Things that a new civilization game must do:

nimling

Prince
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Mar 25, 2007
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351
1. Implement true simultaneous turns, and design the base game around this. This would allow for multiplayer games to actually function, rather than the bad RTS that currently exists in game.

2. Change military units from single units to larger armies, in effect bringing back unit stacking but with all units fighting as one. 1UPT has proven to be a dismal failure.

3. Consideration: Removing the concept of tiles altogether, at least at the player level. (I know in practice it is impossible to completely remove granularity on the map.

4. No longer have a concept of "working a tile" - a city's maximum yield is determined by the surrounding terrain and improvements, but hammers, food, and so on must be done by specialized laborers. For instance, a city with lots of arable land would produce more food per farmer, and advances in technology allow more population to be allocated to areas other than farming. Historically most of the human population was involved in agriculture, and it was not until quite recently that this has changed (and even then, the entire food distribution chain involves more than just those who are documented as farmers... anyway...)

5. For the love of god, don't use 1 population = 1 science. That has led to the optimal civ5 strategy being simply to find the best way to maximize population, and narrowed most of the options for building an empire. I can see getting some yield directly tied to your population, but it shouldn't be just "do this to get science".

6. Make social policies actual choices with drawbacks, rather than just benefits. If all else fails just revert to the Civ1-3 mechanic of having distinct government types.

7. No more units healing for free. If a unit/army gets damaged, it ought to need to pay for replacements with hammers/materiel, just like producing new units.

8. No more ridiculous ranged damage being risk-free. I can see some late-game units like artillery, bombers, or helicopters being able to hit from range, but nothing like archers that bombard over continents (that only apply to early armies, strangely).

9. No more unit promotions. Veterancy is the only perk that should come out of battle. Other abilities have to be attached to particular units. I can see army units being specialized upon creation, in order to add variety.
9a. Possible consideration: Rather than get new units with every era, the basic military units available would be consistent throughout the ages, and new technology like iron weapons, gunpowder, machine guns, stirrups, etc. would be represented with promotions.

10. Tie production to a lot more than currently exists. Production is already pretty important, but there are too many things which can be bypassed with gold like unit upgrades. Consideration: Building upkeep is not paid with gold, but with hammers, so a city that builds libraries and such does so at the expense of labor (in addition to the diversion of population to research specialists).

11. No more unique units and especially no more unique abilities with crazy perks, i.e. Poland in Civ5 which is just ridiculous.

12. Bigger cities and more population in general. City populations should somewhat reflect real-world population growth and sizes. No more triangular population growth, one population unit = 1000, 10000, or however many people is sufficient. I would think 1000 is a fair number, and would go so far as increasing the population cities start with. A late-game city could have 1000 population units to allocate or more, though some of those will malcontents.
 
1. It's a turn based game, not RTS.

2. No. Never again. 1UPT4LIFE!

3. Yeah that's probably not going to happen.

4. Yes, but all through history people have actually worked plots. Farms don't just deliver food into your cities without being worked. Also, I think such a mechanic would kill competitiveness. Newbs never work their cities right and that's always a bonus for better players. Turning it into a slider game is just a bad idea.

5. I agree that science could use a re-jig.

6. Could be fun! And, would add to the overall strategy.

7. I'm on the fence with that one.

8. Ranged units aren't risk free because anyone can build ranged units to counter the enemies.

9. No. Promotions add flavor and reward good tactics... like.... staying alive.

9a. lol wut? No.

10. The thing is eventually you would have zero production unless you played on a mega sized map.

11. Where is the fun in that?

12. Um, ok.
 
nimling said:
2. Change military units from single units to larger armies, in effect bringing back unit stacking but with all units fighting as one.
I know that's a popular solution, but many other games already manage combat like this. I don't see this as exciting or new in any way.
1UPT has proven to be a dismal failure.
Several mods improved AI tactics significantly, making 1UPT bearable for the AI. It just a question of more lines of code really.
 
Mmok, so the entire fun in Civ5 is the uniqueness. Don't say more, I have my little idea about it, experienced from those very forums answers.

All in all, Civ6 should definitely be a free to play.

A big part of the fun is the uniqueness of different civilizations, yes. I mean it is a game loosely based on historical civilizations so it's inevitable that they would all be different. Germany and France are not the same, Austria and the Aztecs are not the same etc.

