What do you expect from the next Civ? From the fans to Firaxis

[kokomo]

There are a lot of bridges that cover very long distances... maybe have a national limit for the bridges? You need to discover maybe? Steel to make bridges and then you have a limit based on cities, technology, and cash(you need to pay a medium sum to build it with your villagers)...?

If you build the World Wonder (or National Wonder???) "Eurochunnel" you could build a track on the sea.

What do you say?

 

[Napo981]

There are a lot of bridges that cover very long distances... maybe have a national limit for the bridges? You need to discover maybe? Steel to make bridges and then you have a limit based on cities, technology, and cash(you need to pay a medium sum to build it with your villagers)...?

Well... I think it's too much micromanaging. I prefer limit micro-managing to improve global play.

Of course, we could say we build a BIG tunnel to bridge one square, but I think it's more related to SimCity than an empire-managing game .

EDIT : Well, I see some seem to be bothered by lack of bridges. I guess you have trouble moving units to islands!!

I do. But I think a global management manager with automatic redistribution of military units would be better.

 

[aberwak]

I'd like to see some sort of sub-federal divisions (ie, states/provinces/etc.) so you can establish local capitals... sort of like a few of the wonders now, but you'd be able to have multiple states. I don't think I'd like this concept any more complicated than that (too much micromanagement), but this would allow to build larger empires a bit easier (or at least provide some relief from maintenance).

 

[SealJuice]

Give me a modification tool for noobs.

I like the engine the way it is, just give me more expansions.

Take the game from stone age well into the space age. Let me colonize the moon while still playing on earth.

Full random map button. Shuffle is weak.

Alien invasion expansion. Hey even make an invasion a huge random event. I love chaos!

Visuals for storms, volcanoes, and earthquakes.

Civilization collectible strategy game.

Fix carriers. We all agree they are useless.

More cowbell. I got a fever.

 

[silvio82]

I want a civilization that continue in the space with the colonization of other planets as Mars, spaceship units.

 

[peter450]

I'd like a remake of alpha Centauri/Alien crossfire

 

[Infantry#14]

Your military units already require support from your nation as a whole, it's the Unit Cost.

Yes, but in my idea, you have to support them food as well as money. Think of it this way, you have to pay them wages and feed them.

 

[Infantry#14]

Yes, but that would add a lot of boring micromanagement.

Simply having the units lose a percentage of their strength every turn they spend without supplies (= too far from their own cultural boarders and too far from the nearest friendly unit) would serve the same purpose without making things overly complex. A better solution IMHO.

Yes, without supply lines (mainly food cart), the military units would lose a percentage of health every turn. But if you do have supply, and your enemies dont, then you will have an advantage in battle. In civilization 4 (and the previous series), the siege warfare was never really implemented (where enemies that are cut off from supplies and are sitting duck in their city dont really suffer any attrition, so that after a prolong siege, the enemy should surrender or otherwise be much weaker). I think this is a good start to implement that feature.

Edit: With this siege warfare, there will be more field battles because enemy must get their supplies to their surrounded city (which is good).

To elaborate more on the central granary idea as discuss on page 1 (I think it's post#19), you can assign how much of each city's surplus food to the central granary. The central granary stores the food in case of war where you build those food cart for war, or simply deliver some food to cities with low food production. Also, you can trade your food with your neighbors in the diplomatic screen. This shouldnt be much micromangement.

 

[hoopsnerd]

Yes, but in my idea, you have to support them food as well as money. Think of it this way, you have to pay them wages and feed them.

Don't get me wrong, I think you're on to something with the need to supply troops... I just don't know how to make it work in civ mechanics. It is totally ridiculous that you can camp some units in enemy territory for 700 years with no penalty...

 

[seasnake]

This is the perfect place to put this, I posted it in another thread. It's my idea for another Civ IV expansion but could be part of Civ V in my opinion.

A reworking of diplomacy with the Great Diplomat.
Diplomats can be built after alphabet and conduct diplomatic missions, you can pay espionage points to do diplomatic missions. If carried out, thse missions successfully present options to the other civ to pick. Diplomats need open borders to enter (unless you are at war).

