What do you want to see in Civilization 5?

[Skallagrimson]

A further thought about Special Ops and Paratroopers: maybe these can be unit promotions rather than unit types? Let a unit promote to "airborne" after 2 stars, and "special ops" after "airborne 3", something like that. That way a paratrooper *ability* and a special ops (stealth until compromise) *ability* would be there without having to make a special unit. And America's UU SEALs, let them start with airborne, amphibious, and special ops (without the stars).

To really make that work though, you'd need air units for helicopter transport at least, and ideally also a "C-130" type air unit that can deliver airdrop troops. That would be an improvement over Civ2's assumption that if you had paratroopers, you had the planes to deliver them. Here you could limit the para effectiveness by planes being there and make those planes just as vulnerable to SAM infantry as any other air unit. Modern combat could get VERY interesting under these conditions, but as it is right now, it starts to bore me after everyone has the same mech infantry and modern tanks. "Blah blah blah, 20 of theirs, 20 of ours, damage, damage, blah..." Almost as boring as the "space race".

 

[Skallagrimson]

That leads also to a new spy mission: search for enemy special ops (to compromise them)!!!

 

[Skitters]

A further thought about Special Ops and Paratroopers: maybe these can be unit promotions rather than unit types? Let a unit promote to "airborne" after 2 stars, and "special ops" after "airborne 3", something like that. That way a paratrooper *ability* and a special ops (stealth until compromise) *ability* would be there without having to make a special unit. And America's UU SEALs, let them start with airborne, amphibious, and special ops (without the stars).

That doesn't seem right as it implies that a special ops team could take on an Infantry unit which presumably would be a bit more substantial in terms of number of troops. On a 1:1 ratio you would expect the special operative to come out on top, but the nature of them implies that they would be working in relatively low numbers (otherwise they are very likely to be compromised pretty quickly), so a team of say 10 men, is hardly likely to take on a whole regiment in open combat.

In Civ IV the role of special ops are filled by spies - ie; cutting supply routes, destroying reources and providing intelligence. I guess you could expand on this by perhaps having an assasinate mission [targets officers of an enemy unit - perhaps causing a level of collatoral damage to represent them being disorganised] and a sabotage building mission [attempts to destroy/damage a specific building in a city. I would also like to see the inclusion of an agent/specials ops team be able to attempt sabotaging ships in a city - with even a chance of sinking them...

 

[Englor]

The option for able diversity.

 

[Lord Kid]

I have always wanted civ specific wonders, i.e. Great Wall for China, Pyramids for Egypt, that have specific benefits for the civ, but are difficult to achieve. Also, I wish Airbases were still around, and that forts were better. If they acted like a tile of the homeland in enemy lands so that units could go and heal quicker, that would be good. The diversity of units isn't very good either. I think each civ should have more than one UU, more in line with each civ's development IRL.

 

[Englor]

Better AI, better navies, lower (relative) system requirements, get rid of 5 part govt options.

Govenment quarrals eh?

Here's my idea;

litteracy- city efficiency and lower population chain governing(rags)
Education- city efficiency and upper population chain governing(riches)

Actual Government:
Anarchy
Monarchy
Despotism
repbublic
Theocracy
Fuedalism
Tyranny
Democracy
Fundamentalism
Fascism
Communism
Fanaticalism
Franticalism
Federationalism

Ruling body Factor:
totalitarian-Undisputed
council leader- Tyrannical
constitutional leader- Divine right
conssesional body- Aristocracy
constitutional body- Oligarchy
constituional congression- Socialistic
congressional leader- Republic
congressional body- Democracy
consessional leader- Federationistic

Factors:
Ruling body
Food production Tech Production
Hammer production Martial production
Commerce Production Legal production


Hammer:
Labor- human/stock "effort, dierect city/tile improvment
Resource- Wide-scope city/tile mprovement
Manufacture- Wide-scope city/ tile improvement
Network- direct city/tile improvement

Commerce:
Economic- resource and development, resource admin.
Business- "special commerce", lesser volume, greater value
Trade- common exchange; services and goods, economic admin.
Market- "open commerce", greater volume, lesser value

Tech:
Literacy- litterary improvements, ratio and expenditure bar of lower chain-social factor
Education- educatinal improvements, ratio and expenditure bar of higher chain-experience factor
Science- direct funding, spnsoring/publicizing, improvements-efficiency factor
Interaction- relations, domestic and foreigne- growth factor

 

[Mewtarthio]

Are you suggesting a more detailed civic system? Just be careful it doesn't get too complex: I don't want to keep track of Gini Indices and NASDAQs in cIV!

