Things to improve in C3C

[Civinator]

The whole project needs aims before deciding about the way to reach these aims. In this thread the aims for this project can be listed by editing this post.

 

[Civinator]

This is my current list for improving C3C:

High priority:

- Railroad-movement factor adjustable
- Submarine bug fixed
- Fix of the houseboat bug (last settler of a civ on a boat after loosing the last city) added
- AI routine for landartillery fixed
- Stealth Attack fixed (attacking unit can take out a single target in a stack)
- Events (as in Civ 2 tot or as with lua in ToTPP)
- Landcarrier units (carrying other land-, air- and/or missile units)
- more culture groups (and city graphics)
- Phantom resources bug fixed
- Barbarians and Pirates can hold cities and are working like in Civ 2
- Unit, that can move over sea and land (like Civ 2 helicopters) -added
- Diplomats can work as in Civ 2
- Caravans as in Civ 2 and 'ship caravans' (tankers)
- Stack kill flag for units
- different attack settings for nuclear attacks
- Canals

Lower priority:

- Adjustable different leader names for all 4 eras in C3C
- ignore city wall flag for units (as in Civ 2)
- navigable rivers
- more than 512 cities
- more than 31 civs
- more than 256 resources
- more than 8192 units
- Diplomacy talks need certain tech (important for SciFi scenarios; translator)
- custom text for landtiles (p.e. river- and desert names, spots like rock of Gibraltar)
- multiple maps and teleporters (as in Civ 2 ToT and TOTPP)
- different mountain hights (and defense bonus)
- production carryover
- major objective flag (giving more victory points as in Civ 2)
- Soft attack- (against foot troops)and hard attack values (against tanks) for units

Additionally the new game should have - of course - all functions of C3C (or better)

 

[Civinator]

Ozy, my list was only a short brainstorming about interesting features, that are not working well in C3C and features, that are yet existing in Civ 2 ToT and TOTPP. The unit, that can move over sea and land (Civ 2 helicopter) must be added to that list, too.

"Stack kills" is the feature that the attack of that unit can kill (or at least damage like the charm attack) all units in a stack (special bombs, may be poison gas and for damaging units: electronic warfare). The current charm attack in C3C doesn´t kill units and is only available for landunits - but for sea and air units this would be needed, too.

"Different attack settings for nuclear units" is an idea not yet realized in C3C and TOTPP: A different radius of nuclear devastation, measured from the center of the explosion. Nuclear bombs with a range of devastation of 1 around the center, advanced nukes with a radius of two (and so on).

"Production carryover" is to use shields of production, that are not needed when a building or unit is finished, for the next object in the production queue of a city. This option reduces a lot of micromanagement.

Multiple maps are a feature of Civ 2ToT and, as far as I know, was only used by two Civ 2 ToT modders: Kestrel made a mod with a land- , an air- and a subwater map for landwarfare (including normal ships), underwaterwarfare for submarines and airwarfare for air units.

The other modder was me, creating a science fiction mod with invasions from one galaxy to another galaxy, placing each galaxy on a separate map. The multiple maps are an existing feature in Civ 2ToT, but the relation of the efforts to program such a feature and the results will let stay this a dream.

Of course the programmers must decide, what is 'doable' and what not.

At present I only grouped in features with high priority and features with low priority.

 

[WildWeazel]

As far as desired features, I have a lengthy wishlist in the context of a new game. It's broken down not by priority per se but how significantly it diverges from C3C:

• "Essentials" are the things that make such a project worthwhile, that drive us to remake the game in the first place
  
• "Enhancements" are improved features made possible by more generalized and flexible rules, that we may or may not decide to build in as we go but would be easily supported in a clean design
  
• "Extensions" are whole new features or systems that go beyond the scope of a clone, which we probably shouldn't build in at first but may guide our design thinking

 

[Ozymandias]

My list includes:

• Along with being able to mod RR movement, I would also like to see a second "level" of road - you know: something between well-worn pathways, mainly used for goats, and autobahns.
• They ability to limit how far a unit can move from a city. This is not only historically accurate (see exceptions below) but would, I believe, improve game play, as long as there is something along the the lines of CCM's mechanism in place for preventing ICS. Note that:
  • The distance can be changed via Tech.
  • Likewise, a Tech can allow Ships to carry "Conquistadors," or their equivalent, into uncharted waters.

