The Official Civ4 Ideas Thread

[miwi]

Originally posted by Mad Danny
Relating to the cross-country farming idea maybe mines that aren't in city radii could generate 1 wealth per turn rather than shields in cities (kind of like wealth - perhaps implement a 2:1 conversion so a terrain with no shields normally couldn't provide enough mining resources for it but a bonus resource mountain that produces 3 shields normally once mined could provide 2 gold then (from the 4 shields). This ability would need a certain tech though. It would also be nice if after a tech like chemistry (or maybe a more advanced counterpart) it would be possible in the right-click menu to be able to see exactly how many turns a strategic resource will last so one could plan ahead.

Hi!

Hope that you understand my lousy english

I would like to have HUGE cities in Civ4 (well...some of them...not all). I mean New York is a really huge city...much bigger than Stockholm for example. I would like to see some cities expand so the city can use more mines, irrigations...and therefore grow even more and more and more

I like the cross-country farming idea
What if you can connect a mine for example (if its close enough) to your city just like you connect a resource to you land (colony) and add an extra production square to your city!?
If you have a huge city that is close to a small one...then the cities could merge to one.

sincerely
miwi

 

[MarineCorps]

I would like helicopters to be able to rebase to carriers. I also would like to see the miltary advisor screen split up so that units are classified by type (eg. land, air, and sea). I would also like to know how many units I lost in a war.

 

[Troy0628]

3D World (like Railroad Tycoon 3 or Black & White) where you can zoom in and out and change your viewing angle to your liking totally immersing the player in the world.

A True Spherical World (like the old Populous game) rather than the current cylindrical map. The flat-earth map is SO early 90s.

Algorythms to generate ever-increasingly powerful generic future techs and units so the we can play forever! They can have generic names and icons but each generation will still get better and better so the game never stagnates at 2200 ad.

 

[mitsho]

What about a feature blind research:
The tech-tree has got more techs to research, but you cannot chose which one you want to research. There are only 3,4 regions to research.
for example:
warrior code, the wheel belong to military
alphabet, ceremonial burial to scientific
bronce working, pottery to economy, etc
Now, you chose to research military and have a fifty-fifty chance to get wc, but you could also get wheel. By scientific it may be more probable to get ceremonial burial, ...

Just an idea, don't know if this would be good, but it's just a idea!

mfG mitsho

 

[Winston]

I think Civ 4 should expand upon the trade system as the existing system is too simplistic and it depends too much upon political negotiations to be really lucrative (whatever you earn through foreign trade is always small change compared to what is generated domestically). It just seems that trade is a fairly unimportant add-on unless you want a strategic resource (in which case most players would just take it by force). The following is just a suggestion about how trade routes could be implemented (I apologise if it’s a bit confusing but the idea is a little complicated – I think you all will get the gist of what I mean anyway).
I suggest that trade should be divided into three spheres.
The first type of trade would simply be domestic trade and this would be represented by the amount of commerce generated by an individual tile in a city radius (this is already done in civ 3).
The second type of trade would represent high level negotiations between national governments for important strategic resources and valuable luxuries (basically the existing Civ 3 trade negotiation system) – and this area of trade should be enhanced by adding in loads of extra luxuries and strategic resources (over 30 of each type would be more like it).
The third type of trade would be private trade between merchants and entrepreneurs (and this could represent NUMEROUS types of raw materials and manufactured goods that the cities would export) and this kind of trade should take place between nations irrespective of diplomatic negotiations (unless the nations are at war or one of the nations is the target of a blockade or trade embargo). As new techs are researched then new goods can be traded and old trades are rendered obsolete (therefore trade would not remain static). Each individual trade between entrepreneurs shouldn’t yield much gold (because it would represent government taxation of a private enterprise), but collectively, the numerous trades should amount to a large sum (and improvements in transport could make the trade routes yield more maybe).
For trade to take place, cities need to be connected by visible (and disruptable) trade routes. Visible trade routes could be implemented in all kinds of ways – I was thinking maybe an initial trade route could consist of up to 4 tiles of road or sea squares; afterwards the trade route would need to be extended by either a friendly city (a city you own or a city you have a right of passage with), a military unit that you own, a colony, or a trading post (a new kind of tile improvement – it would simply extend trade routes).
By including trade routes, ships become far more important as you need them to establish and maintain trade overseas and trade becomes more interesting because it could potentially yield a lot of gold (especially with two different kinds of foriegn trade). Trade routes would also add a whole new tactical element, as you would be required to protect your trade routes as well as your territory. Trade would also encourage players to consider maintaining peaceful relations with some civs as it would yield gold for them. Maybe trade routes could also help win victory points by yielding a victory point per trade route per turn (this would represent international economic influence).

