The Official Civ4 Ideas Thread

[Arizona_Steve]

I'll throw out a few ideas here...

(1) ALL non-optional techs need to be researched in order to launch the space ship. In my opinion, this is a flaw with the current game, and means that we don't get to see such things as Integrated Defence and Radar Artillery.

(2) Future Tech. I agree it's a "love it or hate it" type of thing, but realistically, the technology tree on Civ III falls short of the technology that would actually be required to get to Alpha Centauri within a reasonable timespan. At the very least, the Modern Age needs to be extended to include, for example, exotic materials (eg. nanotubes), Space-based manufacturing, and of course Fusion.

(3) Modular AI. Although Soren has done a great job with the AI in Civ III, he is but one programmer, and there are many of us who feel the AI is lacking in some respects. There are obvious shortfalls, such as the AI trying to build settlers in size 1 cities, the ineffective use of offensive artillery, and the fixation with defending every city during a war, even if there is no chance of them being attacked, at the expense of those cities under siege.

My proposal. Assuming C++, create the AI as an interface (pur virtual methods), and allow this interface to be downloaded. Obviously the Firaxis AI would be supplied as a concrete class (COM object or DLL?), but the interface would allow a user-defined AI to be plugged in instead. Even better would be to set up the Firaxis AI in terms of vitual methods so that it can be subclassed, allowing specific parts of the AI to be replaced without having to rewrite all of it.

 

[Khan Quest]

Great Wonders:

Stonehenge or Astral (Mayan) Calendar, Agricultural, Available with Mathematics – Allows for timing optimal planting and harvesting. Irrigated tiles get one extra food. Expires with railroad.

Parthenon, Religious, Architecture; New dead-end tech following construction – All new buildings in a city are architecturally brilliant. Either all new buildings are ½ price (or reduced) or some number of buildings are maintenance free (Historical Society funded).

Great (Panama) Canal, Industrious/Expansionist, Available with Steel – Buildable only in a city which as at least two coastal tiles within the maximum city radius. Four tiles may have the canal. One canal tile must adjacent to at least one other. The host city can have a canal on its tile if adjacent to one of the others. All civs, ROP or not, must ask permission each turn to use it. Foreign ships cannot move in the canal without permission. If part of the canal ends up in foreign territory the host city civ is prompted to ask permission but may pass at risk of consequence. Foreign ships cannot end their movement in the city. The canal can be pillaged. Repair each tile at 1/8 original cost. Adds trade to any tile without a river (as if a river were present).

Sliced Bread – Just kidding.

Small Wonders:

Space Shuttle, Satellites – can be used to reveal a 5-tile diameter area anywhere in the word each turn.

Historical Museum – Offers bonus trade and reduced corruption in the host city

Techs:

Terracing, agricultural, (middle ages somewhere), dead-end tech – hills and mountains can be terraced to produce one extra food.

Commodities:

Akin to luxuries and strategic resources, these may be traded to increase trade between two civs. The supplier gets a +2 bonus, the consumer +1. Examples may include tobacco (Change the current tobacco to corn), cotton, olives, chemicals, semi-precious stones (coastal and inland), fruit or nut groves in forests, lost if chopped down. Some of these should be “discovered” by tech advancement.

Weather and Natural Disasters:

Weather includes rain and snow, sandstorms and gales. Both reduce movement on unimproved terrain, foreign and domestic alike, rain and sandstorms by one point and snow by two. Snow allows +20% defensive bonus and rain and sandstorms +10%. Gales slow wind powered craft by one.

Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and lightening. All make one person unhappy within a city radius, two if units are injured. This is reduced to one unhappy if units are injured after scientific method. Volcanoes randomly “pillage” one of the eight adjacent tiles. Earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes pillage a square and/or do one point of damage to troops and/or kill a worker and/or reduce population in a city by one. If Lightening strikes a forest there is a chance it will burn. Burnt forest will produce only one shield. It will heal in 5 turns or can be reseeded in two. Civil defense negates these affects.

