Hey civ fans, I want to share my thoughts on how the final or definitive or ultimate civilization be. I have been playing this game since 1993. CIV 1 was the best amiga game I had, then I devoured every new game in the franchise. I wrote sid meiers a couple of times but got no reply. I guess my ideas were too radical for him. Now I will share them with you.
You start a city quite easily. You start another one soon. Then you have a dozen of them. A city is not so significant in the game. Who cares if you lose one or two. But if the game mechanics are altered in a way that a level system is introduced to the buildings, cities will be much more important. First of all the resources gathered in the city by labour should be as simple as possible. Two main resources: food and gold. Science and production should not be gathered by labour but from buildings. The city screen should present a way to divide the gathered gold to gold, production and science. The balance should be unique for each city and determine its development. Building levels are crucial here. There should be 5-7 levels of production and science buildings. Higher level buildings should be introduced by sciences. With each increasing building level the efficiency of converting gathered gold to production or science should improve. For example in a new city you convert 10 gold to 1 production. Workshop improves the level and the efficiency rises to 20%. So the more you invest in upgrading each building, more important will that city be for your particular global tendency. If you want to conquer the enemies fast, you build barracks first. The armies do not use production like building improvements. Barracks open up a specialist slot or two and you convert citizen to soldier to activate the formation of a new army. You build armory and earn new unit type as well as new soldier slot. The higher soldiers are allocated in a city, the faster units are produced. Settlers and workers may be built up like buildings. I am open for suggestions on that. The culture and religion outputs are produced similar to the armies, in upgradable building slots. That way the specialists have a real meaning. Micromaanagement is an entertainment in such a game with so many combinations.
One other vital property is the happiness. Global and local city happiness should be different. Global happiness determines your overall growth and development rate and is handled in much the same way as it is now. Local city happiness affects immigration - a completely new concept - such that unhappy or content cities give away citizens to nearby cities with higher happiness. And it can be enemy cities too! Local happiness is improved by buildings as happiness is improved in the current version.
Trading goods are important for the realistic economy system in the ultimate civilization. There are quite adequate resource types in the map now. The trick is in using them. Again buildings come into play. For example winery converts grapes to wine which is used to trade for serious amounts of gold between nations or between cities. For example one of your cities demand wine. You choose to send the one produced in one city to the other and gain gold as well as happiness. Again good production buildings should be upgradable with new technologies such that improved winery gives 2 wines.
That much should give you the taste of the ultimate civilization. I will be back with more ideas.
You start a city quite easily. You start another one soon. Then you have a dozen of them. A city is not so significant in the game. Who cares if you lose one or two. But if the game mechanics are altered in a way that a level system is introduced to the buildings, cities will be much more important. First of all the resources gathered in the city by labour should be as simple as possible. Two main resources: food and gold. Science and production should not be gathered by labour but from buildings. The city screen should present a way to divide the gathered gold to gold, production and science. The balance should be unique for each city and determine its development. Building levels are crucial here. There should be 5-7 levels of production and science buildings. Higher level buildings should be introduced by sciences. With each increasing building level the efficiency of converting gathered gold to production or science should improve. For example in a new city you convert 10 gold to 1 production. Workshop improves the level and the efficiency rises to 20%. So the more you invest in upgrading each building, more important will that city be for your particular global tendency. If you want to conquer the enemies fast, you build barracks first. The armies do not use production like building improvements. Barracks open up a specialist slot or two and you convert citizen to soldier to activate the formation of a new army. You build armory and earn new unit type as well as new soldier slot. The higher soldiers are allocated in a city, the faster units are produced. Settlers and workers may be built up like buildings. I am open for suggestions on that. The culture and religion outputs are produced similar to the armies, in upgradable building slots. That way the specialists have a real meaning. Micromaanagement is an entertainment in such a game with so many combinations.
One other vital property is the happiness. Global and local city happiness should be different. Global happiness determines your overall growth and development rate and is handled in much the same way as it is now. Local city happiness affects immigration - a completely new concept - such that unhappy or content cities give away citizens to nearby cities with higher happiness. And it can be enemy cities too! Local happiness is improved by buildings as happiness is improved in the current version.
Trading goods are important for the realistic economy system in the ultimate civilization. There are quite adequate resource types in the map now. The trick is in using them. Again buildings come into play. For example winery converts grapes to wine which is used to trade for serious amounts of gold between nations or between cities. For example one of your cities demand wine. You choose to send the one produced in one city to the other and gain gold as well as happiness. Again good production buildings should be upgradable with new technologies such that improved winery gives 2 wines.
That much should give you the taste of the ultimate civilization. I will be back with more ideas.