For example, trying to end a war, you can send a diplomat and pay some diplo points to offer a treaty. If the mission is successful but treaty is refused, war weariness goes up for the civ that refused. All diplomatic missions have a failure chance. No relations penalty for using a diplomat in someone's civ.

Diplo missions must be conducted in capitals. Diplomats can be killed by spies. If the word that it was your spy who killed a diplomat reaches the home civ, it is minus for relations. You can send your spies into other civs capitals and try to kill incoming diplomats if you think your enemies are getting too cozy.

The great diplomat can join as a specialist, adding espionage points, happiness and culture. They can build embassies, which give a permanent relations boost (embassies must be built in capitals of other civs). Their special ability is to end revolts in any city and bring them into the fold (Great for big cities you conquer). A city that has had a Great diplomat used to end its revolts won't ask to rejoin its mother civ again, you gain that status. Great diplomats have full diplomatic immunity and cannot be assasinated.

The great diplomat comes about from certain buildings and wonders, like spies do. Barbarians don't recognize diplomatic immunity, so if a barbs touch your diplomat he's gone. The great diplomat is likewise vulnerable, so he needs an escort as far as the borders of your neighbor (makes him different).

Finally the great Diplomate can start a golden age. And the great spy and diplomat and general can all be burned on research as well, for appropriate techs (I think buffing GG's buffs imperialistic, and I'm for that).

This way, people who don't want to commit random acts of terror or sabotage have an outlet for their espionage points. Missions include trying to get contact with other civs, arranging political weddings or treaty, free trade agreements, or creating a relations boost. If the other civ refuses, there are some consequences that still help the player that successfully pulls off a mission. Espionage points accrued by the great spy can be spent by your diplomats (Knowledge is power) as they try to maneuver your foes.

And finally, I'd bring back regicide mode. You kill the king piece of a civ, the civ collapses into barbarian states. Kings are always last to fall when the city they're in falls. One for each leader. Optional mode for quicker play.

 

[seasnake]

Also I'd like quantative resources as well as an optional real-time combat ability. But I honestly never expect to see that (very un-Civilization). Still, I think a diplomacy revamp would be fun.

 

[Infantry#14]

Don't get me wrong, I think you're on to something with the need to supply troops... I just don't know how to make it work in civ mechanics. It is totally ridiculous that you can camp some units in enemy territory for 700 years with no penalty...

When it comes to programming, I am a novice, so I dont know how firaxis can implement my idea. I do agree that something must be done so that military units cant stay in foreign lands forever.

For my idea to work, a civilization must build up its storage of food. Let say you have 4 cities over the course of 50 turns. City A is your capital and where your central granary/food storage place is located. City A is growing and has a surplus of 4 food/turn, then you can assign 2 food/turn for growing the city and 2 food/turn for storage. City B is your production city, and it needs all the food to grow, so it sends 0 food/turn to the central granary. City C is a farm city, and it produces 6 food/turn. So you manually assign the city to keep 3 food/turn for growing, and and 3 food/turn to central granary. City D is a commerce city, like the production city, so it doesnt contribute food to the central granary.

Ok, for the sake of simplicity in this example, you turn off pop growth for all cities, then each turn you are storing 5 food from cities A and C. Over the course of 50 turns, you have saved up to 250 food! Now, you prepare for war and build 5 supply carts (let say each can store 50 food). You send in 25 military units into foreign land. For each turn, each soldier consumes 1 food (or 1/2, 1/5, can be arbitary). So, your war can only last about 10 turns (assuming no unit dies). Once food runs out, each turn, your unit cant heal and suffer 1/10 health penalty (and morale penalty, another idea, read page 1) while in foreign/neutral land.

Of course, you can also buy food from your neighbors, so your units will last longer, but not indefinitely.

On the other hand, if you siege your opponent's city and blockade/cut off his supply, then each turn, enemy military units in the sieged city will compete for food with the citizens. Since there is only a limited food supply within a city, your opponents must quickly send supplies to the sieged city, or else the defenders would each turn cannot heal and suffer 1/10 health penalty (and a morale penalty).