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, rain or snow provide a chance that a tile would have increased food output or reveal minerals for a bonus shield for five years.

Terrain:

Put some forest on hills and mountains, but hills and mountains can not be seeded.

Break desert into desert and sand dunes. Sand dunes would have oases and oil, and like swamp cannot be built upon (except on an oasis). Sand dunes can be worked into desert. Some desert squares could contain a food bonus like a shield bonus in grasslands. Think of the rich California desert that grows anything with water.

City Improvements:

Fix coliseums. They could make a percentage of the population happy, rather then a fixed number.

Launch Pad, Satellites – Allows satellites to be built. Satellites reveal a 5-tile radius anywhere on the map.

Auto upgrade:

Ancient troops gotta go. Either auto-upgrade units or they should be increasingly likely to lose to advanced troops.
Auto-upgrade – units two (or maybe three) upgrades behind are automatically upgraded at the cost on one hit point. At the discovery of gunpowder a regular spearman is upgraded automatically to a conscript pikeman. At the discovery of Nationalism a conscript pikeman is upgraded to a reserve (1 HP) musketman. A reserve can not be auto-upgraded and is lost.

Or, Troops two tech levels advanced are twice as likely victorious; Thrice advanced, thrice as victorious.

Units:

Fix cruise missiles. Make them cheaper or more effective.

Balloons, new tech: Advanced Experimentation, late middle ages – Balloons are recon craft that reveal a nine-tile square. They move 4 in three directions (those East OR those West) and one in others, due to prevailing winds. The can only move 1 over mountains and have % chance of being lost ending a turn over water.

Spy plane, rocketry – recon craft have long range (say, 15) and reveal a 3-tile radius strip across the entire traversed path.

Pirates and for-hire guerillas (FHG. Yeah OK, I couldn’t think of a better name) Pirates are great. The Privateer is historically accurate, but why limit piracy to one era? Ships from all era could be pirates. They could cost the same but have reduced fire power and defense. Units like swordsmen, guerillas, etc, would be FHGs. They too would cost the same but have reduced attack and defense. The units would be upgradable. The first time a civ is attacked, they’ll have no idea who the sponsoring state is. With each subsequencent attack, the victim is increasingly likely to identify the sponsor, with a 100% chance after five attacks. This is reset every five turns of no attacks. If a pirate or FHG is “seen” on the same tile as other troops or entering/exiting a city, they are forever known to the observing civ as to which state is sponsoring them. This is negated with an upgrade. Espionage can help reveal and misdirect the identity of the sponsoring civ. Consider also a higher maintenance cost.

The American UU sucks. How about a SEAL unit? The SEAL (12(6), 6, 2(6)) would ignore terrain for movement and could move and end turns on coastal tiles and lakes. They could have a move of 2 on land and 6 on coastal tiles and lakes. They could attack and be attacked by ships. They could have stealth (see below).

Other:

Stealth – Certain military units, especially UU units could have certain levels of stealth. Stealth gives a chance of undetectably by foreign civs. The turn after an attack, offensive or defensive, stealthy units are visible, and have reduced stealth until exiting foreign territory. Radar sites greatly increase the chance of detection.

Partial maps. I’d like to trade partial maps. Perhaps a selection of maps from other civs would pop-up on a menu, or select from a list by civs, explored land, explored ocean, etc.

Troop morale independent of the civilian populace. Whoever has a significantly higher stack of units get a bonus. Conscripts & lower (see auto-upgrade) may refuse to attack unless within one tile of veteran or elite troops. One veteran unit can influence one conscript; One Elite can influence two conscripts. An army can influence all nearby conscripts. Similarly, veteran and below troops wounded to one HP may refuse to attack. Victories offer an attack and defense bonus the following turn. Loss or lack of supply lines influence morale (except for paratroopers).

