First, i'd like to say that i prefer the design in Civ V than Civ IV : social policy tree linked to culture, 1UPT and hex tiles, no more sliders, upkeep for buildings and roads, limited ressources. All these concepts are better even if some balance and AI issues cause troubles with them. I hope for an improvment, for this two points, essentially. Don't blame too much Firaxis for that. The fact is that a game like Civilization NEEDS to have thousands of testers. No company can handle this kind of tests without our help.
However, if there's one thing i regret deeply from Civ IV, it's health. I can't explain why it has disappeared. It was a good concept which makes some ressources useful.
Then, here's the core of my idea in purpose to reintroduce health in a different way.
It’s a bit long and complex but in term of design it’s simple and it allows macro-management or micro-management. I’m sure some of you will appreciate.
I ) Health and population pyramid
About health, remember how we could collect health point
health in Civ IV and imagine it’s globally the same in Civ V (sheep, crab, aqueduc, etc…
.
The main part of this core idea is to link health point with a population pyramid.
The population pyramid could be divided into 10 periods of years: from 0 to IX (from 0 to 100 years old if you prefer, but if it helps imagine something like 0 = baby; I = children; II = young adults; III, IV, V, VI = adults; VII, VIII, IX = seniors).
The number of health points represents the middle age when your citizens die. For instance, if a city has 5 health points, all citizens with an age in the period V die at the end of turn instead of having the age VI.
In consequence, having 10 health points should be a long and hard process. If we check the world today, only 4 countries have reached the life expectancy of “Citizen(VIII)” : Japan, Canada, Australia and France.
I think the best way is to limit sheep, crab to a number like Civ V made with strategic ressources. Then, only the same number of cities can benefit of this ressources.
II ) Population growth
First, a citizen eats for 2 foods each turns like in Civ V.
But, now that a citizen dies each turn, we need to adapt the birth rate. Even if food isn’t realist, it’s a good design. We can keep strictly the same: excess of 2 foods give a new citizen…. BUT, this time, each turns (*). For instance, an excess of 5 foods will give 2,5 citizens each turn (in fact 2 the next turn, 3 the turn after).
(*) : To fully understand the following, keep in mind what is the sequence of each EOT:
i ) count the food produced by all citizens in a city and add the food put in stock during the last turn.
ii ) then, citizens who are not allowed by health to live more… just die.
iii ) count the required food to feed the youngest alive citizens. The others die by starvation.
iv ) make as many 0-aged citizens as the excess food allows
Note : It's better to consider that a city produces +0 food (yes, cities don’t produce food). It implies that a city settled in a plains don’t give any food (food bonus of the tile is destroyed). Cities just give hammers and gold. Build them next to food resources of 2 or don’t build them.
Exemple of a new game :
I’m in 4000BC with a settler and 0 health’s point (we don’t live very old by these ancient days :/ ):
--
Turn 1 :
I build a city on a toundra (0 food) and the citizen(0) (-2 food) exploit a sheep on a plain (+ 2 food, i guess). I build a worker.
EOT1 : City produces 2 foods. Citizen(0) dies. City has now an excess of 2 foods. A new citizen(0) replaces the old one.
--
Turn 2, …, 10 : … (the same thing happens in the city).
Turn 11 : My worker is ready to build a pâturage on the sheep tile…
--
Turn 15 : The tile improvement is finished. Health is 1.
EOT12 : City produces 3 foods. Citizen(0) grows to Citizens(I). City has an excess of 1 food in stock.
--
Turn 16 : …
EOT13 : City produces 3 foods and has 1 in stock since the last turn. Citizen(I) dies. City has now an excess of 4 foods. Two new Citizen(0) replaces the old one.
--
Turn 17 : The 2nd citizens works in a mine which bring no more food.
EOT17 : City produces 3 food. Both Citizen(0) grows to Citizen(I). City has only 3 food for two peoples, one of them die by starvation. The other take 2 food. It stays only one food. No Citizen(0) appears.
etc…
III ) Why make things complex when we can do them simpler ?
Yes, health in Civ IV was simpler.
But, this kind of complex rules is easy for a computer, invisible for people who like macro-managing (the population will grows normally if they build farms and will live longer if they take care of health) and interesting for people who like micro-managing (essentially because of the following).
IV ) Different ages, differents possibilities.
Ok. Now, we have a pyramid of the ages like in the reality (people of the XXIth century live longer than people before JC), keep going on and talk about which bonus is given by the citizens (in addition to the tiles they are exploiting).
The bonuses below are quite random (it’s just an idea not a specification) and i guess social policy and/or tech tree can be used to activate or add these bonuses.
Then, an example of possible bonus given by each citizen to a city (it's not realistic at all, and certainly unbalanced in Civ V context):
Age(0) : -1
Age(I) : nothing
Age(II) : +3
+1 
Age(III) : +2 +1 +1
Age(IV) : +1 +1 +2
Age(V) : +2 + 2
Age(VI) : +2 + 1 +1 
Age(VII) : +1 +3
Age(VIII) : -1, +6 -1 
Age(IX) : -2, +8 , -2
The idea behind this kind of bonuses is :
- city with no health costs
- Low health tends to leads to a more productive city
- Middle health to a merchant city
- High health to a cultural city
(to be continued...)
