McMickeroo1
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2015
- Messages
- 42
Just found out this thread exists. Better place to post my suggestions.
OK so long story short I have 5 suggestions, which I believe would improve gameplay AND historical accuracy, and these are they:
1. You should be able to purchase cities. The historical accuracy point here is 2-fold. Firstly, land purchases were a thing, objectively. If I'm playing as America, and France controls territory to my west, it would be more historically accurate for me to buy the land off them, than to go to war with them. Secondly, when you have a large army, you naturally want to use it. And if you don't have any people nearby who control land that you historically occupied, then you may find yourself in possession of their land. Currently there is no incentive to give those cities to anybody. However, if you could sell the cities to people who do have a historical connection to that land, then it would make the map more historically accurate.
And this also speaks to why it would improve the gameplay. Because neither option is necessarily bad. Sometimes it might be good, when you have a large amount of money, to purchase some land. Other times, when you have a large army and not much to do with them, it might be better to just march around taking cities and selling them to the highest bidder.
2. It should be customary for more than one city to be traded in peace talks. Again, there is a clear historical basis for this. Many peace treaties throughout history have involved large swathes of land being handed over. But there's also a gameplay benefit here. If I have a big army, it's never worth me even considering peace treaties, because the one city I'm being offered is a city I could easily take. However, if civs were more likely to offer 2-3 cities in peace treaties, that would actually make the choice more difficult, and therefore making that decision would be more fun.
But this works the other way too. Not just in victory should more than one city be traded, but also in defeat. Take for example a scenario where I am playing as Germany against Russia. I push through massive amounts of land and take loads of cities, but then Russia begins to mobilise and, sensing that I might lose, I make a peace treaty, wherein I give them just one city back. That's silly. If Russia are mobilising a large army they should ask for a lot of the cities back. Again, this would be a hard choice to make. Do I want to give up almost all--if not all--of my gains, or do I want to stand and fight. Again, that choice would make the game more fun.
3. It should be possible to trade cities BACK to civilizations in a peace treaty. So for some reason currently only one side can offer things in a peace treaty. This again has bad implications for historical accuracy. For example, suppose I'm fighting against France as England. I launch an invasion and take Paris. The historically accurate thing to do would be for me to trade Paris back to them, and in return demand they give me cities in Quebec. Indeed, in the event that a core city is captured, I would think that 4-6 cities could be on offer, depending on their value. Again, this is historically accurate. It would avoid a country's core being controlled by foreign nations. And for game play I think this would also have benefits. Rather than the tedious process of taking over distant colonies, the smaller colonies that aren't worth invading can be traded in the peace settlement. But the main benefit here is the improvement to historical accuracy. Now if Spain invades France, I wouldn't have to deal with Spain controlling Marseilles, but rather with Spain controlling, say, Louisiana. Much more realistic.
4. Civilizations should be much more focused on taking back land that is lost. This is sort of a follow up on my point about how if you're losing a battle, you should expect peace treaties that demand you give up large amounts of land. But basically, in general it bugs me how much civilizations can be total pushovers. Civilizations should have a clear idea of what land they have lost in a war, and make it their priority to retake that land. Perfect example of this is the crusades. Any time I play a medieval game, I always take the Holy Land. I have never lost it to a Muslim power within the standard crusade period. Not once. I rarely lose it to the Ottomans. In reality, it should work how the real history worked. I send over a small army, but ultimately, I need to be prepared for Arabs, who should be sending large armies to come and retake it. In general, the fear of an opposing power retaking cities is something I scarcely worry about at all. I take the city and then usually the person I just attacked is willing to make a peace treaty right away.
5. It should be possible to demand liberation of certain cities/civilizations. Ok so let's suppose that I go to war with somebody, but they don't control any land that's historical for me to control. Well then what do I do? Give it to some equally ahistorical person? Make it independent, where it will inevitably then be recaptured? Instead, I should be able to demand that civilizations release civilizations when they control that civ's core area. And even individual cities. It should also be possible to demand even more here than you would if you were asking for the cities yourself, since in this version the cities aren't going to themselves.
Say for example that Spain controls the Austrian core, Portugal's core, and Naples (we'll say Italy still exists.) It should be possible for me to win a war against Spain and then demand that they release Austria and Portugal (causing the two civs to respawn) and then release Naples to Italy. Maybe I also demand Jamaica for myself. But the point is that here I have got the benefit of weakening the civ I just defeated, but I've also now made the game more interesting by bringing about more independent states. And it's more historically accurate, since I haven't taken control of any territory that I shouldn't have control of, and I've brought the world map closer to how it should be.
