What do you want to see in Civilization 5?

[bbooth]

I would like to see a more options for negotiation to end war, instead of just being told that they dont wish to speak to you !

 

[Suspiria]

first thing i want to see in Civ5 is the following. I want the game state somewhat to represent our real world history. Starting with civilizations...i would like to see mnay civilizations each controlling a little bit of territory. Upwards of 100 civs per map. But i would want the map worlds absolutely HUGE to accomodate them. For example say if Britain in Civ4 would only represent a few tiles...i would like that to change in Civ5 to a large land area in of itself..to 50 tiles or more...So when you explore or conquer areas areas it really takes some huge effort on your part.

I like the idea of Minor civs that people are suggesting..but i would like all civs to be equal...just not all civs to be playable (because i cant see their being over 100 unique units) ...I would like the introduction of villages and towns as opposed to cities...these villages and towns are controlled by a lord or whatever...they are not HUGE civilations that expand...they only number maybe 1 to 5 villages. These small tribal villages each have their own little farmland and specialised resources which they mine/farm/cultivate. So you as the main player want those extra resources for your civ? well there should be many ways you can go about it...Build up your culture and influence those civs...conquer them by military force...or get to them join by pure diplomatic means.

Say you start out as a small village building your civilization out and so far at this point there are no cultural borders or land seperations. You have a warrior unit armed with wooden clubs who you send up north...this unit then discovers a village of a rival tribe to your own...what happens next? perhaps this tribe is impressed by your culture and offers to join your civ...perhaps this civ welcomes you as friends and offers trade but thats it...perhaps this civ is hostile and vows to crush you to the ground...perhaps this civ is impressed and frightened by your military power and offers you constant resources ansd monetary compensation in order for you to let them live in in peace...or perhaps this civ is weaker than you and offers you resource compensation if you offer it protection...(similar to a vassal state). There should be a variety of ways to approach every situation. Which brings me to the next thing...

The next thing i would like is a complete overhaul of the military unit system. First of all you know how cities have cultural influence which expands your territory? Why is it only culture that expands influence? If anything Military might and power is also something that expands and controls territory. So what im announcing is that all military units have a ZONE OF INFLUENCE...so say with the tribal thing that i was talking about before say you march your soldiers close to a rival tribes territory...imediately this should have an effect on the people...they should be frightened of your power and willing to submit to your demands...perhaps they are strongwilled and defensive and vow to fight you off...perhaps they are a bunch of savage barbarians and just want to kill you all together...or perhaps they are willing to come to an amicable agreement? All because you have soldiers near their villages. So what im asking is that military units have a military zone of influence which extends 2 or 3 blocks more then the unit occupies. Also for example say when you invade the borders of a rival nation...immediately their territory should be claimed by the zone of influence of your military units...you know when you look at an old war map and see when some nation like French Napoleon or nazi germany invades a rival nation all the territory that they conquer with their miliary immediately becomes absorbed into their own? i would like something like that...

For example say you have conquered a rival tribe by force but their still rebellious and want to fight you off...all you have to do is establish a fort between situated between their villages...which gives you a permanent Military zone of influence(as long as you have a military force present there) amongst those tribal villages and controls them under your will...so they wont rebel or rise up so easily. A fortification (for example say like a typical roman fort) should give you an extra strength bonus in its zone of influence...so if you have an uprising this fort should also give you a small operational bonus within its zone of its influence...i think the fort is also similar to a supply route...when you invade a foreign land you need to have forts(or in modern terms - miliary bases) to back you up otherwise you lose your operational bonus...

Civil wars and rebellions are also something people here are talking a lot about...well i think with the tribal villages thing i was talking about there could be civil wars and rebellions instigated by these tribal villages...so when you switch a civ or change government or lose favour with the people they rise up and mobilise their forces against you...you wouldn't directly control these villages/towns so you wouldnt lose a huge city with your own units in it straight away...but with your forces in the area it would be up to you to mobilise forces and quash the enemy...it would certainly be interesting...

More of my thoughts to come...btw im half drunk so excuse the grammatical errors

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

More realistic resource system, where stocks of it deplete and others can only support a certain size. It would give more value to aquiring more resources outside of just selling them to a neighbor.

I would also like to see a more detailed economic system.

 

[JonnyB]

I'm new so I apologize if I'm rehashing old ideas.
I think at some point there should be a diplomacy option to create fixed borders with a neighboring civ. Anywhere your 2 nations borders touch would lock into place either until one nations borders receded, war was declared, or the deal was ended. Cities would not flip from culture (which is bad because I usually come out on top when that happens), and diplomatic relations would improve because close borders would no longer spark tensions and because it would show a mutual respect for soveriegnty. After all culture alone doesn't dictate borders or Canada would be a U.S. state by now.

 

[Mewtarthio]

I believe you can cant you with caravan units or the civ 4 equivelent of the caravan if that item is required in the recieving city !

There is no Civ4 equivalent of a Caravan. Caravans disappeared in CivIII.

