What would you have wanted different in Civilization 4?

[mystikmind2005]

Oh i forgot one thing - in civ3 i do not think you would have too much luck against advanced units like tanks with just cannons or catapults. Only until you have artillery, then it will be possible to dominate against any tech level units.

 

[Comrade Alex]

I'd like to see an AI that plays better rather than relying on 0394875039487 bonuses.

Yeah. I can't bring myself to advance past noble because the knowledge that the AI has a handicap would just piss me off

 

[JujuLautre]

ComradeAlex, do you know that the AI already have bonuses at settler ?

 

[a4phantom]

The battle you describe is preciselly how it happens in real life when one side fails to counter the other sides artillery. The artillery side will take some casualties but this is represented in CIV3 as damage. The game does not show individual loss of life, only the loss of an entire unit.

As i mentioned earlier, it is a failure of the AI to use counter artillery that is the problem, not the way artillery works in civ3

More than anything it was a flaw with the turn based system. I shouldn't get to fire all my guns and then charge, all before you get to act.

 

[CCRunner]

AIs demanding stuff with a little more common sense : no more furious civs asking you to join war versus your best ally, no more enemies asking you Rifling.

The ability to "red out" stuff you don't want to trade or do.

The ability to cut diplomatic relations with a civ, with a diplo hit if necessary : "No Joao I won't talk to you anymore, all you do is beg for techs or threaten for tributes and you really pissed me off. Get the hell out of my palace before I let the dogs eat your leg, and don't dare coming back until I call you."

All of this stuff especially the ability to red trade items out. It's incredibly annoying how the AI can ask for the tech I researched last turn but it takes me half a century to be able to ask for a tech from them

 

[Balderstrom]

I always expected closed borders to mean,
No Trade w/ that Civ.
-> Only contact would be to declare War or request Open Borders.
ie, no Resource, Tech, map exchanges etc.
The borders are closed, emissaries are turned away.

 

[Crowqueen]

All of this stuff especially the ability to red trade items out. It's incredibly annoying how the AI can ask for the tech I researched last turn but it takes me half a century to be able to ask for a tech from them

You have the option to refuse them - it is redded out already, essentially. I won't give anything for free if they ask, I have to give them it of my own free will (usually to buy their votes at the UN or AP). If they don't want a resource or city then it is redded out, but you can always refuse a deal with them, redding it out in all but reality.

Anyway. I'd like the ability to use the AP or UN by opening a screen and selecting a resolution to put to the members, rather than having to wait for it to pop up.

 

[deanej]

It's a lot less annoying if an AI reds out something than if they simply refuse to trade it like we have to. Take this situation, which I find myself in all too often: You are at war with Alexander. You want to make peace, for a price. His cities are not redded out, indicating that he is willing to trade them. However, when I ask for one in return for peace, he refuses. I'm now a lot more annoyed then if he had simply redded it out in the first place.

 

[CCRunner]

You have the option to refuse them - it is redded out already, essentially. I won't give anything for free if they ask, I have to give them it of my own free will (usually to buy their votes at the UN or AP). If they don't want a resource or city then it is redded out, but you can always refuse a deal with them, redding it out in all but reality.

Anyway. I'd like the ability to use the AP or UN by opening a screen and selecting a resolution to put to the members, rather than having to wait for it to pop up.

But when I refuse to give them something I get a diplomatic penalty. If the player could red out trade items, diplomacy would get a lot better imo.

 

[mystikmind2005]

More than anything it was a flaw with the turn based system. I shouldn't get to fire all my guns and then charge, all before you get to act.

Well that problem is easily solved with overwatch.

Strangely, I havn't seen overwatch in any newer turn based games. This is a mystery to me because usually a great game concept like that is typically expanded on over time, not left behind!

For any of you who do not already know, overwatch is a mechanism that allows off turn units to respond to approaching enemy units if they have movement points left over from the previous turn.

So for example, if you wanted to attack an AI city that contained several artillery units, you would first have to send in some 'cannon fodder' units who would be fired upon by the artillery. There could also be cavalry/tank units that charge out in response to your approaching units, and riflemen defending the city could leet loose a volley of fire upon your units that approach the city.

So as you can see, there is no need for a turn based game to be so unrealistic to real life, it is only because game developers have managed to sweep overwatch under the carpet that this is the case at all.

Edit: Game developers in general terms not just for civ4

 

[JujuLautre]

But when I refuse to give them something I get a diplomatic penalty. If the player could red out trade items, diplomacy would get a lot better imo.

If you just change the system by making "red-out" possible for the human, diplo would get worse imho. Why? Because you would get negative modifiers when an AI want something you "red-out"-ed without knowing it, and then would get DOWed on without knowing why.

In the current system, these demands and everything are here for a good reason: so that you know why things happen the way they happen. If you refuse several times a tribute and get DOWed on, you understand. If you just red-out things and get DOWed on afterwards for the same reason, you don't understand and are upset.

Imho, what would make the diplo system better is not the introduction of red-outing for the human player, it's a full re-work of the system.