Also, could you be more specific? It's easier to criticize/improve upon ideas when they're more transparent.

 

[Englor]

Are you suggesting a more detailed civic system? Just be careful it doesn't get too complex: I don't want to keep track of Gini Indices and NASDAQs in cIV!

Also, could you be more specific? It's easier to criticize/improve upon ideas when they're more transparent.

Well uh....I guess I could agree with you there,

In short no, you won't have to worry about, in a manner of speaking, anal retentive management, though I do try to point out that civ, no matter how interface friendly and streamlined, is still a management game. And to add, I am pro deliberation, so to speak making the game more easy to scroll/browse/cycle through to keep things going steadily, yet above all, accurately.
I like to keep the depths while maintaing a shallow effort since that seems to be the poular preference, and believe me, I can see why.

The variants of the direct resources;
hammers
commerce/gold
food

are the things gained, checked and invested so to speak to achieve goals in the game.

I see a big plus in there being some classifiable organization in proceeding with that setup.
The different classes of production keep track in there own ways as the game goes on, visible with a screen ofcourse, of whatever the ratios and results are at any given point in the game. Same goes for the other, and all other direct control values pertaining to the largest picture inference.
Then as such, futher, and still yet easy inquiries and modifications/changes may be made to keep easy track of what is prefered.

Along side with this, is the extension of my idea in city and territorial management.
Improvements and tile improvements. More and more affecting.
Persay, having a harbour facility has the dominant affect of make, maintain and docking a higher capacity of ships.(as I believe capacity could make for more challenging and interesting games, not to mention traffic player ego should to much be happening for the computer to even continue on without risking a crash.
Harbour facilities, also increase localized(within the city), seafare commerce and food production)
And such, naval defensive deturrance(city improvement), like coastal barracades, offer increased seaboard defense, yet impede the growth of the ambient commercial and food productions offered by the harbour facility.

And ofcourse, on eof the wonders I've thought of, darwins voyage, eliminates the negative affects of naval defenses, and naval unit costs are halved.

 

[Chance]

First I thing BRING BACK MISSLES , And A advancement to nukes would be hydrogen bombs (you would need to complete fusion) and it would be equal to the power of 10 nukes. And a mod where tornados volconoes and hurricanes happen and could destroy some improvements (it could make the game more exciting).

 

[Lord Kid]

I was thinking the advent of Neutron Bombs, and the ability to detonate them over the city rather than in it, would be great. Neutron bombs only damage living tissue, except for the explosion of course, and leave no lasting radiation, so you detonate one of these over an enemy city, then roll in your armor a few turns later and viola, a perfect takeover.

Also I would like to see weather effects. Lets see those flood plains actually flood unless you are create a dam upriver. Mountains erode down to hills after a few thousand years. Plains catch on fire from lightning strikes.

 

[Englor]

I think natural disasters are best left to the impediments placed on the world via waste and pollution.

My idea for this is simulated as such.

Waste:
Excess from commerce
Trash from population and overcrowding.
"Ambients" from population
Buyproduct fromproduction
Desecration from transformation, improvements and tile improvements.

Pollution:
Transference from manufacturing(production)
Smog from network(roads, mass transit) production and tile improvements for travel.
Contamination from compiled waste and pollution.
Fallout from compilation, nuclear attacks and fallout.

Disasters occur when compiled affects go on unchecked.
Terrible acid storms and hurricans at coastal cities, floods at inlet and flood plains/marshland cities. Tonadoes and wildfires at inland cities.
Plagues and epidemics are also a thing that could occure.

The health aspect sofar is as such, until further progress is made:

Hygeine- Something that depends on both overcrowding and certain resources.Direct against ambients.

Healthcare- Something that depends on making healers(city position), and building health improvements(clinic, hospitol, medical center), and other pollution/waste reducing improvements. Direct against trash.

Sanitation- Depending on building health and pollution/waste decreasing improvements. Direct against excess.

Disposal- Something that depends on enforcement and improvements. Direct against buyproduct.