 

[Joe Harker]

Total elimination of the UN. In reality the UN is as corrupt as it is impotent. If I'm even close to pulling off a UN win I'll quit just out of principle.

I agree the un is corrupt but i do think diplomency needs to work on a bit more

 

[Joe Harker]

After all culture alone doesn't dictate borders or Canada would be a U.S. state by now.

more like the other way round

 

[Joe Harker]

More realistic resource system, where stocks of it deplete and others can only support a certain size. It would give more value to aquiring more resources outside of just selling them to a neighbor.

I would also like to see a more detailed economic system.

I agree, i think it stupid to trade one oil and that be it, every unit must have a supply of food and fuel to keep it going per turn,

 

[corazone]

SECRECY!

If i play a huge continent game, it should be impossible for me for example if i am aztec, to know if the egyptians built the pyramids. should be secret.
If I play multiplayer, I should not know anything about my competitors points, power, gnp gold, mfg prod etc. look 1939 when germany shocked the world, nobody knew the real power they had because it was kept in secrecy. Dictator states are closed to the outside.
How do we know if north korea really posesses nuclear bombs? How do we know if their army is 1 or 2 million big? We don't even know it today, the exact sum.
Things should be kept in secret since its not realistic that if Ii start a game, i have superb ground with lots of resources, and i build wonders etc, and have 500 civ points, while my friend only has 200 points. Then I know that he is most propably weak, and I should start search for him to exterminate him.
Remove the visible points/statistics now, even in civ 4!!
Let them come in later in game, for example, researching "economics" should give access to GNP GOLD information about enemies/allies.

 

[kkkk29]

I agree that religion should be independent of the tech tree. In general, the game is too dependent on the tech tree. This makes the game too dependent on early game play (the premature climax problem), and specifically, the early game acquisition of land (land based economy problem).

A new religion can be a major boost for a struggling civilization, and historically, this is probably not too far off base. Ideas such as religion do not necessarily come from highly advanced civilizations. Revolutionary ideas, such as a new religion, are often discovered in times of strife, in depressed places. If religions are always discovered via the tech tree, then religion only serves to further the imbalance problems of premature climax and land based economy by giving the most advanced and powerful civilizations a bigger advantage. (Technological advancement comes from having a lot of land, which was acquired early in the game.)

I have two solutions to help with this issue. First, I think the tech tree needs to be redone. Second, the way resources are derived from land and traded between civilizations needs to be altered to provide balance between development and expansion.

Tech Tree

A solution I propose for the tech tree is to bifurcate the tech tree into a "knowledge" tree and an "innovation" tree. The knowledge tree would be similar to the existing tech tree except that advancement would not give a civilization any new buildings or units or tradable goods, and advancements would not be directly tradable. However, knowledge tree advancements would indirectly spread to/from civilizations that have diplomatic relations, and spread faster for civilizations with trade relations (similar to the way current religion might spread but it won’t be city specific).

Further, trade benefits would be greater for civilizations with similar advancement in the knowledge tree. In other words, an advanced civilization that makes cars can’t sell cars to a civilization that has not learned about machinery. Also, the advanced civilization would have little benefit buying bead necklaces from the civilization that does not know about machinery. However, over time, with peaceful diplomatic relations, the benefits of trade could grow between these two civilizations. Two civilizations that already know about cars can trade all levels of goods between each other.

The innovation tree, however, would be the way knowledge is converted to a useful technology. Broad scientific research is not the sole means to making technology. A civilization may have the knowledge of gunpowder, but that doesn’t mean it has the ability to produce guns. Industrial processes, infrastructure, trained workers, a distribution network, and regulations are all required before the knowledge of gunpowder can be converted into actual guns. The innovation tree serves to mimic these aspects of producing a useable technology.

While knowledge spreads involuntarily, innovation would need to be directly traded. This is closer to reality. For example, almost every civilization in the real world currently has a deep understanding of the theories of nuclear fission, and can probably even produce a fission reaction. There was no way for the United States (who first produced the knowledge and innovation) to control or prevent this spread of the knowledge. However, only a few can actually build a bomb or make an electricity generating reactor. The technology to build has been controlled effectively even though the knowledge is widespread. Some countries have innovated on their own and can build a bomb, but most of the others that know about fission can’t build a bomb. Iran, for example, is a country with knowledge of nuclear fission and is currently trying to innovate.

Furthermore, while knowledge never becomes obsolete because it always leads to more knowledge, innovations should become obsolete. This will lead to an interesting balance in the game. A civilization with an advanced level of knowledge will need to invest resources in innovation to get any benefit from its knowledge level. However, by investing resources in innovation, it is trading against its ability to further advancement. Also, a small civilization that has minimal advancement in either knowledge or innovation can emerge later in the game by developing a new innovation and reaping the rewards (until those rewards become obsolete too).

Finally, innovation should not be the only option for a civilization to reap the rewards of knowledge. Trade should be the other way. For example, a civilization may have knowledge of gunpowder but choose not to innovate in guns because there is a different civilization that has better innovation in guns and is willing to trade them. This is also a benefit to the civilization trading guns at it will receive a bigger economic benefit.

