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

[Keitosha]

I was thinking about a feature which allows every civ to hold (their own) tournaments with all kinds of sports, like organizing the World Cup (Soccer) or The Olympic Games and the winner gets an economical boost/culture boost/happiness boost in the whole country.

 

[Lacaixa]

One thing that really bugs me in Civ IV is the none era specific clothing of the leaders. Hands up who misses seeing Genghis in a bowler hat. I know I do.
But really leaders should wear different clothing from their own culture through the different ages It would be interesting even to have the leaders done by real actors in the form of cut scenes with generic phrases like "so be it" etc being spoken but negotiations being in the form of a mixture of text and spoken. " I offer you this " plus text for example.

 

[PieceOfMind]

What needs to be in Civ 5:

• Improved ERGONOMICS and ACCES TO INFORMATION. In other words, save our poor wrists, thumbs and fingers! A fantastic game can be a real chore to play if it is clumsily designed regardless of what fancy features are in the game.

What I'd like to see in Civ 5.

• (Feature-wise) Real Borders... see this thread.

 

[GenocideBringer]

-MORE AI CODERS.

Blake does a good job, but the complexity needed for the AI in a Civ game is staggering. The fact that the AI was lacking in so many areas until BTS demonstrates this. AI is among the most important parts of the game.

 

[iamdaduck]

I'd like to see a lot of things kind of just reworked completely really but here's my main suggestion and it involves the creation of a true army.

I really want armies in battle. It seems kind of crazy to me that this has not been done yet. So many other ideas in the game are based around realism but combat is about as unrealistic as could be IMO. Along these lines:

• Combat bonus for a balanced army. The armies should be more effective when they have a good balance of ranged, mobile, and melee units within them.
• A command structure for armies. It doesn't need to be more than a few levels deep but give every unit a commander and every Army a general and one supreme commander per civilization you are at war with. The army gets bonuses based on the specific talents of the general or supreme commander or lt general etc...Can you imagine the fun to be had? It would be easy to automate and a joy for those who love the micromanagement side.
• Armies should require supply lines. Allow individual units to defend as armies when in cities but force armies outside your borders to maintain supply lines.
• Size allowed of armies should be based on population and a military expenditure %.

 

[mr_Heathen]

I would expect:

- implementation of political borders, unchangeable as a result of culture processes.

- Better combat system between stacks of units. This not a Bruce Lee movie, that one unit can attack a huge stack, and fights only one unit, with the rest just waiting for their turn and staring.

- military units should be made more expensive to build and maintain, so that a "big army" means less units.

- Think of another benefit you can get from tiles (apart from beakers, commerce and hammers) and add more tiles

- Find a usage for mountains

 

[Öjevind Lång]

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).

[snip]

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.

I like all your suggestions except the regicide one.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

Sid Meier decided on 4000 B. C. as the starting point for the game because he believed that that was the time at which the first city was founded. The real time was 2,000 years earlier than that - Jericho was founded about 6000 B. C. (It was the administrative centre for an agricultural district.) I think the neolithic/Bronze age doesn't last long enough. Then, of course, some people think the ancient age lasts too long as it is. Perhaps one could have "early start" as an option, with some extra bonuses and events thrown in? There wouldn't have to be all that many turns for those extra 2,000 years,

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I'd like to see more features that makes the game seem alive.
1. Unique personalities for the AI's, with lots of little quirks, not just level of aggressiveness.
2. Please drop the silly stuff, Caesar talking about salad is not funny, its annoying.

I disagree, but Caesar hasn't talked about salad since Civ III, so that item is a moot point. More generally, I don't see why the leaders shouldn't say funny things at times.

 

[George2816]

Well Civilization has had a long run and we should keep it that way. But in order for that to happen the game needs just a little tweaking. The overall reason of this thread is to give back to Firaxis. They gave us four Civ games so the least we could do is give back... by letting them know what we want in and/or out. This would be good for both Firaxis and the fans for the simple fact if the people demand it then the companies will bring it. They will make more money and the fans will be more happier. Now I have no problem how Sid Meier make, develop, and produce his games but all I'm saying is if the Civ community comes together and share their ideas with Sid and Firaxis they just might consider an idea or two. This isn't fantasy folks. Firaxis would accepted a few fan scenarios in the BtS expansion pack so why not just a few more all together? I'm sure that they just might take this into acception. So just throw down your expectations for the next Civ or a few ideas or whatever. It's time Civ gets a new makeover.

I would like work in space and a few other planets (like they did in civ2 test of time). WHy did they kill that idea anyways??