 

[CaptainCivFreak]

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

I really like your idea, but by the time most players even get to be able to build the UN, then there is just about nowhere else to settle @ all...

 

[Winston]

Another suggestion I propose is to allow cities to simultaneously construct city improvements and to train soldiers. City improvements would be constructed using the production shield system in civ 3 and units would be trained by the city based upon a separate production value that would be based upon the city’s population size (the pool of people that the city would draw upon to train) and the value would be enhanced by buildings such as barracks, civil defence (better training facilities), and granaries and hospitals (healthier population to draw upon).
This would allow civ 4 to include a lot more buildings without detracting from the cities capacity to produce military units. However, cities could be restricted in both the number of military units they can produce and the number of buildings they can construct.
Units could be limited in that a city can only produce two military units per head of population (this could vary from government to government) e.g. a size 3 city could support 6 military units – if you want that city to produce more military units it has to grow first. Secondly you could limit the type of units that a city can produce by making cities require specialist buildings to build specialist units e.g. you need a tank factory to produce tanks. The result of this will mean that players will be forced to produce a variety of units instead of mass-producing the best units. This also allows the option of having small wonders to produce really specialist units e.g. only one city can produce an SAS/Delta Force type unit and it requires a small wonder.
City improvements could be limited by introducing a rule that cities can’t build any more city improvements than the infrastructure of the city can sustain. I suggest that cities shouldn’t be allowed so many city improvements that their combined maintenance cost (in gold) is in excess of the amount of revenue produced in trade and that many city improvements should be restricted to cities and / or metropolises. By doing this, the player is forced to specialise his/her cities rather than building numerous uber cities.

 

[meltone1]

I would like to see some sort of camera rotation implemented, and I would also like to be able to zoom in on the units during battles and such. I'm not sure if this could be done with the current engine, or if they are planning on trying a different one for civ4.

On a side note, I think one of the best things that could be done to improve civ would be graphics enhancement.

 

[CaptainCivFreak]

Ok... well, my (almost) endless 'Well of Ideas' is just about dried up. Civ 4 would be a very interesting game indeed if all of the ideas I have seen here were implemented (and were currently possible)... well, what the Civ 4 designers need to make Civ 4 a sequel and not a copy, clone, replica, etc. is a new engine... more of a dynamic universe... even in single player games.

They could have a normal civ 3 map during normal game play, and a dynamic battle map (3D, armies are veried in #'s by HP, etc.) during battles... the player could either choose to simulate a battle (not play it out) or play it themselves, controlling each person within a unit. If anybody can understand that...

 

[Resolute]

One idea stemming from the idea of nationality would be to introduce the idea of economic migration. If one civilisation has a higher standard of living than another (i.e. more luxuries!), and the two civilisations have the means to trade then perhaps citizens might move from the poor civ to the rich one. The freedom of movement could be based on a number of factors, including the government types of the two civs (more military police reduce the emmigration rate?).

