The Official Civ4 Ideas Thread

[arretium]

I was responding in another thread about the hated "trade reputation bug", and it got me thinking of a potential easy solution that ought to be considered in Civ4: the credit report.

You as an individual or as a business have a credit report. This credit report contains valuable information about your ability and past history of paying off debts. Negative credit information, such as bankrupticies, greatly reduce (if not eliminate) your ability to get additional credit. After 7-10 years, the negative credit information is required by law to fall off your credit history. Why not institute a similiar scheme within Civilization? Since it takes 7-10 years for a negative credit item to fall off one's own individual or business credit report, the game designers could institute a similiar schedule in Civ 4 based on the number of turns since the negative event. For example, if we utilitize the 7-10 year period used in the U.S. as it corresponds to human interaction and consider the fact that most humans live for 80 years in the U.S., then we get about 6 to 8 periods in a lifespan (excluding ages 0-18 when a human is a minor and can not get credit) where an individual could have entirely new credit information. If we incorporate that idea into the game, it would mean that roughly ever 50-75 turns, negative credit information would pass off your "credit report" and would not be considered by potential trading partners.

 

[a4phantom]

Does it currently stay forever? Ick. Also, are all rep hits equal? Using ROP to attack an ally and razing a town, do they affect your rep in equal ways and to an equal degree?

 

[wlievens]

Parliament, with parties and voting, much like Galactic Civilizations. If your party is in power, you get some kind of bonus.

 

[soren]

Originally posted by Dr. Broom
Religion would be a good addition...jews may hate muslims or something like that.

What the ****?!

Where did you get the idea that "Jews" hate Muslims? I'm a little offended by this, and for one would like an explination.

 

[a4phantom]

Yeah.

 

[wlievens]

Some people aren't very bright...

 

[arretium]

Originally posted by Dr. Broom
Religion would be a good addition Christians might be nicer toward each other than toward heathens and jews while jews may hate muslims or something like that. Basically culture groups need to be much more defined in whatever way possible.

Not to focus on the negative of your post Dr. Broom, as you did have some good ideas in there. But, focusing on the negative , Jews don't hate Muslims. Christians don't hate Jews.

Be careful not to stretch exceptions and turn them into the general rule. Some Muslims hate both Christians and Jews, but these people don't speak for all muslims. Rather, they are considered radical elements within the Muslim faith, you're bin Ladens if you will. Nevertheless, there will always be some people within every faith, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Insert faith here, that will hate another faith. For example, there will always be some Chrsitians who hate Jews, some Jews that hate Muslims, and Muslims that just hate everyone. Why? I think of it as the collective human nature. But, they are by all means a minority, and I know that my fellow Jewish friends don't hate anyone, nor have they ever, nor have any of my christian friends hated anyone. Furthermore, I don't have any Muslim friends that hate anyone either. My point? The exception becoming the general rule. You can thank the distortion of mass media for that.

 

[wlievens]

In The West Wing, there was a fairly good comparison done:

The people in the Arab world that hate all Jews and all Christians, are the same people in the West that hate all Arabs and all Jews: one example being the KKK. Just like identifying all western people with the KKK makes no sence, identifying all Arab people with Al Qaeda makes no sence.

 

[a4phantom]

arretium,
Every religion/country/culture has its rednecks.

wlievens,
I wish CJ's boss were really president . . .

 

[wlievens]

It'd be cool

 

[FrenchElvisl]

Not sure if anyone else had ideas like this (I didn't read the 51 pages), but here goes:

1. Civil Wars - If you have civil disorder in a city more than twice in the same Era, each additional turn of civil disorder there is a 50% chance that your civ will be devided in half with war declared instantly. You can only have one civil war for each Era.

2. More Techs - The tech tree is just too short. I hate seeing tanks in 1650, it's just too weird. The conquests from C3C have very good ideas for new techs. Ideally the Ancient ages should end at around 400AD, Middle Ages should end around 1700, and modern times should start around 1950.

3. Civ Names - Should change by Era. This could be elaborated, for example once England reached the Industrial Era it could choose to become either America or the United Kingdom.

4. Expanding - Is quite flawed. Don't you hate playing on some maps (especially the Earth maps) and seeing some multicolored patch where all the civs have tiny cities all intermixed. You should only be able to build a new city like 5 tiles away from your border.
If you expand overseas your first city would have to be on the coast.

