Some New Ideas for CIV 4...Let me know what you think

[masteryoda]

Ok guys, I know you all love the Civilization series and I've played it so much that there are some things that I think should be included in CIV 4 to make it better. Let me know what you guys think.

1) Allow Terrorism - This can be done by having terrorist just act the same as Barbarians do early in the game. They will continually regenerate and will ugrade themselves as technology does. For example, once Nuclear weapons are allowed, Terrorists could use them. They will also have stealth attacks and should be undetectable within two squares.

2) Civil Wars - This idea was posted before and I think its great. Border cities that tear away from the government are in danger of pledging allegiance to other Civs.

3) Much more involved diplomacy Diplomacy improved leaps and bounds in Civ 3 and Conquests, but much more can be done. Weaker civs should ask for assistance. For example they can ask for Tech's and Money, not just demand it like past games. Civ's should also be able to demand other civs to give up WMD's similiar to Civ 2. And also Civ's should be able to form Alliances to combat other countries who are becoming too aggressive. ALSO, attrocities should be included. For example, If a country (say Rome) has a fascism and they are killing innocent people, then YOUR civ should get an Alert saying something like "We are hearing Reports that Mass Genocide is occuring in Rome!" Or if a country has a communism then they might put down freedom rebellions, for example the Boxer rebellion in China. This would also warrant an Alert to your country. "Chinese Troops slay innocent people supporting democracy!"

4) THE UN Does anyone else think that having the UN should allow more options that just voting for Secretary General? Once the UN is built, many options should be included. They should have votes just to get INTO the UN and then after that, the countries who are in the UN should be able to issue sanctions on countries and things like that.

5) Spies Spies need to be upgraded. Along with having a spy in a capital city (Such as in CIV 3) there should be units that are spies, similiar to CIV 2. They also should be able to plant Nuclear Devices, also like in CIV 2. Also spies should be able to be captured and kept prisoner along with getting killed. Spies should also have the capability to assassinate Leaders. So if I'm playing as America and I have a spy in Russia, If I come to a city with a leader, I should have the option to "Assassinate Leader".

6) Special Forces There should be special forces available for Civ's. Countries with well known Spec. Ops. Teams, such as the US (Delta, Navy Seals) and Russia (Spetznaz) should be able to make those units, but other Civs that have lesser known Spec. Ops. or none at all (Ancient Rome) should be able to creat a standard Spec. Forces Unit. They should also have options of "Capture, Assassinate, Sabotage, Kill" and others.

Ok guys thats all i can think of for now. Let me know what you guys think. And post some reply's of your ideas. ALSO - Is there anyway to know if our ideas will be heard by Atari, or whoever brings the game's ideas to the table? Thanks Guys

 

[norwegianviking]

Terorism: Love that idea
Civil Wars:Love the idea
More involed diplomacy: Love the idea
UN: Should be included in more involed diplomacy, but still love the idea!
Spies: Assasinate leader? Oppion only on regicide or always? Other than that, Love the idea!
SF: Love the idea ONLY if all civs got there own version.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Love all the ideas you have presented, with a couple of 'caveats'.
Firstly, terrorism should ALSO include more destructive options in espionage, as well as the 'barbarians' option you mentioned. In fact in other threads I have talked about making 'goody huts' and 'barbarians' into a collective set of 'Minor Nations'. These minor nations can be around for the length of the entire game, and can grow and improve like normal civs-just at a ******** rate. Using the idea that you have suggested, it should be possible to recruit 'minor nations'-especially more aggressive ones-to launch terrorist attacks against one of your opponents! This would REALLY spice up international relations (which, of course, would also tie into your diplomacy and UN ideas !) Also, having the ability to directly commit terrorist actions, via the espionage screen-anything from destroying improvements and wonders to planting nuclear devices-would be great too.
As for espionage, I really DON'T want to see a return of the spy unit, but would LOVE to see more espionage options! What would be great is to divide espionage into several main categories-perhaps religious, political, economic, military, scientific and industrial. In addition you can have either espionage or sabotage. This way, you can specialise your intelligence services to commit industrial espionage (discover what cities are building what production improvements, what resources the nation has etc) or industrial SABOTAGE (blowing up production improvements etc). It should, of course, also be possible to 'generalise', and to put resources into 'counterintelligence' to prevent attacks. The resources you commit to each area will determine your chance of succeeding at missions. This method was used, to great effect IMO, in Birth of the Federation. In fact, in that game, you decided which nations you wanted to direct your covert attacks against, how much of your resources you wanted to commit to these assaults, and then the intelligence services pretty much 'ran themselves'. They would report back to you whenever they committed a successful action, and would also occasionally ask what nation you wished to implicate in the attack-if you possessed sufficient 'skill' at misdirection !
Anyway, those are just some extra ideas, but I really do like what you have put forward here !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Globetrotter]

Great ideas, some of which i implemented (or at least closely enough) some time back in my conquests.biq file:

- Allow Terrorism: i added some new units (hidden nationality, bombard ability, some have all terrain like roads and stealth, others have invisibility...) etc. This would be more like a country supporting terrorism, and sending its fighters all over the place, to disrupt superpowers communication lines and resource supplies...
- The UN: this wonder would generate every 4 turns a special infantry unit that has hidden nationality, and no real attacking power, i.e. only defense (not too high, otherwise it would be too powerful, but not too low neither so it won't be attacked by everyone), and has detect invisible ability. It could be of course used to protect the civ's cities (especially if used by the AI), but in case of the player building the UN, he could send these troops to protect as much as possible a weak civ being attacked.
- Special forces: added the Spetnaz as well as other special units, that are invisible, have the airdrop ability, stealth, and treat all terrain like roads. Pretty good!