Addenda:

• Having Retreat probability determined by Unit, not Scenario.
• Set fully customizable Terrain Tile transformations, so that, e.g., the Pollution mechanics can be changed for Terraforming an alien planet.

 

[WildWeazel]

This is the first part of my consolidated notes: ideas for improvement. (Mostly assuming a new game) Please understand that this is a long-term brain dump, not my intentions or expectations. With some of these I don't even recall exactly what I had in mind. Some of them may be redundant, contradictory, or misplaced.

Essentials: the things that make such a project worthwhile, that drive us to remake the game in the first place

Spoiler Essentials :

• Remove any arbitrary hard-coded numeric limits or constants on any setting or collection.
  
  
• Graceful failure: missing or invalid files will be logged and bypassed where possible, and unavoidable errors will end the game with an explanation but not exit the application.
  
  
• All game content defined in mod files so that they can be added and removed arbitrarily: eras, culture groups, terrain types, tile improvements, etc.
  
  
• Convert hard-coded or global values as much as possible to contextual values: unit retreat chance, battlefield healing, HP healed per turn, base XP level, odds to promote, etc. may all be variable or conditional.
  
  
• Fix the “sub bug” allowing accidental movement onto Invisible units without automatic war.
  
  
• Fix the effects of the Scientific Golden Age.
  
  
• Fix “communal” and “OFF” corruption levels.
  
  
• Fix the Reduces Corruption effect of Small Wonders (Forbidden Palace).
  
  
• Fix the “ghost resource bug” that appears with more than 32 tradeable resources.
  
  
• Fix (per configuration) the interaction of zero Defense and Hidden Nationality unit traits.
  
  
• Fix the Stealth Attack ability.
  
  
• Fix the “hacked” editor features such as Charm.
  
  
• Fix the “disease cured with” setting.
  
  
• Fix the ability of Sea units to Rebase to to an Airbase
  
  
• Fix avoidable performance issues, eg. trade route calculations on large maps.
  
  
• Fix any other known behavioral bugs present in C3C.
  
  
• Allow (per configuration) upgrades of units that trigger a Golden Age.
  
  
• Allow units to use the Sentry and Fortify abilities independently.
  
  
• Allow Barbarian units to Enslave, and use any other unit ability.
  
  
• Fix Civilopedia link limit and link layout issues.
  
  
• Fix UI overflow and overlap issues, such as icons on the city screen.
  
  
• Improve UI layouts and sizes to accommodate different resolutions and scaling preferences.
  
  
• Generate (per configuration) detailed event and debug logs.

Enhancements: improved features made possible by more generalized and flexible rules, that we may or may not decide to build in as we go but would be easily supported in a clean design

Spoiler Enhancements :

• Allow arbitrary prerequisite conditions for any item, eg:
  
  • Unit production requires a building in the city
    
    
  • Building effect requires resource availability
    
    
  • Tech research requires resource availability
    
    
  • Wonder construction requires a culture group
    
    
  • Action requires an active government
• More specific built-in prerequisite rules, such as resources in the city radius.
  
  
• A system of hierarchical rules to modify or override values and content, eg:
  
  • Terrain can modify unit stats
    
    
  • Civilization can override graphics
• Arbitrary tags for condition matching on any content, such as foot unit.
  
  • Techs may have tags like material, life, or social science for conditional discounts
    
    
  • Civ traits or techs may affect various costs, yields, or effects.
• Allow more flexible media, such as full color, arbitrary sizes, still or animated graphics.
  
  • Hover and click effects on world map
• Scenario-save equivalence as seen in Paradox grand strategy games: instead of BIQ and SAV, use the same format, allowing you to switch players, generate scenario history, reconfigure rules during a playthrough, etc.
  
  
• Map rotation and more zoom levels.
  
  
• Modular mods that can be combined or enabled independently, similar to the scenario search path but applicable to content as well as media.
  
  • Separate maps, scenario setup, and rules/content into different files
    
    
  • Game setup file/hash with map seed/settings, players, difficulty, etc that can be shared or subscribed to, such as for a game of the week
• Design genericized concepts to support any number or rules or systems by name or tag. For example, “government” may be the only default type of “policy” but allow for others.
  
  
• Require an arbitrary terrain improvement to extract each resource.
  
