Things I Would Like To See In Civilization In The Future

[quange86]

Civilization is acknowledged world-wide as the greatest game ever invented under the Empire-building genre... However, its not perfect seriously... It has enormous potential to improve itself... Hence here are the following suggestions I hope the Civ developers would give a read...

There are many other games which has many exciting gaming features which Civilization can draw from... Such are Rome total war and Sim City or City Life...

1 : Allow gamers to have the option for a strategic battle

You've got to admit it, seeing iconic figures of units attacking each other in Civilization can be really silly and boring after awhile... Civilization has so much potential for developing its battles... For example, in Rome total war, military iconic figures contains details of the numbers and types of military units in that icon... When the icons engage in battle, a screen comes out displaying the troop strength of the enemy and yours and gives you the option of whether you wish to fight your own battles or resolve it automatically... If you choose the former, you'll be taken into a enormous RPG type real world map allowing you to deploy thousands of your troops... Strategy would be an important factor here which would surely beef up game play in Civilization...

2: Allow the view city option

I do not understand why civ4 developers decided to remove the view city option from civ3. I felt that it was great... I means it gets tiresome seeing your cities from a map format... The view city option allows one to really feel that he is running a vast country. In addition, Civilization can take on the beautiful cities landscapes and zoom in to see their citizens at work like the one in City Life. In the event of war, the view city option can show the city in flames and their citizens scurrying to safety... This increases the realism of the game and allows one to feel for the citizens he is governing.

3: Improve the politics in the game

Some gamers may not like this but it ain't a democratic civic if you are in control all the time. Civilization should come up with a electoral department in which its citizens can vote for their leaders in which you are one of them... Screw up your nation and you might see your self reduced to being a mere governor and your rival taking charge of a nation... Also, major war-making decisions should warrent a major parliamentary discussion or a meeting at congress. It would be better and more realistic if gamers are force to convince a stubborn congress on the decisions they make and points would be scored on how well they control their governments...

4: Improve the scales of the maps

I admit it, the 3D maps in Civ 4 looks just Great!!!!!! Esp with the blue marble project, our planets just never looks this real on a Civlization game b4... However, our cities are just too big for the maps... Take the real world map for example, the size of three decent cities is suffice to occupy the whole Korean peninsula... I believe changes has to be made to either increase the size of the maps to Enormous or reduce the size of the Cities... The East Asia map scenario suits just fine...

5: Allow the start from basics option or the full blown empire size of the Civic..

Some of you may not understand what this means... What I mean is, allow gamers to choose whether they want to build their cities from scratch at random locations with a settler or start running an empire immediately according to what the cities at proper locations in real world maps... For example, the city Beijing should be at the north of China... Options should also be given to allow gamers to choose their eras they want to play in with actual leaders living in that era...

6: Expand the number of Civilizations and Civ leaders

We all want this based on the numbers of new add on Civilizations at this website... Nobody wants to play as Qin Shihuang throughout 5000 years of history right up to modern history.. While I understand this will be tedious coming up with 3D potraits of every leaderhead in every Civic, at least Civ developers should come out names and a 2D picture for all the leaders living through that era...

7: Improve the economics in the game..

The world doesn't go to war all the time... So what can we do to keep our selves occupied in times of peace?? We build our economies of course... Changes in currency and stock market crashes or too much foriegn imports or rapid high employment are everyday bread and butter issus for any decent leader.. Even Saddam Hussein!!! So why shouldn't gamers in civilization be given charge of this issues... Trading resources and building roads and networks and buildings are very good but more can be done to bring more excitement to economic minded gamers...


Its a pity I do not know computer programming to create a mod which contains at least some of the above suggestions... But I do wish like minded gamers would inform Sid Miere and his developers to give my suggetions read.. At least, i hope to see some of them implemented in Civilization 5 in the near future...

 

[AvianAvenger]

Things i would like to see less in the future.

