The Civ V wish-list!!!

-I believe that the Bronze Age is getting the shaft by Sid and crew...it was one of the most dynamic and important periods in Human history...yet the way the game is set up...as soon as someone discovers copper working...builds a worker...finds a plot of land with copper on it...makes that land part of their civ and then has a mine built on that copper...let alone start building bronze age warriors...someone else has already discovered Iron Working and is pumping out iron age warriors before one bronze age conflict has occurred. Don't forget that the battle of Troy was a bronze age battle...just because there isn't a ton of written record about the bronze age (as writing was invented in the late bronze age) doesn't mean there wasn't a ton of interesting and important events that took place. My solution is to give the bronze age a longer turn time (at least an option to do so). I think that the Bronze Age and Iron Age should be like other ages that appear once someone discovers that tech...so everyone can see copper once someone has discovered copper working...you just can't build bronze age warriors until you get the tech and resource yourself.

-Resources that are more dispersed along trade routes. I'd like a return to visible sea trade routes so piracy can come back into play. I think sea trading in general should be an early tech...Sea trade brought a golden age to Athens....along those lines...resources shouldn't be just 1 trade route...most natural resources would supply regions....maybe instead of having to deal with active trading...resources naturally trade between adjacent civs as longs as open trade agreements exist...and maybe after enough time...other civs can get the resource from you. Trading really isn't the governments responsibility....making sure trade can happen is.

-Seasons would be an interesting addition...but would then require a VERY slow version of CIV...which, I wouldn't mind.

-Natural disasters...earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, plague, tsunami, asteroid...with user adjustable frequency rate...including off! Asteroid might even be a game winner to get advanced enough to save the human species from disaster.

-I liked the old way of how airplanes could stay in the air after a turn but had to re-dock.

-I think there should be an option of open borders that doesn't allow military units to cross...maybe just scouts etc...I don't remember the last time I saw a random foreign solider just wandering around my neighborhood...oh wait...I've never seen that. Should require a military alliance for soldiers to cross borders.

-I think diplomatic trading options...such as map trading and tech trading etc...come WAY too late in the game...and really stunt the game.

-I'd like a continued enhancement to the Scenario Earth 18 CIVs....more CIVS would be great...and of course larger and more realistic maps always welcome. Resources in historically accurate locations...good times!

-I think there should be more religious options...such as different types of paganism (Greek...Roman...yadda yadda) other religions such as: Shinto, Voodoo, maybe even denominations...Sunni...shia...protestant...catholic etc...and I think the religions should be CIV specific so depending on the CIV you're playing you have the opportunity of discovering that religion if you choose to...but still have the option of adopting an outside religion....maybe just an option for historically accurate religions.

-I like the great general addition.

-I'd like to see some of the tech tree options of Warlords scenarios added to the traditional game...including techs for unit upgrades...techs for building upgrades would be sweet too.

-A combination of CIV and ROME Total War would probably be about as much proof in the existence of God as I'd need.

-Vassal States are great...if you don't know why yet...you haven't figured it out....go play it some more...you'll get it....no seriously, GO PLAY! NOW!
 
-I believe that the Bronze Age is getting the shaft by Sid and crew...it was one of the most dynamic and important periods in Human history...yet the way the game is set up...as soon as someone discovers copper working...builds a worker...finds a plot of land with copper on it...makes that land part of their civ and then has a mine built on that copper...let alone start building bronze age warriors...someone else has already discovered Iron Working and is pumping out iron age warriors before one bronze age conflict has occurred. Don't forget that the battle of Troy was a bronze age battle...just because there isn't a ton of written record about the bronze age (as writing was invented in the late bronze age) doesn't mean there wasn't a ton of interesting and important events that took place. My solution is to give the bronze age a longer turn time (at least an option to do so). I think that the Bronze Age and Iron Age should be like other ages that appear once someone discovers that tech...so everyone can see copper once someone has discovered copper working...you just can't build bronze age warriors until you get the tech and resource yourself.

-Resources that are more dispersed along trade routes. I'd like a return to visible sea trade routes so piracy can come back into play. I think sea trading in general should be an early tech...Sea trade brought a golden age to Athens....along those lines...resources shouldn't be just 1 trade route...most natural resources would supply regions....maybe instead of having to deal with active trading...resources naturally trade between adjacent civs as longs as open trade agreements exist...and maybe after enough time...other civs can get the resource from you. Trading really isn't the governments responsibility....making sure trade can happen is.

-Seasons would be an interesting addition...but would then require a VERY slow version of CIV...which, I wouldn't mind.

-Natural disasters...earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, plague, tsunami, asteroid...with user adjustable frequency rate...including off! Asteroid might even be a game winner to get advanced enough to save the human species from disaster.

-I liked the old way of how airplanes could stay in the air after a turn but had to re-dock.