Regarding the morale penalty, if your units get surrounded (enemy occupy the surrounding 8 tiles, less if there are mountains or water) or run out of food, then they will suffer a morale penalty. If the units' morale goes too low, then there is a chance that they will defect to the enemy's rank.

As I said before, these are basic ideas, so feel free to comment.

 

[Zhahz]

By the time the next civ comes out, I'm sure better graphics will be possible, not that it really matters in a game like this, but you can be sure they'll be different.

I'd hope for even better AI, better diplomacy, and more options tied into the existing good stuff.

I dislike the majority of ideas presented in this thread - most of them seem to reflect individual desires that would maybe fit scenarios but would be detrimental to the overall game in general. Many don't seem to fit the spirit of Civ as a whole, which I've always seen as being simple yet elegant.

Ultimately, I want Civ to remain Civ.

 

[SickCycle]

More realism, I'd enjoy a more civilization simulation which is actually fairly close to what Civilization is aimed at.

However, I believe a long time ago in a previous Civ you could build in space and underwater, I'd really like this added into the next Civ in a more high tech way with our better technology and resources at our disposable this could be an amazing new aspect and way to expand the game outside its boundaries while still maintaining realism.

We do have a space station built.. ya know?

Underwater would be amazing though.

Also, I read something someone posted about adding Immigration/Refuges from destroyed cities thing of that nature, you could take a lesson from real life and in captured cities there could be damage to troops until order is restored a chance of losing control and it reverting to a new nation if your military isn't adequate compared to the size of the enemy population.

Better City/Worker governing.

Better UU/UB/Traits. Unique traits to each civ would be cool.

A way to emphasis the ancient era and how even though they were single civilization a lot of the time they were infact city states run independantly and would actually war against eachother or there is a chance of it.

Your first city could be yours after that it could be a sort of internal vassal system with the chance to have internal struggles until you research a certain tech, even in the modern era there could be a trigger or triggers to create a civil war at the end of which the country rejoins or possibly part of it seperates. (not sure how players would react though)

More accuracy for ancient era units, maybe more civ specific all the way through the tech tree, different building names for different civs with certain tweaks to how they operate, kind of like UB's now but a much broader.

Possibly the ability to create your OWN civilization, the ability to possible go into religion more even though I'm not religious it would be cool to be able to found your own religion and have different choices that you decide on for that religion actually effect it and your civilization in different ways.

More in depth counter intell, maybe a form of mis-information. I think the espionage aspect could really change the game.

This may be far out there but this was a tactic used in ancient times.. Tunneling to bypass fortifications.

A empasis on the early stage of man would be cool, instead of just going strait to states run by governments you could start as tribes with simple tools and gradually build at a slower pace then we do now.

Use some of the new technologies coming out today for techs and units, they are working on all kinds of cool things for troops these days, unmanned aircraft, robotics things like that, there are concepts for space weapons we already have, one is something along the lines of well I can't remember the name it's like thor or something but I know thats wrong.. anyway, it's a device that holds huge metal polls in space and your able to target a city or area and when released the steel pole falls to the earth with such force it's like dropping a man made meteor, and that isnt fantasy thats real life they have it designed.

You could go science fiction and have a chance to discover an alien craft or tech, or be visited.. that would never happen but it would be soooo coooool

More emphasis on slavery and how it actually works, regardless of your ehtical view slavery was a major foundation of ancient times and right up until modern times. In ancient era it could be argued one of it's founding pillars for civilization.

I think different tech paths that you "COULDN'T" change or cross over from without some kind of trading from another civilization. For instance you start with 4 options for different starting techs, one is more Aggressive, one is more Builder, one is more, Cultural, .. you get the point.. you could have distinct paths that aren't easy to move across.

You could also do things a totally different way concerning technology which my be more accurate, in order to learn a new tech you have to have the resource first or the need first, meaning before you learn how to work bronze.. you have to have a copper source within your border. Thats how it worked in real life, you didnt learn how to craft bronze and "THEN" discover bronze it was the other way around. To build seige craft or buildings of a certain type you could be required to have certain materials, or you would have different defenses, which also ties into the different tech paths. If your in the middle of the desert you didnt build wooden buildings or weapons you molded them out of stone/mud.