 

[ybbor]

how about a feature to do spy work for a civ, you could ask someone to perform a "investigate city" that costs that person 100 gold, but you pay 150 gold to them, and you both see the results, that way, if you're at war with someone, and you only have an embassie, while the other civ has one, but is not at war so it's still working, you can still do your work (for a higher price) this could however lead torevealing that you have a spy in someone's capital. how about if a spy gets caught on a commisioned mission, you have a 50% chance of the commisiner bieng revealed (less of the spying civ is a commie)

 

[Kaboth]

This is a little offtopic but do we really want a Civ4?

Personally as most would agree C3C is probably the best version of Civ yet. If a Civ4 was released it would need to truly revolutinise Civ. Civ3 was already critised by many as being a Civ2 clone.

I would like to see an Alpha Centauri sequel, though with a more inspiring name than Alpha Centauri 2 hopefully. Alpha Centauri though maybe not as balanced as Civ3 did have have factions with very strong personalities and is a more enjoyed game than Civ3 for some people. The creativity and brilliance of the tech tree was brilliant in Alpha Centauri. Is this possible? I realise there was some conflict between Firaxis and the Civ franchise around the time Alpha Centauri was released. Does Firaxis have the rights to produce an Alpha Centauri sequel? I think it would be fun to play an Alpha Centauri sequel before a Civ4, you can get a little Civ'd out

If Civ4 was made, I'd want to see wonder movies return though they should be forcibly turned off in multiplayer. Even just adding the Civ2 ones again would be cool.

 

[CaptainCivFreak]

Originally posted by Dr. Yoshi
The one thing I would love to see in Civ 4: A dynamic multiplayer universe!

One way of doing this would be to have each server be a solar system of Earth-like worlds with hundreds, maybe thousands, of players to each solar system. The planet sizes would range from Earth-size to Jupiter-size to meet demand and tailor it to your own personal tastes (ie. if you want to play against a lot of nations going for a lot of land you would choose a Jupiter size world.)

Another way of creating a Civ 4 dynamic multiplayer universe would be to have each server be a planet with player created regions much like the webgame NationStates. These regions can either choose to be like the modern European Union with a strong alliance or to be like Medieval Europe with wars constantly going on between the nations in the region.

In order to make your nation a bit more distinctive you will get to choose your nation's name and to create a customized leaderhead in a manner similar to the character creation systems seen in MMORPG games. You will also be able to choose your traits from the civ list and your military speciality which will offer benefits but also penalities to your nation's military, ie. if you choose to specialize in armor production the tanks you produce will be stronger and faster than normal tanks but as a downside your air units might not be as strong as the standard air units.

That would be awesome!

LOVE the idea... but would be impossible... what they should do is put Civ4 into a game engine something like Starfleet Command 3, I love the dynamic multiplayer universe theory...

 

[Adam7Eight]

A few changes/additions I would like to see in Civ4:

1. Increase max city limit above 512.
2. Canals and bridges.
3. No fewer than 45 civilizations.
4. More natural disasters.
5. More (better) future techs.
6. Stackpiling of resources, etc.
7. Manhattan Project changed to small wonder so every civ that wants nukes has to build it.
8. Totally rework corruption.
9. Ability for RoP agreements for land and/or sea.
10. Stop the AI "expand as fast as you can race" and prevent AI civs from settling 50 tiles away from their closest city just to be next to the player's civ. (This is horrible in C3C)
11. Add more resources, luxuries, units, and city improvments.
12. Rework diplomacy.
13. Make the AI a lot smarter without giving them bonuses and hindering the player.

 

[Mr. Cackle]

What I would like to see in Civ4:

1. Either I didn't catch it or for some reason no one mentioned it, we definitely need combat bonuses towards different types of units. For example, a pikeman has an advantage when defending against a Knight than if he was defending against a medieval infantry, or a TOW infantry is better at fighting a Tank than a Guerilla, etc. Plus, armies would get the combined bonus of all the units included. THis will mean that you could either diversify the units in your armies (i.e. having a Knight, a Pikeman, and a Medieval Infantry in an army) or shape an army to a specific role (like just Med. Infantry for Pikeman killing, or Knights for Med. Infantry killing, etc.)

