The Official Civ4 Ideas Thread

[immortals84]

I now I now, I want this and I want that bla bla bla, but I really want a scenario that can last a long time. The ancient world mod would be first, then continue to the middle ages, and so on. Also you wouldnt have to complain about it taking a 1000 years for a phalanx to cross Europe(Razvan_Rosus point). it would be more like 12, which it takes for the modern era. It would be a huge mod i know, but hey id play it.

 

[immortals84]

Also why are barbarians not as strong as a user unit. My basic warrior can defeat 5 barbaric warriors before it dies, that does not make it much of a war, i hate winning all the time. We need to find a way to errupt more conflicts in this game, to much peace equals not very realistic. If you read my civil war post about 3 or 4 pages back, that would be something along the lines of my thinking.

Happy civing

 

[Csaba]

Razvan_Rosu wrote the following (Jan 15, 2004):
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I think that there can be a lot of improvement about the
fact that, in the beginning, you must work more than 250 years
to build a phalanx or a warrior. Plus, to cross Europe,
you need, for a phalanx unit around 1000 years.
There must be a connection with the reality, because
even in modern age to cross the Atlantic, you need 12 years.
------------------------------------------------------------------

This timescale problem is probably the most unrealistic
feature of the game. I think it could be solved with
the following modifications:

- the game should have two modes, "war mode"
and "peace mode"

- in the peace mode, units can move with infinit speed
(like on railroad in Civ1,2,3) but they cannot go
farther from their cities than a certain maximum distance
(this distance should be "era dependent", for
example 10 tiles in the ancient age, 20 tiles in the
medieval ...)

- if a unit enters the territory of an other civ then
the game goes into "war mode"

- in the war mode, one turn = one month and the units
move with their normal speed (usually 1 tile per turn
for footsoldier units)

- in the war mode, the attacked civ can declare
"state of siege", in this state it is much easier
to get military units, for example city population points
can be converted into footsoldier units with zero cost,
buildings can be sold (any number of them in one turn)
at their real price (not the usual discounted price),
advanced units can be purchased at normal price
(no rushing penalty), it is possible to sell
unfinished buildings, cities never get into civil
disorder ..., and this "state of siege"
rules are applicable for any civ (not depending on
the "peace mode" government type)

- the normal building mode is stopped in the war mode,
but buildings which were already started in the
peace mode can be rushed (and can be converted into
something else, for example an already started Courthouse
can be converted into Barracks and can be rush-built
in one "war mode" turn if the civ has enough gold)

- wars can be finished with unilateral declarations, too
(if there are no enemy units in the territory of a
civ then it may decide to get into "peace mode" and
if all civ.s are in "peace mode" then the game can be
continued in this mode)

- at the end of the war (even if it happened between
two AI civ.s) the human player should get a summary
report of the war (cities attacked, cities taken,
units lost, ...)

In the real world history, it is very characteristic
that during wars big changes may occur in short time
while changes in peacetime usually come rather slowly.
But it is very probable that the above suggestions
cannot be incorporated into any "official" Civ game
because Sid Meier thinks (correctly) that such a
modification would actually break the game
into two very different parts: a war game and
a builder game and he thinks that most players
don't like such "two layer" games (see
http://www.civfanatics.com/sidlegacy/index2.shtml).

 

[Grey Fox]

Originally posted by immortals84
Also why are barbarians not as strong as a user unit. My basic warrior can defeat 5 barbaric warriors before it dies, that does not make it much of a war, i hate winning all the time.

This is because there is a bonuse against Barbarians dependant on what difficulty you are playing.

On chieftain you get 800% attack bonus against barbs and on emperor you get 50%. The only difficulties where it's even against barbs is Deity and Sid.

 

[Alcamar]

Originally posted by timberwolf4545
I think setting up a domestic trade network could solve the problem of one city starving while another was growing. Not anything unit based, but more like a gold slider allocated to domestic infrastructure, like is used for Science and Entertainment. This would pay for things like shipping. That way it would cost some gold to keep your citizens from starving, but it could also generate extra commerce.

I think a domestic trade route for food really makes sense. It would be a better reflection of real life were the trade and transport of food is one of the most important aspects of trade.
It would also better resemble the fact that not all crops are produced everywhere, so say a surplus of potatoes in one area will be traded to another "wheat" producing area.

By enabeling intra-civ food trading it should be possible to prevent some potential high shield but low food producers from starvation. And maybe even let them grow to make benefit of their shield producing capacity.
Ofcourse also inter-civ food trading should be possible. As well as trading of units as proposed by others. Imagine; selling your (surplus) food to another CIV to get more money to spend on units/science whatever. In addition to this a CIV without any food problems should get a happiness bonus.