However, if there's one thing i regret deeply from Civ IV, it's health. I can't explain why it has disappeared. It was a good concept which makes some ressources useful.
Then, here's the core of my idea in purpose to reintroduce health in a different way.
It’s a bit long and complex but in term of design it’s simple and it allows macro-management or micro-management. I’m sure some of you will appreciate.
I ) Health and population pyramid
About health, remember how we could collect health point
health in Civ IV and imagine it’s globally the same in Civ V (sheep, crab, aqueduc, etc….The main part of this core idea is to link health point with a population pyramid.
The population pyramid could be divided into 10 periods of years: from 0 to IX (from 0 to 100 years old if you prefer, but if it helps imagine something like 0 = baby; I = children; II = young adults; III, IV, V, VI = adults; VII, VIII, IX = seniors).
The number of health points represents the middle age when your citizens die. For instance, if a city has 5 health points, all citizens with an age in the period V die at the end of turn instead of having the age VI.
In consequence, having 10 health points should be a long and hard process. If we check the world today, only 4 countries have reached the life expectancy of “Citizen(VIII)” : Japan, Canada, Australia and France.
I think the best way is to limit sheep, crab to a number like Civ V made with strategic ressources. Then, only the same number of cities can benefit of this ressources.
II ) Population growth
First, a citizen eats for 2 foods each turns like in Civ V.
But, now that a citizen dies each turn, we need to adapt the birth rate. Even if food isn’t realist, it’s a good design. We can keep strictly the same: excess of 2 foods give a new citizen…. BUT, this time, each turns (*). For instance, an excess of 5 foods will give 2,5 citizens each turn (in fact 2 the next turn, 3 the turn after).
(*) : To fully understand the following, keep in mind what is the sequence of each EOT:
i ) count the food produced by all citizens in a city and add the food put in stock during the last turn.
ii ) then, citizens who are not allowed by health to live more… just die.
iii ) count the required food to feed the youngest alive citizens. The others die by starvation.
iv ) make as many 0-aged citizens as the excess food allows
Note : It's better to consider that a city produces +0 food (yes, cities don’t produce food). It implies that a city settled in a plains don’t give any food (food bonus of the tile is destroyed). Cities just give hammers and gold. Build them next to food resources of 2 or don’t build them.
Exemple of a new game :
I’m in 4000BC with a settler and 0 health’s point (we don’t live very old by these ancient days :/ ):
--
Turn 1 :
I build a city on a toundra (0 food) and the citizen(0) (-2 food) exploit a sheep on a plain (+ 2 food, i guess). I build a worker.
EOT1 : City produces 2 foods. Citizen(0) dies. City has now an excess of 2 foods. A new citizen(0) replaces the old one.
--
Turn 2, …, 10 : … (the same thing happens in the city).
Turn 11 : My worker is ready to build a pâturage on the sheep tile…
--
Turn 15 : The tile improvement is finished. Health is 1.
EOT12 : City produces 3 foods. Citizen(0) grows to Citizens(I). City has an excess of 1 food in stock.
--
Turn 16 : …
EOT13 : City produces 3 foods and has 1 in stock since the last turn. Citizen(I) dies. City has now an excess of 4 foods. Two new Citizen(0) replaces the old one.
--
Turn 17 : The 2nd citizens works in a mine which bring no more food.
EOT17 : City produces 3 food. Both Citizen(0) grows to Citizen(I). City has only 3 food for two peoples, one of them die by starvation. The other take 2 food. It stays only one food. No Citizen(0) appears.
etc…
III ) Why make things complex when we can do them simpler ?
Yes, health in Civ IV was simpler.
But, this kind of complex rules is easy for a computer, invisible for people who like macro-managing (the population will grows normally if they build farms and will live longer if they take care of health) and interesting for people who like micro-managing (essentially because of the following).
IV ) Different ages, differents possibilities.
Ok. Now, we have a pyramid of the ages like in the reality (people of the XXIth century live longer than people before JC), keep going on and talk about which bonus is given by the citizens (in addition to the tiles they are exploiting).
The bonuses below are quite random (it’s just an idea not a specification) and i guess social policy and/or tech tree can be used to activate or add these bonuses.
Then, an example of possible bonus given by each citizen to a city (it's not realistic at all, and certainly unbalanced in Civ V context):
Age(0) : -1
Age(I) : nothing
Age(II) : +3
+1 Age(III) : +2
+1 +1 Age(IV) : +1
+1 +2 Age(V) : +2
+ 2 Age(VI) : +2
+ 1 +1 Age(VII) : +1
+3 Age(VIII) : -1
, +6 -1 Age(IX) : -2
, +8 , -2 The idea behind this kind of bonuses is :
- city with no health costs
- Low health tends to leads to a more productive city
- Middle health to a merchant city
- High health to a cultural city
(to be continued...)
Especially as it is so easy for a computer to do such calculations and easy to ignore for players who are not into this sort of management.