2. I like the idea of immigration as opposed to a culture flip of a city. I think that a culture flip should only happen in the most extreme circumstances when you completely culturally overpower a rival civ and the civ has a certain number of units as Military Police there. Also, accepting a city that flips to you should have an extremely negative effect on the civ that previously owned the city (it is, after all, how the war between Greece and Persia started)

3. I think the change that would really define Civ4 as a true sequel (and not just a clone) would be if one abolished the civ stucture all together. Someone talked about this earlier in the thread, and I would like to add onto it. I think that there should be no civilizations to choose, just leaderheads, then you make up a name for your civilization and a name for your leader and such. Everyone's buildings and cities and look the same (thatched roof) but depending on what you do and where you are, your civ takes on a different look. How would the style of civ be determined? Well, it would be a combination of:

A) Climate: If you are in a climate with lots of rivers and plenty of food, then your people lean more towards an agricultural life, if you are in a harsh, cold environment up in a land with lots of mountains and forests, then you are an industrious people, if you face many barbarians in your early years, then you become more militaristic, if you are an island people or have many colonies and cities overseas, then you are seafaring, etc.

B) What techs you research/Improvements you build: If some of the first technologies you research are Construction, Engineering, and you tend to build more architectural buildings (colliseum, cathedral) you can pursue more in-depth techs as a result of your civ's fascination with architecture like "The Arch" or "Skyscrapers". If you tend to research more scientific things like Scientific Method, Philosophy, etc. and focus on building libraries, universities, and research labs, then you can research offshoot techs like "Material Classification" or even "Alchemy"!

C) What kind of religion is dominant in your civ: This is decided by the religions of the civs you trade with and interact with the most. But the creation of a religion is decided by the various Great Wonders of the religion like the Temple of Artemis or possibly the Parthenon is the center for the Greek Gods/Goddesses religion, perhaps have Jerusalem be the center for the Judeo-Christian faith, Mecca be the center for the Islamic faith. A civ can only have one Religion-starting Great Wonder and once that Great Wonder is built, the civilization can never leave that religion unless they have a revolution. Religion plays a part in what civs think of you (Islamic civs like Islamic civs, Bhuddists like other Bhuddists, Christians like other Christians, etc.) as well as resistance and propaganda (I'm sure the Iraqis would not be resisting as much to an occupying force if, say, Syria had invaded)

D) Lastly, how conservative/liberal you are: This would be determined by how religious you are (build more temples to the dominant religion and you get more conservative) how many troops you have, how frequently you use them/if you do use them, how many of them you use (garrisoning units in a city to keep them out of civil disorder counts as using them) determines how liberal/conservative you are, plus there would be a slider that would determine how much of your income you should spend on things like Welfare, Social Security, plus a seperate slider on how much regulation of the economy you have, from 100% (communism) to 0% (laissez faire ala 1890s US). So, the government type would be determined by a combination of all those factors, you could be liberal but have complete control of the economy (socialism) or be conservative and have no control of the economy (Republicanism?)

Things like the Unique Unit would be determined by what resources you have close by/ what type of culture you have (to prevent someone from never using their unique unit due to a bad start location

4. Definitely add in a Future Age. This age should allow underwater cities, cities on the Moon and possibly on mars, and of course a whole bunch of new units (like mechs)

5. Rivers should act like roads until you get steam power, in which case they act like Railroads (which should give 8 movement for all units, not instantaneous or a multiple of base movement). Certain ships can go on the rivers, like the Curragh, the Ironclad, and possibly add a new unit in the Ind./Modern Era like some sort of fast attack ship that can go in rivers/coast and sea

6. Possibly have the option to build parts to a ship then assemble it in a far off city. For example, I want to build a battleship in a city on the other end of my civ. I build all the parts to it, which then creates a unit (like Battleship Parts) that has no A/D and is immobile, must be transported by Railroad or by Plane. I send it to the far-off city and for like 50 shields the pieces are put together there.