-I think there should be an option of open borders that doesn't allow military units to cross...maybe just scouts etc...I don't remember the last time I saw a random foreign solider just wandering around my neighborhood...oh wait...I've never seen that. Should require a military alliance for soldiers to cross borders.

-I think diplomatic trading options...such as map trading and tech trading etc...come WAY too late in the game...and really stunt the game.

-I'd like a continued enhancement to the Scenario Earth 18 CIVs....more CIVS would be great...and of course larger and more realistic maps always welcome. Resources in historically accurate locations...good times!

-I think there should be more religious options...such as different types of paganism (Greek...Roman...yadda yadda) other religions such as: Shinto, Voodoo, maybe even denominations...Sunni...shia...protestant...catholic etc...and I think the religions should be CIV specific so depending on the CIV you're playing you have the opportunity of discovering that religion if you choose to...but still have the option of adopting an outside religion....maybe just an option for historically accurate religions.

-I like the great general addition.

-I'd like to see some of the tech tree options of Warlords scenarios added to the traditional game...including techs for unit upgrades...techs for building upgrades would be sweet too.

-A combination of CIV and ROME Total War would probably be about as much proof in the existence of God as I'd need.

-Vassal States are great...if you don't know why yet...you haven't figured it out....go play it some more...you'll get it....no seriously, GO PLAY! NOW!


You can have 31 civs if you play Conquests. Just go to Start/All Programs/Civ3/Civ3ConquestsEdit. Then go to Scenario/Scenario Properties and look around the top. The number of playable civs there can be specified.

RTW and Civ would be an awesome mix, but it wouldn't really help the massive strategy aspect of it, since then a game would literally take years on end.

Go age of bronze!

Natural Disasters!

More religions!

Realistic Trade!

Welcome to CFC!:band::band:[party][party]:beer::dance:
 
I read just about all of this and I thought to myself, wow, these guys have some pretty good ideas. I think one thing though is while they are amazing ideas they are not for everybody, I saw some stuff in the BTS expansion that I said, I wish there was an on/off button, Im not going to go into specifics but I think a lot of this stuff needs to have those on/off buttons, especialy ideas for the display such as icons and ideas that will make the game more complicated/realistic.
 
Okay, I think this thread is launching to Alpha Centauri!!!

I'm going to be out of town for the rest of year, but I'll try and update whenever I have access to the web. In the mean time, try and follow my green colored instructions bellow The List when posting ideas. (I know that will be difficult, but the least you all can do is try)

Oh, and welcome SteadySlippin, to Civ Fanatics! :)
 
I haven't read this entire thread, so I don't know if I repeating anything.

1. Bring back Brian Reynolds. Civ II and SMAC (and AX) are masterpieces of the genre. Neither Civ III nor Civ 4 hold a candle to it.

Now for realistic ones...

1. De-Nerf maintenance. The maintenance model in C4 is way too restrictive. It pigeonholes players into playing only one strategy.
2. Bring back a lot of stuff from SMAC, such as...
-- The various societal aspects (Research, Morale, Economy, etc.) Which lead me to...
-- Make the differences between the leaders actually matter (i.e. one leader may have their stats be 2 Res -2 Spy) The Civ 4 model is pretty weak as it is. Playing as FDR feels no different than playing as Caesar.
-- Stuff like impunities, immunities, penalties, etc.
-- And definitely ideologies and anti-ideologies
-- Oh, and definitely establish a SMAC style unit building system. (Unique units are trash.)
-- Oh yeah... bring back regular alliances.
3. Bring back diplomats/spys.
4. A little thing from Civ II, bring back firepower. Units, as they are, are woefully too balanced. It isn't phalanx kills battleship bad, but it's close.
5. Fix the circle jerking AI. (Especially where it comes to tech.)

-edit-

6. Bring back Z.O.C.
7. Bring back the Engineer unit from Civ II. Or make it a Worker Unit ability.
8. Religion will create unhappiness if it's not the state religion.
-- Save for "Free Religion", Non-state religions can be purged from your nation one way or another.
-- There should an indication as to how big a religion is in each city (i.e. a city can be 60% Hindu, 25% Christian, 15% Islam)
8 1/2. "The Vatican" Wonder: All nations of alike religion must offer peace and alliance during negotiations.
9. Divergent religions (i.e. Christian --> Protestant & Catholic), triggered by prolong periods of unhappiness in a city.
 
Less shallow AI leaders (you know what I mean). If you give them 100 gold or the World Map or even 1 tech, they become your best friend. If you go to war with them, then you'll see:
-3 You declared war on us!
-3 This war spoils our relationship!
This is an unreasonable vicious circle that goes on and on. AI leaders will also forget things... you've experienced it.
 