A second idea would be to introduce terrorism. I know this is a touchy subject, but many countries have suffered from this IRL, and it is a fact of life. So, perhaps if a city has citizens from another civ and relations are bad between the civs, or if a city has changed hands one or more times and there is 'dual culture' to that city, terrorists might occasionally destroy population, improvements or damage military. Furthermore you could have a 'fund terrorists' espionage action so that 'rogue states' could increase the chance of these free bombards. What is more this would allow dead civs to continue causing their conquorer grief!

These two features might interact quite well.

 

[Mad Danny]

A spherical world is one of the more revolutionary ideas that have been proposed (I see a lot of minor tweaks on this list). But why not take it one step further and lose the grid altogether. Organically placing cities, mines, irrigation (each with their own range of influence) and drawing roads along easy terrain or through military chokepoints would add a new creativity to gameplay. Difficult to program, surely, but I've seen a sperical game before ("Dominion" or something like that came as a demo with another game - it was a real time game played on a spherical world with amazing zoom capabilities.)

yeah and Magic Carpet did it and Populous 3 (spherical world) - note though that these are all real-time games.. so regarding the tile-free idea; organic placing of buildings has been demonstrated in RTS games like Metal Fatigue - notice how you can never tell just how much empty space you need around edges so building tight cities in mountainous terrain is almost impossible. And with no tiles how can you tell how far each unit moves in a turn based game? true a game like Warhammer does it with measuring tape but then with computers we suffer the inevitable "oh my worker was within 3 pixels of my garrison it's not fair he gets captured!" and "how can he attack two of my units simultaneously when they're almost a unit's-width away from each other!"

a couple more ideas from me:
fishing boats (tech level 1 can only traverse coastline, tech level 2 can traverse sea, never able to traverse ocean - must always remain closer to continents/shallower waters) - generate an extra food in a city radius square - only one fishing boat can affect each square (they can unit stack but still only have single effect) food bonus only provided to cities with harbours and markets (must have both to provide bonus) - so fortifying fishing boats effectively makes them fish farms until moved or captured (non-combat units like workers and settlers)
on that note what about making scout units more capable by adding a hunter/gatherer bonus - they act like the fishing boats but on land, although the city doesn't require anything special for the bonuses, and they only give the food bonus on fertile uncultivated land (so non-irrigated and road-free plains/forest/jungle/etc. but not mountains or desert (infertile))

a dynamic battle map (3D, armies are veried in #'s by HP, etc.) during battles... the player could either choose to simulate a battle (not play it out) or play it themselves, controlling each person within a unit

like my earlier idea , but how would the player-controlled battle work? you couldn't play RTS-style because it's not civ then so much as Myth or AOE, and remember since PTW gave us buggy multiplayer and C3C fixed it we don't want to go losing our sociable hotseat games now

 

[CaptainCivFreak]

Yes, I suppose that that idea would knock out ALL turn based multiplayer games (unless it was sim. turns). But it'd still be pretty cool...

 

[Howard Mahler]

This has been mentioned I think,

A single screen on which you can see all potential trades of resources with all other countries.
(Currently you can see what countries have luxuries you do not have,
but not what they do not have. Also iron, horses, etc. are not shown.)

A single screen on which you can see all potential trades of research with all other countries.

Howard Mahler

 

[Howard Mahler]

Either:

1. A single keystroke so that one can find out the mimimum amount of money one would have to add to a deal so that the AI would accept.
(Example I want luxury A in exchange for luxury B plus money.
How many gold pieces is the minimum the AI would accept?
How many gold pieces per turn is the minimum the AI would accept?)

Similarly, a single keystroke so that one can find out the maximum amount of money the AI would be willing to add to a deal.
(Example I will sell a research advance in exchange for money.
How many gold pieces is the maximum the AI would give?
How many gold pieces per turn is the maximum the AI would give?)

The game effect would be to save the player a lot of wasted time and effort currently required to determine these amounts.