How: in principle all food produced within the radius of a city still belongs to that city. To be used for support and if desirable growth. By using a "food surplus slider" you should determine what percentage of the surplus food production you will assign to your "CIV food stock" . A city can only contribute or benefit from this general food stock if it contains a granary, a market place and is connected by roads to the capitol.
The contents of the CIV-food stock can then be assigned to
a) specific cities (user managment) Can be usefull for a quick boost of growth of bordertowns
b) cities with no growth or shortage (governor style)
c) trade to other CIV's
d) combination of both.

How will these food trades affect the game. I think the main effects are only becoming prominent in later stages of the play since cities need a granary (to store the food), a marketplace ( to sell it ) and connection to the remainder of your empire (to transport the food) . So at a moment you in most cases already have a defined CIV and it will start to pay off to specialise certain cities for specific tasks. Now these floodplain towns can be used to let these tundra/desert settlements flourish.

Anyway, this were just some things popping up in my mind when the tundra towns i conquered from the Americans and did not raze (hoping for oil to pop up later on) remained size 1 or 2. Resulting in the presence of potential shield generating squares remaining potential for ever.

 

[timberwolf4545]

I think it would be great to be able to save production settings in the contact governor screen. I spend so much time setting up the production settings toggling the "never" "sometimes" and "often" dropdowns in almost always the same way during different parts of the game: I have certain things I always do that I would like to save the settings for, start of game, defensive military buildup, build up for assault, cash crunch emphasis and Happiness and Culture drives. Also - a toggle for all cities, ect. would be great. You know, Firaxes could just put this in a patch instead of making us wait for Civ4.

 

[Jean_ni]

Here are some ideas I got:

- More government options: How about a custom government in wich you get more options as you make discovery instead of entirely new and different government.
- Economics that stick more to the real world: Trading with richer countrys can be detrimental to your population as it can be beneficial to your economy. How about Immigration movement (and the politicals pressure that comes with it) when you're a rich civ next to a "poor" one (think about what China-Taiwan was, Mexico-South American countrys vs. USA, Poland, Russia and co. vs the rest of Europa...). What about the concept of border permeability? Remenber the Iron Curtain?
- Adding the concept of culture was great but borders where sometimes created artificially and in unfair manners wich led to revolutions. I think the concept of Nationality added a lot more than Drafting and Riflemen. How about being able to trade pieces of territory (squares)?
- A 3D spherical world with more zooming options would sure be nice.
- It would be nice to be able to deal (use? fool?), hmmm, in a more civilised way with barbarians. To manipulate them to your ends (with some risks of course).
- Once you have sent colonist in space, how about continuing the game on 2-3 more worlds as well as on our good old planet? (I know it's sci-fi but I had to ask.)

Well, I think that's about that. Oh and by the way, excuse me for my lousy english.

 

[TopLaw]

I would like to see some variation of the following:

1. Starting wars against a weaker civ and razing cities will increase the liklihood that all civs will gang up on you, no matter how strong you are. Sort of a "crimes against humanity" aspect.
2. Appointment of generals to your forces. For example, you would no longer be forced to individually control every unit in combat. Instead, your generals would be responsible for carrying out your orders. Obviously, some generals would be better than others.

 

[Plechazunga]

City improvements that effect your civilization as a whole.

BANKS: I had this idea when I had completed Wall Street in one game. You get 5% interest , and it requires 5 banks to build. Once Wall Steet is built, why not add a percentage point for every bank there after? Nudge the maximums up with each bank, too, so that the economics don't get unbalanced (5 banks = $50 max, 8 banks = $80 max, 40 banks = $400, etc.). I realize this is alot of interest to be earning if you've got a hundred cities and you're determined to build a bank in every one, but if you really want to build a bank in every far-flung, one shield producing outpost, I say more power to you.

TEMPLES & CATHEDRALS: I could envision a slider on your overall religiosity. Repressive religion would create less happiness, but fight corruption. Open & peaceful religion would be the other side of the equation. You could manage the slider for your entire civ, but it would only take effect where you have said improvements. This could also effect your populations attitudes about war.

COURTHOUSE & POLICE STATIONS: I could see a similar slider here. The more repressive your system of justice, the less corruption, but you then run the risk of actively upsetting your citizens. Very repressive sytems could be more prone to culture flips.

 

[grahamiam]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but I'd like to see unique leaders.

For instance, for the Americans, if a battle produced a leader, there would be a roll for a set of unique leaders. If the roll came up for Patton, then, if an army was produced, that army would get +2 to it's attack rating and +1 movement. If Stonewall Jackson was produced, then the army would get a +1 attack and +1 defense. Etc.

Not sure how this would work for scientific leaders. Maybe certain ones boost production instead of science output?

 

[yoshi]

Ho-ly crap! A whole page went by before I even got the first e-mail notice! There's no way I'm going to be able to read this entire thread.
At first, I wanted to post something that no one else had...but screw that! I have better things to do, like post my own shi...stuff!

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Actually, many of your ideas do sound a lot better when trying to incorporate them into Civ4, than into Civ3. Starting over (Civ4) it is easier to incorporate many of your ideas than a project that has already been implemented, where it is so much harder to make major changes.

