Suggestions and Requests

[fdelbene]

What about changing the way nuclear weapons are used by the AI?

It always spoiled me that in late games the AI starts to indiscriminately shower nuclear weapons over opponents. I suggest a mechanism like this:

• First use of a nuclear weapon in the world is somewhat free (i.e. small penalty, maybe -3 diplomatic).
• After first use, for each use of a nuclear weapon a very strong diplomatic penalty against all other civs (-10 or such)
• After first use, if a nuclear power uses a nuclear weapon against a not nuclear state, all civs not at war with the victim declares war to the offender.
• Nuclear retaliation is somewhat free (let's say in maximum five/ten turns)
• A nuclear weapon on a city totally destroy it, i.e. there is nothing left to conquer (not sure about this)

 

[strijder20]

It would be nice if there were more medieval wars in Europe, and having an independent Amsterdam would be interesting. It would be hard to make it so that it didn't just become another city for France, though.

Antwerpen is a much better choice for fulfilling that role, for several reasons:
- More important culturally and economically
The change of the balance from Antwerpen to Amsterdam happened in 1585, when the former was sacked and many artists and merchants fled to the latter. This (not coincidentally) coincides with the Dutch spawn date.
To demonstrate the swift rise of Amsterdam after the decline of Antwerpen: in 1570 Amsterdam had 30.000 inhabitants, which more than tripled in the next fifty years.
- Would get autorazed at the Dutch spawn, which leads to improved historicity every game with minimal effort

Adding an indie city there would just cripple whatever AI happens to throw its troops at it, though, since they'd lose it after a few centuries.

 

[Wessel V1]

Somewhat a suggestion: playing as Turkey, I got a set of workers when I a) conquered and razed Konya and b) when I conquered Istanbul. I think this event should be limited to just one occasion.

 

[Leoreth]

Somewhat a suggestion: playing as Turkey, I got a set of workers when I a) conquered and razed Konya and b) when I conquered Istanbul. I think this event should be limited to just one occasion.

That's true, and probably a quick fix.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

About the modern era music, maybe we could make it civics dependent like it is for religions in earlier eras? So if you are democratic you get the current music, if you are fascist you hear military marches or somesuch and if you're communist you get to listen to the likes of l'internationale, the Soviet Anthem and various workers songs.

 

[LacsiraxAriscal]

What do you get on modern if you're democratic? I never play with the music on... is it, like, The Beatles?

 

[DC123456789]

It's some really boring minimalist music, IIRC. It's the only era music I can't stand - 20th century music isn't all that bad (right?).

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Y'all are cretins, the Modern era music is hands down the best in the game.

 

[LacsiraxAriscal]

I vote to include Cage's 4'33''.

 

[The Diocletian]

Y'all are cretins, the Modern era music is hands down the best in the game.

Right. I'm so disappointed with you people right now.

 

[borhap88]

What about changing the way nuclear weapons are used by the AI?

It always spoiled me that in late games the AI starts to indiscriminately shower nuclear weapons over opponents. I suggest a mechanism like this:

• First use of a nuclear weapon in the world is somewhat free (i.e. small penalty, maybe -3 diplomatic).
• After first use, for each use of a nuclear weapon a very strong diplomatic penalty against all other civs (-10 or such)
• After first use, if a nuclear power uses a nuclear weapon against a not nuclear state, all civs not at war with the victim declares war to the offender.
• Nuclear retaliation is somewhat free (let's say in maximum five/ten turns)
• A nuclear weapon on a city totally destroy it, i.e. there is nothing left to conquer (not sure about this)

About this topic, I think that the amount of nuclear weapons stored should be related to a base war weariness if you start a war with that nuclear civ and/or a sort of reluctance to declare war on that nuclear civ.

 

[The Diocletian]

Also, I've been playing a Russia recently and noticed a few things...

- Russia seems to get hit with a huge maintenance penalty after 20 cities. This doesn't really seem to be present for any other civ. Why Russia?

- This is me kinda being nitpicky, but the Russian extreme north is extremely barren. While yes, there are no major metropolises out there, the fact that most of it is just straight up unsettleable due to not being near an ocean (and the portions that are utterly useless, at best being able to work two windmills/watermills (under State Property) or a mine means that Russia often ends up as a straight line straight through Siberia to the Pacific. This results in a really ugly and oddly shaped empire, and ensures Russia never controls what it does in real life. May I suggest being able to settle on Tundra (not being able to is a completely arbitrary rule that serves no real purpose save restricting the player for no good reason) and perhaps adding some deer and furs in the Extreme North?

 

[Lone Wolf]

The Russian AI already settles a bunch of horrible cities that have no business existing in the game. Ostrov Bolshevik, anyone? Even I am not aware of the real-life existence of half the Artic Ocean "cities" the AI spams. No need to expand this over all Siberia.

 

[Fresol]

Russia and China are two civilizations in the game whose “historical area” is actually smaller than what they control now. And Japan actually has Manchuria as their historical area, but not the Chinese. That's just a low joke to me.

 

[The Diocletian]

The Russian AI already settles a bunch of horrible cities that have no business existing in the game. Ostrov Bolshevik, anyone? Even I am not aware of the real-life existence of half the Artic Ocean "cities" the AI spams. No need to expand this over all Siberia.