7. New Units:
-G.I.: Get rid of the Mech Infantry and replace with a Half-Track in the Industrial Era and in the Modern Era have an APC. Half-Track and APC should have minimal A/D but lots of movement, can transport units. GI should basically have stats of Mech Infantry only 1 movement

- Commando: Give him all sorts of cool special abilities, but have him be very hard to build.

- Cargo Plane/C-130: For heavy transportation of stuff

- Sniper: Stealthy/Stealth Attack, has high Attack rating, very low defense rating

Basically, improve the combat of the Modern Age

Edit>> Whew! That was one looong post!

 

[Sarevok]

Name of Feature: Pre-Targeted Nukes

What it does and how it works: On nukes, there should be an option to "pre-target" them to a specific city or square, in the event that a nuke was fired from the civ this nuke is aimed at, then this nuke would automatically launch as a response, regardless if you are at war.

In addition, it should also have a 1-turn wait delay before a nuke hits its target, so one knows its in the air, but has no idea where it launched, though a box should come up saying that this civ has launched a nuke in a specific direction (North, Southwest, etc.). That way, one dosent really nkow where the nuke will hit. also a popup should come when the nuke hits its objective. Also, a city should say if it has a nuke pre-targeted on it in zoom or an icon. that can also be a spy option to find all nukes in one's territory kind of like war plans theft.

Gameplay: This would create the nuclear standoff like the cold war, as one would not dare launch in fear of special reprisals. I also cant really think of any potential exploits in this, save if tyou consider the whole idea an exploit for ALL civs itself.

Here is my idea, have fun with it.

 

[The Head]

I would like to keep the free movement on railroads, first of all to keep the management simple, but also because it can be used in some improvements.

Production:

This needs the most work. When a city produces 55 shields and you want to build a modern armor, it takes 3 turns, and then you have 0 shields in stock. I would really like to keep the 45 wasted shields in the production stock, so you don’t have to micromanage what every city is building. Or even better: When you have some cities connected by railroads, you should be able to select an output city. Then when you want to produce units you just select "unit production", and then all the shields are send to your output city, where you might collect let’s say 710 shields. You can then select units for those shields e.g. 5 modern and 1 mech. would definitely decrease micromanagement.

Also when hurrying production, it shouldn’t cost double to buy a unit/improvement from scratch, especially when you just buy a warrior and changes production and buy the rest at normal cost.

Bridges and canals: - But only for two squares. Should take forever/cost a fortune

Combat: I really like the combat system, but a unit two ages prior to another unit should always loose. – Some naval units should carry missiles.

UN: like SMAC, and with pollution- and nuclear control. After the UN has been build territory claims should be available. (besides the cultural borders)

Statistics: All kinds of statistics e.g. number of different lost units, number of different killed units (like civ 2)

Movies: Like civ 2 play a small movie when you have achieved something special.

Useable future techs: I would prefer tech like SMAC, but less could also do. Like every second future tech increase your modern armors attack value by 1 and so on.

Info on rep damage: When ever an act causes rep damage, you should be informed.

Obsolete, obsolete units: Why can I still build warrior, when Modern Armor is available??? You have to scroll through al those obsolete units to get down to the improvements.

Civil war: Let’s get that back as well, perhaps with the option to support the rebels in another civ. (or maybe terrorism)

Offshore oil tiles:

Odds stats: Before attacking a unit, it should be possible to press a key e.g. “O”, and press the key for the direction for your attack, and a stat-screen showing your odds should appear.

Better trade for coast cities: 90% of all major cities founded before 1900 are placed on a coast line or a river bank. The main reason for this is trade. This should also be reflected in civ 4. (maybe with the possibility for 2 naval units to make a naval blockade, canceling the extra trade, luxury and resources)

 

[Indysocialist]

There's a few things I'd like to see, I hope these haven't been posted before (I did check).

First I'd like to see empires crumble and die as time progresses and smaller countries emerge to be the new empires, perhaps your Civ could start out as one of the guerilla or barbarian groups to form what will be your country (by gaining independence from an already existing empire).