And, innovation should have multiple levels. For example, knowledge = Gunpowder; innovation = Guns I, II, II, etc with each level leading to stronger infantry. If there was a technology that made Guns obsolete, let’s says Laser Ray Guns for the sake of example, then the Guns I, II, II branch will become obsolete.

Land Resources

It is absurd that an undeveloped grassland square yields the same amount of food as a plains square with a farm. It is also absurd that a farm in 3000 BC yields the same amount of food as a farm in 1000 AD. And, again, it is absurd that a large city in 1975 AD depends solely on the food and shields produced within two squares of it. These absurdities need to be addressed.

First, there is not enough emphasis on development of the land. There is no way an undeveloped square should produce the same as a developed square, regardless of terrain type. Because development is underemphasized, the only way to expand is to get more land. Furthermore, the more a land square is developed, the more it should yield (both food and shields). I propose that zero food and zero shields come from a square unless it is developed.

Second, land development output does not improve with technology. Therefore a civilization that did not gain a lot of land early in the game is unable to improve itself without warring to get more land. And, war is more difficult because its resources are limited due to the lack of enough land to support a large army. Here, the land based economy problem is linked to the premature climax problem. As knowledge and innovation advancements are made, the output of developed land should and must continue to improve. Having one output increase at the discovery of Biology is not enough to prevent a Malthusian economic situation and an uninteresting late game.

Third, a civilization needs large, strong cities to prosper in the game. However, cities are too limited by the squares in the city radius. Early in history, it makes sense to limit a city to a small radius. However, as knowledge and innovation advancement in transport and communication are made, a city should be able to draw resources from greater distances. How else can any modern city exist? New York City probably draws over 99% of its food from distances greater than a 2 square radius.

Furthermore, food needs to become a tradable good. Currently, food can be traded such that it benefits health and provides a minor increase to the food that supports population. But, in addition to these effects, trading raw food to support significantly large populations needs to be incorporated. This will allow cities to develop in locations significant to trade or military strategy even though it may not have arable land (such as Singapore).

It is important for improvements to the game to provide balance without creating tedious detail. The proposed changes to the tech tree and to land output provide better balance between the late game and early game, and between expanding outward versus improving inward. If done correctly, I believe the changes will not make the game more tedious and more fun.

 

[Mewtarthio]

Well, k, I think...

Ah, forget it, I'm not going to repost that whole thing! Here's my reply!

 

[Esckey]

Return to Civ3's artillery
Better Global Warming, everything suddenly turns to desert suddenly.
On/off button for global warming
experience points for air units
zone of control for artillery
cruise missles and the likes
A more even playing field for diplomacy, if a country is drawn into a war due to a defensive pact and ASAP declares peace it should get a negative modifer. AI be more reasonable and not pick a fight with the most powerful person and not send every thing in on a suicide attack, ya know actually care about its nation and what may happen to it.
Make the manhatten progect a minor wonder, like in civ3
Nuclear subs
Synthetic resources
resource to unit ratio(no more on oil for my hundreds of tanks, mech inf, ships, planes, helis) maybe even a population to unit ratio
Some slight terraforming
ability to irrigate desert through tech

 

[daemon]

I miss all the units that were available in civ3 that are missing in civ4, egaratroops,cruisers, mobile sam batteries,mobile artillery etc;but especially the last two as joe stalin once said artillery is the god of war but in this game it seems to be just a dumb sacraficial lamb charging up to die a noble death.
In civ3 i used atillery to break up an attack,bombard cities,even god forbid shell ships attacking a city.
I love love the graphics which is a big improvement on civ3 which i recently installed because i missed it's diversity of units and promptly got rid of it because of how bad the graphics look after playing civ4.
Thanks for a great site

 

[sebastien]

i want absolutly to see a good french translation
say that the the one who don't do there job correctly

 

[xerox]

As a civilization advances it places different priorities on leadership.
An early civilization may value aggression and creativity as a way to expand it's borders but a more mature civilization may value industrousness to build improvements more quickly. As a civilization enters a new age: clasical, modern, etc. it should be allowed to add a new leader trait. Perhaps they would have to lose a trait to gain one.

 

[Pitboss]

i want absolutly to see a good french translation
say that the the one who don't do there job correctly

I'ld suggest you ask firaxis to make one or several language files accesible for direct editing. In the same way that you could change the opening scene in civ1
I'm sure that a fan based translation would be easily aquired. And it would make the game available in a lot more languages.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I was a huge Civ2 fanatic and refused to let go of it when Civ3 came along, finally gave in when Civ4 burst onto the scene. Here are a few things I miss from Civ2 which I believe ought to make a comeback:

1. A LARGE and REALISTIC world map. The "earth scenario" where Egypt only has room for one city in actual Egypt is nonsense. Some players have custom made some decent attempts at world maps for Civ4, but they shouldn't have to. Any strategy game worth its $50 better bleeping well come with it out of the box, or you don't get to call yourself a good strategy game. End of. Think of the scale of the "huge" Civ2 world map as minimum, and bigger is better.