While I do agree that Russia is far too willing to settle cities in the Arctic, I was proposing adding a small amount of food and a few resources to these areas, I don't see how adding resources to Siberia (therefore making it more worth settling) would exacerbate

 

[Publicola]

While I do agree that Russia is far too willing to settle cities in the Arctic, I was proposing adding a small amount of food and a few resources to these areas, I don't see how adding resources to Siberia (therefore making it more worth settling) would exacerbate

I think the main concern is that, irl, Siberia is pretty much worthless anyway, so adding food and other resources to make cities in the region better would be pretty ahistorical anyway. I would argue the main problem is that there still isn't a mechanism for expanding a nation's cultural boundaries without planting new cities. (Don't mind me while I hint back to my and others' proposal for providing a larger role for forts in this regard...)

I actually had a semi-related proposal to that. One of the ideas I had for forts would be to treat them as a stand-in for colonial settlements -- a worker (or explorer!) could build a fort, which would provide a 3x3 square of culture (like a starport in the Final Frontier mod). This could be used to access particular resources, and if we chose could potentially be allowed to build minor defensive or infrastructure improvements, eventually growing into a full-fledged city.

The other more recent idea I had was related to the notion of tying cities to worker improvements. Specifically, when a player conquers an opponents city, if that city has a fort or sufficiently developed cottage in the 3x3 square around it, the player is offered a chance to resettle/relocate the city to that tile instead of the one it was originally based on. This resettlement has occurred numerous times in history (the instance that inspired this idea was the establishment of Madrid as the regional center after the fall of Muslim Toledo). In-game, I think this would be quite useful to allow players to conquer desired lands even in the AI city placement is as atrocious as it can sometimes be.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Y'all are cretins, the Modern era music is hands down the best in the game.

Good God. No. You might have well said that you like Nickelback.
I'll maintain that Civ2 had the best soundtrack in the series to date,
with classics like Aristotle's Pupil, The Shining Path & Tenochitlan Revealed.

Also, I've been playing a Russia recently and noticed a few things...

- Russia seems to get hit with a huge maintenance penalty after 20 cities. This doesn't really seem to be present for any other civ. Why Russia?

- This is me kinda being nitpicky, but the Russian extreme north is extremely barren. While yes, there are no major metropolises out there, the fact that most of it is just straight up unsettleable due to not being near an ocean (and the portions that are utterly useless, at best being able to work two windmills/watermills (under State Property) or a mine means that Russia often ends up as a straight line straight through Siberia to the Pacific. This results in a really ugly and oddly shaped empire, and ensures Russia never controls what it does in real life. May I suggest being able to settle on Tundra (not being able to is a completely arbitrary rule that serves no real purpose save restricting the player for no good reason) and perhaps adding some deer and furs in the Extreme North?

I'd suggest retooling General Winter so it grants a nerfed-Palace like base tile yield for Tundra settlements instead of Attrition within borders.

Russia and China are two civilizations in the game whose “historical area” is actually smaller than what they control now. And Japan actually has Manchuria as their historical area, but not the Chinese. That's just a low joke to me.

I agree with you on principle. But not all the civs can reach their respective heights right now anyway.
They all collapse before even reaching a 1/4 or 1/3 of it because of the current state of stability.

I honestly think we need separate stability maps for player instances of civilizations and AI instances of civilizations.
Because at this point, you can't compromise between the needs of both.
Case in point, the recent China and Japan nerfs have made playing as them absolutely abysmal.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Good God. No. You might have well said that you like Nickelback.

You know, I always respected you and your opinions Tomorrow's Dawn. I'm sad to see that this respect was misplaced.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

You know, I always respected you and your opinions Tomorrow's Dawn. I'm sad to see that this respect was misplaced.

Hahahaha, okay, the Nickelback bit was a bit harsh, I admit.
I didn't actually mean that and I apologize.
But it is true that I haven't really been fond of the modern pieces in Civilization games,
of which the ancient pieces tend to be more evocative.

The problem is that while Ancient and Medieval Era music often has quite a bit of variety concerning the active cultures of the period,
the classical tracks and the Modern tracks don't reflect the same kind of awareness of world music as the older ones do.
The only modern type of music that has true worldly appeal, IMO, is electronic music.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Hahahaha, okay, the Nickelback bit was a bit harsh, I admit.
I didn't actually mean that and I apologize.
But it is true that I haven't really been fond of the modern pieces in Civilization games,
of which the ancient pieces tend to be more evocative.

The problem is that while Ancient and Medieval Era music often has quite a bit of variety concerning the active cultures of the period,
the classical tracks and the Modern tracks don't reflect the same kind of awareness of world music as the older ones do.
The only modern type of music that has true worldly appeal, IMO, is electronic music.

The ancient pieces? What? Imo music quality only increases with every new era, excepting medieval.

What variety? It's nothing more than Christian church music! (I'm assuming we are talking about Vanilla here, not DoC.)

I think you are confusing opinions for facts here.

Also the lack of variety in the modern era is precisely the reason why I suggested differing tracks depending on your civics.