5. Improved Graphics - This is a given and I'm sure it will already be included but I think a large jump needs to be made here. Should go to a 3D rendered/polygonal type of thing, but it doesn't have to be complete 3D, and probably still tile-based. Another thing that would be cool is during battles, the camera could zoom into the tile, and you would actually see the full armies fighting. For example, lets say its between 2 swordsmen, these swordsmen actually represent like a division of swordsmen. The game would then show a scence of a battle between 2 armies of swordsmen, on whatever terrain.

6. Military - There needs to be a change here. Especially with cavalry and knights. These units werent the main units in those times. There should be a defensive and an offensive Gunpowder infantry unit. Like Musketmen and Fusilier or something.

 

[nmcul]

Hm. Here's my take:

1. Civil Wars - If you have civil disorder in a city more than twice in the same Era, each additional turn of civil disorder there is a 50% chance that your civ will be devided in half with war declared instantly. You can only have one civil war for each Era.

One city causing a massive civil war seems a little harsh. You'd wind up with a civil war just about any time you captured an enemy city. If half of your cities were in disorder, though, this could be reasonable.

2. More Techs - The tech tree is just too short. I hate seeing tanks in 1650, it's just too weird. The conquests from C3C have very good ideas for new techs. Ideally the Ancient ages should end at around 400AD, Middle Ages should end around 1700, and modern times should start around 1950.

You have a point. Civ 2 had a much richer tech tree with many more options. It would be nice to see some more substance in Civ IV.

3. Civ Names - Should change by Era. This could be elaborated, for example once England reached the Industrial Era it could choose to become either America or the United Kingdom.

Maybe. It just might not be worth it, though, to be bothered about it.

4. Expanding - Is quite flawed. Don't you hate playing on some maps (especially the Earth maps) and seeing some multicolored patch where all the civs have tiny cities all intermixed. You should only be able to build a new city like 5 tiles away from your border.
If you expand overseas your first city would have to be on the coast.

Might be too much of a hamper on colonization. The biggest problem with expansion is, in my opinion, the existance of massive empires in 1500 BC. Settling new land should not begin in earnest until later into the Ancient Era.

5. Improved Graphics - This is a given and I'm sure it will already be included but I think a large jump needs to be made here. Should go to a 3D rendered/polygonal type of thing, but it doesn't have to be complete 3D, and probably still tile-based. Another thing that would be cool is during battles, the camera could zoom into the tile, and you would actually see the full armies fighting. For example, lets say its between 2 swordsmen, these swordsmen actually represent like a division of swordsmen. The game would then show a scence of a battle between 2 armies of swordsmen, on whatever terrain.

Good LORD no. Considering Civ 3's already massive appetite for memory, 3D graphics would make the game unplayable. Besides, since units are confined to a square tile-based world, they only need to be animated in eight directions. Civ isn't an RTS; 3D graphics would just be a waste on resources. As for movies, I care more about getting Wonder Movies back first. Battle animations can come later.

6. Military - There needs to be a change here. Especially with cavalry and knights. These units werent the main units in those times. There should be a defensive and an offensive Gunpowder infantry unit. Like Musketmen and Fusilier or something.

Civ 3 has three basic unit types: infantry (defense), cavalry (attack), and artillery (bombard). In Civ 2, I could combine armies of phalanxes with legions and crusaders, or have alpine troops accompany artillery, armor, and marines, and I could get unique contributions out of each unit type. The Civ 3 unit tree certainly could use some filling out.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by FrenchElvisl
Not sure if anyone else had ideas like this (I didn't read the 51 pages), but here goes:

1. Civil Wars - If you have civil disorder in a city more than twice in the same Era, each additional turn of civil disorder there is a 50% chance that your civ will be devided in half with war declared instantly. You can only have one civil war for each Era.

Civil Wars, yes, but dividing your whole civ in half just cause one city goes into disorder too much? No way! It'd be better if only cities that were in disorder would revolt. Perhaps having nearby cities revolting would decrease happiness in your other cities, so rebellions would nowball out of control if you don't take care of them right away.