Yes, or like elections or heritage, and you could rig them and kill of those you didn't want...Or rig foreign elections and set up a puppet state and take over their natural reserves and kill everybody.

Yeah, I agree. You could have AI opponents who all want control over your country, and if you lose the election then you lose your country, and the game. This could happen with Democracy.

And, there could be a new type of specialist - a politician. With certain civics you could wipe them out and keep control of your country, but later on in the game (EMANCIPATION) you would have to go against them in elections, as said above.
 
Also, dinosaurs, pirates, ninjas, airships, and mech warriors.

As far as we know, civilizations didn't exist in the dinosaur ages.

Pirates are barbarian ships ... and we even have PRIVATEERS to combat them. However, I agree that there should be 'Pirate' units commanding them.

Ninjas ... Well, we could just give spies more attacking powers ... Or we could have ninjas and spies in stacks to create a great invasion force! :ninja:

Airships ... well, at Firaxis they could be working on those. Do you mean planes that can go on water?

Cyborgs ... cool idea, but dream on ... it's not realistic and it probably won't get past the drawing board. Besides, Civilization is about strategy, not all that :borg: :scan: :spear: stuff.

Crazy Civ (producing your :culture: and ruling your civs!)
 
In Civ 3, there is regicide. If you kill the king, the civ dies. It would be interesting if killing the king resulted in a civil war for power. It would weaken the country (and maybe even make it a different civ, that would be cool), but not kill it. Also, it could split into two different countries. That would be AWESOME!!! :D :D
 
In Civ 3, there is regicide. If you kill the king, the civ dies. It would be interesting if killing the king resulted in a civil war for power. It would weaken the country (and maybe even make it a different civ, that would be cool), but not kill it. Also, it could split into two different countries. That would be AWESOME!!! :D :D

That would certainly be interesting! :D
Also, it would be more realistic, because while you, the leader, would technically die if your king unit were destroyed, your civilization wouldn't simply disappear just because you weren't around to rule it (it would, however, be thrown into chaos).
:xmassign:
 
My number one thing would be a better combat system. I don't really like the current one. I'd also want more control over vassal/colonies external affairs (e.g. control over trade, civics, etc.).
 
Some of this stuff is already in Civ4-
-Health Bars are a toggable Option
-Tactical Nukes came in BTS
Also, a lot of this stuff would crank up the rating
-Genocide: Um, yeah. No. This alone would make it M.
-Actual Slave Trade-Barbaric. Historically accurate, yes, but it would alienate kids (parents would NOT want a game with slave trade) and most of the African-American population

So multi-century wars and the nuclear decimation of whole countries is ok, but genocide is not? I guess I see your point, but I'll chalk it up to the overwhelming stupidity of the general population. Not health bars, but the health points system. Distinct units of health that deplete as the battle continues, so that I actually feel like I know how the battle is going instead of just crossing my fingers. Yeah, they added tactical nukes to BTS... The 2nd expansion pack... ...Why the Hell do I have to buy 3 fraggin' games (monetarily speaking) to get a freakin' unit that should be in the VANILLA! ...Sounds like a half-arsed marketing scheme to me. Only make half a game, then make the other half into two quarters and sell those individually as expansion packs at nearly the same price.

Oh, and last but not least, slavery already is in the game. It's just done really poorly. I mean, what's the difference between having the slavery civic option and trading actual slave units? A palettized graphical representation... 'Cause the visual representation is the only thing 'eye-cathing' enough to make parents give a rat's backside about what their kids are actually doing.
 
Wow, I've read every suggestion and not once did Canals show up. That has to be a first!!!

Canals would open up an important commercial, diplomatic, and military bargaining chip.
 
One thing I hate is how the series gets a really cool feature and then that feature gets taken away in newer versions...:mad:
so (bear in mind that the individual lists are in no particular order)...



Things from civ1 & civ2 to bring back for civ 5:
eh, nothing really. These were the basic building blocks of the series. In fact civ2 was really just an improvement & expansion of civ1 and the differences between the two - while astounding back then - are insignificant compared to the differences between civ2 and civ3 or civ3 and civ4.



Things from civ3 to bring back for civ 5:
1. Culture groups & culturally linked starts.
Not everyone will agree with this, I understand, but I didn't realize how much I actually liked this little feature until it was taken away in civ 4.

2. Barbarians
Now, yes there are barbarians in civ4, but civ3's model was far superior than civ4's except for the fact that they couldn't capture cities. Hunting down the camp was great and the gold reward was cool too. Barbarians not being nameless was great, great flavor and fun. The massive hordes that could form were awesome. But barbarians were meek without the ability to take cities.
So use the civ3 model, but with the ability to take cities. I'd even go so far as to say that if a barbarian does take a city, make that named barbarian tribe a new civilization in the game and turn their spawning camp into their capital city. Added power even, nice...
and besides, we have plenty of civs exit the game, why not have the ability for some to come into the game?

