The Civ V wish-list!!!

[rysmiel]

I agree with this. It's far easier to develop something once other nations already have it, even if they don't voluntarily pass on the information. This would at least mitigate the ridiculous technological gaps which can develop in Civ 4.

Why are large technological gaps a problem ?

Oh, and bring back tech gains from conquered cities!

I can sympathise with that if conquest is made a good bit harder, along the lines of things I have suggested in other threads.

 

[Phatkarp]

Then turn the option off.

 

[Antilogic]

I'd like to second rysmiel's suggestion that "realism" is not a very persuasive argument in favor of any gameplay change. As exhibit "A" I would offer MOO3, which sounded great on paper because of all the "realistic" elements, but actually offered a gameplay disaster.

The voice of reason, and I didn't have to post it.

Also, somebody mentioned that tech research should be easier if other civilizations already know the technology. I know Civ4 does something similar already with you knowing a variable number of prereqs., and I'm pretty sure the game also takes into account the number of other Civs that know the technology.

There are also many ideas here (and I don't want to quote them all) that would make sense for a modern nation, but not necessarily so for most of human history. Case in point: the stack of death. Most warfare before the 19th century consisted of getting an army together, and besieging your enemy's cities or playing a cat-and-mouse game with your enemy's army. The size of most battlefields can fit reasonably with what we expect a couple tiles of the game to represent.

 

[Pariah]

Why are large technological gaps a problem ?

Because you can find yourself at the wrong end of the gap... especially if you start in isolation and can't trade techs early in the game.

The Big Addition I would like to see is a more powerful and game-changing event system... With this system the game becomes more of a journey and an adventure, whereas now the game is more of a long, straight trajectory. Obviously, this should be an option that can be turned off if the player so desires.

This has been suggested many times, and I happen to agree. The CivFanatics consensus, however, has always been against global-scale random events (especially sci-fi style apocalyptic disasters).

 

[Naokaukodem]

We're shaped for what we evolved with, which is the life of a plains ape. We are not, at this point, living like plains apes. We enjoy things beyond what plains apes are equipped to enjoy.

You seem to forget the education. Human being is all submitted to education, and to enjoy his surrounding. It's not only education in the strict sense of the term, but education in the sense of learning what the world is, in the intergration the human being makes of the world in his brain. We are all submitted to reality, and this is whay makes us sensitive to reality.

So, realism is video games is a very good mean to appeal to our sentitiveness.

Civ is a simulation making a certain set of approximations of reality, which are optimised towards making an interesting game. Different sets of approximations could make different games. I think the appropriate standard to judge the approximations, is first how well they fit making the game enjoyable, and second if at all how close they are as approximations of reality. If realism were all that mattered in making games enjoyable, people would never have fallen for Space Invaders, Pac-man, Tetris or Minesweeper in their times.

Space Invaders, Pac-man, Tetris or Minesweeper are not historical games. They are either reflexion games or skillfullness games. They are abstract, when Civ is concrete. (or in the middle gap between concrete and abstract)
So, some realism wouldn't hurt really. I myself would be happy if the hammer or food system would be revamped in a more realistic maneer, if we can find a good system that puts gameplay in. So I would put realism first, and gameplay second, with a capacity of veto from the gameplay.

I disagree. It could very well hurt, if "realism" is added just for the sake of how well it represents the world, with no consideration for how it helps or harms the experience of playing the game, it could very easily do serious harm.

Realism has to be worked in order to make good gameplay. Your fear of a too much realism is not rational, as realism would be always worked in the favor of gameplay. Nobody will come up with a pure realism idea, they will always integrate it with gameplay. It is about how to make the game feel more realist in its own limits. Sometimes it changes the limits, but to make other limits.

That's why I think realist suggestions are always good to take, the more when they justify themselves by realism.

This is an art to make realism suggestions to fit into gameplay.

The good thing with Civ is that it is so experimental that it could suffer a lot of changes, as the changes we saw from Civ3 to Civ4, or more over from Civ2 to Civ4. No need to build an aqueduct anymore to reach city size 6+. AI can't build cities in our territory anymore due to culture. Tanks can't be beaten by spears anymore. Railroads movement is not infinite anymore, etc...

The voice of reason, and I didn't have to post it.

[...]

There are also many ideas here (and I don't want to quote them all) that would make sense for a modern nation, but not necessarily so for most of human history. Case in point: the stack of death. Most warfare before the 19th century consisted of getting an army together, and besieging your enemy's cities or playing a cat-and-mouse game with your enemy's army. The size of most battlefields can fit reasonably with what we expect a couple tiles of the game to represent.

