What do you expect for a possibly upcoming expansion?

[nokmirt]

Is this a "What would you like?" thread or a "What do you think will happen?" thread, by the way? They're quite different.

Either or is fine by me, as long as the game keeps getting better.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Is this a "What would you like?" thread or a "What do you think will happen?" thread, by the way? They're quite different.

That's a "what would you like?" thread.

Self-quoting:

So here is a poll that could be seen by Firaxis developers, in order to maybe give us what we want.

 

[Galactic Lord]

I would like to see a variety of city state types, perhaps scientific or religous? I would also like to see a public opinion and war weariness feature, as I saw described somwhere else on these forums. There should also be space map types or the ability to establish space cities in orbit around the planet. I think this sci-fi aspect is not something that you see a lot of in Civ games and it would be nice to add some variety to it!

 

[Drawmeus]

That's a "what would you like?" thread.

Self-quoting:

Alright then.

1. City-states built out more. They're a cool concept but the implementation isn't deep enough to go anywhere near tapping their potential. In particular, I'd like to see quests and diplomacy become primary in becoming friends with them, and I'd like to see a continuing relationship matter (instead of just buying them up the turn before a UN vote). I'd also like them to be a lot more dynamic militarily; I want to fight wars by proxy when it's appropriate, and I want to end up in a situation where I have to choose whether or not to honor my commitments to some minor civ when it risks war with a great power. There's no real way to do this right now, and it's rarely if ever a real choice.
EDIT for clarity: I'm NOT talking about more variety here. I'm playing a game with the Not Another City-States Mod active and frankly it very quickly dissolves into cacaphony; city-state type has lost all meaning to me in this game. I'm talking about more gameplay around your relationship to the city-states around you, regardless of what type they are.

2. Specific eras in the game built out more. In particular, I want:
a) A deeper Classical era. Right now the Classical era is just something you jump through in a race to the Medieval. I want depth in this part of the game.
b) A deeper Age of Sail/Renaissance. I hate the Musketmen -> Riflemen jump; Musketmen seem to be 16th century gunpowder, and Riflemen seem to be 19th century infantry. There's a huge gap between these two eras; the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars were fought entirely by gunpowder-equipped troops and with lots of field artillery/cannons, but they were fought entirely differently from the American Civil War (I'm a yank and I refuse to be politically correct, so if you want that written out as war between the states, too bad), with technology which was far inferior. Basically, I want the Age of Discovery/Age of Sail/Napoleonic Wars to be differentiated from both the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution.

3. Colonies. I want to want to impose my will on all those random city-states and weak empires on the other continent, random island chains, etc., and I want to go settle all that beautiful unclaimed land, regardless of what kind of victory condition I am aiming for. This is one of the biggest things that distinguish the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries from the previous millennia, and I want it in Civ.

4. International Trade. In the real world, Constantinople was one of the absolute most important cities in the entire world until only a few hundred years ago because of its location; all trade from the East flowed through it. I want this kind of geopolitical concern to matter. It should of course be simplified down into easily managed game concepts, but it should exist in the game.

5. Victory rework - this one's almost certainly off the table for actual game development, but the concept that Civilization should end with a single, discrete event is patently silly. Give me a set of goals in each era (and rotate them era by era!), give me a huge points bonus for accomplishing them, and then give me points era by era, with each era being weighted equally. Dominate the early game and then fall off to obscurity? You're Rome or Greece. This is, by the way, a huge reason why there's tension between the AI playing to win vs playing realistically. With a game with discrete win conditions, if you're 50 turns from a probable UN vote, doing ANYTHING that gives your strongest rival more gold is a bad idea, even if it's what's best for your empire, because the game is going to just end in 50 turns if you don't stop them. A different approach to what it means to win a game of Civ would eliminate that tension, because in almost all cases doing what is best for your empire could be made synonymous with trying to win the game. It's really not impossible to do.

By the way, I'm firmly convinced there will be an expansion pack. I don't have evidence for it, but I do think it will happen.

 

[Sonereal]

On another note, maybe this will be the expansion where Ironclads don't exist between Age of Sail ships and WW2-era battleships.

 

[Willowmound]

That's a "what would you like?" thread.

Since the poll is titled "what do you expect", that's how I voted. Not the same thing at all.

 

[Thormodr]

I honestly don't think there will be an expansion. Just more DLC.

I'd be much more interested in them releasing the SDK but that is not likely to happen either. That wasn't one of the poll options so I couldn't vote for it.

So, I guess I don't expect anything really.

However, with low expectations, you won't be disappointed.

 

[binhthuy71]

I expect no expansion. The combined full-price cost of the DLC's is already close to exceeding the price of the CivIV BTS expansion. There will almost certainly be occasional patches but the Death of a Thousand Cuts DLC model is just too lucrative for the publisher and its Steam buddies to give up.

 

[nokmirt]

The game needs an expansion to make it better, new and interesting things need to be added.

 

[noncognosco]

3. Colonies. I want to want to impose my will on all those random city-states and weak empires on the other continent, random island chains, etc., and I want to go settle all that beautiful unclaimed land, regardless of what kind of victory condition I am aiming for. This is one of the biggest things that distinguish the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries from the previous millennia, and I want it in Civ.

I am not sure I understand this. What is it that you want to be able to do that you can't do?

You can: 1) buy up city-state loyalty, if it helps I like to think of allied city-states as part of my extended empire, or 2) build a city on a distant island and control it directly, or 3) if someone else controls that land conquer them and then it is your land.

 

[marioflag]

I expect no expansion. The combined full-price cost of the DLC's is already close to exceeding the price of the CivIV BTS expansion. There will almost certainly be occasional patches but the Death of a Thousand Cuts DLC model is just too lucrative for the publisher and its Steam buddies to give up.