2. Change the trading algorithm.

Howard Mahler

 

[nova]

{I didn't see this sticky thread until after I had entered my ideas in the "Civ IV Wishlist" thread, so I'll be posting several of my original ideas from over there over here ... with expanded thoughts. I apologize to anyone who already read these in the other thread for the boredom that will probably ensue.}

Name of Feature: spontaneous eruption of civs.

What this feature should do in the game: Allow barbarians and current civs a percentage chance based on specific scenarios to blossom into a new civ. All successful civilizations were either originally some other civ's "barbarian" neighbors or sprung wholly formed from the head of another established civ (so to speak). We've immortalized a certain few because they were the most successful in reality, but if Civ is about rewriting history, why not give the Goths and Blackfoots (feet?) a chance to rule?.

Also, large civs with oppressive tendencies might have a percentage chance of splitting up into two civs in a rebellion, revolutionary war, or civil war type transition. This could happen to any civ, whether computer or human controlled.

How would this feature work: Barbarians that attack en masse ("raging" contingents of 20 or so horsemen) that destroy all units in a majority of a civ's cities should have a percentage chance of overwhelming that civ and producing an entirely new -- fully functioning -- civ of their own, instead of just depleting the treasury as they do now. Alternately, barbarian encampments that were left alone long enough to produce rampaging hoards have a chance of producing civs (whether they overwhelm anyone or not). And/or, barbarians that crop up alone on discrete landmasses should have a fairly high percentage chance of transitioning.

As far as the split civ concept, the game would have to be made internally more complicated before this could really work (at least without seeming terribly random). The game would have to be updated to include an assessment of factors such as unrest based on inadequate culture (as compared to known culture in the world as a whole), unsatisfying government type (whatever that is), religious oppression, etc. Distance factors might have an additional twist of potentially transitioning a close knit contingent of cities that are stable and self-supporting but far away from the capitol (instead of just producing corruption). Contact with other civs and widespread knowledge of other -- even past and dead -- cultures would influence the percentage chance of splitting (think of it as citizens becoming restless as they mythologize another civ -- a kind of "grass is greener" effect).

Gameplay: I think it will make gameplay more interesting, dynamic, and a tad more realistic. It's not as if all the civs that we currently immortalize (in reality) as successful all started together in 4000 b.c. Obviously, the percentage chance of producing a new civ should fall as the ages pass, but even in reality we had a successful civ declare its own official start in 1776 -- extremely late by historical standards. Newly transitioned civs should have some sort of averaging applied to their tech and military so that they possess a blend of abilities and units -- both type and number -- with the idea that they won't crop up as a helpless victims just waiting to be picked off (maybe influenced by the techs and units of their immediate neighbors). It doesn't seem to me that military might was the usual deciding factor in ancient successful civs, but more like dominance of culture (an overwhelming hoard of barbarians doesn't necessary make a new civ unless they also possess the internal potential to stabilize their destructive tendencies and self-govern).

AI: How will the AI use it? Ineffectively, I would guess -- unless the strategic "ability" of the AI is drastically updated.

Processor Power: The barbarian creation and running of new civs won't take up too much more power than the computer already uses to move into the next turn. The real potential for bogging down in this comes from the complexity that is introduced into the game to make the split-civ feature function in a way that allows human and computer players to evaluate their civ's potential for splitting. In other words, it would have to be cosiderably more complex than the diplomacy between states is currently, only addressing (many) internally adjustable factors within a civ.

Complexity: The concept should be easy enough to grasp, but the split-civ concept could be terribly frustrating for the micromanagers among us. I think to simplify it a tad, the factors affecting the potential for a split civ should affect the civ as a whole (and therefore be addressed from one central place). Game gods forbid we should have to flick from one city screen to another -- over and over -- to constantly, minutely adjust a half-dozen new sliders. Blech!

Programming Complexity: Not my area. Ask a programmer.

Multiplayer: I've never played mulitplayer, but if multiplayer means there are no computer controlled civs, that could be a problem. If there are computer controlled civs in muliplayer, shouldn't change anything (except possibly the number of civs to contend with).