Free to play? :lol: Would be nice but that's probably not going to happen.
 
A big part of the fun is the uniqueness of different civilizations, yes. I mean it is a game loosely based on historical civilizations so it's inevitable that they would all be different. Germany and France are not the same, Austria and the Aztecs are not the same etc.

Inevitable ? What about Civ1 and Civ2 then ? However they were fun. And IMO, more fun than Civ3, Civ4 or Civ5. So you can take your uniqueness and not return. ;)

Basing the game on uniqueness makes for lazy overall game concept. Why even implement a "system" ? You can play Civ6 with cards, and buy new decks with real money in Steam.

Free to play? :lol: Would be nice but that's probably not going to happen.

It would be the logical step forward if Firaxis goes your way.
 
Inevitable ? What about Civ1 and Civ2 then ? However they were fun. And IMO, more fun than Civ3, Civ4 or Civ5. So you can take your uniqueness and not return. ;)

Basing the game on uniqueness makes for lazy overall game concept. Why even implement a "system" ? You can play Civ6 with cards, and buy new decks with real money in Steam.

Uniqueness was put in to make civilizations a bit different so it wasnt just the colour of their border graphic that was changed. This was done to increase replayability of the game and to offer a slightly different experience with each game. While it depends on the unique abilities that are given to such civilizations, this concept is not lazy and in fact requires more attention to the system in order to add them.

I do agree some abilities are not balanced, but overall I would prefer to have unique abilities than not. In my opinion, civilizations though, should only have more simple unique abilities, and not too complex. After all, you are building up an empire from the bottom and so its historical achievements should not have too much of an effect on the game and if you should want, change the country to be alot different from the actual nation. For more historical accuracy, scenarios should be used or perhaps maybe it is time for multiple modes? not just simple gameplay changes, but different levels of historical accuracy put into gameplay? different levels of uniqueness applied to civs? maybe have the option to skip an era from the tech tree?
 
I'm not saying uniqueness itself is lazy ; after all developers have to implement many UAs, UUs, UBs, leaders or whatever. But it's diverting the game concepts as being lazy, because so much would rely on uniqueness. Civ5 is the perfect example, and Civ3 and 4 also : the concept haven't evolved from Civ1, and Civ2, whereas there wasn't uniqueness, was lazy also in this regard (game concept). But now that there is uniqueness, the developers have now a good reason to be lazy. I say scrap all this and rework your core concept !

Anyway, uniqueness sounds fine and all, but once ingame you don't feel it so much. Typical example : you don't see the leader you incarnate. Also, unique abilities are mere lines describing themselves, but are you really using them ingame ? They disappear as soon as the presentation screen goes. Unique units are two max, this makes for one or two wars after what they are upgraded to something generic, and yet, they fight along with generic units.

Uniqueness is an illusion. Even the best players fall to it. Illusions have success because they are cheap to create, no matter what are the means put in them. Illusions never end. They are constantly fueled by people's hopes. It's not because you feel it improves replayability that it does. You are just running after what will never be consistant, just because you know uniqueness exists, it implies for you that they are useful.
 
Inevitable ? What about Civ1 and Civ2 then ? However they were fun. And IMO, more fun than Civ3, Civ4 or Civ5. So you can take your uniqueness and not return. ;)

lolwut? - I guess you haven't actually played 1... In Civ 1 Lincoln had the "Friendly & Civilized" trait, Montezuma had the "Perfectionist & Civilized" trait and Elizabeth I had the "Expansionist" trait etc. Civ II also had traits, so... not sure what you're talking about...

Basing the game on uniqueness makes for lazy overall game concept. Why even implement a "system" ? You can play Civ6 with cards, and buy new decks with real money in Steam.

It would be the logical step forward if Firaxis goes your way.

:mischief: I have no idea what you mean here. It may be a language barrier.
 
lolwut? - I guess you haven't actually played 1... In Civ 1 Lincoln had the "Friendly & Civilized" trait, Montezuma had the "Perfectionist & Civilized" trait and Elizabeth I had the "Expansionist" trait etc. Civ II also had traits, so... not sure what you're talking about...

I assume those were AI "traits". (personnality) It wasn't there when the human player picked them.

:mischief: I have no idea what you mean here. It may be a language barrier.

