What would you have wanted different in Civilization 4?

[Comrade Alex]

I really like BTS, and civ 4 in general.

But seriously, the diplomacy system is just..... awful...

I invade Charlemagne in 2500BC to grab an undefended city, and now he'll never be friendly thanks to the -3 penalty. Bloody hell.

AI leaders changing personality after government changes?
maybe. meh.

It'd also be good to properly grind a civ into the ground after a war and strip them of all their national pride etc etc.

like Versailles.

 

[Comrade Alex]

Fawlty Towers fan, Ambidexter?

 

[Comrade Alex]

fixed borders after nationalism as well. ...

it would make all the cultural expansion stuff obsolete, but when has a city ever culture flipped? ever?

 

[ICNP]

Fixed border sounds more realistic with nationalism. I hear people talking about trading borders but when you look at the system nationalism would OBSOLETE the ability to trade borders at nationalism. This is because Culture supposedly makes more people of that nationality to live in that area. Since nationalism is all about getting all the nationalities into their own countries I have to say that the current system of area's swapping should only be allowed through trade and if you have a significant majority.

Basically: City A has 75% French and 25% German. France could get that territory through trade thanks to nationalism.


Also bring in some sort of supply system so that Healing in enemy territory isn't so ridiculous and allow you to destroy the units in a city by cutting it off not just the city itself.

 

[AngryZealot]

I want this different:

I was about as good as friends with Catherine as you can get. She was also the clear leader in the game, but no biggie, we got along fine. Koreans asked me to declare war on the Babylonians. Since I was good friends with the Koreans too, and Hammurabi was in last place, I agreed. Six turns later, Babylonia became a vassal state of Russia, who then declared war on me, and I got steamrolled. Nothing I could have done. Pisses me off .

 

[Ace of Gold]

advisors, they should have real advisors

 

[JujuLautre]

I was about as good as friends with Catherine as you can get.

Big mistake

Catherine is the only leader who can be bribed to DOW on an other leader she's friendly with.
You need to be friendly to bribe her, but on the other hand, it's not because she's friendly with you that you're safe

 

[ICNP]

AP ending wars. Nuff said

 

[CivLuvah]

Another expansion pack with full of new religions, new civilizations, new scenarios & new leaders.

 

[a4phantom]

More realistic declarations of war. War weariness should be mitigated somewhat by proper application of propaganda, which should take several turns before the war starts to whip up the proper hysteria. So if I spend three turns before the war telling my people how awful those Malinese are and how they've wronged us, they get some warning but I get a reduced WW penalty because my people are convinced that Mansu has Weapons of Mass Destruction and was behind the September 11 attacks.

Also, I know it's not a tactical wargame but there should be some, some, some kind of lines of supply issue for military forces.

 

[sanjay_111]

I have a feeling (though not 100% sure) that the game favors warmongering too much. It seems to be easier to win by conquest than by building culture or through diplomacy. Correct me if I am wrong on this.

The game should penalize unprovoked declaration of war much more than it seems to do so now. Other civs should become more hostile to the warmonger and more sympathetic to invaded civ. Their opinion should also become a little more unfavorable if a tribute is demanded.

Initially (in less civilized phase), this penalty should be marginal. As technology / civics advance, the penalty should increase.

The game is a surprisingly good simulation of actual development of civilizations. This change, in my opinion, will make it even more so. The change should also make ANY kind of victory equally difficult so it will be more balanced that way too.

If a large group of players favors warmongering, there can be an option - "No / low diplomatic penalty for warmongering" in the customs game menu. By default, the game is balanced between different types of victories but you can change it if you want.

 

[Cyberviking]

I think the graphics in many ways are better in civ4 than in civ3, but the contents of the tiles seem a bit square like. The coastline in civ3 is more manifoldly than the one in civ4.

Another thing that is annoying me is that when game developers start to focus on 3d graphics, they give less preference to the rest of the game.

My conclution is that I like the Civ4 graphics best, but i think it's more entertaining to play civ3. I wanted an entertaining civ4, but what we have got is just a piece of graphical art.

 

[Cyberviking]

- Better diplomacy, more opportunities to make treaties early in the game.
- More kinds of units and cheaper unit uprgrade
- More civilizations, and no limit on how many civs you are allowed to put on a map. 18 is far from enough!
- Gunships should have been alble to cross oceans and lakes.
- I want slow tecnology and quick production, but civ IV just offers slow technology and slow production or quick technology and quick production.
- Different leaderhead outfits for the different ages, just like in civ3.

 

[Comrade Alex]

Oh yeah! They used to dress up in their own little costumes. That was fantastic, Hannibal wearing a suit was particularly excellent.

I liked the geographical starts as well, you know, where, say, all the Mediterranean civs would start together. There should be an option to bring that back.

But costumes. Booh yah.

 

[ICNP]

Maybe not Gunships on Oceans but Coastline makes a lot of sense.

I don't think they did fine on Graphics. IMO Graphics are not to be pretty but functional.

Revolution mod included into the game.

 

[Crowqueen]

Graphics are not and should not be the be-all and end-all - I still enjoy the isometric Baldur's Gate RPG series which is now ten years old and counting (and I remember when Civ III looked like eye-candy), and were it not for the fact that the copy of IWDII I got off Amazon broke or got corrupted half-way through, I'd still be playing that right now. Civ IV scores highly in this regard because you can turn the graphics "down" on slower computers like mine.

