactics, and Civ4 offers less capacity to use tactics than did Civ3. The extent of tactics in Civ4 comprises: anticipating what units will be most efficient in attacking your enemies; anticipating what promotions will be most effective; having your units arrayed in proper mixes in stacks so that you maximize their effectiveness and minimize their harm. The problem is this: the arraying part is completely farcical given that the scale of the game is strategic, not tactical. Thus, what the game makers have sought to do is include a bit of tactics into a strategic level game, but it is at the cost of silly things like artillery which engages in frontal charges and dies by the droves.
The designers would have done far better, introducing a tactical overlay, if they had included some elementary supply/moral factors (besiegers have both defenders erode at a given rate) rather than the introduction of suicide units.
While I disliked the "death stacks" of artillery in civ 3, a unit density limitation would have solve the problem nicely and cleanly; combined with a limited ratio of artillery to : cities, else support units, else SOMETHING!
Artillery should not DIE from attacking, it is absurd! They have made it this way simply because they could not figure out how to make the Civ AI use arty effectively (which is baffling, because bombardment units certainly work fine in the hands of programmed opponents in other game engines) and they wanted to foil this human vs. AI exploit.
In a way, supply IS included in the game what with the gold cost for units in enemy territory. But I think that the potential to bring out some of the things some of us are missing in mods is not that difficult.
First, make arty (and ships) able to bombard like planes, and lower their attack ratings and make their bombard ratings separate from their "strength" ratings.
Second, create a new unit type called "headquarters." Numbers of headquarters allowed is dependent on the scenario but it could be pre-set, could be based on pop size, techs, or numbers of cities (for the standard epic game, a combination of cities and techs is the advisable default setting, say for e.g., 1 HQ per capital, 1 per each 2 cities beyond that up to a max of an additional 4, 1 additional at two, five, seven, and 12 million population, and discovering certain techs allows one additional, something like that). Headquarters are necessary for: (1) to build arty units (say e.g., that you can build 3 arty for each HQ or something like that); (2) give combat and/or healing bonuses to units adjacent; (3) increase stacking limit by 33% (or some such).
Third, stacking limits.
Fourth, give almost all units a Zone of Control: this will force adjacent enemy units to engage and not simply be able to move around freely as if the enemy was not even there.
Fifth, teach the AI how to fortify its borders!
Sixth, insofar as seige operations go, you can't really starve out a city or position. I also am disappointed that CIV IV didn't develop some type of communications/supply/logistics environment- the North Korean blitz was halted by airpower and destroyed by MacArthur's flank attack, both logistic strikes.
To give you some more ideas here is a quote from Psweetman who posted in a thread of gripes about Civ4 over at 1BC
ADDIT: add a couple additional terrain types as in past RARs, allow deserts to be built on based on techs, and differentiate mountains into mountains and snow-capped. Mountains having a really high movement cost, and snow-capped being impassable except to a few very specialized units of some sort.
I think ROP abuses should still be an option; albeit one which will stigmatize you forever.
The reputation and friendship things still need tweeking.
The idea that an artillery unit has to frontally engage an opponent to the extent that the unit is routed and evaporates is lame.
All of these lame elements are simply reflections of them attempting to achieve game balance. The game is balanced, but at the cost of certain tactical and strategic avenues being made into farce.
The real problem here is that many of us like to use smart tactics, and Civ4 offers less capacity to use tactics than did Civ3. The extent of tactics in Civ4 comprises: anticipating what units will be most efficient in attacking your enemies; anticipating what promotions will be most effective; having your units arrayed in proper mixes in stacks so that you maximize their effectiveness and minimize their harm. The problem is this: the arraying part is completely farcical given that the scale of the game is strategic, not tactical. Thus, what the game makers have sought to do is include a bit of tactics into a strategic level game, but it is at the cost of silly things like artillery which engages in frontal charges and dies by the droves.
The designers would have done far better, introducing a tactical overlay, if they had included some elementary supply/moral factors (besiegers have both defenders erode at a given rate) rather than the introduction of suicide units.
While I disliked the "death stacks" of artillery in civ 3, a unit density limitation would have solve the problem nicely and cleanly; combined with a limited ratio of artillery to : cities, else support units, else SOMETHING!
Artillery should not DIE from attacking, it is absurd! They have made it this way simply because they could not figure out how to make the Civ AI use arty effectively (which is baffling, because bombardment units certainly work fine in the hands of programmed opponents in other game engines) and they wanted to foil this human vs. AI exploit.
In a way, supply IS included in the game what with the gold cost for units in enemy territory. But I think that the potential to bring out some of the things some of us are missing in mods is not that difficult.
First, make arty (and ships) able to bombard like planes, and lower their attack ratings and make their bombard ratings separate from their "strength" ratings.
Second, create a new unit type called "headquarters." Numbers of headquarters allowed is dependent on the scenario but it could be pre-set, could be based on pop size, techs, or numbers of cities (for the standard epic game, a combination of cities and techs is the advisable default setting, say for e.g., 1 HQ per capital, 1 per each 2 cities beyond that up to a max of an additional 4, 1 additional at two, five, seven, and 12 million population, and discovering certain techs allows one additional, something like that). Headquarters are necessary for: (1) to build arty units (say e.g., that you can build 3 arty for each HQ or something like that); (2) give combat and/or healing bonuses to units adjacent; (3) increase stacking limit by 33% (or some such).
Third, stacking limits.
Fourth, give almost all units a Zone of Control: this will force adjacent enemy units to engage and not simply be able to move around freely as if the enemy was not even there.
Fifth, teach the AI how to fortify its borders!
Sixth, insofar as seige operations go, you can't really starve out a city or position. I also am disappointed that CIV IV didn't develop some type of communications/supply/logistics environment- the North Korean blitz was halted by airpower and destroyed by MacArthur's flank attack, both logistic strikes.
To give you some more ideas here is a quote from Psweetman who posted in a thread of gripes about Civ4 over at 1BC
ADDIT: add a couple additional terrain types as in past RARs, allow deserts to be built on based on techs, and differentiate mountains into mountains and snow-capped. Mountains having a really high movement cost, and snow-capped being impassable except to a few very specialized units of some sort.
Some of them may spark ideas in the RAR team that contribute to the eventual mod, some may be sent floating down the Styx in a bushel basket! 