 

[Balderstrom]

@ mystikmind2005, Game Development in general has degraded noticeably over the last 10-15 years. I don't even game that much, as not that many games interest me in the slightest. When I happen to find something I like, like DungeonSiege for example - they completely ruin it with the followup DS II.

Unfortunately what we see is excessive focus on EyeCandy - because EyeCandy sells. Gameplay has become second fiddle. Before computers could handle so much EyeCandy they HAD to focus on gameplay & mechanics.

 

[deanej]

If you just change the system by making "red-out" possible for the human, diplo would get worse imho. Why? Because you would get negative modifiers when an AI want something you "red-out"-ed without knowing it, and then would get DOWed on without knowing why.

In the current system, these demands and everything are here for a good reason: so that you know why things happen the way they happen. If you refuse several times a tribute and get DOWed on, you understand. If you just red-out things and get DOWed on afterwards for the same reason, you don't understand and are upset.

Imho, what would make the diplo system better is not the introduction of red-outing for the human player, it's a full re-work of the system.

You couldn't get a negative modifier for refusing a demand because the demand couldn't have been made in the first place. I get more mad at the AI if they refuse to trade something that is marked as available for trade (see my example earlier in the thread) then if they simply red out the item.


Also: Something seems to have gone wrong with the fourms. When I tried to quote the post it quoted a post from a different thread.

 

[CCRunner]

(10 Characters)

 

[JujuLautre]

You couldn't get a negative modifier for refusing a demand because the demand couldn't have been made in the first place.

Well, then you could avoid all possible negative modifier by just red-outing everything?

The actual system has the main advantage of making things clear, transparent. I'm not saying that this system is the best, just that the inclusion of red-outing would remove this aspect, which I find bad.

I also agree for the "we have this for trade but you don't have anything for us". I don't think it would be difficult to red-out items with the reason "you have nothing to offer us which is worth the price", or something like that.

 

[Balderstrom]

It would be cool if things they are completely unwilling to trade, is RED (unavailable)
And things they are willing to trade, is White (available)
[ So Far the same ]

And things they are willing to trade, that you can't afford, is GREYED out
AND Allow you to trade Gold per Turn, for X turns, to make up the difference.

So when you say, What would make this work?
The AI responds , 500 AND: 15 for 12 turns.

Also I've never seen the AI request a CITY, or that you change CIVICS, or the like...
after asking them "What would make this work?"

 

[mystikmind2005]

It would be cool if things they are completely unwilling to trade, is RED (unavailable)
And things they are willing to trade, is White (available)
[ So Far the same ]

And things they are willing to trade, that you can't afford, is GREYED out
AND Allow you to trade Gold per Turn, for X turns, to make up the difference.

So when you say, What would make this work?
The AI responds , 500 AND: 15 for 12 turns.

Also I've never seen the AI request a CITY, or that you change CIVICS, or the like...
after asking them "What would make this work?"

Speaking of Cities.... can you offload a city to an AI race? Can you destroy a conquored city after accepting to install a govenour?

I just want to know for situations when annoying boarder circumstances emerge like what happened to me last night......

I took a city of the Spanish and held it, meanwhile the more advanced Germans were attacking the city from Spanish territory and i was happily wiping them out with cannons. After some time the Spanish sued for peace and i thought, yea ok. Now as it turned out, the Spanish boarder was right up to the city i conquored. so i had peace with the Spanish, then the next turn i tried to attach a stack of german troops laying seige to my city from Spanish territory.... woops! Ahem, change of plans, ah i will just sit there helplessly and wait for the Germans to destroy me at their leasure!!!!

 

[Levgre]

something else I thought of that I would like is being able to 'train units', make them gain xp during times when you are not at war. So you could get highly specialized units without having to fight, albeit at a slower pace (how it really works, units can be trained to be elite, but nothing trains faster than battlefield experience).

It could be something like each barracks can give 1 xp per turn(you'd have a unit option sort of like when you click to airlift "train this unit"). Or you could set the barracks to auto train units.

And each unit starts out with less xp perhaps...

 

[Gorrable]

The basic problem isn't that the player can't red-out things. It's that the AI gets to demand an expensive tech on pain of war (obviously, it's not *actually* on pain of war, but it's still clearly a demand rather than a request). The human player can do no such thing because of redding-out. I guess it's possible to make redding-out linked to power - another civ wouldn't *dare* not allow you to demand their techs?

Brings up another annoying point - the game chooses for you whether it's a demand or a request. I know that normally, when you're demanding, a request wouldn't have a hope in hell anyway, but it still annoys me.

And a system whereby you could make proper demands (refusal triggers war) would also be cool. Mansa wouldn't know what's hit him...

In fact, I think diplomacy is the one area where there's most room for improvement.

 

[troytheface]

Civ needs to modernize and move onto first person perspective, where your like in a war room or palace and formulate plans. Then combat could be a hybrid of rome total war and first person perspective. UU's and UB's should be based on terrrain. A tundra horseman or mountain troop, guerilla fighter, heavily armored ect.