All this to say that it would be much greater if all would come by default in the game!!!

 

[Moonsinger]

Terrorism: I think it's really going to hurt the AI more than anything else. If you think that the AI is so weak now, they will get worst with terrorism. For example, I'm pretty sure that I can secure my nation with 100% of certainty that no terrorist shall ever get pass by; the AI won't be able to do that. In the worst case, I just lay my workers from shore to shore to block off all entrance into my land. Those units of hidden nationality won't bother me. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the AIs are all sitting duck.

Remember about the slave master in Call To Power? It is the type of invisible unit that can capture/enslave other nation population. Sure, those guys are invisible and they can move very fast and very far within one turn. Sound very dangerous, right? Not really! If you patroll your border carefully and run a sweep of every single tile around your border, you can pretty much detect all invisible units. Of course, it's really boring and too much micromanagement in every turn. For that reason alone, I hope that I shall never see those guys in Civ4. Therefore, I think Terrorism is bad for Civ4! It's too much micromanagement for the human player! It's bad for the human spirit! It's bad for evolution! The AI may never learn how to play it effectively. Let's not forget that they already have a very tough time learning how to use artillery and the army effectively (as of today, they still don't know how to use artillery and the army effectively); what is the chance of them to fully understand the concept of terrorism or to be able to use it effectively?

 

[sealman]

I agree 110% with Moonslinger on the Terrorist angle.

I do not like the idea of Civil Wars for the main reason cited in the many, many, many civil war threads. What fun is it to lose a portion of your civ to some outside influence that is unavoidable unless you resort to extreme micromanagement. It is culture flipping (CF) on a greater scale and I heard a rumor that CF will be removed from Civ4 because it is one of the "unfun elements". If, and that is a BIG if, civil wars are impelemented in some fashion that does not require too much micromanagement, I may grow to like it. But I do not want to risk my love of Civ for an iffy feature like this.

Agree that Diplomacy and Espionage needs to be strengthened. This is the big must for me.

As far as I am concerend, the UN is fine. Giving it any other bonus would unbalance the game. As it is, the UN is the ONLY wonder that can win (or lose) the game.

 

[dh_epic]

I know a lot of people argue for Civil war being random, but I think civil war ought to be as predictable as possible. And moreover, rather than thinking of it as something that happens to you (boohoo, my poor empire ), but think of it as something that you can inflict on other people by means of propaganda and eroding their culture (boy is he gonna be pissed when he has to deal with National disorder ). Of course, this is assuming that they expand propaganda and culture.

But if Civilization is a 5 mile race, then Civil War is the equivelent of tripping and falling. And we're making it fair game to try to knock down whoever's running beside you.

 

[Globetrotter]

Terrorism: I think it's really going to hurt the AI more than anything else. If you think that the AI is so weak now, they will get worst with terrorism. For example, I'm pretty sure that I can secure my nation with 100% of certainty that no terrorist shall ever get pass by; the AI won't be able to do that. In the worst case, I just lay my workers from shore to shore to block off all entrance into my land. Those units of hidden nationality won't bother me. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the AIs are all sitting duck.

I agree that the AI will find it hard to manage, but i've seen the AI use very effectively his "hidden nationality" units in attacking my workers (without war declaration) and my units...

As for the "Invisibility", in one conquest scenario (can't remember its name, but it was one that takes place in europe / mediterranean during the middle ages), i was almost overran by the "Assassins" the AI just threw at me...

These are the reasons why i added such units in my modified .biq file.


Of course, if the AI can't really manage well such units, then it is useless to add them. That's what i thought. But it proved me wrong, at least during that game.
I am currently playing a modified game, and i will see how the AI handles these units

 

[Tholish]

A lot of this can be modded.
1. Terrorists are hidden nationality invisible attack units. Function just like barbarians, except civs will make them.
2. Civil war. Number one request, and no way to mod it.
3. Diplomacy. You could mod that. Different things to say and stuff. OK, you can't mod that.
4. The UN. Or you could have it make 1 attack 8 defense no maintenance units every turn, but only be buildable by a Democracy. Countries already do sanctions: they're called trade embargoes and military alliances, and mutual protection pacts.
5. Spies. You can mod in an invisible assassin unit that has a stealth attack, and even make it enslave other units to make them spies. But yes, any citizen in another city that is of your nationality should give you total visibility of that city like it was yours, and perhaps there could be a Mole espionage function that allows you to control an enemy city to your hearts content for one turn or more turns in the city screen, or maybe allows you to control an advisor for some period of time until caught. Or maybe something that reveals all of an enemies units or even all the enemy sees, including all advisors.