Yes, a new slate changes everything. (Just one thing: does anyone really know for certain that Civ4 is in the works?)


And yes, I will get around to posting something...it's just that so much of what I have coincides with what has already been posted (I feel like a bloody clone! ).

 

[Bluemofia]

what would be realy good are land mines, naval mines, balloons, snipers, cruise missles that can be launched from aircraft carriers, ICBM's and tactical nukes be able to be destroyed by other nukes, zepplins, and forts be able to train millitary foot soldiers.

 

[Hakim]

Neutron bomb: population down to 1 (should be 0 but civ does not allow cities with 0 pop) but all improvements intact. No pollution (there is none is there?).

 

[Hakim]

If I'm right, the bank system in a country often starts with a central bank. In Civ IV, this could be represented by having to build a small wonder - Central Bank - before being able to build banks. An additional benefits could be 5% increased happiness (since the central bank is a tool for even out the downs and highs of the economy). Another could be that the central bank makes it easier to borrow money from other civs.

 

[Deathgoroth]

The small wonder Iron Works is excellent. You need coal and iron within city borders to build it. It can be build only once, but by all civs that meet the requirements. But why not add a lot more small wonders of this type that requires different combinations of resources within a city's borders?

Examples:
Strategic + strategic resource allows Iron works type of wonders
Strat rec. + city improvem. allows new type of small wonders
Bonus rec + strat.rec allows new type
and so on.
I'd like to see comments on this, more concrete examples!

A high level of trade or diplomacy should also allow a wonder,
like it does for military victory (Heroic epic and alike).

All wonders give the building city/civ benfits. And I though that there should be wonders that did harm as well (to other civs of course). After some though I partly rejcted that idea as I though it would be better to expand the spy mission capabilities to include the ideas I originally held for the "evil wonders". These were: Destroy strategic resources, bonus tiles, luxury at some given city. Destroy wonders, small wonders, spesific improvements, pollute land, steal units, control foreign unit (to make war!) And by the way, aren't spy missions too expensive?

Small wonders makes the cities unike and different from each other. And I think that is adding tremendously to the joy of the game. Therefore: Add more of them!

 

[Deathgoroth]

Building Great Wall should give you just that! A great wall of civ spesific bonus defence around your border!

 

[Deathgoroth]

The culture concept should be expanded in many different ways. For instance there should be possible to culturally influence a civ as a whole. Not just at its borders. Why not give us some tools to attack the other civs in its core? To make them bleed money (or even resources!) to other Civ for instance - through cultural imperalistic tactics!

Any suggestions? Wonders, spy missions? Or Special units?

I thought of the possibilities to actually build a colony in an other civ's territory. A colony that cannot be as easily fought off as the regular colony.

 

[aeldrik]

from my part, 3 things:

1-Editor: make it as good as possible, with as many options as possible
2-Big : please no citiy or unit limits, let us, the players, decide about it
3- Most important: test it on history, meaning, create a scenario, see how the game goes, compare to what really happened, that's a good way of seeing if the game is good....

otherwise, just improve the CIV3 model, it had great potential (choppers would be great again!!)

 

[Rirse]

My suggestion would be adding medival age units to storm enemy islands (like the one square city). I know Viking have a way to do this, but the other counties are left in the dark until the modern era. Maybe have them appear on the same time as the viking. A suggestion on this part would be a sailor or pirate unit, who could storm beaches, but not very strong onland. Or something you could find that is better.

 

[hahntsak]

1. 30 +civs if older machines slowdown just say so but let us try.
2. 9+ civs in MP and have MP from outset
3. more than one UU in some civs like Medival japan, ww2, napoleonic, etc
4. group Units like all asian civs could get some units unique to them, mesoamerican, etc.
5. civil wars and unions. as civs disapppear new ones could emerge as result of civil war. also as one civ was down to last city, it could be harder but it to could culture flip. [last several cities in one turn]
6. deduct loading & unloading from railroad fro movement.
7. fix time problem [railroads in BC? c'mon]
8. more terrain options even if limited to edited scenarios[i was glad when marshes came back in c3c]
9. at least a graphics/ animation import/export in editor. and integrate a text file updater so when you want to add units/civs/etc it's easier and more seamless.
10. naming points on your map [within game being played] and others couldget that when given your map. great for MP.
11. more levels to barbarians multiple sea and few more land units levels perhaps let barbarian dinosaur herds players have to wipe out... and barbarian tribes can keep tribal name upon capture. and barbarian pirates when anyone has privateers
12 goody huts randomly assigned bnarbarian tribe names and retain imprint of tribe name rather than just 'barbarian'.
13. major and minor civs [weaker AI only civs], less than major civ but more than barbarians.
14. maybe in industrial age buildable canala that small naval unitscan traverse? or at least for trade use.
15. ROP made by one party granted to another the right. mutual rights must be expicitly stated so.
16. be able to rename your leader name/ title, civ name, adj/noun for subjects within gameas long not in use should be okay.
just a partial list..