3. Bring back Sea, Volcano, and Marsh tiles.

4. Resources
Bring back all resources from civ1 to civ4, maybe a few new ones too, but at least all of those (so long as they have a relevancy in the game of course).



Must Keep features of civ4, for civ 5:
1. Modability
The single most important aspect of civ4 IMHO. Do not do anything to change the flexibility of modding, unless you're moving in the direction of increasing it. As others have stated, a nice visual editor (as in civ3) is usually nicer and easier for the small stuff (adding a unit/tech/etc.) for most people, but still have it in xml files is a must.

2. Vassals, Espionage, Events, Corporations, Religions
All great elements. Keep them all, feel free to expand or modify, but do not axe them.

3. Map Scripts
The flexibility and the options of having different generators is one of the best improvments to the series, do not lose that.



Major additions to civ 5:
1. 3d, tiled, sperical map
I know you guys just rebuilt the engine and probably don't want to do it again, but do it anyway. Either of these ways:

A - Geodesic Grid
I'm sure practically everyone has heard about these things and this is my personal favorite option for a tiled spherical map. Sure, there will be some pentagons on the map, but who cares? Some strategy "purists" will argue that you must have all hexes or it's not fair - blah, blah, blah - Life's not fair, this is just a game and this is the comprimise you must make to have a spherical, tiled civ world. Get over it.
-OR-
B - Triangular Grid
Do a true sphere and tile it with triangles, kind of like longitude and lattitude. Sure, there will be some distortion in the sizes of the tiles depending on your location on the globe, but who cares? Some strategy "purists" will argue that you must have all equal sizes or it's not fair - blah, blah, blah - Life's not fair, this is just a game and this is the comprimise you must make to have a spherical, tiled civ world. Get over it.

2. Canals
For Civ's sake, people have been asking for this since after civ1 - do them already! ;)
A nice little worker job, requires Industrialism, takes MANY turns to complete, crosses one tile of land (from sea to sea tiles).

3. No Difficulty Levels
By that, I mean let the player choose his handicap(s). There can be preset, loadable levels which set all the options for the player, or he can tweak as he likes. If he sets nothing - he and the AI are on an EXACT-LEVEL playing field. He should have these settings for himself and for all AI's, or for the morbid tweakers, for each individual AI. The map generation routines should find the closest matches - not modify the map to make a match as in civ4 - I hate grassland surrounded by tundra...:mad:

Starting Location Options:
Quality (Very Good, Good, Average, Poor, Very Poor)
Water (Seaside, Seaside w/river, Inland, Inland w/river)
Resources (Very Many, Many, Average, Few, Very Few)

Starting Time Options:
Normal Start* (Very Early[6000BC], Early[5000BC], Average[4000BC], Late[3000BC], Very Late[2000BC])
Advanced Start**

Starting Techs (You get the idea)
Starting Units (You get the idea)
Starting Gold (You get the idea)

Bonus Research (each city gets +x beakers - player's choice)
Bonus Commerce (each city gets +x commerce - player's choice)
Bonus Food (each city gets +x food - player's choice)
Bonus Production (each city gets +x hammers - player's choice)

Penalty Research (each city gets -x beakers - player's choice)
Penalty Commerce (each city gets -x commerce - player's choice)
Penalty Food (each city gets -x food - player's choice)
Penalty Production (each city gets -x hammers - player's choice)


*Everyone starts normally, with normal units/techs/etc., but some civs get extra turns or fewer turns
**Ala civ4's advanced start - if you use this, normal start choice is ignored
 
This is exactly what we need for city graphics in Civilization V !!

Realistic 3D !
At last.
 
As far as we know, civilizations didn't exist in the dinosaur ages.

I was thinking either dinosaurs as very rare barbarian units in deep jungle, as in the TETurkhian Test of Time mod for Civ 3, or a Jurassic Park-like option as part of a near future tech era.

Yes, I know this is not realistic. I just think it would be cool.

Ninjas ... Well, we could just give spies more attacking powers ... Or we could have ninjas and spies in stacks to create a great invasion force! :ninja:

I want lots more options for units to interact with and affect other civs, and for other civs to interact with and affect you, that are not warlike. Spies, missionaries, and corprorate execs are directions this could work.

Airships ... well, at Firaxis they could be working on those. Do you mean planes that can go on water?

No, I meant big zeppelins. Seaplanes would however be cool. Can land safely on water when out of fuel but need a tanker unit to get to them to refuel ?

Cyborgs ... cool idea, but dream on ... it's not realistic and it probably won't get past the drawing board.

Realism is not the only virtue, and there's Next War in BtS to show that future techs are not entirely antithetical to the developers at Firaxis.
 
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