But aren't you talking about realism here?...

 

[Phatkarp]

This has been suggested many times, and I happen to agree. The CivFanatics consensus, however, has always been against global-scale random events (especially sci-fi style apocalyptic disasters).

I think it is VERY important that any such event system be optional. This should help make it "politically viable", so to speak, with the CivFanatics consensus. How strenuously can you object to a feature that you can just turn off?

I also wasn't necessarily thinking of something post-apocalyptic/sci-fi style, though that could be fun in the "future times" portion of the game. I was thinking more along the lines of bubonic plague, massive political destabilization and empire break-up, new barbarian hoard factions arising from the hinterland and wreaking havoc, etc. Stuff that has an arguable historical parallel.

---------------

Another big change I'd like to see is to have the game continue into the future. That would be a TON of fun. I understand that the RoM mod does that for Civ4, but I haven't been able to get that mod to work quite right. Frankly, I think it's lame that the game stops right when we get to the present day. Let's go another 500-1000 years into the future!

 

[Antilogic]

But aren't you talking about realism here?...

I know you might think this is a witty retort and you have found an utter logical inconsistency, but such would be specious speculation. In fact, the voice of reason here is to not add super-complicated and utterly un-navigable "realistic" game mechanics that make the game unplayable, such as was done in MoO3.

However, having simplistic game mechanics that are easy to use, but are at least close to realistic, is a good thing. That's the optimal balance I think Civ4 has and few give it credit for having.

Also, whenever I talk about realism, I am also talking about no Scifi/Next War/aliens/stuff like that in the standard, normal game. It's fine for mods, but leave me the base game to enjoy. That's all I'm asking.

Long story short: context matters.

 

[rysmiel]

Because you can find yourself at the wrong end of the gap... especially if you start in isolation and can't trade techs early in the game.

Reasonably sensible map design should stop early tech-trading being an insuperable problem, and, well, if that's fixed and you still can't either get ahead in research or trade techs, I'd respectfully submit you're losing because you're not actually playing the game as well as you could be, and that that isn't a bug but putting in a crutch to prevent it happening is a problem.

 

[rysmiel]

You seem to forget the education. Human being is all submitted to education, and to enjoy his surrounding. It's not only education in the strict sense of the term, but education in the sense of learning what the world is,

Oh yes, we learn what the world is in ways that are not intuitive to the plains ape - like quantum theory and relativity and so on.

I do not think this is an argument for making games that are intuitive to the plains ape notion of "realism"; it's an argument for making games using logic primarily.

We are all submitted to reality, and this is whay makes us sensitive to reality.

We all live in, and may of us learn to understand, a reality mosuc more complex than what we can actually sense; so no, I do not think matching up with what we sense is a good way of making a game either real or fun.

Space Invaders, Pac-man, Tetris or Minesweeper are not historical games. They are either reflexion games or skillfullness games. They are abstract, when Civ is concrete. (or in the middle gap between concrete and abstract)

You seem to be missing my point, which is that they are good games that people enjoy, and therefore good games that people enjoy do not have to be strictly realistic. With the number of abstractions that go into Civ, I think arguing that it's anywhere nearer the realistic end than the abstract of actually representing the world we live in is a non-starter; we're really arguing about which abstractions to use rather than whether to sue abstractions at all, because a game without any abstractions would be unplayable, so the realism argument seems chimerical to me on those grounds too.

So I would put realism first, and gameplay second, with a capacity of veto from the gameplay.

If the gameplay gets a veto, I would not call that coming second, myself.

Realism has to be worked in order to make good gameplay. Your fear of a too much realism is not rational, as realism would be always worked in the favor of gameplay. Nobody will come up with a pure realism idea, they will always integrate it with gameplay.

Looking at many of the active threads around this forum over about a year, I think that if you reckon nobody has notions based on "realism" without thinking through how gameplay would be affected well enough, you are rather optimistic.

The good thing with Civ is that it is so experimental that it could suffer a lot of changes, as the changes we saw from Civ3 to Civ4, or more over from Civ2 to Civ4. No need to build an aqueduct anymore to reach city size 6+.

Have I said I hate that ? I hate that.

AI can't build cities in our territory anymore due to culture.

Culture I like; as you may recall, I think it's not near strong enough.

Railroads movement is not infinite anymore, etc...