2. Map and unit customization was actually easier in Civ2. You didn't need to know XML or Python to make a freakin' unit. You pasted a pic for it in the units gallery, you opened up the rules ini file, added a line for your unit, all its parameters, and voila, you had a unit. For the map, you could go in and "paint" a map. Worldbuilder sucks beyond my ability to describe. Hark back to Civ2 for clues to a fix there.

3. In Civ2 the Engineers had a wonderful ability to *TRANSFORM* terrain, which was a great balancing factor for later in the game if you got stuck on a random-map generated area with a lot of desert. In Civ4 if they plant you in a desert, you're stuck with the desert, and all the efforts of your workers are for nought. I'm not sure that the Civ2 feature is more realistic, but it IS more BALANCED that way. Maybe a limited approach to transforms could be the way to go, and make it depend on the nearby city's improvements. For example, if there was a building called a "water desalination plant", it's not beyond the pale for workers to leverage that plant and begin to irrigate seacoast squares that aren't otherwise near fresh water. Similarly so with a "water well" or "water pipeline" for desert squares (and an ability to transform desert Civ2 style, to plains at least and maybe even grassland over a long period of time). Flattening a mountain's probably overkill, but flattening a hill shouldn't be beyond modern engineering, nor should be the creation of an artificial hill.

4. In Civ2, a fortress didn't destroy underlying improvements, so you could fortress up a MINED hill and could still use the mine. I miss that.

5. What happened to airfields? In Civ2 you could make 'em, but in Civ4, they're gone.

6. Civ2 had an intermediate unit between the medieval "knight" and the reformation era "cavalry". It looks ten kinds of wierd to see an army arrayed with musketeers and pikes, and 19th century cavalry with winchester rifles simply because I was able to slingshot into Nationalism by discovering Liberalism first, and then hopping from there to Military Tradition. Bizarre. Civ2's "Dragoons" are a more appropriate cav unit for the early gunpowder era. Maybe if you got Dragoons from Nationalism and cav from a higher-beaker requirement for Mil Tradition, that might bring some of that realism back.

7. Civ2 leaders: no more Sitting Bull?

8. Civ2 spies had some REAL abilities. Now in Civ4 they're about useless. For all the gold in your treasury you get to "steal a city's plans" which you can see anyway if you founded the religion that's in that city. What nonsense.

9. Where did my PARATROOPERS and ALPINE infantry go? For cryin' out loud...

===
WISH LIST: Things that were never in Civ before but would be great improvements
===

1. Combat realism has made a few strides (had even more issues in Civ2 actually), but it's still not even close to realistic yet. "Suicide artillery" has been mentioned by a few others here, and I'll give that an amen-chorus. Ranged units in general have always been very poorly done in Civ, versus, say, Age of Empires where they seem to actually "get" the fact that a trebuchet has more range than a bleepin' horse archer. In fact, the rock-scissors-paper circle of advantage between units needs to have range be a major factor in this. A long-range treb can't move around much. A powerful, clobbering maceman in full armor can't either, and also has no range. Think of the Battle of Agincourt: longbows defeated French knights, not because they have "6" combat versus a knight's "10", but because the knights got stuck in the mud, couldn't move up on them quickly, and were within the longbows' *RAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGE*, to get cut down in a one-sided episode of target practise by the English. Had the knights actually been mobile and able to reach the longbows, the result would have been nowhere near a "10 to 6" concept, but more like... 10 to 1. The strength of ranged units is range itself, and in situations where the unit can't use its range, consider it screwed. One more rant on range before I move on: modern infantry, attacked by knights, even at a 100:1 numerical disadvantage, are still going to make bloody slaughter of the knights in question. If you doubt this at all, I suggest a challenge. You give me an M-4 assault rifle, and you and 99 of your friends can mount up on horses and charge at me across a field. If you make it to me alive, you win the bet. Is that clear yet? Hope so. Moving on.

2. Another game to consider as a competitor is Medieval Total War. What I love about that other game is that you can switch from a turn-based "campaign" mode to a real-time "battlefield mode" when entering a battle. Imagine the exponential boost of fun if you can not only launch a mech infantry unit at your opponent's pitiful "riflemen", but go onto the battlefield and direct the low-level tactics of HOW they flatten them? If you have a stack versus a stack, you could direct all your fighting units against all the enemy's units, "Total War style", which would eliminate a huge "fun advantage" TW has over Civ.