I meant that by concentrating on uniqueness, the developers could as well remove the map and replacing leaders and units etc... with cards and make it a free to play. Civilization is about civilizations simulation, efforts should be done towards this in the first place, there's a lot we can do out of this (see my other topics) and not basically concentrating on uniqueness. (see my other post)

And by "your way" I mean going into uniqueness, uniqueness, uniqueness.
 
I'm not saying uniqueness itself is lazy ; after all developers have to implement many UAs, UUs, UBs, leaders or whatever. But it's diverting the game concepts as being lazy, because so much would rely on uniqueness. Civ5 is the perfect example, and Civ3 and 4 also : the concept haven't evolved from Civ1, and Civ2, whereas there wasn't uniqueness, was lazy also in this regard (game concept). But now that there is uniqueness, the developers have now a good reason to be lazy. I say scrap all this and rework your core concept !

Anyway, uniqueness sounds fine and all, but once ingame you don't feel it so much. Typical example : you don't see the leader you incarnate. Also, unique abilities are mere lines describing themselves, but are you really using them ingame ? They disappear as soon as the presentation screen goes. Unique units are two max, this makes for one or two wars after what they are upgraded to something generic, and yet, they fight along with generic units.

Uniqueness is an illusion. Even the best players fall to it. Illusions have success because they are cheap to create, no matter what are the means put in them. Illusions never end. They are constantly fueled by people's hopes. It's not because you feel it improves replayability that it does. You are just running after what will never be consistant, just because you know uniqueness exists, it implies for you that they are useful.

I think you mean that the developers should not base the game on uniqueness, but build the uniqueness around the core system?

I've always wanted to actually see my chosen leader in the game screen (not a graphic, actually alive), not just in Advisors and the player setup, and also in Diplomacy your leader actually interacts with the contacting leader. I think this would be really cool to see.
 
1. Implement true simultaneous turns, and design the base game around this. This would allow for multiplayer games to actually function, rather than the bad RTS that currently exists in game.

Absolutely not. 'simultaneous' means Continuous Action, which means it is no longer a Strategy Game - you don't have time for strategy, or even much tactics, it just becomes a Reaction Time Test. Save it for FPS games, it is totally inappropriate in a Strategy game like Civ.

2. Change military units from single units to larger armies, in effect bringing back unit stacking but with all units fighting as one. 1UPT has proven to be a dismal failure.

Yes, we should have stacks and larger 'armies', but if 'all units fight as one' then you lose the one Good Thing about 1UPT: the tactical interaction between ranged, melee, fast units. You need individual units to show the extreme differentiation of weapons, tactics and equipment between, say, a group of unarmored slingers in open skirmish order and a group of completely armored, shielded swordsmen in Roman close order. If you treat them as the Same, you lose a huge part of the potential of the game.

3. Consideration: Removing the concept of tiles altogether, at least at the player level. (I know in practice it is impossible to completely remove granularity on the map.

Consideration: Why?

4. No longer have a concept of "working a tile" - a city's maximum yield is determined by the surrounding terrain and improvements, but hammers, food, and so on must be done by specialized laborers. For instance, a city with lots of arable land would produce more food per farmer, and advances in technology allow more population to be allocated to areas other than farming. Historically most of the human population was involved in agriculture, and it was not until quite recently that this has changed (and even then, the entire food distribution chain involves more than just those who are documented as farmers... anyway...)

We already have the 'specialized laborers', they are working the Improvements that are not farms. The bulk of other 'specialized laborers' though, are In The City, where Every structure built should have one or more Specialist Slots representing those people released from Basic Farming to provide Production, Science, Culture, etc. Population is allocated among the various work, and the concept of 'working a tile' is the easiest way to show this outside the city itself.

5. For the love of god, don't use 1 population = 1 science. That has led to the optimal civ5 strategy being simply to find the best way to maximize population, and narrowed most of the options for building an empire. I can see getting some yield directly tied to your population, but it shouldn't be just "do this to get science".

Agreed. Science comes from Specialists in the population, not the mass of the population. However, once the entire population is literate and a significant percentage of them have higher specialized education (historically, starting about the mid to late 19th century in USA/Western Europe) then they will start to provide a Science Boost, but not before. There is a reason science and technology 'took off' about 150 years ago...

