Sullla's Ideas for a New Civ

[wolfigor]

Camikaze. I would suggest you play the original Master of Orion to see the combat system fully used. It really doesn't detract from strategy.

I agree here.
In MOO it is very easy to move large fleets and armies around the map with minimal micromanagement.
Even production of units could be "redirected" (new units automatically travel to a rendezvous point) and they'll stack automatically.
Even with a UI built almost 20 years ago, the management of complex interaction is very simple and efficient.
Today it could be made even easier to use and giving more depth to the game.

One can appreciate the quality of MOO only by playing (just remember that the game was built 18 years ago when PC had a fraction of the CPU and RAM you now have on your mobile phone).

If your fleets are outmatched technologically then a stand up fight is suicide even with brilliant tactical maneuvering. If an enemy of equal tech outnumbers you a hundred to one then it is difficult (to put it mildly) to win even with the greatest maneuvers. Additionally battles are short, real short.

You forgot the case: if you have superior technology in use, a small fleet can destroy a much larger one.

Yes battles were really short, however the mop-up can a bit tedious.

2: XP should be in in some form, more like the system of Total war then Civ4 however.

I also feel that XP should remain in some form or another.
Having XP attached to units, doesn't make a huge sense in a Civ game where centuries may pass between battles.
I like the idea of a more advanced form of great general (I think you had something like it in MoM and MOO2).
By winning battles and by your reputation/culture your empire attract great generals.
Generals provides bonuses to units around them.
Some generals only to the units in its own tile, others adjacent tiles.
Some generals give bonuses only to some type of units (e.g. general Alexander, +1 combat to all horse units in adjacent tiles) others more generic bonuses that can be military or non military (e.g. general Gengis, pillage earns 200% more gold).

In this way generals will be really unique and each civ can have its own unique list of unique generals: in this way you create even more differentiation between civs in the game.

 

[Camikaze]

Camikaze. I would suggest you play the original Master of Orion to see the combat system fully used. It really doesn't detract from strategy.

It's more a theoretical thing, in that it must detract from strategy. If may not detract from a strategic game in terms of fun, but it always will detract from the strategic focus, by requiring non-strategic gameplay for optimum results. I'm not going to pretend I've played a lot of games (Civ4 and Civ5 are the only two PC games I own, actually ), but I don't see this as being a rule that has exceptions. If it did not detract from MOO as a game in whole, then it still did detract from its strategic focus.

 

[CyberChrist]

It's more a theoretical thing, in that it must detract from strategy. If may not detract from a strategic game in terms of fun, but it always will detract from the strategic focus, by requiring non-strategic gameplay for optimum results. I'm not going to pretend I've played a lot of games (Civ4 and Civ5 are the only two PC games I own, actually ), but I don't see this as being a rule that has exceptions. If it did not detract from MOO as a game in whole, then it still did detract from its strategic focus.

I fail to see any reason that merely adding a tactical element to a strategy game would in any way be detrimental to the strategic elements of the same game.

 

[Camikaze]

In a strategy game, you should be able to gain optimum results through strategic gameplay. But if you are adding a tactical element, you are also requiring some degree of tactical skill. So strategic skill is not sufficient. This is a detraction from the strategic focus. The strategic elements are not diminished absolutely, but they are diminished proportionally.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

But that's the point, in MOO you CAN gain optimum results from strategic gameplay, the only reason tactical combat is important is to make sure your designs work and to do some things that the AI is to stupid to do, such as outrunning missiles with your bombers. Unless you are terrible at designing ships the battle is basically a test of numbers and technology.