1, Less double post

 

[Instant_Cereal]

1 : Allow gamers to have the option for a strategic battle

You've got to admit it, seeing iconic figures of units attacking each other in Civilization can be really silly and boring after awhile... Civilization has so much potential for developing its battles... For example, in Rome total war, military iconic figures contains details of the numbers and types of military units in that icon... When the icons engage in battle, a screen comes out displaying the troop strength of the enemy and yours and gives you the option of whether you wish to fight your own battles or resolve it automatically... If you choose the former, you'll be taken into a enormous RPG type real world map allowing you to deploy thousands of your troops... Strategy would be an important factor here which would surely beef up game play in Civilization...

Nice... but no, way too time-consuming. If I want to play a tactically oriented game, I'd pop in one of my Total War CDs.

By the way, can't wait for Medieval 2. I hear it comes out around October/November.

 

[BadHorsie]

2: Allow the view city option

I do not understand why civ4 developers decided to remove the view city option from civ3. I felt that it was great... I means it gets tiresome seeing your cities from a map format... The view city option allows one to really feel that he is running a vast country. In addition, Civilization can take on the beautiful cities landscapes and zoom in to see their citizens at work like the one in City Life. In the event of war, the view city option can show the city in flames and their citizens scurrying to safety... This increases the realism of the game and allows one to feel for the citizens he is governing.

I always felt that the View City feature was pointless and stupid. It was never that good - whereby you viewed your cities and thought "My God, look at this mighty city I've built!" It was just a dynamically generated image consisting of basic housing, with a bloody great big pyramid or Colossus shoved in the middle.

 

[tadster]

I like most of your suggestions.

I would also say, much to your chagrin, that the dvelopers ought to remove civ leaders entirely. The idea of an immortal ruler is pretty silly. Instead, traits should be assigned to the different cultures themselves. It would be cool if Great Leaders could be born every once in a while to give their civilizations additional traits that were active temporarily.

I understand the devs probably didn't want to assign traits directly to cultures/civs because it would lead to a lot of backlash. "Why did you make the Japanese aggressive? Are you saying Japanese people are aggressive??" The current system allows them a bit of safety because the historical figures they chose as civ leaders actually displayed the traits assigned.

Also, they ought to add natural disasters. For example, if you build your city next to a mountain, that mountain might be a volcano which could later destroy your city! Or maybe it would destroy some of the buildings and reduce the population. It's kind of silly that the only quasi natural disaster in the game is the possibility that one of your sailing ships will be lost at sea due to a storm. There are storms but not earthquakes?? Lame.

 

[Naismith]

There's a lot of room for different opinions in how much of a role luck should play in Civ. I personally wouldn't find natural disasters very much fun. For instance, losing an entire invasion fleet might be realistic (Spanish Armada, anyone?) but it wouldn't add to my enjoyment of the game. It would be like your bishop falling off the board in the middle of a game of chess. Random, yes. Fun, no.

 

[Civilized Guy]

Screw up your nation and you might see your self reduced to being a mere governor and your rival taking charge of a nation

Don't know about you, but I don't go to the time and effort of booting up Civ 4 to watch the AI control my civilization...

Not to mention the fact that given the differing amount of time turns take, having to keep yourself in office every, say, four years, would seem a bit silly. And anyway, for me, I have enough trouble just getting control of the U.N. Damn Catherine...

As for the View City option, I miss it, but not so much. Personally, I like being able to look down on my cities with their wonders and buildings evident from map view. Feels a bit more Leadery to me too. I'm running an Empire here, I don't have time to go sight-seeing in every one of my backwater villages!

I like the idea of natural disasters, but with limits. I don't want to find that my prosperous size 20 city is reduced to rubble when the RNG decides to render a previously stable mountain as a tempest of volcanic death. Less severe things, like locust plagues that decrease growth/health or maybe hitting a bad seam of iron that lowers attack ratings by one for a couple of turns worth of built units wouldn't be too bad (Although I don't want weak units too often either).