3. Another real-time module to consider adding would be a "plunder mode", that is, when you sack a city, why not generate a scenario where you directly go into the city and take what there is to take, or do what there is to do, in terms of destruction, etc.? Think in terms of "Grand Theft Auto" here, and maybe this add-on would have to be single-player mode only and adults only, but it would still be an outstanding value-add to the game. (Why go through all that work to take a city when all you get on taking it is to hear a bunch of screaming?) For realism it can also allow gradiations between "burn baby burn" and "install a new governor". Often in history there were city-sacks that didn't *DESTROY* a city, but severely weakened it due to the "rape, pillage, and plunder" that went on. The amount that you allow can reduce population strategically (by maybe adding slavery-hammers from carrying off captives), increase gold booty (at the expense of its future productivity, but maybe you don't want it to be that much of a prize if you know there's a risk of it being retaken by the enemy?) Seriously think about this, as it would exponentially rocket Civ ahead of any other game of ANY type, even the FPS and RPS games out there.

4. These units shouldn't have to be customized by players, but should be out of the box:

--Medieval times:
Trebuchet
Siege tower
Early cannon

--Colonial times:
Dragoons

--Modern times:
Special Ops team. Rather than a UU, (America's SEAL being the same as a MARINE??? Uhm... ), make it generic as any nation can have an elite force with high degrees of stealth, endurance, etc. (Can airdrop, transport via submarine, etc.)

Paratroopers. (Same as Infantry but can airdrop Civ2 style.)

5. Satellite reconnaissance. Why not be able to fund up, with gold, a program to view down on an enemy civ using your satellites? Civ4's concept only goes part way to making that realistic today.

6. Automated city specialization. You should be able to pick a growth and specialization policy more easily, e.g., "grow until the happiness limit and then make SCIENTIST specialists". To employ the "SE" strategy right now you have to micromanage to very un-fun levels.

7. Semi-automated worker policies. Something like "prepare nearest city for commerce specialization"... something like that.

8. It would be great to have a worker command that says "railroad everything within this civ." Being able to rail move from everywhere to everywhere is a good defensive policy, and if workers are done with everything else...

 

[Mewtarthio]

1. A LARGE and REALISTIC world map. The "earth scenario" where Egypt only has room for one city in actual Egypt is nonsense. Some players have custom made some decent attempts at world maps for Civ4, but they shouldn't have to. Any strategy game worth its $50 better bleeping well come with it out of the box, or you don't get to call yourself a good strategy game. End of. Think of the scale of the "huge" Civ2 world map as minimum, and bigger is better.

Sure, if you don't mind taking your turns in real time.

2. Map and unit customization was actually easier in Civ2. You didn't need to know XML or Python to make a freakin' unit. You pasted a pic for it in the units gallery, you opened up the rules ini file, added a line for your unit, all its parameters, and voila, you had a unit. For the map, you could go in and "paint" a map. Worldbuilder sucks beyond my ability to describe. Hark back to Civ2 for clues to a fix there.

I don't think that XML is any more difficult to use than the ini files (Granted, I never played CivII, but I have read about modifying the rules... don't ask me why). You just make a new unit (you can even copy/paste the template from another one), set all the parameters, and you have a new unit.

3. In Civ2 the Engineers had a wonderful ability to *TRANSFORM* terrain, which was a great balancing factor for later in the game if you got stuck on a random-map generated area with a lot of desert. In Civ4 if they plant you in a desert, you're stuck with the desert, and all the efforts of your workers are for nought. I'm not sure that the Civ2 feature is more realistic, but it IS more BALANCED that way. Maybe a limited approach to transforms could be the way to go, and make it depend on the nearby city's improvements. For example, if there was a building called a "water desalination plant", it's not beyond the pale for workers to leverage that plant and begin to irrigate seacoast squares that aren't otherwise near fresh water. Similarly so with a "water well" or "water pipeline" for desert squares (and an ability to transform desert Civ2 style, to plains at least and maybe even grassland over a long period of time). Flattening a mountain's probably overkill, but flattening a hill shouldn't be beyond modern engineering, nor should be the creation of an artificial hill.

Well, I suppose you could in theory create an artificial hill, but what would you be mining from it? The same stuff you used in building it? Also, bear in mind the scale of civ. Each tile represents a lot of land, and I don't think you'd be able to turn that much desert into lush pastures in 2050. Regarding the "desalination plant," however, note that it's already done. In CivIII, Electricity allowed you to irrigate without access to fresh water or other irrigation; in cIV, Biology holds that power (except "irrigation" has been renamed to "farming").

4. In Civ2, a fortress didn't destroy underlying improvements, so you could fortress up a MINED hill and could still use the mine. I miss that.

It certainly would give fortresses more of a purpose if you could build them over important resources.

5. What happened to airfields? In Civ2 you could make 'em, but in Civ4, they're gone.

Too many people sacrificed workers outside a town in lieu of actually building an airport.

6. Civ2 had an intermediate unit between the medieval "knight" and the reformation era "cavalry". It looks ten kinds of wierd to see an army arrayed with musketeers and pikes, and 19th century cavalry with winchester rifles simply because I was able to slingshot into Nationalism by discovering Liberalism first, and then hopping from there to Military Tradition. Bizarre. Civ2's "Dragoons" are a more appropriate cav unit for the early gunpowder era. Maybe if you got Dragoons from Nationalism and cav from a higher-beaker requirement for Mil Tradition, that might bring some of that realism back.