  
• Resources have quantities, produced by tiles, extracted by improvements, and consumed by production and buildings, a la Civ5.
  
  
• World setup parameters as sliders/arbitrary values plus random options.
  
  
• Ranges of turns when different rules/graphics apply, eg seasons.
  
  
• Minor civilizations or city-states with limited abilities (configurable rules per faction).
  
  
• Allow barbarians to capture cities and develop into city-states or minor civilizations.
  
  
• Limit units per tile and batch units into armies to always stay together.
  
  
• Allow anything to be built on water (or any terrain type).
  
  
• Allow war weariness from combat with Barbarians, combat near the city, etc.
  
  
• Allow the player to choose and/or customize civ color palettes in game setup.
  
  
• More advanced land/sea/air unit abilities, eg:
  
  • Amphibious land/sea units such as duck boats
    
    
  • Mobile air/land units such as helicopters
• Allow barbarian camps to yield captured workers of barbarian nationality.
  
  
• Allow certain citizens types to always have a certain mood, such as barbarian workers always unhappy.
  
  
• Options for advanced start like founded city, tile improvements, revealed tiles.
  
  
• Mod-defined conditions for advisor text instead of enumerated states.
  
  
• Allow advisors to pop up at any time a script is relevant.
  
  
• Other pop-up messages shown by arbitrary conditions.
  
  
• Mod scripts with event listeners and access to game state.
  
  
• More advanced terrain attributes like visibility or combat bonus vs other terrain types.
  
  
• Improved stats screens
  
  • Line graphs for power, score, and culture
    
    
  • More meaningful and configurable civ stats
    
    
  • Customizable score and ranking calculations
• Combat odds calculation shown in UI
  
  
• On-screen (optional) event and debug logs, and options to submit bug reports or crash logs.
  
  
• Hidden script and debug console for testing and prototyping
  
  
• More contextual unit animations, eg load/unload, recon, land vs sea attacks, melee vs ranged attacks, attack vs defend, each order or job.
  
  
• Music controls in UI: volume, skip, pause, etc.
  
  
• More cycle and filter options in UI for units and cities.
  
  
• Allow mods to add or modify UI elements.
  
  
• Manage city population and production from domestic advisor screen.
  
  
• Named continents and/or regions, shown as groups in advisor screens.
  
  
• Mass order units by area or type.
  
  
• Launcher app to find and install updates, choose version to launch, configure game, download and enable mods.
  
  
• Loading screen with artwork and rotating text tips.
  
  
• Resources can go obsolete, no longer providing yield or happiness.
  
  
• Provide math function or array of values for miscellaneous calculations such as default citizen mood or luxury effects.
  
  
• Techs grant arbitrary items or actions, such as revealing the whole map.
  
  
• Units can hide or become invisible when fortified, and then retreat or ambush.
  
  
• Hover UI for map objects: units and stacks, tiles, cities, icons.

Extensions: whole new features or systems that go beyond the scope of a clone, which we probably shouldn't build in at first but may guide our design thinking

Spoiler Extensions :

• Data-driven terrain generation and climate change effects based on parameters like temperature, humidity, elevation so that any new terrain can appear in maps automatically.
  
  
• Types of settlements (colony, fort, etc) with some limited city functionality that can be upgraded to a city with certain criteria, eg:
  
  • “Outpost” phase has 0 population, 0 output for some turns until city is established
    
    
  • “Outpost” phase can only build a city center which takes some food/production
• More advanced treatment of barbarians, eg:
  
  • Barbarians advance alongside civs, gaining more advanced units
    
    
  • Barbarian camps can eventually develop into (proto-)cities or city states
• Asymmetric civilizations with different terrain affinity: floodplain, plains, forest, highlands, coast, etc provide various bonuses or unique abilities similar to Traits.
  
  
• Allow players to trade tile ownership or shift borders in diplomacy.
  
  
• Allow a “cold war” diplomatic state with limited warfare eg. outside borders.
  
  
• Non-conventional unit types or abilities with diplomatic implications, similar to hidden nationality or nuclear weapons.
  
  
• UN provides options to vote on resolutions with various binding effects.
  
  
• New types of agreements: research or production ban, campaign against barbarians or pirates, pollution cleanup, etc made via diplomacy or UN resolutions.
  
  
• Global warming plays a more active role with charts, diplomatic influence, UN resolutions.
  