Exploits: I don't see a potential for exploits. I tend not to look for exploits and therefore don't find them. Someone with a more devious mind than my own will have to evaluate this one.

Player Decisions: This will certainly affect player decisions in the split-civ scenario. It would also affect player decisions as regards how quickly they get out into the world, expand, and destroy barbarians. Continual control would be difficult since non-annexed land continually sprouts new barbarians, and that would mean more vigilance. Also, weaker barbarian forces don't really have to be taken seriously now; on the non-"rampaging" settings, I find I can afford to wait until a babarian unit wanders close by, then I abolish it and ignore the encampment until the next one pops up. But personally, this would make me rethink allowing encampments to exist for a moment longer than it takes me to discover that they're there. I also think the split-civ concept is potentially a great way of purposely unsettling the game when a civ gets so large as to cover an entire continent and comfortably controls all the surrounding land (nothing like a little internal strife to ruin your digestion). This game needs one really big Sword of Damocles for the conquering, expansionistic types (which includes me).

Affects: Keeps leaders from resting easy. Potential for shaking up a game that gets monotonous with easy expansion. Provides for a stimulating amount of frustration for those of us who already have too much frustration ("What!? Now what?!! The Sasanians? Artax- who? Where the *bleep* did they come from?"). Causes the game to more truly reflect the historical rise (and fall) of civilizations. I'm sure there's a potential for bad effects, but I honestly can't think of what those are (other than increasing overall complexity).

 

[padlock]

This one may be controversial, but I would like to see all automation eliminated. Now before anyone stops reading here, let me explain that what I mean by automation is having the AI make any decisions. I'm perfectly fine with setting up specific scripted actions, when certain events take place.

Brad Wardell (the designer of galactiv civ) made the comment that micromanagement should be treated as an interface problem, and not an AI one, and I agree completely.

Instead of having automated workers, why not let us "draw" on the map were we want to put all our roads, irrigations, mines, etc. and then have the workers automatically perform those actions, based on a priority we set out. We could also setup rules like "If any pollution appears within 3 squares, make that your top priority". The key is to keep all decision making in the player's hands.

Similarly, multiple, savable build queues along with options to automatically insert new items to the beginning/end of the build queues for a group of selected cities would elimanate the need for governers.

 

[Mercade]

For the Civilopedia in Civilization IV, I would recommend the following basic principle:

All information displayed in the Civilopedia that can be modified in the editor, should be generated at run-time from the scenario file.

This approach has several advantages:

1. No more discrepancies between Civilopedia information and how the game behaves;
2. No need to manually synchronise the same information in two places;
3. Significantly reduced effort from game developers and scenario developers to make and maintain a civilopedia;
4. Game and scenario developers can focus solely on the description without worrying about numbers, cross references, et cetera, which is tedious work and subject to late game changes, alterations in patches, etc.
5. It is a one-time investment in relatively simple technology that yields benefits every time the game properties are updated.[/list=1]Information that is presently manually added to the civilopedia that should be made dynamic includes:
   1. Building requirements. (e.g. "A Factory is required to build a Manufacturing Plant.")
   2. Various checkboxes in the editor. (e.g. "A city must have a river within its <radius> to build a Hydro Plant.", wonders becoming tourist attractions, civilization traits associated with wonders giving golden age, and many more)
   3. Numerical info in the editor (e.g. "A [Manufacturing Plant] increases <shield production> in its city by 50%", creation of happy faces, etc)
   4. Information from pick lists (e.g. unit abilities, corruption level per government type, etc.)
   5. Tables in the civilopedia (e.g. bonusses when resources are worked on within a city)[/list=1]Of course this does not suggest that all information from the editor should be in the civilopedia, but missing information that could be added is:
      1. When a tech renders a wonder obsolete. Now only the wonder says which tech makes it obsolete.
      2. When a cost of limit depends on the game, give the accurate cost given the game status (e.g. palace cost being dependant on number of cities, culture limit dependant on map size)[/list=1]

 

[mitsho]

Giving the curragh/galley a scout unit everytime which can go on land with normal sight and make on step into the land, then automatically go back on the boat (which stays at the place). Or, in my addition to my army-model, giving curraghs or similar early naval units with the carrying capacity of scout units.