Expansions should help sell more DLCs and give more lifespan to civilization 5. If the game in 1 year will become stale, profits from DLC will be a lot lower, so i don't see necessarily a contrast between DLCs and the release of an expansion.

 

[Jim Bro]

before releasing new civs, they should work on the game engine. the graphics are so buggy with huge maps, it is beyond my comprehension.

 

[crashcrush]

5. Victory rework - this one's almost certainly off the table for actual game development, but the concept that Civilization should end with a single, discrete event is patently silly. Give me a set of goals in each era (and rotate them era by era!), give me a huge points bonus for accomplishing them, and then give me points era by era, with each era being weighted equally.

They have something like this in Civ World. It's an interesting concept and I think it could be easily borrowed for full on Civilization (I was in the Alpha, but have not played since - my prediction is that Civ world will not make it, but some of the concepts (like this one) will be adopted into the franchise at some point).

 

[Drawmeus]

I am not sure I understand this. What is it that you want to be able to do that you can't do?

You can: 1) buy up city-state loyalty, if it helps I like to think of allied city-states as part of my extended empire, or 2) build a city on a distant island and control it directly, or 3) if someone else controls that land conquer them and then it is your land.

1) is expensive.
2) Sets back my policy development.
3) has all kinds of diplomatic consequences.

Basically, I want to be able to do something like what I would have done in Civ 4 - create a vassal empire to secure their resources.

Mechanically, I basically just want to be able to plant puppet cities via some kind of Colony concept.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

I would like to see a variety of city state types, perhaps scientific or religous?

How's that from Iceco?

Which was (in fact) a direct result of some "cooperative" suggestions (by plenty of us) over months of fiddling with a commonly developed perspective over and beyond the "Multiplying CS-Variety" (below) thread and more.

 

[zekeand]

Drawmeus:

I agree with you in every aspect of your post.

5. Victory rework - this one's almost certainly off the table for actual game development, but the concept that Civilization should end with a single, discrete event is patently silly. Give me a set of goals in each era (and rotate them era by era!), give me a huge points bonus for accomplishing them, and then give me points era by era, with each era being weighted equally. Dominate the early game and then fall off to obscurity? You're Rome or Greece. This is, by the way, a huge reason why there's tension between the AI playing to win vs playing realistically. With a game with discrete win conditions, if you're 50 turns from a probable UN vote, doing ANYTHING that gives your strongest rival more gold is a bad idea, even if it's what's best for your empire, because the game is going to just end in 50 turns if you don't stop them. A different approach to what it means to win a game of Civ would eliminate that tension, because in almost all cases doing what is best for your empire could be made synonymous with trying to win the game. It's really not impossible to do.

This is specially accurate. I like to play modern era (wars are more tactical). In civ V with 1 UPT is even more tactical than before, and I REALLY hate to have to rush to any victory conditions just because game rules say so.
In real life there is no question that US is the "actual Civ winner" but, how long? China has so many history, cultural, military and economic strenghts that we can make a real intresting debate around it. And we can't forget India, Persia, Rome, or even England.
Some people may say -"dude, just play without diplo and science win conditions" but that's smashing the game with an axe. I'd like to play a complete CIV game in modern era.
The total final score could be an average of all eras, so what really matters is if you where a great leader than if you ran an "accurate algorithm" to rush to any victory condition

1. City-states built out more. They're a cool concept but the implementation isn't deep enough to go anywhere near tapping their potential. In particular, I'd like to see quests and diplomacy become primary in becoming friends with them, and I'd like to see a continuing relationship matter (instead of just buying them up the turn before a UN vote). I'd also like them to be a lot more dynamic militarily; I want to fight wars by proxy when it's appropriate, and I want to end up in a situation where I have to choose whether or not to honor my commitments to some minor civ when it risks war with a great power.

This is a good point. I'd like to see that working.

And, at last, but not least

4. International Trade. In the real world, Constantinople was one of the absolute most important cities in the entire world until only a few hundred years ago because of its location; all trade from the East flowed through it. I want this kind of geopolitical concern to matter. It should of course be simplified down into easily managed game concepts, but it should exist in the game.

When I played my first Civ game I tried so many times to make an economic empire this way. It's dissapointing that's not doable. I'd like to have chance to play as something like Netherlands in 17th century. A small piece of land in Europe that has a HUGE economic empire.


Just daydreaming...

Zeke

PD: My english is very limited, I apologize for that. If I made any mistake, please let me know. I just want to learn.

 

[BobDole]

I'm guessing that they'd shoot for something similar to BTS. In III/IV, there's two expansions, with both having civs. One typically has a lot of scenarios and some minor additions, while the other has more substantial additions to the game itself. Warlords/Conquests had lots of scenarios with some extra additions here and there, while BTS added a lot of stuff to the primary game, and PTW tried to add multiplayer to the base game (and did a pretty terrible job of it from what I heard, so I avoided it).

Since we already got a lot of civs/scenarios added, I'd expect if there was an expansion, it'd focus on more additions to the main game, but who knows. There might not even be an expansion, so anything could happen. I'm hoping there is, since it'd be a good way to put a bunch of new features into the game.

 

[Sherlock]

You either have DLC OR Expansions, not both. There will not be an expansion.

 

[spider1]

You either have DLC OR Expansions, not both. There will not be an expansion.

And you know this how? I can see both happening.

 

[starrywisdom]

You either have DLC OR Expansions, not both. There will not be an expansion.

Really...because multiple games have had both DLC and expansions; I'm curious on why you think it won't happen? DLC is good for small 'upgrades' IE: civs. Expansions allow more global and gameplay changing updates...