 

[fugazi]

Sulla is a 100% right. I've been a Civ player since Civ2 came out and my GF got hooked to Civ4. I bought the game for the both of us, and I think we've spent maybe 30 hours on it. The game is just dull, here's why:
-The city graphics are ugly and all look the same.
-The special resources have been dumbed down to the point that it's more a 'gotta catch 'em all!' thing instead of a 'must.get.gold.and.gems!' which makes way more sense.
-Expanding is a hassle. Everything justs 'costs' you. Cities and population growth costs happiness, new tiles cost gold and buildings often require you spending cash on it too with the amount of production an average city has.
-Nerfing the Civ4 cottage meant a return to dumbness, when mixed ni with the other changes. There are no real tactics available anymore to city 'specializing' in the ways of great people, commerce or specialists. A citizen should produce gold unless you've got to build important infrastructure, but even then it's often more useful to focus on gold and just rush-buy it in a bit. You'll work food earlier on to make it grow, but there's no real point in that since you're usually better off just working the gold.
-The units suck. If you do a 1upt, you need WAY more variation in the units available to you per age. A simple rock-paper-scissor setup for all ages basically means that whatever inspirations you had for a 'tactical combat game' were flushed before you even went to take a crap.
-The MP value of Civ5 is neglectible. New Civ games should revolve around MP, as the only good opponent can be a human or a cheating AI. And even cheating AI have patterns that can be figured out, and then beaten with ease.
-The music is not good. It's generic and boring. It's too bland and whereas Civ4's music wasn't that great at release, it still had quite a few gems in it that I put in my Winamp playlist. I prefer Europa Universalis 3 music over Civ 5's, and they had a guy use some kind of midi-studio to make it. Go figure.
-The voice-over for techs and the Civ intro texts. Boring. The guy reads too fast and whatever dramatic effect it was supposed to have, it doesn't have.

I love Civ. I never got into Civ 3, but I can still play it and love it. I hate Civ 5. It is boring. It is tedious. It is not rewarding nor does it give you a sense of achievement when beaten. Beating it makes you feel like you've beaten a badly programmed AI who cannot cope with all the limitations and penalties the Devs put into Civ 5, as to prevent people playing like it was Civ 4.

There, I just had to spit out why I vehemently dislike this game. I spent 100 dollars for 30 hours of gameplay, after which I ran back to old games such as Master of Magic and Civilization 2+4 instead :/ my gf tried it out twice and didn't even bother after the 'big patch' even with me asking her. I guess she has more wisdom than I have.

 

[Ekmek]

Based on his proposals, I feel that the game would become terribly focused on moving thousands of units around. By merging dozens of spearmen, tactical combat would be removed from the game. The focus of strategy would revolve around creating super units. Ultimately, the outcome of any war would be determined by who has the biggest of these super units. A 300 spearmen spearman would beat one of 298.

agreed. I hated stacks of doom and don't want to see globs of doom.

 

[nick1408]

I don't post here too much but I feel I should put my point accross.

What I liked about civ4 was you didn't need a top-end computer to make use of the game. civ5 feels like you need the latest and greatest in hardware to fully imerse yourself into the fame. For a game of this type is such a high graphics requirement needed? I feel not. There is no need to have crisp Crysis-like graphics as you don't need that much detail. Civ maps only need representations of things so heavy detail isn't required. The black in place of the clouds annoyed me the most I think, but I sohuldn't need to run minimum graphics on a game of this type.

Others can argue the gameplay aspects, but I think hardware requirements should also merit some discussion.

On a sidenote; I like the idea of separate tech trees. I quite like the idea that Empire: Total War has where there are three tech trees under each of Buildings, Weapons and (cannot remember the third).

 

[LegioCorvus]

Haven't visited the Civ5 forums in a long time, so I'm late to the discussion. First of all, great read, Sullla. I don't agree with all of it, but there are a lot of good ideas there.

Secondly, I get the impression that a lot of people here haven't played many strategy games outside of the Civ & Total War Series. Tactical combat doesn't have to take 20-45 minutes. There are many games that resolve it easily in 1-4 minutes. (Heroes of Might & Magic, Master of Magic, Civilization: Call to Power, Master of Orion, etc.)