 

[Winston]

Another suggestion I would like to make is regarding corruption and resistance. The current system of resistance is OK but the system could be made more interesting and influential. The corruption system is just annoying and many players really hate it (what’s the point in expanding your empire to a far off continent when you know that all of the cities will be so riddled with corruption and waste that they will be useless and there is no point developing their infrastructure because it makes almost no difference unless you build a FP). So to enhance both of these concepts I propose the following ideas:

Corruption:

At the start of the game corruption is high, which will limit the size of empires (although courthouse, FPs, better governments etc will still reduce corruption) but corruption will gradually decrease over time as better communications are developed (which will be achieved by researching techs such as Literature, Code of Laws, Printing Press, Radio, Computers, Steam Engine, Motorized Transportation etc etc) therefore later on corruption becomes a marginal feature and distant cities will become more productive, however large empires will face different challenges that will limit their growth, which will be determined by the following:

City Loyalty:

All cities will have an additional entry that will represent the loyalty of that cities population to your government and empire and it will be expressed as a percentage. Cities with improvements such as courthouses, police stations, palaces, temples etc and happy populations, large garrisons, nearby to the capital etc etc will have a high loyalty to your empire and will be prepared to defend your regime. However mistreated populations (unhappy citizens, resistors, captured cities, starvation, forced rush of improvements, and drafted populations) will be less loyal to your regime and will seek to undermine or break away from your regime and they will challenge your empire in many different ways; of which here are some suggestions as to how they could make your occupation more difficult:

1) Disloyal cities will be more corrupt as they will seek to avoid paying taxes and they will work slowly and apathetically (corruption and waste will be higher in a city with low loyalty).
2) Disloyal cities will be unhappier with your rule and will be more likely to go into civil unrest (more unhappy faces in disloyal cities).
3) Captured cities with strong loyalties to their original owners will resist their conquerors with both urban resistors (existing civ 3 resistance) and they will raise militia groups from the surrounding countryside to fight your nation's troops (civ 2 type resistance).
4) Captured cities will seek to break away from your empire and join their mother countries (like in civ 3 but have cities staying disloyal for very very long periods of time).
5) Unhappy, disloyal cities may raise barbarian armies of peasants or break away from your empire and become a barbarian city.
6) Disloyal cities may commit acts of sabotage against a citie's infrastructure (cities don’t have to be in unrest or resistance – disloyalty would be a constant ongoing symptom that would be very hard to cure).
7) Disloyal cities will produce military units that are apathetic and uninterested in the preservation of your empire and therefore disloyal cities will produce military units more slowly and any units produced will be conscripts (even if the city possesses a barracks) because the units will not be highly motivated and they will be likely to desert.
8) Disloyal cities will use mass communication to appeal to the world about your mistreatment of their people and therefore this will have a negative impact upon your relations with other civs (civil rights issues).

I envisage a situation where the game would start with very high levels of corruption but relatively less serious disloyalty and as the game progresses; corruption is reduced significantly by improved communications but city disloyalty becomes worse because the improved communications would also allow more organised resistance against your regime and more solidarity against your misdeeds. Therefore in the early game you can mistreat your citizens without the fear of reprisals – but later on it becomes very important to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the citizens that reside in your occupied territories – therefore you face different problems at different times and they will require different solutions.

 

[mitsho]

In addition to this above. this helps also to a new revolutionary system, etc. Loyality could be a trait or depend on governments (fascistic and communistic governments are loyal, republic and feudalistic not, and monarchies and democracys somewhere in the middle... )
mfG mitsho