I think in general a more realistic taking of how civilization progressed and the order and realism of it would be nice.

I also think they should remember one thing, all great games, all great things I would wager have one thing in common..

.. They pushed the envelope, they took a risk and went for it. They need to push the envelope to keep a truly great game.. truly great.

The expectations only get higher.

 

[hoopsnerd]

When it comes to programming, I am a novice, so I dont know how firaxis can implement my idea. I do agree that something must be done so that military units cant stay in foreign lands forever.

For my idea to work, a civilization must build up its storage of food. Let say you have 4 cities over the course of 50 turns. City A is your capital and where your central granary/food storage place is located. City A is growing and has a surplus of 4 food/turn, then you can assign 2 food/turn for growing the city and 2 food/turn for storage. City B is your production city, and it needs all the food to grow, so it sends 0 food/turn to the central granary. City C is a farm city, and it produces 6 food/turn. So you manually assign the city to keep 3 food/turn for growing, and and 3 food/turn to central granary. City D is a commerce city, like the production city, so it doesnt contribute food to the central granary.

Ok, for the sake of simplicity in this example, you turn off pop growth for all cities, then each turn you are storing 5 food from cities A and C. Over the course of 50 turns, you have saved up to 250 food! Now, you prepare for war and build 5 supply carts (let say each can store 50 food). You send in 25 military units into foreign land. For each turn, each soldier consumes 1 food (or 1/2, 1/5, can be arbitary). So, your war can only last about 10 turns (assuming no unit dies). Once food runs out, each turn, your unit cant heal and suffer 1/10 health penalty (and morale penalty, another idea, read page 1) while in foreign/neutral land.

Of course, you can also buy food from your neighbors, so your units will last longer, but not indefinitely.

On the other hand, if you siege your opponent's city and blockade/cut off his supply, then each turn, enemy military units in the sieged city will compete for food with the citizens. Since there is only a limited food supply within a city, your opponents must quickly send supplies to the sieged city, or else the defenders would each turn cannot heal and suffer 1/10 health penalty (and a morale penalty).

Regarding the morale penalty, if your units get surrounded (enemy occupy the surrounding 8 tiles, less if there are mountains or water) or run out of food, then they will suffer a morale penalty. If the units' morale goes too low, then there is a chance that they will defect to the enemy's rank.

As I said before, these are basic ideas, so feel free to comment.

I like it, to wage a war you actually have to change things at home. You're population shouldnt be growing too rapidly anyways during a war (most men are off fighting in the army), and it definately makes sense for units to have supply lines. You'd need to tweak some things to make it more feasable with the micromanagement issue, but it's a good idea.

 

[hoopsnerd]

This is the perfect place to put this, I posted it in another thread. It's my idea for another Civ IV expansion but could be part of Civ V in my opinion.

A reworking of diplomacy with the Great Diplomat.
Diplomats can be built after alphabet and conduct diplomatic missions, you can pay espionage points to do diplomatic missions. If carried out, thse missions successfully present options to the other civ to pick. Diplomats need open borders to enter (unless you are at war).

For example, trying to end a war, you can send a diplomat and pay some diplo points to offer a treaty. If the mission is successful but treaty is refused, war weariness goes up for the civ that refused. All diplomatic missions have a failure chance. No relations penalty for using a diplomat in someone's civ.

Diplo missions must be conducted in capitals. Diplomats can be killed by spies. If the word that it was your spy who killed a diplomat reaches the home civ, it is minus for relations. You can send your spies into other civs capitals and try to kill incoming diplomats if you think your enemies are getting too cozy.

The great diplomat can join as a specialist, adding espionage points, happiness and culture. They can build embassies, which give a permanent relations boost (embassies must be built in capitals of other civs). Their special ability is to end revolts in any city and bring them into the fold (Great for big cities you conquer). A city that has had a Great diplomat used to end its revolts won't ask to rejoin its mother civ again, you gain that status. Great diplomats have full diplomatic immunity and cannot be assasinated.