The blind teching isn't game breaking, and one of the most beloved games in the Civ community, Alpha Centauri, has something very similar. Although I disagree with the idea of missing techs and such. It's minor, but in a game like Civilization there are too many key techs, and the strategies for the different modes of victory generally require them. His proposal is mostly built around reducing randomization, and this seems to run counter to all of that.

I also don't like the idea of mines & farms following a cottage 40/80 model. It seems unrealistic. Historically, farms destroyed during wars could be returned to peak condition within a few years, which can be represented by a worker returning the improvement. I'd rather farms and mines improve with tech advancement, as they have done history and has been brought up elsewhere in this thread.

Coming back to randomization, I'd prefer it for great people. Otherwise, putting points into a great engineer by assigning a specialist is like choosing one population point to work on a wonder while everyone else does their normal thing. Or a tech. What have you. Great people have also historically been an accident of circumstance than deliberate, but that gets into the whole realism/gameplay debate.

If I had anything to add, it would be some sense to technology trading. I never understood how I could teach horseback riding to people who have never seen horses, much less learn it myself. Technology should be based on need, as necessity is the mother of invention... but I feel like that's a separate rant, and it just returns to the realism/gameplay debate.

Overall, I like Sullla's ideas, and think it would be a workable game. Not that we'll ever see such a thing.

 

[Venereus]

I'd pay $50 bucks and more just to try that game.

 

[Donaithnen]

I just stumbled across the article/thread, so i don't know if anyone's still paying attention, but i've got a couple ideas and questions.

First, i don't know why everyone's gripping about the auto-resolve mode. The complaint seems to be that they wouldn't be able to use auto-resolve because the results would be so crappy. Why do you assume that? Certainly other games have had issues, but most of those games have had a lot more complications than the combat proposed for New Civ. And even if the auto-resolve was less than optimum it would be possible to figure out how bad it was on average and un-handicap the AI's production bonuses the right amount to compensate if you choose the "always auto-resolve" option during setup.

As far as improvements accumulating over time, i think that's a good idea in moderation. However it should be a limited improvement for a certain level of the improvement, and before moving on to the next level you have to research a new tech and build that new improvement. It makes sense that production increases with experience due to improved efficiency. However it doesn't make sense that if an improvement is destroyed you have to progress all the way back to stone age mining techniques and work your way back up.

Ex: A Mine adds 1H to a tile. After 20 turns it improves to 2H. When you research some tech you can replace it with an Advanced Mine that adds 3H. After 20 turns it improves to 4H. Then you research the third tier mine which starts at 5H and improves to 6H.

And @Sulla in that regard, did you consider the possibility of using a Public Works like system? You said that switching Workers to the same mass production system as regular units wasn't feasible, so why not get rid of them entirely?

You could have two pools of "extra" production, Imperial Reserve and Public Works. You'd have a slider that would control how much of any extra production went into each pool. You could use Public Works to build improvements anywhere in your territory, and possibly anywhere you had an army as well, at some kind of cost penalty. (You need a way to build roads between isolated cities after all.)

The main advantage of Workers was that they were free once you'd built them, which was nice but wasn't especially realistic. Instead of spending ten or so turns building a Worker early on, make the basic improvements cost the equivalent of about two turns of full production, so instead of one Worker you'd get 5 tile improvements (or some similar ratio.)

Back to the "massive armies", i do think there ought to be some incentive to not spread your units widely across the map. Splitting up to pillage or for tactical advantage is certainly reasonable, but most of the time you should be encouraged to keep your forces concentrated.

In reality forces in enemy territory constantly experience a steady stream of losses, from disease, from accidents, from enemy ambushes not large enough to be considered a real battle. I think it would be useful to have a system of fatigue and attrition to emulate this. Every turn every unit in each army that isn't in friendly territory generates one or more points of fatigue. Every time 100 points of fatigue accumulated you'd lose one unit from that army from attrition. However the maximum amount of attrition per turn would be capped at some value, say 5 for now. So if you had one army of 2000 troops that generated 1 fatigue each, then you would have an attrition of 20 but only lose 5 units. If you split it up into two armies of 1000 each, each would have an attrition of 10 every turn and each would lose 5 units each. If you split it into 20 groups of 100 each, each would experience 1 attrition the next turn and lose 1 unit, for a total of 20 units.