This too, fwiw, I think is a bad idea that needs reversing.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Oh yes, we learn what the world is in ways that are not intuitive to the plains ape - like quantum theory and relativity and so on.

I do not think this is an argument for making games that are intuitive to the plains ape notion of "realism"; it's an argument for making games using logic primarily.

Again, you give a particular sense to what i'm not saying. Quantum theory and relativity are Science subjects, this is yet another way to "understand" the world we live in, and has nothing to do with the way the man of the streets perceives it.

We all live in, and may of us learn to understand, a reality mosuc more complex than what we can actually sense; so no, I do not think matching up with what we sense is a good way of making a game either real or fun.

And in that you are all wrong. We can sense speed, don't you like speed? We can sense liberty, don't you like liberty? All i'm saying is that we are a full set of "receivers" which are directed in the direction of life, and there is no gap between what we can perceive and what we are truly perceiving, i mean the man in its full dimension is equal to "reality", and he can feel the expression of those perceptions fully in the reality.

That's why reality is potentially infinitly more fun than any game that reproduces only a part of it. Games are a part of the reality, not the contrary. (and no, reality is not a game, because you can truly die in it)

 

[Antilogic]

Have I said I hate that ? I hate that.



Culture I like; as you may recall, I think it's not near strong enough.



This too, fwiw, I think is a bad idea that needs reversing.

I was so glad when they removed that completely arbitrary limit on city growth and instead instituted the health system. It is much more logical, and "flows" more continuously throughout the game instead of having a handful of "set" growth points.

Why do you want infinite movement on railroads? That was the silliest thing I have ever seen. This new system preserves the upgraded movement bonus without making it absurd that a single military unit can cross the entire continent and still conduct the full range of military operations a unit starting in the right place could. Doesn't airlifting consume the unit's movement for a turn? Why then is shipping your army by railroad save more movement points than airlifting them?

Long live the 1/10 railroads! And maybe add a modern age tech that improves it to 1/15.

 

[AndrewG]

I duno, I think it would add in a lot of excessive micromanagement that many people won't want. For the people who do want it, just mod it into the game. The Rise of Mankind mod already does something similar to this.

Besides, doesn't having the raw resource kinda imply you already have access to all of the final goods?

Not necessarily. Most modern countries are capable of producing an automobile -- how many of them actually export them?

 

[rysmiel]

Again, you give a particular sense to what i'm not saying.

My apologies if I misread you.

Quantum theory and relativity are Science subjects, this is yet another way to "understand" the world we live in, and has nothing to do with the way the man of the streets perceives it.

I am arguing that the way a good Civ player keeps a lot of factors balanced in their head when playing is perhaps closer to the kind of thinking required to do non-intuitive and mathematical bits of physics than to the kind of thinking required to deal with most of what you meet walking down the street, and that this is the entire appeal of the game.

We can sense speed, don't you like speed? We can sense liberty, don't you like liberty?

Only to a certain extent. I'm a voluntary Canadian; I am far more fond of peace, order and good government than either speed or liberty.

That's why reality is potentially infinitly more fun than any game that reproduces only a part of it. Games are a part of the reality, not the contrary.

I'm not sure I agree. A limited subset of reality can be completely understood. It can be completely mastered. It can give you the satisfaction of complete control and complete victory. Reality taken as a whole does not offer us those particular satisfactions.

Games have to select which part of reality to represent and how, which bits to summarise, simplify and reduce, because of finite time constraints. I have done the software implementation for everything an entirely new factory needs and it takes years; I do not want to have to do that every time I want to build a factory in a new city in Civ. The game must represent a drastically-reduced subset of reality to be playable; therefore "playable" and "matches reality accurately" are not concepts that influence the game in the same direction.

Therefore I will stick with gameplay first and realism only when it is directly beneficial to gameplay. And likewise, abstract philosophical considerations that are appropriate for considering reality as a whole, like whether I like liberty (or indeed belive in it) have no bearing at all on what I think is good for the game save in so far as they are expressed in game concepts and game mechanisms.

 

[skyline5k]

Not going to jump into the argument, but will simply add my wishlist: only a couple things.

Once in awhile, I'd like to institute perhaps a "National Holiday" that for 1 or 2 turns, happiness is up. Perhaps production is down also, depends on the event. Can't do that every turn, obviously, but would be nice to actually act as "ruler" in this respect. Let the leader influence the people a bit more besides just what's created.