However the more sophisticated computers get and the more they can cope with means that games need to be up-to-date to cope with the competition. Any new game would need to look like CivRev to make any impact after Civ IV but I like the idea of combining troops into larger armies (and not just stacks-of-doom like at the moment; they'd have to make sure you could construct a stack by holding down a key and selecting each individual unit, not just sweeping up the entire tile into one or all the same units into one as now - the number of times I've done that and left no-one as a city garrison must be one of the most annoying things in the entire game) that seems to be in CivRev.

Most of the stuff I missed from Civ II when I first started playing Civ IV a few months ago was reimplemented in BTS, and I was happier when I got hold of BTS and was back where Civ II started in some regards. The units I miss are Alpine Troops and Partisans in the modern era, though I think that the modern era is overburdened with units anyway and the earlier game needs more variety; and if I could put in a good word for Caravans to even supply lines out between cities (transfering surplus in one to starving people in another, for example) and perhaps Diplomats as well then I hope the people doing Civ V are listening.

 

[Tibur753]

Oh yeah! They used to dress up in their own little costumes. That was fantastic, Hannibal wearing a suit was particularly excellent.

I liked the geographical starts as well, you know, where, say, all the Mediterranean civs would start together. There should be an option to bring that back.QUOTE]

How about Temujin (the leader of Mongolia in Civ3) wearing a suit.
Anyone have a screenshot of that?

I agree that geographical starts should have been kept too. You should also be able to change the number of turns in the game like in Civ3.

 

[The Frisian]

I'm not entirely happy with the way new military units become available. The SAM Infantry is the main offender here. Why does my empire automatically switch to SAM soldiers when I discover rocketry when nobody, including me, knows Flight? Where's the causality? How can you specialize an army for attacking a type of unit that doesn't even exist yet or that you have never heard of?
The Aztecs had never seen a horse before the conquistadors came. They even assumed it was one creature until the rider dismounted. Would you expect such a civilization to have pikemen standing by with a +100% bonus against mounted units? I think not. The conquistadors were not successful because their horses had a +50 bonus against melee units, but because the Aztecs had not spend any beakers in researching anti-mounted unit technology... because they never needed it!

It's the same with the 'pinch' promotion (+25% against gunpowder units), that is available before the invention of gunpowder.

What if, instead of building a SAM infantry, you would just build a 'blank' gunpowder unit, which upon completion would be assigned a function? At first there would be only one function available, which would turn it into a standard musketman. Later on (with the invention of rifling) you would get a second option available, where the newly build gunpowder unit can be specialized as rifleman. This would prevent the illogical appearance of SAM infantry, because YOU, the player, are now deciding whether or not this new gunpowder unit should pick up a site-to-air missile launcher (with the discovery of both rocketry AND flight) or that you want to to become a marine, or a 'regular' infantry.

The same principle could be applied to other military types, e.g.: You build a pole weapon unit. You need to know Horseback Riding to specialize it as anti-mounted unit. Which should only become available for research once you have actually SEEN horses on the map. If all horses are still under the fog for your civilization, then horseback riding should not be available to you. And your units cannot specialize as horse buster. But with Iron available they could be promoted as anti-melee unit - let's call it the halberdman (a guy with an axe on a pole).

I'd also like the ability to mount different types of foot soldier on horseback. Build a 'blank' horse unit and combine it with an existing unit. A spearman on horseback would become a jousting knight (bonus against mounted units), because he could bump a regular knight (horse + swordsman) off his horse. A rifleman on horseback become a cavalry. A musketman on horseback would become a weaker form of early cavalry. Archer + horse = horse archer, etc. And I also want to mount a SAM infantry on a horse. I have no idea what you would call it, but why not? The battlefield might actually require highly mobile anti-air units! Also, this: SAM Infantry on motor bike

Above: Civ 5 if I was in charge.

 

[Balderstrom]

@ The Frisian
I have been mulling the idea of not building any unitTypes
But that would be an extreme departure I imagine.

You build generic-unit (lets call it a warrior).
When you would normally get "AxeMan" you instead are able to research "Axes"
and then Buy an Axe for your Warrior. Or if you can't afford an axe you can Build one.
When you would normally get "Archer", you can buy/build a bow.
A unit could carry multiple weapons, and be equipped with the one needed at the time.
Possibly training, if the unit was previously something else, ie Melee to Archer or Gunpowder, etc.

As time goes on, your generic Warrior would cost more Hammers and be higher base STR, but would still rely on researching & building|buying its equipment.

This could open up another avenue of the game entirely - but perhaps one people wouldn't like.
IE a Bronze/Copper axe might not be as good as an Iron one, or Relic Equipment or any number of things.

 

[a4phantom]

"The Aztecs had never seen a horse before the conquistadors came. They even assumed it was one creature until the rider dismounted. Would you expect such a civilization to have pikemen standing by with a +100% bonus against mounted units? I think not. The conquistadors were not successful because their horses had a +50 bonus against melee units, but because the Aztecs had not spend any beakers in researching anti-mounted unit technology... because they never needed it!"

You're technically right, but by the same application of true history you shouldn't be able to research Agriculture unless you have Rice, Corn, Wheat, etc. resources nearby, and several continents shouldn't. Horses, Cows, Pigs and Sheep should be required for Animal Husbandry, and several civilizations should have no hope of getting them. Really, unless you start out next to several food resources your people should remain hunter-gatherers and probably nomads until someone conquers them.

Part of the fun of Civ is necessarily anti-historical, because geography (unfair starting locations) really determined which civilizations (Eurasian and North African) would compete for the top and which ones would be trampled (Everyone else) without advancing far technologically.