I agree that Cavalry does seem a bit advanced, but your "Dragoon" unit wouldn't have much of a lifetime. Just remember that it's more of an abstraction.

7. Civ2 leaders: no more Sitting Bull?

Any particular reason you want Sitting Bull?

8. Civ2 spies had some REAL abilities. Now in Civ4 they're about useless. For all the gold in your treasury you get to "steal a city's plans" which you can see anyway if you founded the religion that's in that city. What nonsense.

Actually, you only need to station a Spy in a city to see everything inside it. Stealing plans reveals that player's entire military. I do agree that Spies should have some more abilities, though. Right now, they just sabotage resources.

9. Where did my PARATROOPERS and ALPINE infantry go? For cryin' out loud...

The loss of the paratroopers is mourned by all. It's believed that the AI couldn't use them or fight against them. As for alpine infantry, er, isn't that bit too specific?

1. Combat realism has made a few strides (had even more issues in Civ2 actually), but it's still not even close to realistic yet. "Suicide artillery" has been mentioned by a few others here, and I'll give that an amen-chorus. Ranged units in general have always been very poorly done in Civ, versus, say, Age of Empires where they seem to actually "get" the fact that a trebuchet has more range than a bleepin' horse archer. In fact, the rock-scissors-paper circle of advantage between units needs to have range be a major factor in this. A long-range treb can't move around much. A powerful, clobbering maceman in full armor can't either, and also has no range. Think of the Battle of Agincourt: longbows defeated French knights, not because they have "6" combat versus a knight's "10", but because the knights got stuck in the mud, couldn't move up on them quickly, and were within the longbows' *RAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGE*, to get cut down in a one-sided episode of target practise by the English. Had the knights actually been mobile and able to reach the longbows, the result would have been nowhere near a "10 to 6" concept, but more like... 10 to 1. The strength of ranged units is range itself, and in situations where the unit can't use its range, consider it screwed. One more rant on range before I move on: modern infantry, attacked by knights, even at a 100:1 numerical disadvantage, are still going to make bloody slaughter of the knights in question. If you doubt this at all, I suggest a challenge. You give me an M-4 assault rifle, and you and 99 of your friends can mount up on horses and charge at me across a field. If you make it to me alive, you win the bet. Is that clear yet? Hope so. Moving on.

While it is true that a unit equipped with a machine gun could probably slaughter several hundred pre-gunpowder units, removing randomness entirely would make gunpowder too overpowering. Plus we wouldn't have any jokes, and we do love those! *ahem* Range seems like a viable idea, though getting it to work would require some trouble.

2. Another game to consider as a competitor is Medieval Total War. What I love about that other game is that you can switch from a turn-based "campaign" mode to a real-time "battlefield mode" when entering a battle. Imagine the exponential boost of fun if you can not only launch a mech infantry unit at your opponent's pitiful "riflemen", but go onto the battlefield and direct the low-level tactics of HOW they flatten them? If you have a stack versus a stack, you could direct all your fighting units against all the enemy's units, "Total War style", which would eliminate a huge "fun advantage" TW has over Civ.

3. Another real-time module to consider adding would be a "plunder mode", that is, when you sack a city, why not generate a scenario where you directly go into the city and take what there is to take, or do what there is to do, in terms of destruction, etc.? Think in terms of "Grand Theft Auto" here, and maybe this add-on would have to be single-player mode only and adults only, but it would still be an outstanding value-add to the game. (Why go through all that work to take a city when all you get on taking it is to hear a bunch of screaming?) For realism it can also allow gradiations between "burn baby burn" and "install a new governor". Often in history there were city-sacks that didn't *DESTROY* a city, but severely weakened it due to the "rape, pillage, and plunder" that went on. The amount that you allow can reduce population strategically (by maybe adding slavery-hammers from carrying off captives), increase gold booty (at the expense of its future productivity, but maybe you don't want it to be that much of a prize if you know there's a risk of it being retaken by the enemy?) Seriously think about this, as it would exponentially rocket Civ ahead of any other game of ANY type, even the FPS and RPS games out there.

People don't play civ to play RTS. They play civ because it's not RTS.

4. These units shouldn't have to be customized by players, but should be out of the box:

--Medieval times:
Trebuchet
Siege tower
Early cannon

--Colonial times:
Dragoons

--Modern times:
Special Ops team. Rather than a UU, (America's SEAL being the same as a MARINE??? Uhm... ), make it generic as any nation can have an elite force with high degrees of stealth, endurance, etc. (Can airdrop, transport via submarine, etc.)

Paratroopers. (Same as Infantry but can airdrop Civ2 style.)

The trebuchet, as of Warlords, is now in! Could you explain what you want the Seige Tower to do? And the "Early Cannon," when's it available and why to we need to separate it from "Cannon"? "Dragoons," as I said above, would probably go obsolete too quickly. Spec Ops is a good idea (not to mention how strange it is that the US gets no Marines). What do they do? Paratroopers should be put back in once people figure out how to get the AI to use them.