Another, I'm sure I'm not the first: GRAMMAR!!! "You have built a archer!" What?!

That's it for now.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I am arguing that the way a good Civ player keeps a lot of factors balanced in their head when playing is perhaps closer to the kind of thinking required to do non-intuitive and mathematical bits of physics than to the kind of thinking required to deal with most of what you meet walking down the street, and that this is the entire appeal of the game.

There I do not agree. Myself, play Civ4 the way I understand it from scratch. That's why I dislike Civ4 when I can't see how many money will cost my next city, when I have to check every turn or nearly the cost of my army, when i can't predict easily by advance what will be the war weariness, because all this is directed by mechanisms from which I can only see the meta appearance. Don't get me wrong, I like the meta appearance of the things, I play Civ4 that way, but that's why I suck at it. (Monarch is way enough challenging for me) All what I ask is not to be able to predict the cost of my next city, to predict the war weariness or the cost of an army that flows turn by turn, but that those mechanisms to be much more less demanding.

For example, to lower the city cost, and make it constant, proportional. To be more clear about what units i can support freely, and from what point it begins to cost me, much. (in other terms to revamp the unit maintenance cost, as well as the city one) To delete the suicidal artillery that raises my war weariness crazy. (and it's false that war weariness increases so proportionally to the number of our troops killed, and in Civ2 and Civ3, war could cause happiness on the contrary, in war mongering civilizations)

As you see, I do not fall for this scientist way to play Civ4. People who plays that way see in Civ4, a game among other, a stone challenge. What I'm seeing is a perfectible game. You will never see me to count the number of dead cataputs, to engine-reverse the game in order to find when and why the AI civs will declare war on me. I am wholeheartedly against this way to play Civ4, and I am sad that Firaxis fall for those players.

I would like to be able to play a good and logical game from the start, without thinking too much about the underground mechanics. And I would like to play the following games with only good common sense, using my experience of the game mechanics, but not the underground ones, the first ones, the meta ones, in one word the gameplay ones, like how do city grow, or how do I build a war unit. Civ 1 and Civ 2, and even Civ3 were good enough from this point of view. But with Civ4, this is beginning to become insane. I pray for Firaxis to go back to this genuine type of gameplay, and not fall again for reverse engineers players for Civ5.

Only to a certain extent. I'm a voluntary Canadian; I am far more fond of peace, order and good government than either speed or liberty.

Well, I'm French.

A limited subset of reality can be completely understood. It can be completely mastered. It can give you the satisfaction of complete control and complete victory. Reality taken as a whole does not offer us those particular satisfactions.

There are subsets of the reality that are not games. Mathematical problems, for example. Problems of the life. Problems are subsets with defined limits. There's much more than videogames that allow to feel this particular kind of satisfaction, and yet, this is only a particular kind of satisfaction, among much more.

Games have to select which part of reality to represent and how, which bits to summarise, simplify and reduce, because of finite time constraints. I have done the software implementation for everything an entirely new factory needs and it takes years; I do not want to have to do that every time I want to build a factory in a new city in Civ. The game must represent a drastically-reduced subset of reality to be playable; therefore "playable" and "matches reality accurately" are not concepts that influence the game in the same direction.

All games are not always subsets of reality, like Pac-Man. Well, they are a subset of reality, just because they are a part of it, but they do not intend to reproduce reality. Civ does. civ pretend to reproduce nations, people, armies, economy, etc... So it is legitimate to want it to stick to reality. They still have to be sumarized, but there's infinite ways to do it. Sid Meier took one that is simple to play, but that's not meaning that we can't add things that will be simple to play and stick more with reality. Playable can stick with realist. When you sum up a text, it is shorter than the referencial text, but you still can represent what it said.

 

[Onionsoilder]

This discussion is all to big for me, so i just add my wish list:

1: A new trait appears for eatch age (as in CivRev)
2: Two leaders for eatch civilization (all of them with unique traits)
3: NO VIKING CIVILIZATON, NAME THEM NORSE INSTEAD!!!
4: Eatch civ more likely to decleare war at different era's depending on their history
5: Two unicue units and buildings for eatch civilization
6: Eatch civ have their own unit ghraphics(so a german knight looks different from a french knight)
7: Eathc civ have their own building ghrapics(so a norse harbor looks different from a spanish harbor)
Got to add more ideas inn the future

veBear

Edit: Added 5, 6 and 7

1) Yes, but make them dependent on how you play the game, not what civilization you are or what leader you're using.
2) More leaders is never a bad thing, but unique traits for every leader? That is a lot of work(and a lot of balancing).
3) I'm all for historical accuracy, especially if it's only an aesthetic change(Though this can easily be done with XML modding).
4) No. This is crossing the line between history and gameplay.
5) Sure, I could go for this, especially if it's an ancient/modern combo or land/sea combo.
6) Lots of work for the developers, but there are a lot of graphics mods out there that do this. Look for Ethnic Unit Graphics.
7) Once again, easily done with mods.