Ordinance- Something that also depends on enforcement and improvement. Direct against desecration.

 

[Mewtarthio]

Natural disasters occuring due to pollution seems a bit unrealistic. I think that disease and food spoilage is punishment enough. Still, I do think that there should be some difference between a city with 15 and 15 and a city with 47 and 15 . As of right now, health only gets to be a problem when your population reaches some predetermined health limit.

 

[RussianRoulette]

1)Id like to see a day/night cycle. You units would be more effective at ambushing other units at night.

2) Weather such as winter hurts units when they are outside your border for more than lets say 5 turns? More food during the summer and spring months.

3)Advancement to future era with a bunch of different technologies.

4)Random events such as stock market crash,terrorist attack,etc.

5)Revolutions.

 

[Mewtarthio]

1)Id like to see a day/night cycle. You units would be more effective at ambushing other units at night.

2) Weather such as winter hurts units when they are outside your border for more than lets say 5 turns? More food during the summer and spring months.

Remember that each turn is one-to-forty years in length. That's too long for weather, and way too long to worry about the time of day.

3)Advancement to future era with a bunch of different technologies.

Nah, that gets into sci-fi/fantasy. The game should remain historical, with maybe a few near-future techs already in development.

4)Random events such as stock market crash,terrorist attack,etc.

That seems unfair. Maybe if random events affected everyone.

5)Revolutions.

Yes! I think each city should have a "political stability" score, affected by things such as foreign culture, religion, proximity to captial, propaganda, civics, etc. If the city becomes too unstable, it can revolt. It may defect to a nearby civ if its people love that civ, or it may become essentially a barbarian civ that must be pacified. If several cities revolt together (could be made more likely, perhaps, if revolts increased political instability), they may join and form a separate civ!

 

[RussianRoulette]

Im not saying you have to go in depth with the future area,but itd be nice to add a few things in there.

The random events would effect everyone on the map. Stock market crash could lower the worlds ability to make money and the terrorist attack would lower everyboy's relations with the attacker,lower money income in the attacked country, or force a revolution.

 

[Englor]

Natural disasters occuring due to pollution seems a bit unrealistic. I think that disease and food spoilage is punishment enough. Still, I do think that there should be some difference between a city with 15 and 15 and a city with 47 and 15 . As of right now, health only gets to be a problem when your population reaches some predetermined health limit.

I think it makes good sense. In alignment with your suggestion, waste and pollutions ratios left unchecked may become more bloated waste and pollution problems, or begin all out hazards that hold a noticable effect. The effects may vary due to the totality of the scenario.

 

[Skallagrimson]

That doesn't seem right as it implies that a special ops team could take on an Infantry unit which presumably would be a bit more substantial in terms of number of troops. On a 1:1 ratio you would expect the special operative to come out on top, but the nature of them implies that they would be working in relatively low numbers (otherwise they are very likely to be compromised pretty quickly), so a team of say 10 men, is hardly likely to take on a whole regiment in open combat.

The numbers aspect is a worthy consideration. Low numbers is why they are used for stealth rather than brute force, sort of like a rapier compared to a battle axe or claymore. When fighting, man per man, they would be like a Marine with bonuses (lots of stars and stripes type promotions) but not as numerous, for which in open combat there should be a hit of some sort. Translated to Civ4 combat mechanics this should probably be reflected as a stealthy Marine but with no defensive bonuses for terrain (which is where their low numbers really get them--on offense the low numbers are made up for by the element of surprise!), and they should probably get -50% combat effectiveness on offense when in a "compromised" state. This would ensure players don't misuse them as an infantry "gunpowder" unit, and instead focus on keeping them stealthy and evacuating them when known to the enemy, after making their strike.

Good idea!

In Civ IV the role of special ops are filled by spies - ie; cutting supply routes, destroying reources and providing intelligence. I guess you could expand on this by perhaps having an assasinate mission [targets officers of an enemy unit - perhaps causing a level of collatoral damage to represent them being disorganised] and a sabotage building mission [attempts to destroy/damage a specific building in a city. I would also like to see the inclusion of an agent/specials ops team be able to attempt sabotaging ships in a city - with even a chance of sinking them...