  
• Surrender: diplomatic agreement available during war. Must have captured the other player’s capital. Demote the other player to city state status, military units disbanded, and enter a “subjugated” relationship for some turns similar to Military Alliance.
  
  
• New tier of “building” representing international partnerships: contribute money, production, resources, etc to a pool similar to producing Wealth, and gain proportional benefits on completion of the project.
  
  
• Governments may allow budgets or other policies to be applied at the city level.
  
  
• Directives: higher level city automation goals for enabled governors to fulfill, eg:
  
  • Build some number of a certain unit
    
    
  • Raise some amount of funds of some type
    
    
  • Produce an additional number of culture per turn
• New and customizable victory conditions.
  
  
• Define achievements with in-game effects.
  
  
• Annotate any game content for lore, reminders, etc shown in appropriate places in the UI.
  
  
• Combined arms battles with multiple units per side in different roles, a la Call to Power.
  
  
• Public Works model a la Call to Power with ploppable terrain improvements.
  
  
• Allow different tech models: parallel or randomized tracks, domain-specific science points.
  
  
• Research randomization options: draw from available techs, pay extra to skip a prerequisite, optional prerequisites randomly activated at game start, etc.
  
  
• Allow tile terraforming jobs to arbitrarily change terrain types.
  
  
• Add a strategic map view with more abstract graphics, a la Civ5.
  
  
• Wall tile improvement similar to barricade: impassable to wheeled, ends movement.
  
  
• Canal tile improvement: built on flat land adjacent to coast or canal, allows naval movement.
  
  
• Bridge tile improvement: built on coast between land, allows land movement.
  
  
• Customizable ambient animations on certain terrains, eg. animals, weather.
  
  
• Allow custom quantities to be applied, such as city health, and allow them to be looked up and modified by name to create effects.
  
  
• Gain combat experience/leadership as a resource pool which is consumed by Great Leaders, military academies, specialist units, etc. A more active military is more effective.
  
  
• Engage in limited diplomacy with individual barbarian tribes and pay them off to leave you alone or attack someone else.
  
  
• Allow construction costs to be given in any asset (food, commerce, custom) and consume any excess yield, similar to food contributed to settlers in Civ5.
  
  
• Battlefield logistics: when outside of their borders and beyond a certain movement point range from a city, ally, special units or improvements, units are subject to negative effects.
  
  
• Cities, buildings, or tile improvements may have static defense values without units on them.
  
  
• ZOC or other ability prevents advancing after battle, eg. wall tile improvement.
  
  
• Unique resources or terrain landmarks provide a bonus for first discovery.
  
  
• Gain science or culture for exploring the map.
  
  
• A framework for grand strategy systems: customizable and semi-random traits, decisions, projects, and events tied to certain types of game content.
  
  
• Integrate Matrix or other communication protocol for global or game/channel chat, and connect to a developer instance for support.

 

[Ozymandias]

I agree on pretty much everything @WildWeazel has mentioned. I would, however, change the parameters from, "Essentials," "Enhancements," and, "Extensions" (although I do admit the three "E"s are pretty cool )

I think we're better off with:

1. Using materials at hand to (a) the game's broken bits while (b) adding on anything which logically (both "conversationally" and "In a Boolean style.)
2. Whatever extended game play components are desired.
3a. "Extensions" which add significant new scope to the game (e.g., multiple map levels, as in Civ 2.)
3b. "Extensions" which require major changes to improve, like "Look-and-feel" items entailing Map rotation or significant changes to the UI.

I am not, in any way, opposed to these things, but I think that organizing them in the way Comrade Weazel ( ) has isn't necessary. For example: "Gaining science or culture for exploring the map," would, I suspect, only take a simple set of algorithms to enable. On the other hand, "More contextual unit animations" would - I think - mean changing every .flc set in the game.

Also - for example - we were also tacking along parallel tracks about the nature of Colonies. (My approach was that, along with whatever City growth parameters - for example's sake, from Town to City to Metropolis - that a Worker could found a Colony, with its size limited to "1" unless/until it is joined by a Settler, at which point it becomes a normal, Size 2 Town. (Aside an aside, this is consonant with one idea I like - tat a Unit can only move N number of tiles from a friendly City, until a certain Tech is achieved, then ... Well, I'm sure you can fill in the rest.