I read somewhere, in another thread, that the problem with increasing scales is twofold. For one thing, computers would have to become more powerful, and for another, if the maps were too big, it's entirely possible you'd never see your overseas neighbours before the game ended.

I love Rome: Total War. I love Civilization. That said, I don't want to see the two games as one. If I want Rome, I play R:TW. The programming time and energy used to create strategic battles could be better used elsewhere. And for dedicated builders, who might NEVER see a strategic battle, this would be a very much wasted feature to them. And then they'd complain. Strenuously.

On the subject of more leaders, I would like to see Nobunaga as a Japanese leader. And an actual Greek as leader of the Greeks (Alexander was Macedonian, which I suppose counts in a tight spot).

That's my opinion.

 

[Zebra 9]

I do not think that it would be easy and for that mater posible to do 1 or 2.
And as Civilized Guy stated, "computers would have to become more powerful". It's like it takes 10 minutes to load a Huge map, I'll let you know my computer is barly able to play the game, but if I double it's strength it will still take 5 minutes to load. Make that map 20 times bigger it will take 1 hour 40 minutes to load! It's like I've got just so much time, I'll be on 5 minutes and have to shut down. As for 3, I definitly don't want to have some AI runing the civ I signed up for, like have you ever watched the AI play, a more realistic problem is that the AI is perfect when it comes to politics we would have one little problem & I would regret all those broadcast towers I built that are now blowing it out proportion. Now I think that all of those ideas would be cool in a game but with the curent state of civ it's not about to happen.

 

[Ecclesiastes]

I like it just the way it is, but I would however like the option to have more massive maps, Whenever I play civilization it never feels like Im a sprawling empire with numerous backwater villages, it seems like every city is capable of helping out the empire in a big way. I wouldnt mind having a double-huge map or something similiar.

 

[winddbourne]

Better espionage and diplomacy are a must, the united nations though . . . if you don't get rid of it entirely at least fix it so I don't get steam-rolled into the real world. If I want to have a civilization that shares NONE of our values so be it. And if I'm powerful enough I want to force my views on the rest of the world. Just because America is the super power, and we have free religion, universal sufferage, and amancipation, doesn't mean it HAD to be that way, or that I WANT it that way in my game.

And certainly no "democrizing" the game. No votes every few years to see if I keep control of MY empire. You try that and I'll execute congress, or put them out working in the field as slaves.

 

[Turner]

Moderator Action: AvianAvenger - warned, flaming.

Threads merged.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[alpha wolf 64]

Smarter AI should be the #1 improvement. For every unit in the game, the AI should "understand" the unit's strengths and weaknesses. Naval and air options should be #2.

 

[girtholomew]

On the subject of more leaders, I would like to see Nobunaga as a Japanese leader. And an actual Greek as leader of the Greeks (Alexander was Macedonian, which I suppose counts in a tight spot).


I must step in and correct you a bit there.

There isn't really any such thing as a Greek leader since all the Hellenes considered themselves to be members of different tribes (Ionians, Dorians etc) and were more attached to their own polis than any concept of a Hellenic state. It's rare that they formed together to beat 'foreign' enemies. In many ways Alexander is the most appropriate chap - Macedonians were seen as only 'semi-barbarian' by the other Hellenes; he would have been fluent in Greek; was taught by a Greek ; ruled over Greece as a whole; was responsible, by means of his conquests, for spreading the Greek language and culture over millions of square miles within ten years, which is as incredible an achievement as it sounds.

Suggestions for other Greek leaders who, granted, may be more appropriate:

Philip II - A's father; 'uniter', by conquest, of the Hellenes

Beyond that....not many to be honest!!

Sorry for this off-topic and perhaps dull post...

 

[Wallisdj]

I'd like to be able to use the Barbarians as raiders against another civ.

This might sound rather barbaric, but I'd like to be able to build terrorist camps and use them when the world is so nice and peaceful, and I'd rather not risk an all-out war when I have so many "friends." This would be an expansion of the sabotage function.