Sorry this was long. I'll add a TLDR for each point:
OK so long story short I have 5 suggestions, which I believe would improve gameplay AND historical accuracy, and these are they:
1. You should be able to purchase cities. The historical accuracy point here is 2-fold. Firstly, land purchases were a thing, objectively. If I'm playing as America, and France controls territory to my west, it would be more historically accurate for me to buy the land off them, than to go to war with them. Secondly, when you have a large army, you naturally want to use it. And if you don't have any people nearby who control land that you historically occupied, then you may find yourself in possession of their land. Currently there is no incentive to give those cities to anybody. However, if you could sell the cities to people who do have a historical connection to that land, then it would make the map more historically accurate.
And this also speaks to why it would improve the gameplay. Because neither option is necessarily bad. Sometimes it might be good, when you have a large amount of money, to purchase some land. Other times, when you have a large army and not much to do with them, it might be better to just march around taking cities and selling them to the highest bidder.
2. It should be customary for more than one city to be traded in peace talks. Again, there is a clear historical basis for this. Many peace treaties throughout history have involved large swathes of land being handed over. But there's also a gameplay benefit here. If I have a big army, it's never worth me even considering peace treaties, because the one city I'm being offered is a city I could easily take. However, if civs were more likely to offer 2-3 cities in peace treaties, that would actually make the choice more difficult, and therefore making that decision would be more fun.
But this works the other way too. Not just in victory should more than one city be traded, but also in defeat. Take for example a scenario where I am playing as Germany against Russia. I push through massive amounts of land and take loads of cities, but then Russia begins to mobilise and, sensing that I might lose, I make a peace treaty, wherein I give them just one city back. That's silly. If Russia are mobilising a large army they should ask for a lot of the cities back. Again, this would be a hard choice to make. Do I want to give up almost all--if not all--of my gains, or do I want to stand and fight. Again, that choice would make the game more fun.
3. It should be possible to trade cities BACK to civilizations in a peace treaty. So for some reason currently only one side can offer things in a peace treaty. This again has bad implications for historical accuracy. For example, suppose I'm fighting against France as England. I launch an invasion and take Paris. The historically accurate thing to do would be for me to trade Paris back to them, and in return demand they give me cities in Quebec. Indeed, in the event that a core city is captured, I would think that 4-6 cities could be on offer, depending on their value. Again, this is historically accurate. It would avoid a country's core being controlled by foreign nations. And for game play I think this would also have benefits. Rather than the tedious process of taking over distant colonies, the smaller colonies that aren't worth invading can be traded in the peace settlement. But the main benefit here is the improvement to historical accuracy. Now if Spain invades France, I wouldn't have to deal with Spain controlling Marseilles, but rather with Spain controlling, say, Louisiana. Much more realistic.
4. Civilizations should be much more focused on taking back land that is lost. This is sort of a follow up on my point about how if you're losing a battle, you should expect peace treaties that demand you give up large amounts of land. But basically, in general it bugs me how much civilizations can be total pushovers. Civilizations should have a clear idea of what land they have lost in a war, and make it their priority to retake that land. Perfect example of this is the crusades. Any time I play a medieval game, I always take the Holy Land. I have never lost it to a Muslim power within the standard crusade period. Not once. I rarely lose it to the Ottomans. In reality, it should work how the real history worked. I send over a small army, but ultimately, I need to be prepared for Arabs, who should be sending large armies to come and retake it. In general, the fear of an opposing power retaking cities is something I scarcely worry about at all. I take the city and then usually the person I just attacked is willing to make a peace treaty right away.
5. It should be possible to demand liberation of certain cities/civilizations. Ok so let's suppose that I go to war with somebody, but they don't control any land that's historical for me to control. Well then what do I do? Give it to some equally ahistorical person? Make it independent, where it will inevitably then be recaptured? Instead, I should be able to demand that civilizations release civilizations when they control that civ's core area. And even individual cities. It should also be possible to demand even more here than you would if you were asking for the cities yourself, since in this version the cities aren't going to themselves.
Say for example that Spain controls the Austrian core, Portugal's core, and Naples (we'll say Italy still exists.) It should be possible for me to win a war against Spain and then demand that they release Austria and Portugal (causing the two civs to respawn) and then release Naples to Italy. Maybe I also demand Jamaica for myself. But the point is that here I have got the benefit of weakening the civ I just defeated, but I've also now made the game more interesting by bringing about more independent states. And it's more historically accurate, since I haven't taken control of any territory that I shouldn't have control of, and I've brought the world map closer to how it should be.
Sorry this was long. I'll add a TLDR for each point:
- It should be possible to purchase cities with gold, in keeping with historical land purchases.
- Multiple cities should be regularly traded in peace talks, to make peace treaties more historically accurate and appealing.
- It should be possible and encouraged to trade cities back to your defeated opponent in peace treaties, so they regain control of their core area in exchange for some other peripheral territory.
- Civilizations should be much more single-minded in trying to retake conquered land, and much more conscious of their ability to mobilise more troops down the line.
- It should be possible to request that cities be traded to other civilizations, and even that other civs be respawned, when defeating a civ that controls large amounts of foreign land.
cost and while Park provides 2
+2
, Sewer only gives 2
.