To counteract this there ought to be a special "supplies" unit that could be built. It would cost a fraction of a normal unit and always be the first unit consumed by attrition. You could build a large stockpile to prevent losing "real" units when you went to war. Of course it would have almost no combat strength, so when going into combat you'd have to make sure to protect your supply unit or your army might find itself deep in enemy territory suffering a trickle of damage every turn until it could return home or more supplies could be escorted in. It would add an interesting logistical element which could entirely replace the stupid "War Weariness" system currently used.

 

[Caeserportugal]

I like most of the ideias Sulla put forward to civ5 and I really hope they are implemented one day. Seriously Firaxis/ 2K if you are watching this you should really really take notes because CIV V was a complete crap for lack of better word

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I just stumbled across the article/thread, so i don't know if anyone's still paying attention, but i've got a couple ideas and questions.

First, i don't know why everyone's gripping about the auto-resolve mode. The complaint seems to be that they wouldn't be able to use auto-resolve because the results would be so crappy. Why do you assume that? Certainly other games have had issues, but most of those games have had a lot more complications than the combat proposed for New Civ. And even if the auto-resolve was less than optimum it would be possible to figure out how bad it was on average and un-handicap the AI's production bonuses the right amount to compensate if you choose the "always auto-resolve" option during setup.

As far as improvements accumulating over time, i think that's a good idea in moderation. However it should be a limited improvement for a certain level of the improvement, and before moving on to the next level you have to research a new tech and build that new improvement. It makes sense that production increases with experience due to improved efficiency. However it doesn't make sense that if an improvement is destroyed you have to progress all the way back to stone age mining techniques and work your way back up.

Ex: A Mine adds 1H to a tile. After 20 turns it improves to 2H. When you research some tech you can replace it with an Advanced Mine that adds 3H. After 20 turns it improves to 4H. Then you research the third tier mine which starts at 5H and improves to 6H.

And @Sulla in that regard, did you consider the possibility of using a Public Works like system? You said that switching Workers to the same mass production system as regular units wasn't feasible, so why not get rid of them entirely?

You could have two pools of "extra" production, Imperial Reserve and Public Works. You'd have a slider that would control how much of any extra production went into each pool. You could use Public Works to build improvements anywhere in your territory, and possibly anywhere you had an army as well, at some kind of cost penalty. (You need a way to build roads between isolated cities after all.)

The main advantage of Workers was that they were free once you'd built them, which was nice but wasn't especially realistic. Instead of spending ten or so turns building a Worker early on, make the basic improvements cost the equivalent of about two turns of full production, so instead of one Worker you'd get 5 tile improvements (or some similar ratio.)

Back to the "massive armies", i do think there ought to be some incentive to not spread your units widely across the map. Splitting up to pillage or for tactical advantage is certainly reasonable, but most of the time you should be encouraged to keep your forces concentrated.

In reality forces in enemy territory constantly experience a steady stream of losses, from disease, from accidents, from enemy ambushes not large enough to be considered a real battle. I think it would be useful to have a system of fatigue and attrition to emulate this. Every turn every unit in each army that isn't in friendly territory generates one or more points of fatigue. Every time 100 points of fatigue accumulated you'd lose one unit from that army from attrition. However the maximum amount of attrition per turn would be capped at some value, say 5 for now. So if you had one army of 2000 troops that generated 1 fatigue each, then you would have an attrition of 20 but only lose 5 units. If you split it up into two armies of 1000 each, each would have an attrition of 10 every turn and each would lose 5 units each. If you split it into 20 groups of 100 each, each would experience 1 attrition the next turn and lose 1 unit, for a total of 20 units.