5. Satellite reconnaissance. Why not be able to fund up, with gold, a program to view down on an enemy civ using your satellites? Civ4's concept only goes part way to making that realistic today.

You can always put one of your Spies in that city to get reconnaissance for free. Or you could send a fighter on Recon and see inside several cities.

6. Automated city specialization. You should be able to pick a growth and specialization policy more easily, e.g., "grow until the happiness limit and then make SCIENTIST specialists". To employ the "SE" strategy right now you have to micromanage to very un-fun levels.

It'd be best have some sort of notification, at least of when a city has grown. And governors should be able to automatically stop growth when a city reaches the happines limit.

7. Semi-automated worker policies. Something like "prepare nearest city for commerce specialization"... something like that.

Do the Workers already bear in mind governor specifications when auto-improving? If not, they should.

8. It would be great to have a worker command that says "railroad everything within this civ." Being able to rail move from everywhere to everywhere is a good defensive policy, and if workers are done with everything else...

But railroading every tile is ugly. That's why roads and railroads had all their bonuses removed: To keep people from roading every tile.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Sure, if you don't mind taking your turns in real time.

Civ2 was able to handle it turn-based. Have we taken a step back in game technology here?

I don't think that XML is any more difficult to use than the ini files (Granted, I never played CivII, but I have read about modifying the rules... don't ask me why). You just make a new unit (you can even copy/paste the template from another one), set all the parameters, and you have a new unit.

My main concern is the icon. I can guess at XML well enough, but how am I supposed to make a video cartoon of a unit?

Well, I suppose you could in theory create an artificial hill, but what would you be mining from it? The same stuff you used in building it?

A strategy I used to employ in Civ2 was to surround my city fat-crosses with well-defended hills so that enemies couldn't get to the farmed squares inside to pillage. I of course also used to mine these, but even if they can't be mined (and I can see why an artificial hill can't be for the reason you give), the defensive argument for making them is still there.

Also, bear in mind the scale of civ. Each tile represents a lot of land, and I don't think you'd be able to turn that much desert into lush pastures in 2050.

Israel is a lot of land, and they did it. California did it. Arizona's in the process of doing it. The main thing you need is water. Sand alone won't grow crops, but sandy *SOIL* is ideal for it, even better than the clay garbage you get next to rivers. Sid might need to pick up a book on horticulture here.

Regarding the "desalination plant," however, note that it's already done. In CivIII, Electricity allowed you to irrigate without access to fresh water or other irrigation; in cIV, Biology holds that power (except "irrigation" has been renamed to "farming").

An actual desalination plant as an improvement would be more realistic than simply discovering "biology", I would think. Make it available with the discovery of steam engine. And allow (with water access) what Civ4 will not: improvement of land from desert to plains (10 years) or plains to grass (20 years).

It certainly would give fortresses more of a purpose if you could build them over important resources.

Yes. Right now fortresses are worse than useless, as trees on a hill are better than a fortress on one, and at least with trees you can build a lumbermill. And stationing troops on that square won't destroy the lumbermill.

Too many people sacrificed workers outside a town in lieu of actually building an airport.

Have you ever considered there may be a strategic reason for doing so?

Why build an entire city on a square when all you need there is an airbase?

I agree that Cavalry does seem a bit advanced, but your "Dragoon" unit wouldn't have much of a lifetime. Just remember that it's more of an abstraction.

Musketeers are in the same boat. The split second you discover them (or so it seems) you get grenadiers, making it worse than stupid to keep producing your musketeers.

If longevity of a unit's contemporary relevance has to be the overriding factor, many other units would be taken out of the game as well.

Any particular reason you want Sitting Bull?

Sometimes I'm just in a mood to be tribal, y'know?

Actually, you only need to station a Spy in a city to see everything inside it. Stealing plans reveals that player's entire military. I do agree that Spies should have some more abilities, though. Right now, they just sabotage resources.

I probably wouldn't go so far as to be able to plant a nuke, but to poison the water supply was very very handy in Civ2. An enemy city's most productive city could be neutralized that way if they didn't produce their own spy to prevent it.

The loss of the paratroopers is mourned by all. It's believed that the AI couldn't use them or fight against them. As for alpine infantry, er, isn't that bit too specific?

AI in Civ2 used them to take cities at least. I'm not sure why they can't be programmed to use them in more diverse strategies than that though. City-taking by the AI with the paras used to be both realistic and frustrating (in a good way hehe). It taught you to never ever leave a city undefended within para range.

While it is true that a unit equipped with a machine gun could probably slaughter several hundred pre-gunpowder units, removing randomness entirely would make gunpowder too overpowering. Plus we wouldn't have any jokes, and we do love those! *ahem* Range seems like a viable idea, though getting it to work would require some trouble.

That's why they make the big bucks right?

On randomness, there are still some situations where the spear-tank paradigm might happen, if, for example, every tank's main gun and machine gun jams, and the crew all run out of ammo on their side arms, and each and every one of them gets a case of the stupids and hurl themselves out of their tanks to go into the fray of the spearmen... or something.