2. More Techs - The tech tree is just too short. I hate seeing tanks in 1650, it's just too weird. The conquests from C3C have very good ideas for new techs. Ideally the Ancient ages should end at around 400AD, Middle Ages should end around 1700, and modern times should start around 1950.

Agreed. In particular, more optional techs and more choices.

3. Civ Names - Should change by Era. This could be elaborated, for example once England reached the Industrial Era it could choose to become either America or the United Kingdom.

What if you got the option to change your name whenever you changed governments? For example, if you were the "Kingdom of XXX" under Monarchy and you had a revolution and switched to Republic, a pop-up would appear asking you to name your civ, with the default choice being "Republic of XXX." You could simply click Okay/hit Return to accept that, or, if you wanted, you could delete that name and type something new. In other words, the interface would be the same as when you found a new city and the pop-up box contains a suggested name.

4. Expanding - Is quite flawed. Don't you hate playing on some maps (especially the Earth maps) and seeing some multicolored patch where all the civs have tiny cities all intermixed. You should only be able to build a new city like 5 tiles away from your border.
If you expand overseas your first city would have to be on the coast.

Honestly, no, I don't hate that at all. Never bothered me in the slightest. I completely disagree with this idea - why limit choices? The current game already has incentive to keep cities connected by roads/harbors to let you trade resources - that's enough, don't make it mandatory!

5. Improved Graphics - This is a given and I'm sure it will already be included but I think a large jump needs to be made here. Should go to a 3D rendered/polygonal type of thing, but it doesn't have to be complete 3D, and probably still tile-based. Another thing that would be cool is during battles, the camera could zoom into the tile, and you would actually see the full armies fighting. For example, lets say its between 2 swordsmen, these swordsmen actually represent like a division of swordsmen. The game would then show a scence of a battle between 2 armies of swordsmen, on whatever terrain.

Like nmcul said, Good Lord No! Turns already take long enough, it's be horrible to have to watch a little movie every time there was a battle. You may say, "yeah, but there'd be an option to turn it off," but I don't want the developers wasting all their time coding this sort of eye-candy, I want better AI, etc.

6. Military - There needs to be a change here. Especially with cavalry and knights. These units werent the main units in those times...

Agreed, there needs to be a change. I'm not a big fan of the "this unit is for defense, that unit is for attack" philosophy used in Civ 3. There should be basic, cheap units in each era that are slow-moving and reasonable at both attack and defense, then other more expensive units that have specialized advantages in higher movement rates, attack values, defense values, or special abilities. Cavalry and Knights shouldn't be the bulk of your attacking force as they are now, they should be units that you use to supplement your main force in situations where you need some extra mobility.

...There should be a defensive and an offensive Gunpowder infantry unit. Like Musketmen and Fusilier or something.

I'd rather see infantry units (in all eras) that are more balanced defensively/offensively. Musketmen shouldn't have the same attack as ancient-era archers, they should be 3.4.1 or better yet 4.4.1, likewise Riflemen 5.6.1 or 6.6.1. If there were also specialized attack or defend gunpowder units, that'd be fine, but keep the basic, cheap units more balanced and get away from the philosophy that foot units defend while mounted units attack.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by nmcul
...The biggest problem with expansion is, in my opinion, the existance of massive empires in 1500 BC. Settling new land should not begin in earnest until later into the Ancient Era.

The thing about all three Civ games that's always been strange to me is the extent to which the world is uninhabited at the beginning of the game. Other than a few scattered barbarians, there's nobody living between you and the next civ that might start hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Civ3 is the best so far, with barbarians that actually come from villages, but I think that one good way to hamper initial, early growth of massive empires would be to increase the barbarian presence early in the game. If there were a lot more barbarian villages (a lot more barbarians in general) and the human and AI civs didn't have such advantages over them (great combat bonuses vs. barbs at many difficulty levels) then it's be harder to send off waves of settlers to form vast empires right away. On the flip side, the barbarian agression level would have to be toned down (somewhat) so that they didn't immediately overrun fledgeling civs.