To counteract this there ought to be a special "supplies" unit that could be built. It would cost a fraction of a normal unit and always be the first unit consumed by attrition. You could build a large stockpile to prevent losing "real" units when you went to war. Of course it would have almost no combat strength, so when going into combat you'd have to make sure to protect your supply unit or your army might find itself deep in enemy territory suffering a trickle of damage every turn until it could return home or more supplies could be escorted in. It would add an interesting logistical element which could entirely replace the stupid "War Weariness" system currently used.

I agree with dumping workers... Ideally they could be replaced with a scaling improvement system.
ie
"mine"= free, instant, no cost, just click on a tile in your area of control and it is placed there.... but it gives -1 prod...in 20 turns it gives 1 prod... 40 more turns 2 prod. (and more tech is needed after that point)

As for Supplies/Public works (for roads/Forts)... Merge ALL of that into imperial Reserve... so Imperial Reserve can be used to
1. "Rush" Production
2. Maintain/Repair/Upgrade units
3. Build Roads/Forts

ie one pile, multiple ways to spend it.

 

[franlato]

very strange idea for a game, Gemfire 2012

 

[mitsho]

First, i don't know why everyone's gripping about the auto-resolve mode. The complaint seems to be that they wouldn't be able to use auto-resolve because the results would be so crappy. Why do you assume that? Certainly other games have had issues, but most of those games have had a lot more complications than the combat proposed for New Civ. And even if the auto-resolve was less than optimum it would be possible to figure out how bad it was on average and un-handicap the AI's production bonuses the right amount to compensate if you choose the "always auto-resolve" option during setup.

If the game is playable with "always auto-resolve", then what's the point of the "tactical map/fighting part"? It is then not an integral part of the game (since you can play the game without ever using the feature), but a "game-in-a-game", kinda like a minigame. It takes focus away and especially ressources, it prolongs the game time and probably the only thing it adds is graphic, nice screenshots to show off. When I think back f.e. on Rome Total War, I once or twice in the beginning fought a battle and then never again or I played one of the preset historical battles...

Now you say, it simply has to be doable fast and - no auto-resolve - it adds tactical warfare, simulates it better than it were possible otherwise and so on and so on. But is "fast" and "nice graphics" possible? I can't imagine a way that is both fast, tactically interesting and adds nice graphics (assuming of course a game by a big producer)... Again, Total War is a complicated mess, as btw is the "Age of Empires" or any RTS-solution. Then go Panzer General (never played it), but wouldn't that be exactly a game in a game?

It might be something for a "utopian Super Game" of the Future where you can play anything together and switch into various subgames. Civilization at the top, for battles you switch to a Total WAr-Battle Map, Want to go into the city, you go into a Caesar/SimCity-like city economic simulator, and of course you start with Spore and end up in Sims ;-)

In the end, I guess it's a question of how war-focussed you want the game. I like it more strategic and I wouldn't play a game which forces me to play out the battles.

 

[sketch162000]

If the game is playable with "always auto-resolve", then what's the point of the "tactical map/fighting part"? It is then not an integral part of the game (since you can play the game without ever using the feature), but a "game-in-a-game", kinda like a minigame. It takes focus away and especially ressources, it prolongs the game time and probably the only thing it adds is graphic, nice screenshots to show off. When I think back f.e. on Rome Total War, I once or twice in the beginning fought a battle and then never again or I played one of the preset historical battles...

The reason is that people are complaining about having a tactical battle map in the first place. Beyond that, the only reason we have a tactical battle map is because people are arguing for 1upt. You guys are going to have to make up your minds about this. Do you want 1upt? If so, we will probably need a battle map. Do you want to micromanage a battle map? If not, then we need to have reliable auto resolve. Otherwise, you get Civ V.

Now you say, it simply has to be doable fast and - no auto-resolve - it adds tactical warfare, simulates it better than it were possible otherwise and so on and so on. But is "fast" and "nice graphics" possible? I can't imagine a way that is both fast, tactically interesting and adds nice graphics (assuming of course a game by a big producer)... Again, Total War is a complicated mess, as btw is the "Age of Empires" or any RTS-solution. Then go Panzer General (never played it), but wouldn't that be exactly a game in a game?