Spies are only kinda-sorta the same, IMHO. Special Ops strikes are big and violent and usually involve intense combat within a building, for example (to abduct an enemy official, for example), or blowing up a building or resource. Spies don't do that. Spies don't sink ships--Navy SEALs sink ships (with limpet mines). So the missions could be:

Spy:
1. Steal plans (with more options than just "units"--why not also reveal all aspects of diplomacy, for example? How friendly is that civ to, say, the Aztecs? Why can't a spy reveal that?)
2. Bribe GP (the Civ2 bribe unit wasn't realistic and should "stay gone" here, but there's no reason a spy can't bribe a GP)
3. Sabotage production (-50% hammers)
4. Poison water supply (bring back that Civ2 mission!)
5. Foment rebellion (1 to 4 frowny faces in the city)

Special Ops:
1. Abduct GP (GP is your faction so long as he's in the SpecOps stack)
2. Destroy production (all hammers)
3. Destroy building (nice little explosion animation here, hehe)
4. Sink ship in port
5. Destroy terrain improvement (similar to air unit destruction--no gold plunder)

Chances of compromise should run something like this:

For spies the base compromise chance before a mission is only 20%, and after, 30%. (Spies disguised as normal people are stealthier than men with black-painted faces and guns running around on rooftops.) The base compromise chance is increased by 30% for each enemy spy within the fat-cross of where the mission is being attempted.

For Special Ops there is a much higher compromise risk commensurate with the greater damage they can actively do: say a base of 50% before and 70% after the mission. The high base is increased by a lower increment of 10% for each enemy spy in the fat-cross, but also an additional 10% for each enemy unit ON THE TILE of where the mission is being carried out.

Too complicated to program? I hope not.

 

[Skallagrimson]

The variants of the direct resources;
hammers
commerce/gold
food

Resource abstraction is somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. How is it you can build STONE pyramids faster by chopping a WOOD forest? It makes no sense to me. I say you can't work on a stone resource at all unless you have stone, but then, stone should be more widely available than one tile per continent. Same with a lot of other buildings: most should require wood, not that you need to chop a forest down to make them, but a forest has to BE there, somewhere in the fat cross, to make wood buildings. For marble buildings, you need marble. No marble, no building. For more modern buildings you just need concrete which is a generic enough resource that nothing special should be required in the game.

I also like the direction Civ's gone in when requiring certain resources for certain units, say, iron for swordsmen, but I think even that can be improved upon by splitting out the production of arms FOR units, from the manpower levees to fill the units, and the time required to train them. For example, your city should be able to produce, say, a unit's worth of swords, shields, etc., fairly quickly, and have them in stock somewhere. But to man the unit should be a hit on the population similar to slave-whipping, regardless of what government civic you're in. Just because you have seven iron tiles in your fat cross doesn't mean your size 7 city can blast out unlimited numbers of swordsmen!!! It takes, not just the iron for the swords, but also the people wielding them, which in history has often been the most tricky consideration to plan for.

Most countries will have the iron, etc., required for arming an army, but not all countries will have the population needed to MAN a large army. It's this population depletion that often crippled countries, in historic conflicts, or fed into their ability to expand militarily: in the U.S., for example, high population allowed the American cavalry to constantly refill with new recruits, due to agriculture supporting that high population, while the hunter-gatherer or low-tech farming of the native tribes didn't support that level of population, so while each side had rifles at a certain point, the Americans had more people pointing the rifles, and won by numbers.

That's another point to consider: acquisition of weapons by means other than discovering its tech. If a high-tech unit gets defeated (see "spear defeats a tank" hehe), not all of its weaponry will be unusable, and that's often how weapons got acquired in historic conflicts: by capture rather than manufacture.

Bottom line, weapons should be a game entity separate from units, built in city production, retained in a city armory, assigned to soldiers recruited into units (trained or untrained by the barracks--require time if trained, or require no time if untrained), and quantities of these weapons get acquired by the enemy if a unit loses in combat.

This would allow for some interesting strategies: if you produce a lot of weapons and warehouse them, your people can be productive on working tiles in the fat cross, but if there's an invasion, you could call up a levee of untrained militia to augment the "professional" units for which there was a training time investment and a maintenance cost paid, turn by turn. High population cities can field large numbers of this augmentee type of unit, while low population cities are unable to--so here we'd have an incentive to build up city size beyond just "how many tiles can they work". And after a militia disbands, they go back to the city to work tiles (if they survived the combat--which brings up another thing, "healing" a unit isn't as realistic as it would be to "reinforce" a unit with new recruits, from a city capable of training the new members of the unit lost through combat. You can't do that at all in foreign terrain! Nor in a newly-captured city!)