 

[z1r0un]

Immortal leaders are there for obvious gameplay reasons, but it still makes me twitch. The same goes for having complete control despite government choice. They sort of solve each other, though.
If, back when most people lived to 30 if they were lucky, one man (/woman) showed no signs of aging after decades, and was immortal, I'd listen to him/her. And if that person held elections, I'd say, "Unless the other candidate can beat several lifetimes of experience, my vote is yours."
Admittedly, this doesn't solve the problem of being immortal in the first place, but. . . if CIV was an entirely accurate history simulations, it'd be no fun.

 

[quange86]

Personally, the suggestions that I have given are meant to increase the realism of the game as to real world scenarios. Sid created the Civilization series because he wanted gamers to experience their hand at running their governments or their own nations as to what real world leaders go through. He never allowed technology to limit his concepts on how the game could better be improved, for eg: how to increase the realism of AI strategic planning, or how to improve diplomacy to using 3D images for leaderheads and map view. Back a couple of years ago, when gaming technology wasn't so advanced, Sid and his team did not stop at finding ways to improve the success of Civilization. Rather, he seeked opinions from gamers as well as his own to make Civilization into the successful franchise that we know today.

I believe that many of the posts I've read so far stems from the thought that it is impossible to merge ideas such as RTW and Civlization together due to the limits in gaming technology. That is ONE such hesitation which will make the fun in Civilization die out after awhile... We have seen great changes done to the graphics, the improvements in the AI, the enormous changes we can do to our systems of Governments to what kind of technologies we can research.. So, what I do not understand is why can't we make an enormous revolution to gameplay such as improving our battle options. Don't you guys feel its foolish to see an atillery unit icon from global view trying to take down an armoured unit icon. Hell, we are unable to even witnessed the fighting going on in first place except to see the ridiculous exchange in gunfire between the two icons. There is no room for strategy in this game going on at a time where RTS games are in great demand in the market...

Secondly, what is wrong with having the option of a view city option??? Noticed I used the word option... this means that gamers have the options to view their cities and admire their work in a find scenic environment rather then settle for some iconic view on the map again...

I'm sorry for sounding so defensive... Perhapes this stems from the fustration that I see so many possible ideas to be implemented to Civilization yet few are supported by Civilization fans... Is there no one else who wants to see a revolutionary change in the next civilization series??? We talk of wanting to increase realism, but yet how realistic can Civilization be without the following implementations?? Sigh, looks like we'd be expecting the same old gaming style in the next Civilization series again...

PS: I didn't mean to submit two threads... I just accidentally clicked the submit reply option twice.. And I didn't see the proper heading where my thread should go... Sorry for any inconvenienced caused...

 

[handsomeharry]

1) Just like in the real world, it would be nice to see states/provinces within a civ that you pick. So in addition to placing your national capital, perhaps a tech achievement to allow states/provinces to be available. Each state/province would have a capital and a few cities (determined by the player). You can have several states/provinces or close to 50 like the United States. You can have the computer draw up "political lines" for states or do it yourself. The benefits could be bonuses in commerce/industry, food and resource. This can be achieved by having all happy citizens within all the cities in a state and a lot of production within a state. If a state or a city is lacking in food, depending on government type and happiness, other states could kick in help. Other cities could also help in other instances (natural disasters, explosions, ect.).
2) How about building missle silos in the ground. Nuclear weapons plants and silos, biological weapon plants and silos.
3) Making the UN more realistic such as the civs voting on worldly issues like nuclear nonproliferation treaties and so fourth. Condeming a civs actions, embargos and sanctions.