Non-hostile but non-friendly barbarian tribes

One way to look at this is that there are currently two types of non-civ people: (1) friendly tribes in goody huts, and (2) hostile barbarians that send out waves of warriors and eventually horsemen to pillage your tiles and attack your units and cities. In Civ 4, there should be a third group in the middle: non-friendly, non-hostile barbarian villages, who don't send out units to mess with you, but who do defend themselves if you move units into their territory. These wouldn't be a threat to you the same way hostile barbs or other civs are, but they would slow down early expansion since you'd have to conquer them before building new cities. Historically, the ancient Romans had to conquer plenty of nearby minor tribes, like Etruscans and Samnites, before they started bumping up against the competing civilizations in the region, like the Greeks and Carthaginians.

It's be even more interesting if you could have limited diplomatic negotiations with these non-friendly, non-hostile barbarians. Trade and diplomatic agreements wouldn't appear, those would require contact with real civs, but maybe you could give them a gift of gold and they would then act like a friendly tribe, giving you a local map, teaching you a tech, or maybe even joining you. Or you could bribe them to be hostile to a neighboring civ, and then they'd start acting like regular old hostile barbarians with respect to that civ, sending out units to pillage and attack it. What I'm envisioning is something like this: these tribes don't have a place on the diplomacy screen, but you can click on them and choose "Contact Etruscan Warrior" in which case a pop-up window appears that says "What gifts do you offer the Etruscan tribe?" and you can give them gold or perhaps an extra luxury if you have one, after which the tribe becomes more friendly to you and more hostile to your enemies, to a degree that depends on the generosity of your gift. If this was implemented, then you'd have a choice when trying to expand your empire: attack the villages that so far haven't done you any harm, but stand in your way, or try to bribe them generously enough that they join your empire. Options that appeal to both warmongers and builder-types alike, what's not to love ?

 

[felagund]

I think the current method of finding out what resources your opponents have is unrealistic. At the moment you just press Ctrl-Shift-M to reveal all sources of resources on your known world map. Sure if a civ has given you their territory map and the resource is already discovered then maybe it should appear on the map. But in most cases resources only appear after a certain tech has been researched and therefore you should not have any knowledge of where they are located. It would be good to have some sort of espionage interface to allow you to say, "uncover America's source of aluminium". Or it could be done more generally - just "Show the locations of all America's strategic resources". This should probably be done at a gold cost like the current espionage missions. Just an idea....

 

[DaHaRRyOnE]

This is what i want:

A Galactic Civilization Metaverse equivalent program. We upload our games to a firaxis server, the firaxis team will adjust any exploit and as such to improve the ai. This way the ai does not have to cheat it's way in higher levels unless we're playing on something like Sid which would be ok in my book; and the intelligence of the AI would improve greatly from this.

 

[wlievens]

Originally posted by DaHaRRyOnE
This is what i want:

A Galactic Civilization Metaverse equivalent program. We upload our games to a firaxis server, the firaxis team will adjust any exploit and as such to improve the ai. This way the ai does not have to cheat it's way in higher levels unless we're playing on something like Sid which would be ok in my book; and the intelligence of the AI would improve greatly from this.

Please explain that?

 

[Dimitri]

Hi to all,

This is my first time to this site. I must say you guys are increadible. Over the last couple of days I have read pages upon pages of threads concerning each persons new wish list to be added or modified in the latest release of this immortal game.

I am please to see new fresh ideas that revolutionize the game play some are even interesting and need further debate. I also have several ideas that I like to see implemented in the latest release of Civ and I will be posting them in a short while (some may be rehash form previous threads).

Last item I would like to add is that I haven't played a single game of CIV 3 because I cant get enough of the classic CIV 2 MGE

 

[ninti]

My one comment, the real point of me playing Civ II was to build a huge empire, taking over and perfecting the continent and eventually, of course, the world, something that the insane corruption of Civ III makes impossible now. I like Civ III, but I always play cheating with corruption lowered and number of optimal cities cranked up. I didn't play this game for a year after I bought it because of this issue until I discovered you could change it in the editor, and it is just less fun without doing so.

 

[steviejay]

Originally posted by wlievens


Please explain that?

erm...... from my understanding of it he's meaning when you play games, if you notice something that the AI does which is silly you upload it to this one main server which Fraxis will host. They'll then look at what the AI is doing and ajust the AI accordingly to improve it and post a patch so that it would be fixed in all machines. Kind of like Acceptance Testing when you're building a computer program, you give it to the user they notice something thats not right, they tell you, you update the code and give it back fixed.

Probably wrong but thats what I thought they meant.