 

[Öjevind Lång]

-Some method of grabbing recourses outside of your cultural boundary, A la Civ 3?

I believe you can do that buy building a fort and linking it to your nearest city. Or does the for tonly work that way within cultural borders?

 

[Öjevind Lång]

One thing that really bugs me in Civ IV is the none era specific clothing of the leaders. Hands up who misses seeing Genghis in a bowler hat. I know I do.

So do I! And Shaka in Victorian attire with a family protrait of himself in his ancient getup on the wall behind him.

 

[pandnotp]

ICBMs should require two turns to impact, with one turn in flight. Radar should be a building that tells you if they're in flight with 50% reliability and satellites should increase detection to 100% and indicate targets. Tactical nukes should be mountable on trucks, deal less damage, and be cheaper.

Techs should cost more but every turn you should receive some bleed flasks. You get flasks for trade routes with civs that have the tech and contact with them and other measures. More contact means more flask bleed. It could work out to equal teching and would be an incentive to interact more as in real life.

Social characteristics should be mutable, with buildings and public spending increasing propensities. Building theaters should make soldiers cost more and culture cost less. These basic social goods would compete with each other for a production pie but, unlike with great people, the distribution would matter every turn and be a forced consequence of everything. You might use three or four, say "aggression, community, expression, research" so that building lots of soldiers leads to a larger aggression slice, meaning soldiers are cheaper and theaters less effective and more expensive.

Quantitative resources are a great idea. Also bridges would be fantastic.

Also, how about LSD as a tech? Embrace it and get a huge culture boost at the cost of production and military, or reject it and have to spend more on pacification of the populace with television and consumption. Just an idea...

 

[Emperor_B-slap]

It's really hard to guess where they might take the series from here without bogging you down with far too many details to be enjoyable. One thing I would like to see for once is a release with few notable bugs instead of them just trying to push it out the door as soon as possible. Some of the currently existing bugs are VERY irritating, like trying to degroup units that you have grouped together, only to have it keep selecting the group again. You can't honestly tell me they didn't notice that before Beyond the Sword was shipped.

I find some of the features that some of the people in this thread want to be a little silly. Some people seem to want the combat of the aspect of the game to become crazy complicated with a ton of factors affecting it, as if the game doesn't give you enough to think about as it is. When I go to attack someone, I don't want to have to break out my calculator and plug in my city population, stack size, average height of my soldiers, "Are they getting enough calcium in their diet?", wind direction, etc. Come on...seriously, the combat does not need to be more complicated. It would just make the AI even worse at judging it than it already is anyway.

I think I'd like them to stop with the "first to discover the tech" bonuses, if only because you can't get the earlier ones on higher difficulty settings regardless of how you play, because the AI simply outproduces you. The most annoying aspect of that is religion discovery I suppose.

I want the AI civs not to ask me to declare war with the same person turn after turn after turn. No means no, okay?

Stop making wonders that are hardly relevant if you are actually in a position to even be able to spend time on them. For example, "The Internet."

Again, about the early game: I think the current resource model is far too swingy. Oh, I have no iron or horses, but my neighbor does. Well, screw. How about maybe just making access to the resource give a slight bonus to certain units or something (maybe as if to represent greater numbers or quality of material)? I don't know. The current way kind of annoys me sometimes though. It crosses a certain threshold of "too much randomness" for a strategy game for me.

None of these are grand sweeping changes I guess. I really don't know what they could add to the game that would make it more enjoyable while still keeping it a proper Civ game. Maybe they could get really goofy and make the trade aspect a bit more interactive or something, but I'm not really sure if they could do that in a fun and interesting way without taking away from the rest of the game. It almost seems to me that, other than the still-sometimes-stupid-but-not-as-stupid-as-in-previous-Civ-games AI and countless rather-unforgivable-for-a-released-retail-product bugs, there isn't a whole lot of places left to go for this series.

I'm sure they'll think of something though.

On one last note, I'm going to be annoyed if they take things out of Civ V (assuming they make one), only to reinclude them in a later expansion, but they would never do that, would they?

 

[jdurg]

I would like to see the introduction of a millitary slider. If you are in war, you can increase your millitary slider and would decrease the cost of building units, maintaining units, and building wartime buildings and city improvements. On the flip side, your culture wouldn't increase as quickly, and cost for non-millitary type improvements and upkeep would increase to prevent you from constantly staying at a maximum millitary level while also building numerous wonders and non-millitary type buildings/units.

I think they need to do a better job with nuclear weaponry as well as creat other non-nuclear type missiles.