I'd also like to see more alliances that make sense, I don't think England would exactly make an alliance with India during the Dark Ages.

Perhaps these alliances could take a stab at conquest? It's been done before but it would be a lot cooler if a few countries banded together to take over an area only to be repelled by a different league.

A Big Brother Government like the one in 1984, that would make my day.

More leader options when you choose a country, different players want different things when they choose a country. Take Russia for example, some may want to play as the old Czarist regime and others may want the Soviet Union, it all depends.

I also don't think that a country should have to wait for a government style by developing it. If one country comes up with Democracy then the concept should go throughout the world, the scientists and the government at the time shouldn't put an effort toward discovering something that will later overthrow them.

That's it from me, I hope I can think of some more stuff, thanks for hanging in there.

 

[Carolus]

Two basic gameplay structures that, if changed the right way, could make the game both more realistic and fun:

1) The limitation on the number of civilizations: the way the game is currently structured, the number of civs can never increase during the game; except for civil disorder, which is usually more of a nuisance than anything else, there is no meaningful simulation of internal strife/revolts/political instability/civil wars/etc, which have been just as large a part of history, if not more so, than wars of conquest. The idea of culture should be refined and expanded to include the possibility of some cities breaking off and forming independent regimes- "minor civs," so to speak. Otherwise it is much too easy to carry on endless wars of expansion with very little in the way of consequences...

2) A more realistic population model: Basically, Civ portrays all societies as 100% urban, and food supply as the sole determinant for population growth. Immigration has already been mentioned as one concept for improving this area, but keep in mind that overall population growth is most often simply a function of the birth rate vs. the mortality rate: the hospital improvement, for example, is intended to simulate the effects of modern medicine in decreasing the death rate, but does so in a very clumsy way. Also, the whole equation of "more population = more productivity" needs to be modified, as someone mentioned earlier. Most of the world should appear as populated from the very first turn, but the productivity of cities should be based on other factors such as the centralization of your govt., the amount of trade in the region, your percentage of urban vs. rural population, and so forth.

 

[Grey Fox]

Terrain Bonuses, and Negatives per Unit, when Defending AND Attacking

I would like it to specify, per unit, the defense bonus and attack bonus in a specific terrain, if there is a specific bonus for the unit in that specific terrain. I.e. a jaguar warrior could get an attack and defense bonus in jungle tiles. That is when the unit is attacked in a Jungle tile, and attacks from or to a jungle tile.

This could also work in the reverse, so that Tanks might get Negative "bonuses" in cities. etc...

 

[Gingerbread Man]

Feature - Spherical World

What it does - makes the world spherical, instead of pipe-style.

How it would work - switch the tile shape to hexagonal system, map the tiles onto a sphere.

Gameplay:
This really opens up the world. You have to watch every direction. Yet this wouldn't be possible with the hexagonal system, which opens up a whole new game, without ruining the Civ-feel. You have to watch six directions instead of eight, which makes it somewhat simpler.

A spherical world is more realistic.

A spherical world makes the world a much smaller place - you no longer need to half-circumnavigate the world to get from Canada to Scandanavia. simply cross the north pole.

P.S. This idea may have been said, but it really should be considered. The difficulties implementing it would be very well worth the added enjoyment.

 

[Caranamrta]

I think too that the population should be more real. I say that the size of the population should depend on the size and food-producing ability of the ruled tiles, instead today's "head-system", where the first head is 10.000, the second is 20.000 people, irrespective to the terrain type where they live. I also support the idea of getting rid the cities as the only place for population. Population should live on the land, and the population's density should depend on the fertility of that land mass (and the techs of food production, of course).

My other suggestion that the production should be dependent not only from the terrain type, but from the population too. The number of the population would determine how much "shield" do you produce, and then you could decide what would you use your shields for. If you want food for your people, you must spend some shields (workforce) to produce food. If you want to produce military units, you spend some shields to produce these. If you want to do some commerce, you spend shields to produce goods (according to your resources). As you build a factory, your shield investment in military units or goods would give you better results; as you get chemistry, or genetic engineering, or whatever, your shield investment for agriculture will do so.