People don't play civ to play RTS. They play civ because it's not RTS.

Maybe I'm not a person then. One thing that weighs in Total War's favor, in my mind, is that the turn-based game gets a few shots of *OPTIONAL* RTS if you want to switch it up a little, and directly lead troops into battle instead of hanging back at the stuffy old castle looking at model representations of your armies on a planning table. I do like turn-based pace most of the time because it brings in some elements of "chess" to it, a more purely cerebral game than "how fast can you click" as a determinant of victory. But I do think it's possible to have the best of both worlds.

The trebuchet, as of Warlords, is now in!

And give up my slave-whipping exploit? Now that's just crazy talk...

Could you explain what you want the Seige Tower to do?

It wouldn't do damage to defenders, but while the unit is over 50% strength it would render city walls and castles useless to defenders in the calculation of defensive strength. They could be attacked by archers, etc.

Tech required for it would probably be construction, same as catapult (or possibly engineering since they were more common in medieval times, although not unheard-of in ancient, as some scholars believe the "trojan horse" was actually a horse-shaped siege tower distorted by oral legend over time), but just a different tool in the siege warfare toolkit. And a realistic addition to any fully sophisticated medieval siege army.

And the "Early Cannon," when's it available and why to we need to separate it from "Cannon"?

Early cannons were far less accurate than the sort you'd see in, say, the Napoleonic era. Leaders used them mainly as a more powerful supplement to their catapult, mangonel, trebuchet, and other siege artillery arsenal. They are a properly late-medieval or high-medieval weapon in line with the "musketeer", also contemporary with pikemen; although the Turks used them to good effect in the Siege of Constantinople much earlier than that era.

If you wanted to get even more granular than that in the gradiations of how cannonery evolved, between the early cannon and the napoleonic sort, there were also demi-culverins, culverins, scorpions, etc. But that would be overkill.

"Dragoons," as I said above, would probably go obsolete too quickly.

Not the way Napoleon rolls....

Spec Ops is a good idea (not to mention how strange it is that the US gets no Marines).

Yeah, SEALs are the American UU to replace Marines, with is really unspeakably dumb. It's an entirely different type of unit with a mission about as similar as a horse archer's would be to a catapult's. "Well, they both throw a projectile, right?"

What do they do?

In the game they should be either airdropped or delivered via submarine. There should be a stealth concept (similar to subs) so that they can initially move about undetected. When they strike, they do things similar to "pillage" in the Civ4 game, or sabotage within a city, or capture a GP, etc. They aren't used as set-piece conventional combat infantry at all (pay no attention to the invasion of Panama, very very bad application of SEALs there). Or they can simply be on scouting/reconnaissance missions, to lay up in a hiding spot undetected by the target civ's army, as a sort of more powerful "spy" unit, although without the pleather and propensity to do cartwheels.

Each turn there would be a percentage chance of "compromise", that is, no longer invisible to the enemy. Compromise after doing a strike, (similar to a pillage but probably without an ability to plunder gold from it), should be in about the 70% range, after which you'd need a transport helicopter unit to madly rush in and try to evac them out of there if you can, or have them try to fight their way out (maybe in a compromised state, then they start to fight like Marines?)

That reminds me of another Civ2 unit that I miss: CRUISE MISSILES! Baby, those were ace when enemy battleships came around to menace your coasts!

Paratroopers should be put back in once people figure out how to get the AI to use them.

Why not just use the code they had in Civ2? AI used to use them then, albeit in a limited sense.

You can always put one of your Spies in that city to get reconnaissance for free. Or you could send a fighter on Recon and see inside several cities.

Yeah, I guess.

It'd be best have some sort of notification, at least of when a city has grown. And governors should be able to automatically stop growth when a city reaches the happines limit.

That's an annoying thing which was annoying in Civ2, too. Why is there no command to say when you're at the happy limit, uhm... STOP for cryin' out loud!!! As it is right now you can either stop it immediately, or check every turn in every city, which makes for very unfriendly multiplayer turns.

I don't mind doing extreme micromanagement when in single player mode, but MP, uhm, not prudent. And frankly, not fun.

Do the Workers already bear in mind governor specifications when auto-improving? If not, they should.

They don't, so if you say improve nearest city, they give you farms. That's good if you use the Specialist Economy strategy (and watch your city growth closely), but you should be able to at least "emphasise cottages"... or something. I typically like my capitol and "safe" cities to be cottage-based and use specialist-based in border cities and/or where cottages would be in pillage peril (such as on the coast).

But railroading every tile is ugly. That's why roads and railroads had all their bonuses removed: To keep people from roading every tile.

Roading and railroading every tile gives you a flexible defense for any avenue of approach taken by an invader. It's "ugly" but it works. I'll even railroad unworkable desert if it means my reaction force making it to a coastal city under attack in one turn instead of two.

 

[Spartan117]

i dont know if any said this

the addition of ethnic units. their strengths does not have to be altered but just graphically.

in warlords in the scenarios, those units can be a good start.