 

[quange86]

Yup, thats a good idea... In addition, Civilization could implement a sort of world bank like to International Monetary Fund or something, where Civs can loan money or something like that... In addition, we could incorporate real world disasters and give Civs a chance to provide assistance to affected Civs where they would score points in diplomacy... Also, we could bring allow the idea of having ministers to help out in Governing... Otherwise, it always seems to be a one man show... Lastly, we should also have a kind of Military Intelligence department to watch out for spies or sabotage activities... BTw, where were the spying option in civilization 3?? Sigh, still preferred the gameplay in civilization 3...

 

[handsomeharry]

I like the IMF/World Bank option. You could devote a certain percentage of your income to the world bank. A leader of the world bank could be rotated between leaders of civs (if they join the world bank). Civs that arent well developed or civs that are hit with natural disasters can be helped.
It would be nice if the U.N had a more realistic feel like in the real world. Condemn a whole civ and/or leader or a particular army for something that offended the opposing civ or city. How about a special room at the U.N to allow for meetings between civs about to go to war or looking to "start something" for example North korea. This can include talks to difuse situations, offer incentives, civs come togther to discuss "issues" or band together to help each other or other civs. Talks can between two civs or multiple civs. An example could be, a spy satelite in civ "a" notices missles from civ "b" loaded on a missle launcher, or smoke coming from a missle silo showing it about to be launched. If the civ that brings this to the worlds attention to the UN and effectivley diffuses the situation, then the civ would get a diplomatic boost.
Civs should have options to boost its civilization like builidng nuclear power plants to generate power for cities (depending on what a city has and it needs electricity), and/or it can be used to create nuclear weapons both in missles or bombs.
Building sports arenas, fields, amusement parks, casinos (which can boost crime) hotels for tourism and for a civs own populace. Tourism can be included within money generated. Allow the airports to be functioning commercial centers like they are today. Allows people and goods to go between cities. Have military airports.
How about a police force. You can actually see the police enforcing laws that the president set up (speeding, murder, assault, robberies ect). You can have local laws like what I said in having states, or federal laws from the whole civ. They can also keep order when a natural disaster happens or a invasion, or war errupts. they can calm the populace or be incorporated into the national army to help defend. A creation of a national guard as well. Besides a police department, you need a fire department. In multiple cities it can go to other cities that dont have one and fight fires that erupt because its been a hot day, your electrical needs are at maximum or over the max too long or building that explode from war, sabitoge or other.
How about the creation of computers or technology that can be incorportated into goods, and or machinery. This can be traded to other civs. You can have a bonus for exporting goods more that importing.
Finally, the ultimate idea would be at the top. Leaders! You can decide what type of leadership and create laws for your populace. If you have a democracy or a republic, the populace can vote you back. If not you have to become the leader who was voted in. For instance if your in a war, and you were voted out against a person who would pull the troops out. You can make economic, cultural, scientific, or other edicts/laws/rules. If your in a communist government, the party must agree to your laws or else youll have to try something else.

 

[timerover51]

"For instance, losing an entire invasion fleet might be realistic (Spanish Armada, anyone?) but it wouldn't add to my enjoyment of the game."

Actually, this happened several times in history, Charles V invasion of North Africe in 1540 being one of the more spectacular mass shipwrecks in history, along with several attempted Roman invasions of Carthage, and at least one for the Greeks. Then there were the two typhoons that did in Mongol invasion fleets aimed at Japan. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions evidently played a major role in the reduction of the Minoan civilization in the Bronze Age, and Troy had its problems with earthquakes as well. New Orleans had a slight problem last year as well. Natural disasters are a fact of life and should be factored into the game, perhaps on the order of a chance every 500 to 1000 years or so.

As for map scale, my first impression of Civ4 is that the size of the cities is seriously out of scale with the maps. I understand that there is a problem with larger maps overloading the computer, as we are barely able to run Civ4, however, giving the option of reducing graphic resolution, or maybe making the game a little more friendly to older computer is a far better option to me than killer 3D animated graphics. I do not play the game to see the graphics, but play the game for the stategy and planning aspect. For one, I am happy with the graphics in Civ3, Rise of Nations, or Age of Empire III.