The ability to create nuclear weapons would require the National Wonder "Atomic Weapons Project". Completing this would allow you to build nuclear weapons. You would need the following to complete the Atomic Weapons Project;

Fission, Physics, Uranium, 2+ Universities in your empire, nuclear secrets.

Nuclear secrets would be optional, however it is something that you could obtain through espionage once other civs have built their nuclear weapons programs. Stealing the "nuclear secrets" would reduce your production cost for the Atomic Weapons Project by 50%.

The Manhattan Project would still be a World Wonder and would replace the Atomic Weapons Project for the first Civ to research nuclear weapons. (E.G. once the Manhattan Project is built once, it is replaced by the Atomic Weapons Project for all other Civs). If you build the Manhattan Project, you get a 50% reduction on the cost of all nuclear weapons you build.

If you have a nuclear power plant in your city, that city can make nuclear weapons at half the production cost. (Since the nuke plant would be able to provide highly enriched uranium, or plutonium for the creation of the weapons). If you did not build a nuke plant, you could still get a 25% reduction in the cost of the nuclear weapons if you had a University in your city. (Since you would then be using the school's reactor to generate weapons grade material). Some balance would need to be tested in regards to just how much of a reduction in cost it would give you, but if you got the Manhattan Project and some nuke plants, uranium and universities you could amass a great stockpile of nuclear weapons just like real life.

Speaking of weapons, I think the nuclear weapons would need to be lowered a little bit in strength. The early weapons weren't all that powerful and I think that should be represented by the tactical nukes. They can cause a great deal of damage, but they won't lay an entire city to waste and won't spread fallout over a great area. They'd actually be something you can use in a war but would have low yield and really would only take out the weaker units in a stack.

ICBMs would come along after rocketry is researched and would allow you to take out targets from across the world. Their destructive power would be a bit greater than a tactical nuke and they would completely wipe out units garrisoned in a city and spread some fallout to surrounding tiles.

Once Fusion is researched, Thermonuclear Warheads could be created. They'd be stronger than ICBMs and would completely lay waste to a target. They would spread fall-out to a wide area and make the land virtually uninhabitable for quite a long time. The massive destruction they would cause would make them a "last resort" type of weapon and one that would hold quite a bit of diplomatic weight. As a result, you would have three types of nukes in the game; tactical, ICBM, Thermonuclear.

A new addition to the game would be potential for failure. When a Civ first starts building nuclear weapons (Tactical, ICBM, or Thermonuclear) they carry a fairly high % chance of failure. That is, when sent off for a strike they would cause damage to the target, but they wouldn't truly detonate and would wind up being like a weak bombardment. To combat this, you can reduce the chances of a nuke failing by testing nuclear weapons.

Every time a nuke is built, it carries a risk of failing unless you test it. If you test it, you lose the nuclear weapon but the next nuke that is built carries a smaller chance of failing. The more universities you have and the more nukes you test, the smaller the chance of them failing. The thing is, you would need to have a spot of land available in your empire where you could launch the nuke to test it. In doing so, you'd alert everyone around the world that you're testing nukes and it could diplomatically hurt you. On the other hand, you could just not test it and hope that they work when you need them to. If you launch a dud, the civ you attacked would suddenly "gain" nuclear secrets and if they hadn't yet researched nuclear weapons they'd be able to do so cheaper.

Each type of weapon you build would require testing. Therefore, if you routinely tested tactical nukes and got them to almost never fail, if you started building ICBMs you'd need to test those as well. The thing is, the ICBMs would start out with a lower failure % than tacticals. Same thing with Thermonuclears.

I also think they should bring back cruise missiles and other missile type weapons that aren't nuclear. I like the usage of missiles and other weapons that you can launch from a good distance away and use in war. If you don't have access to uranium, you can still build missiles but not nuclear ones. Your other option is to include biological weapons and chemical weapons that will cause damage to the opponent and has a slight chance of causing damage to yourself and others (biological) if you have airports.

 

[prestermatt]

I disagree, but Caesar hasn't talked about salad since Civ III, so that item is a moot point. More generally, I don't see why the leaders shouldn't say funny things at times.

No, he mentions salad in Civ4, and it's a pretty stupid quote given that caesar salad has nothing to do with Julius Caesar or Romans at all. It was created in Mexico in the 1920s.

I think there is room in the game for clever humor, but not for the silly and stupid things that are unfortunately common in the Civ4 dialogues.