Graphics are the least of concern. I wouldn't sacrifice fast processing and challenging gameplay for an overly pretty game. Besides, Civ is turn-based. Probably part of the reason that graphics are important in Total War is because it's real time.

In the end, I guess it's a question of how war-focussed you want the game. I like it more strategic and I wouldn't play a game which forces me to play out the battles.

Then you are going to need good auto-resolve.

 

[Sullla]

The reason is that people are complaining about having a tactical battle map in the first place. Beyond that, the only reason we have a tactical battle map is because people are arguing for 1upt. You guys are going to have to make up your minds about this. Do you want 1upt? If so, we will probably need a battle map. Do you want to micromanage a battle map? If not, then we need to have reliable auto resolve. Otherwise, you get Civ V.

Yeah, the idea was to have tactical battles for those who want them, auto-resolve for those who don't (and want everything to operate on the strategic map as in traditional Civ). I thought that would be the best way to appeal to all groups. Apparently it's not good enough for either. Oh well. Tough audience.

 

[Camikaze]

Yeah, the idea was to have tactical battles for those who want them, auto-resolve for those who don't (and want everything to operate on the strategic map as in traditional Civ). I thought that would be the best way to appeal to all groups. Apparently it's not good enough for either. Oh well. Tough audience.

It's a matter of redundancy (and, like any idea you might view as unnecessary, development time). If there is an auto-resolve option and a tactical battle option, then presumably you'll be able to get better results through the tactical battle, or else it would be redundant. But that means that tactical skill is required to get the best result out of your game. Given that warfare is a pretty important part of the game, you'd have to rely on tactics pretty heavily. This diminishes the strategic focus. So it's not that it may not be fun or that it may be not a good system of its own accord, it's that it wouldn't seem appropriate for a specifically strategic game.

 

[mitsho]

The reason is that people are complaining about having a tactical battle map in the first place. Beyond that, the only reason we have a tactical battle map is because people are arguing for 1upt. You guys are going to have to make up your minds about this. Do you want 1upt? If so, we will probably need a battle map. Do you want to micromanage a battle map? If not, then we need to have reliable auto resolve. Otherwise, you get Civ V.

missing my point. There's no united front against it. You just chose to pick out one reason against it, and it's not mine against it. I just chose to highlight what is from my point of view the only valid argument against it. Of course, if you want 1upt, a tactical map is necessary, I agree with you, but then it becomes a game in a game.

Graphics are the least of concern. I wouldn't sacrifice fast processing and challenging gameplay for an overly pretty game. Besides, Civ is turn-based. Probably part of the reason that graphics are important in Total War is because it's real time.

I was assuming the talk was about a successor to Civ and thus a big market wide-audience game, in which case, graphics are important (although it may be sad... )

Then you are going to need good auto-resolve.

If you have a autoresolve, then why not just have a different game which perfects this. I just can't wrap my head around how one tactical game will succeed in simulating ancient, medieval, industrial and modern warfare at the same time... Again, it's the redundancy, I rather have two games that specialize, and since there are plenty of battle games out there, I want my builder game back (and of course, it's plenty obvious that is the corner I am coming from)

@Sullla I agree if we are talking about the Utopia game, but I just think giving the limited ressources, focussing might be better

 

[Humakty]

I'm all for Sulla's ideas about separate tactical combat, which would only be a rationalisation of actual civ 5 system, where tactical combat is clumsily merged with strategic map. Having my swordsmen around Berlin supported by a catapult sitting in Paris is totally dumb, anyway you take it. Plus civ 5 system forces you to have a good grip on tactics => Welcome to Panzer Civ General, in which managing cities is but a pretext to more gorgeous military clashes between a handfull of units...

I wouldn't mind a system alike EU series one, where players only have minimal control over their armies. (you could still implement tons of factors :ie : weather/terrain/leaders/troop quality///etc)