 

[Comrade Alex]

Something like the Stability factor in Rhye's and Fall.
That made civics and Empire building interesting x 7
It may have been said before, but yeah. It's great.

 

[gingermick]

I would also change the AI programming that makes the AI Civs send settlers miles from their "historical" base and setting up next to your "area". This is pure gameplay and totally unrealistic. Ancient ppl settled along natural lines of communication, like rivers and coasts to allow mutual defence and trade. Then near resources, not in the heart of an area where there is a heavy influence of another Civilisation. In later eras, perhaps.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Something like the Stability factor in Rhye's and Fall.
That made civics and Empire building interesting x 7
It may have been said before, but yeah. It's great.

I would prefer the RevIndex to Rhye's Stability any day. Basically it calculates various factors for every city in your empire, to see if they want to succeed from your nation or not. If you want to check it out, look for the Revolution mod or one of it's various merges(I use WolfRevolution myself)

I would also change the AI programming that makes the AI Civs send settlers miles from their "historical" base and setting up next to your "area". This is pure gameplay and totally unrealistic. Ancient ppl settled along natural lines of communication, like rivers and coasts to allow mutual defence and trade. Then near resources, not in the heart of an area where there is a heavy influence of another Civilisation. In later eras, perhaps.

I don't think you should limit civilizations to where they can expand, but I wouldn't mind the A.I. code to be modified so they are more likely to settle on coasts or on rivers.



Independant of my replies above, I would like to see:

- Military influence(instead of just Cultural). For example, building a Fort could generate Military Influence, helping to secure your boarders. Units in rival territory could also "secure" a tile, whihc would generate a large amount of temporary culture, something like 5 + 5%(So if a tile had 500 culture, the unit would produce 30(5 + 25 culture per turn), which would after a while give that tile to the invading civ.

 

[Point13]

more ideas on my wish list:

get rid of the unrealistic:
Ridiculus mismatches, 3 panzers vs 10 longbow, longbow win because I havent got enough attacks left!

Unrealistic trading costs, sheep for 253/turn because thats my "profit" this turn, next turn, sheep costs 1/turn, cos thats my profit! I would like to see a world exchange rate sytem, more later.

No knowledge of other countries. Just because my Civ hasnt expored a country, that shouldn't mean I have no knowledge of where it is, and what cities are in it and their size (without using worldbuilder!). The change I would like to see here is some sort of base knowledge of the world and other countries and thier civilisation statistics. In earlier times a certian civs idea of the world could be grossly distorted, including bits of the map where it saiys, "edge of the world", "here be dragons", "Shangra-la", "streets of gold" etc. But as time goes on, the civs knowledge of the world (both its mapping, resources and information) granularizes to be more and more accurate.

Added to this is also knowing what wonders are in what city!

I also think it is highly unrealistic that a nation would allow two other nations to engage in combat on their soil without them being directly involved in the combat.

combat units should naturally improve with time, degrade or be deleted or become ceremonial units and create culture.

Some concepts I would like to modify/introduce:

Religion!
I know it exists in the game, but it treated like a commodity/tech. Where is the passion!? Anyone been at war with another civ purely on religious grounds? It is very rare. But look at history. There should be a natural affinity between nations of the same religion, and therefore a natural resentment/fear/distrust against nations of a dissimiliar religion, civic dependant. How about being forced to go to war against another nation because the holy leader says so? Punishment if non-compliant, like the others go to war against you for herasy? or every city you have must sacrifice 1 pop to show commitment!. Rewarded if successful, somehow, perhaps with a better chance of contolling the whole religion, like having "your" man become the pope/head figure. Added to having to do or achieve certain standards(explore x amount of jungle to convert natives for example)/requirements (commit x amounts of units/money to a far away war). Random religious effects, like pop reduction due to inquision, volcano eruption (god appeasment)etc.

You obviously don't play against Isabella very much do you?

Maybe expanding the Apostolic Palace would make religion more important (one per religion?)