 

[Anastase]

Well my requests for the next CIV could be summed up in this list:

1) There should be an option so Cities could develope in different ways than the fat cross. The fat cross is unrealistic. A city should start as it is right now, with 9 squares, and then expand only one square at a time with the maximum distance from the main city being 5 squares, to expand to a point you would need culture and sometimes roads, and the maximum squares a city can ocuppy would be 20, as it is now.

2) Civilisations usually arise after the city - state stage. I would like to see this implemented in a future civ.

3) Culture should spread in different ways. Monumements and religions represent culture. If your style of culture is the same with a rival you get bonus on diplomacy, and it is easier for their citizens to be assimilated to your civilization. When you conquer a city buildings built before your arival should still contribute to that nation's culture. Forts, rivers, music, movies, epics, religion all should bne taken into account.

4) Political borders.

5) Forts should also provide the following bionus: if a unit is fortified into a fort, it is considered to know the area around it better and depending on the civics it can: produce gold (sustain itself) at the price of not being as effective (-20% stength), gain extra combat power in the area 2 squares around the fort (+25% strength) as it knows where to make a fight where to lead an ambush etc), be a prison (-25% war weariness if you have 1 fort/ city), other options that I have not yet thought of.

6)Allow great prophets to create a scism in religion to create a sub religion like orthodox/ catholic church of christianity, sunits ans shiits of muslim, etc.

7)Allow imigrants from war, culture or other reasons. They could be used acording to your civics. Examples include but are not restricted to: after conquewring a city taking part of the population and sending it to another city of yours where it wil integrate in your civillisation faster, while sending some from your pure civilians in that city (to raise the percentage of people from your empire), to capturing part of the popultaion of a city to be used as slaves in your city, to people willing to join your empire because of its more humain constitution or lesser inflation rating (economical refugees).

8) an option to play with quantitative resources

9) ability to build bridgies and dams but also to create canals.

10) military units are civilians given weaponry and proper training. Creating soldiers should use food as well as production. Disbanding soldiers should provide some food.

11) barbarian cities that exist long enough become city states then minor civilisations.

12)war weariness should also depend on what city produced what unit. If you send a unit from city A to war but no units from city B city A gets more war weariness than city B. Thus if one city has all the military production, it would make sense that that city should also get some buildings to keep her happy about sending her chieldren to be slaughtered.

13) cities requesting buildings to be built (provided that Ai does not demand completely stupid things like this city needs a coloseum when the city is at population 3 and does not even have a forge) and if you switch your production to that you get +1 happy + x hammers per turn to complete it.

14)making pilliaging and sieges more interesting by: a)cutting trade routes with a unit give money the first turn you do so, equal to the amout that the trade route would give its owner b) if a city is completely cut off ( all 8 squares around it blocked), it looses 1 pop per turn and all units loose a percentage of their strength every round, in additon to the current bombardment system.

15) better automated workers. At the moment they tend to do oh so many useless things. Give us options to prioritise what they should do, like I do not want cottages if the square will latter be usefull for improvement X.

16)narcotics, slavery, porn, gambling and all those "vilain" things are a potent market. They are a form of resources unless your civics are against them. If not too politicly incorect for a game they should somehow be implemented.

17)espionage could also bribe leaders not to try to improve their country as it now happens in the third world.

18)Option to start without any characteristics on your civilisation and get them as time passes by, through your choises of aggresiveness, building culture and by factors such as the climate you live in etc.

19)Future technologie should be added based on current research being done on subjects such as exploiting nuclear fision, creating highscraper cities that add to the maximum population a city can have, create cerebral implants that allow to control machinery through thought etc.

that's all for now folks

 

[Anastase]

Also. Does anyone know if any of the features I stated before is implemented in full or partly in a mod?

 

[Soneji]

I would like something akin to the cold war, which at the moment is impossible when you can run a state property democracy.

 

[hoopsnerd]

I would like something akin to the cold war, which at the moment is impossible when you can run a state property democracy.

And why wouldn't that be entirely possible in real life? "communism" isn't a catch-all term that describes a form of government as the 1950s "red scare" in the US would have you believe. A "communist democracy" is a perfectly logical concept... I hardly believe that Karl Marx had the despotic communism of the USSR in mind when he created the philosophy. Civ 4 does a good job with "civics" in that it allows you to mix and match them and create governments that are possible but uncommon in today's world. A state property democracy? That actually sounds pretty smart, why wouldn't people in a true democracy vote to share things equally in society instead of let the richest individuals influence the rest? Free Market has it's drawbacks you must realize... lobbyists/corporations get too much power, etc...