And: we need civil wars and states becoming independent; more civs in the same time; consistent expansion (instead of settling right into your face).

 

[mitsho]

new playing modi:
instead of the classic epic game, you can also chose from some play styles:
- with a small/middle/great starting empire in the Ancient age
- with a small/middle/great starting empire in the Middle-age
- with a small/middle/great starting empire in the Industrial Age
- with a small/middle/great starting empire in thte Modern Age

--> allows quick games for gamer that do not want to play throguh the ancient age for example. Or:
- There was just a civil war in a country, you are the leader of the old/new state and .... in the Ancient age/middle age/industrial age/ modern age.

...

 

[enigma2010]

Originally posted by The Head
I would like to keep the free movement on railroads, first of all to keep the management simple, but also because it can be used in some improvements.

I agree - each turn in Civ represents one year, or some multiple thereof. Limiting railroad movement to 8 squares, for instance, would be akin to suggesting that a train can move only 8 squares in a year! Having free railroad movement is much more realistic.

 

[MaXXXXXuM]

Would also love to see some complex diplomacy options worked out, along the lines of games like Europa Universalis. Things like occupying a country with your military, and scaring them into submission, or just general military occupation ala current day Iraq. This would basically be at a high upkeep cost for the time you are occupying the country and the random loss of military units. This leads me into my next point of that war should not be so quick like it is in the current system. Seems like I see so and so declared war on so and so every couple turns. It should be a slow build up with lots of counter-diplomacy and negotiating going on. Then be expensive and destructive to both nations that engage in it, in terms of both social standards and economic standards.

Would also love to see just plain more military units with distinct features all the way down the lines. (Cataphracts, green berets, snipers, spec ops, greater variety of missles and basllistics). Go ahead and toss alot of random events in there too, both military and non-military. (Bombings, terrorism, economy, special events)

P.S. - work something out with missles also. They should be "fired"from a distance, and not just moved along the ground like the current system includes.

 

[sela1s1son]

Going with what someone said earlier, and taking it further

Editor abilities to allow only certains civs to buld Wonder/Improvement xyz, and the same thing with governments. (Like how I can set that All non-American civs can build the Jet Fighter, while Americans build F-15)

I'm NOT Suggesting Unique Wonders, simply allowing only certain civilzations to build the Pyramids (IE, Egyptians, Mayans, others). You probably could have other wonders with the same affect for the other group(s) of civs. Thier special function may or may not continue if captured by a civ that couldn't build them, but culture would still be produced as would tourism.



With the government limitation I mean the following:
Also not allowing America to go to a Monarchy, Feudalist, or Communist... possibly not Fascist either. However, with the more limited government choice, maybe they get three civ traits to balance it out (IE: Indust, Commercial, Expansionist). So it wouldn't become unbalanced. Civs with more government choices would have less traits, and vice versa.

I think that'd be really neat, and if not implemented fully in the epic game... it'd be GREAT for scenario and mod design!

The governments one would probably be more important for scenarios where you might not neccesarily want to 'lock' governments, but basically limit them to one or two. Thus avoiding the extra work of making Government Y's tech a era none, non-tradeable tech... and then assigning 32 civs the appropriate tech. Besides, in a WW2 scenario... it's kinda wierd to see England turn Fascist or Communist on you, or Russia to revert to Feudalism or Monarchy.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

how bout in the editor you could select Barbarian Unit basic/Ancient, Barbarian Unit basic/middle ages, etc.

that way in DyP i wouldnt be sending jeeps and Air Cavalry to eliminate a barbarian half-threat.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I think an important feature is that Civ 4 should use the same sort of graphics it used in Civ 3. I mean, I'd hate to think that all of the people that have worked so long and so hard to make hundreds upon hundreds of units as well as other graphics for Civ 3 are now going to have to do it all over again for Civ 4...