 

[Skallagrimson]

Realistic reverse-engineering from weapons: maybe if you capture weapons, you can have the choice of either supplying an operational unit that uses these weapons (pre-gunpowder, as gunpowder weapons are only effective with ammo and/or fuel), OR... transform x number of weapons into x number of beakers toward discovering that weapon's tech. Maybe 1:1, or maybe a different ratio.

And of course, if you capture a city, you capture whatever weapons that city was stockpiling, as a plunder item similar to gold plunder.

 

[Englor]

Resource abstraction is somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. How is it you can build STONE pyramids faster by chopping a WOOD forest? It makes no sense to me. I say you can't work on a stone resource at all unless you have stone, but then, stone should be more widely available than one tile per continent. Same with a lot of other buildings: most should require wood, not that you need to chop a forest down to make them, but a forest has to BE there, somewhere in the fat cross, to make wood buildings. For marble buildings, you need marble. No marble, no building. For more modern buildings you just need concrete which is a generic enough resource that nothing special should be required in the game.

I also like the direction Civ's gone in when requiring certain resources for certain units, say, iron for swordsmen, but I think even that can be improved upon by splitting out the production of arms FOR units, from the manpower levees to fill the units, and the time required to train them. For example, your city should be able to produce, say, a unit's worth of swords, shields, etc., fairly quickly, and have them in stock somewhere. But to man the unit should be a hit on the population similar to slave-whipping, regardless of what government civic you're in. Just because you have seven iron tiles in your fat cross doesn't mean your size 7 city can blast out unlimited numbers of swordsmen!!! It takes, not just the iron for the swords, but also the people wielding them, which in history has often been the most tricky consideration to plan for.

Most countries will have the iron, etc., required for arming an army, but not all countries will have the population needed to MAN a large army. It's this population depletion that often crippled countries, in historic conflicts, or fed into their ability to expand militarily: in the U.S., for example, high population allowed the American cavalry to constantly refill with new recruits, due to agriculture supporting that high population, while the hunter-gatherer or low-tech farming of the native tribes didn't support that level of population, so while each side had rifles at a certain point, the Americans had more people pointing the rifles, and won by numbers.

That's another point to consider: acquisition of weapons by means other than discovering its tech. If a high-tech unit gets defeated (see "spear defeats a tank" hehe), not all of its weaponry will be unusable, and that's often how weapons got acquired in historic conflicts: by capture rather than manufacture.

Bottom line, weapons should be a game entity separate from units, built in city production, retained in a city armory, assigned to soldiers recruited into units (trained or untrained by the barracks--require time if trained, or require no time if untrained), and quantities of these weapons get acquired by the enemy if a unit loses in combat.

This would allow for some interesting strategies: if you produce a lot of weapons and warehouse them, your people can be productive on working tiles in the fat cross, but if there's an invasion, you could call up a levee of untrained militia to augment the "professional" units for which there was a training time investment and a maintenance cost paid, turn by turn. High population cities can field large numbers of this augmentee type of unit, while low population cities are unable to--so here we'd have an incentive to build up city size beyond just "how many tiles can they work". And after a militia disbands, they go back to the city to work tiles (if they survived the combat--which brings up another thing, "healing" a unit isn't as realistic as it would be to "reinforce" a unit with new recruits, from a city capable of training the new members of the unit lost through combat. You can't do that at all in foreign terrain! Nor in a newly-captured city!)

Ok skall,

I can see your requesting if not from panic, from verbal inquiry that just so happens to be equally suggestive, that you desire further srutiny into my idea.
At this time I'd like to first state, that several of the things you said match to the actions of putting words in my mouth, ie misinterpretting what I've stated. THough I won't let that throw me off, it happens. I'd now like the revert you attention to the topic on this forum(ideas/suggestions), healined, "More detailed land", where you may further expamine, the ideas I've placed forth. If it is resource ideas you're looking for, reading the posts I've made in the above referrence topic will help immensely. Just tell me when you're ready to view my ideas on resources. Thanx.