6. Make social policies actual choices with drawbacks, rather than just benefits. If all else fails just revert to the Civ1-3 mechanic of having distinct government types

Agreed. Not only would it be better to have distinct Government types again, but there should also be some real choices among Social Policies - and Religious Policies, for that matter. It is not always deciding which advantage to get, some choices should prohibit or inhibit other choices, giving the player a real 'strategic dilemma'

7. No more units healing for free. If a unit/army gets damaged, it ought to need to pay for replacements with hammers/materiel, just like producing new units.

To heal, units should have to have a 'supply line' back to a Base - friendly city, cities, etc. Without it, they have no source of fresh equipment, weapons, or men. The length and effectiveness of the supply line will vary enormously with technology and terrain, and the need for such will also limit the SoD phenomena: you can only stack as much as you can feed in an area without a supply line, and that is very limited in many types of terrain.

8. No more ridiculous ranged damage being risk-free. I can see some late-game units like artillery, bombers, or helicopters being able to hit from range, but nothing like archers that bombard over continents (that only apply to early armies, strangely).

Almost all combat should take place within a single tile, and within a single turn. Why should a Mayan atlatlist be able to toss a javelin from one side of a 500,000 pop city to the other while a rifleman can only shoot 6 inches? Why does it take 160 years for my archer to kill a swordsman in 500 BCE? Right now, 1UPT puts a tactical combat system into a strategic-turned game, and it results in idiotic situations like those All The Time.

9. No more unit promotions. Veterancy is the only perk that should come out of battle. Other abilities have to be attached to particular units. I can see army units being specialized upon creation, in order to add variety.
9a. Possible consideration: Rather than get new units with every era, the basic military units available would be consistent throughout the ages, and new technology like iron weapons, gunpowder, machine guns, stirrups, etc. would be represented with promotions.

Actually, divide the 'promotions' into 'veterancy' - basic willingness and ability to do military tasks, and 'special skills', which are just that. The first could come from battle or Training (special facilities like Barracks, Military Bases, etc), the second from familiarity or facilities: your first three cities are in the jungle, your units should be pretty good at fighting/moving through jungles. You build a Jungle Warfare School later, and you can 'train' your units to fight/move in the jungle.
a. So you never build any new units? And if you do build new units with new technologies while 'promoting' older units with new technologies, how is that different from what Civ V does now?

10. Tie production to a lot more than currently exists. Production is already pretty important, but there are too many things which can be bypassed with gold like unit upgrades. Consideration: Building upkeep is not paid with gold, but with hammers, so a city that builds libraries and such does so at the expense of labor (in addition to the diversion of population to research specialists)
.

Partly Agree. Gold to some extent represents Assets/Resources that can be applied, including 'invisible' Production/Hammers, but there should be some things, like re-equipping a modern unit, that require Production - Gold alone will not get you a new tank if no one has built a new tank, but Gold 'offered' may get you a lot of volunteer manpower to rebuild an earlier-Era unit.

11. No more unique units and especially no more unique abilities with crazy perks, i.e. Poland in Civ5 which is just ridiculous.

Dead wrong. BUT tie the 'unique' of whatever kind to the actual situation of the Civilization in that particular game. If the Aztecs do not start in or near a jungle, they should not 'automatically' get a Unique Unit that is better in the jungle. The current set of 'Uniques' are both arbitrary and limited - regardless of how your civ develops, you only get the Unique Ability the game started you with - England can have Longbows, but never develop Redcoats, for instance.

12. Bigger cities and more population in general. City populations should somewhat reflect real-world population growth and sizes. No more triangular population growth, one population unit = 1000, 10000, or however many people is sufficient. I would think 1000 is a fair number, and would go so far as increasing the population cities start with. A late-game city could have 1000 population units to allocate or more, though some of those will malcontents.

Agreed in that early and medieval cities seem to have reached a 'take off' point at about 1000 people - it makes a good starting point for a City as opposed to a village, settlement, hamlet, or town. In addition to city growth, though, the growth of population in the country needs to be shown - bring back the Settlements, Hamlets, Villages and Towns that may eventually form Suburbs to the city.
 
I think you mean that the developers should not base the game on uniqueness, but build the uniqueness around the core system?

I'm saying that developer should concentrate on the game system (aka simulation of civilizations), not on uniqueness even though they are considered the "top feature" by some players.
If they concentrate on uniqueness, the game system will forever be the one of Civ1 with some tweaks, without risks and non revolutionary.
 
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