Perhaps a more helpful breakdown might be:

1. Everything we can fix that's broken, like making Artillery work.
2. Anything we can readily extend and implement, from that work, such as (off the top of my head) setting regular Patrol roues for units.
(For "3a" and "3b," see above )

Of course, What we want to execute and How we go about doing it are inextricably entwined - But these are still very early days.

 

[Quintillus]

These are impressive lists of features, almost overwhelming. But I like Ozymandias's breakdown of "Everything we can fix that's broken" and everything else. The reason being that the first is (part of) a set of specifications to meet for the initial goal, whereas the latter is a set of ideas that could specify future enhancements. And most likely we will focus on most or all of the first group first... IMO we should, as if we start adding on cool new ideas before having most/all of the core in place, we might never get that scenario compatibility that we want.

Put another way, I think it's great to have a place to capture all of our ideas, and this thread might be that place. I have a similar place for ideas for my scenario editor. But I don't think we should spend much time thinking about how to implement them, or which ones to implement, at this point.

Eventually (once there is code being written), we'll probably get to the point of, "should we make artillery work well, or should we add some proper stealth attack logic?" And eventually, "should we make an adjustable railroad movement factor, or allow barbarians to capture cities?" I'd propose once we get to that point, selecting a handful of top wish list items, getting feedback on how difficult they would be to implement (or how much art work they would require to provide benefits, like on Ozymadias's FLC example), and deciding which ones to roll with from there. We'll probably never get to everything, but by saying, "Civinator, what are your top 3 wish list items? WildWeazel, what are yours?" and coming to a consensus on benefit and difficulty, we should hopefully get to at least a few of them eventually.

I'm not sure I have any new items to add, but I will plus-one the adjustable railroad distance.

 

[Ozymandias]

Perhaps our thoughts about how best to proceed are converging

 

[Ozymandias]

There are also some ingenious mod ideas which we should consider incorporating directly into the main framework of the game, e.g. @Civinator's "Advanced Auto-Production."

 

[WildWeazel]

Oh I agree! I think if we're smart about how we design the rules system we can make all kinds of additional options possible without (much) extra work.

 

[Civinator]

"Civinator, what are your top 3 wish list items?

1. Stealth attack needs only one target in the attacked stack (now ar least two targets are needed)
2. Fixed submarine bug
3. Adjustable railroad movement factor

 

[Ozymandias]

I've been thinking, quite a bit, about the interactions between terrain and different types of military units.

Let's consider two very broad categories: "Closed Order Formations" (Pikemen, whether Alexander The Great's or Early Renaissance; and Flintlock Musket Line Infantry) and Forests. They would not only not benefit from a Defense Bonus, they would actually be handicapped. Ditto Armor in Jungle, e.g., the French in Indochina. On the other hand, "Open Order Formations" (Modern Infantry) would benefit.

Along the same lines - Scythians for Alex; the Viet Minh for the French - some units might be considered Invisible in certain types of terrain.

So:

1. A division into "Closed" and "Open" formation units, with different AF & DF modifiers per terrain type.
2. Just as there is a Flag for Ignoring Movement Cost per Terrain Type, add in a flag for Invisible; accordingly.

Addendum: Terrain specific:

1. I would like to have additional levels of irrigation, with appropriate Techs.
2. Another, "deeper," and more perilous, level of Ocean, serving two purposes:
   • Making, r.g., pre-Galleon, European ships have a far more perilous time, e.g., rounding Cape Horn and sailing through the Pacific.
   • Being able to add another level of MF to - likewise viz. the Pacific -- realistically depict how vast it is, without taking up half of a global map.

 

[Quintillus]

Those are good additional ideas. In theory, a flag for "invisible in terrain" doesn't sound too difficult.

Re: multiple levels of irrigation, I was thinking about multiple levels of road/rails. We have two, but why not an intermediate one? E.g. roads, rails (i.e. 1800s), integrated transport system (e.g. autobahn/Interstate Highway System with rails).

 

[Ozymandias]

I was thinking about multiple levels of road/rails. We have two, but why not an intermediate one? E.g. roads, rails (i.e. 1800s), integrated transport system (e.g. autobahn/Interstate Highway System with rails).

I was hoping for three: "Dirt," "Paved" (as in, "Roman"), then "Autobahn" for a third