The great diplomat comes about from certain buildings and wonders, like spies do. Barbarians don't recognize diplomatic immunity, so if a barbs touch your diplomat he's gone. The great diplomat is likewise vulnerable, so he needs an escort as far as the borders of your neighbor (makes him different).

Finally the great Diplomate can start a golden age. And the great spy and diplomat and general can all be burned on research as well, for appropriate techs (I think buffing GG's buffs imperialistic, and I'm for that).

This way, people who don't want to commit random acts of terror or sabotage have an outlet for their espionage points. Missions include trying to get contact with other civs, arranging political weddings or treaty, free trade agreements, or creating a relations boost. If the other civ refuses, there are some consequences that still help the player that successfully pulls off a mission. Espionage points accrued by the great spy can be spent by your diplomats (Knowledge is power) as they try to maneuver your foes.

And finally, I'd bring back regicide mode. You kill the king piece of a civ, the civ collapses into barbarian states. Kings are always last to fall when the city they're in falls. One for each leader. Optional mode for quicker play.

fAntasic idea

 

[Photi]

reading this thread i was reminded of another thread from back in '02 when we were anticipating Civ IV. it is interesting to go and look and what people were saying then about the game we now enjoy.

under my old account i was me4peace and this is part of my contribution to how i thought the next civ, civIV, should be expanded on.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=33910

me4peace:

"civilization so far has completly ignored the phenomenon of prophethood, such a powerful force in human history. take a quick look at what moses, jesus, and muhammad (peace be upon them) have done for humanity, despite the violence of a few of their followers who have nothing to do with god. early in the game, if your civ (or the ai's) is lucky enough, determined (in the game) by some mathmatical formula, you could witness a prophet and his revelation, giving a huge boost to culture and an instant wonder of the world, maybe bringing 4 or 5 formerly enemy cities into your culutual sphere. prophets have always been a miraculous unifying force. maybe make a rule where only 1 in the game appears in the ancient era, and have some factors that determine which civ will receive him...if even only by chance.

"God and His infinate mercy has brought the people of France a Prophet. The citizens of Ravenna, Heliopolis, Antioch, Hamadan and Edo have witnessed the miracle and decided to join your civilization!"

anyway, i think there are many more variables that can be brought into the game, making it even more complex. for those of us who already know the game thus far, even making it twice as complex wouldn't be out of the realm of learning it. but i could see where starting from no knowledge of the game and trying to learn it would be kind of difficult."

 

[Infantry#14]

how about another idea, each worker that stays in the city contribute 1 hammer per turn to the city building productions. This is useful at lategame when workers have nothing to do. Also, this should combine with serfdom to make that civic more popular.

 

[Dida]

I would like to see a more accurate portrayal of modern economy and warfare in civ. Economy in all civ games are more or less "agricultural" in the sense that a civ's economic might is largely tied to its land area and population size. While this is an accurate simulation of an agricultural economy where farmers work the land to produce food and then sell food to raise money, it is not so accurate when the economy shifts to become commercial.
Nowadays, people no longer work the "tiles" to produce commerce and production. New Yorkers for example, don't go up to Bronx and dig gold out of the ground. A commercial city like NY is simulated to some extent with the introduction of Corporations, I would like to see this concept explored and developed further. Maybe the corporations as they are in BtS should represent state-owned enterprise and there should also be private companies and grows and expands automatically depending on national policy and economic environment. Instead of low-level micromanagement, I think there should be more high-level policymaking. The player would build civil projects like tunnels, bridges, power plants, but there should be a more hands-off approach with regards to corporations and banks. The player instead of building them directly, will set policies and tax brackets to encourage or discourage certain growth.
Cities should be able to share food, especially with modern shipping and refrigeration technology. This way, certain cities can focus entirely on banking/corporate, others entirely on industrial production or academia, etc.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

AND the throne room! That's a biggy for me. One unique for each civ.

I'd like the throne room back, *and* the High Council. And the Polynesians as a civ.