What would you have wanted different in Civilization 4?

[Dabur]

How about two unique units per civ?
America could have Navy Seals and Minuteman, a musketman that is built in half the time.
England could have the Redcoat and the Man O War, an especially powerful Frigate.
Rome could have Praetorians/Legionaires and Auxillaries, a better form of Spearmen.

That would make gameplay more diverse and unique.

Hi ,

and why stop at two some civs could use more or there could be a UU for the two different ages with each civ , ...

or a UU naval and a UU sea unit for each civ , ...

Have a nice unit day

 

[a4phantom]

1. Less lose-lose situations. For example, I despise the "stop trading with ____" demand. You lose relations with someone no matter what you pick. It doesn't seem very fair.

I disagree. Frustrating as those situations are, they're realistic and what make you earn your victory. It would be much too easy if you never had to face difficult decisions or bad situations.

2. AI playing to win on all levels. Gandhi should build a military to protect his cultural cities, even if he doesn't use it. Monty should actually research things instead of attacking riflemen with archers.

3. Even less "AI vs the player" mentality. The AI shouldn't treat the player any differently than other AIs.

4. Food trading! Why can't a food-rich city donate food to a city of full plains hills?

Agree with all of those. I think a city's borders (not cultural) should be limited to the adjacent squares until Wheels, at which point it becomes the standard fat cross. Railroad or maybe refrigeration should expand the borders (area the city can harvest) further.

 

[CCRunner]

I disagree. Frustrating as those situations are, they're realistic and what make you earn your victory. It would be much too easy if you never had to face difficult decisions or bad situations.

You should at least get a positive modifier with whichever AI you side with.

 

[Balderstrom]

I disagree. Frustrating as those situations are, they're realistic and what make you earn your victory. It would be much too easy if you never had to face difficult decisions or bad situations.

I just wish the interface was more like Quest optioins where you see what you will get from choosing the varied options.
EX:
*Your right, we can't stand those Vikings: -2 You Stopped Trading w/ us.
Sorry, we can't turn our backs on them: -1 You refused our demand.

*Optionally could show how your commerce will change, when your cities reorganize trade routes.

I don't mind the AI demands so much as it at times being a guessing game as to which is the best option to take at a given point.

 

[The Frisian]

I think the music of Civ could be better. Sure, it's got Beethoven, Bach and Mozart in the play list, but the music itself hardly reflect what's going on in the game.

I would've liked a dynamic play list that looks at the player's civ, era, civics, state religion and whether or not you're at war and base the music on those factors.

Perhaps those static mp3 files could be replaced entirely by such a system. No more chanting monks in the Middle Ages, unless you're actually running Christianity. Your background music would evolve along with your empire.

Police State + Vassalage + Theocracy should produce ominous 'war is about to break out' kind of music, which turns into a full orchestral war drum rhythm (or techno beat, depending on era) when you declare war and invade your neighbors.

Pacifism + peace = peaceful music. Pacifism + war = scary music (to warn the player that his civics are not effective)

Environmentalism should add whale sounds and songbird sounds to the mix. Combine with pacifism and you've got yourself some relaxing New Age music to reflect that you're running a civilization full of hippies

And some more civ-specific sounds would be nice: If you're playing as Aztec or Inca your background music should have some pan flute in it. If you're Arabia or Persia you should hear some Middle-Eastern instruments, etc etc.
Replacing one instrument with another should be no problem for a dynamic music generator. And this would also prevent that every civ sounds the same under the equal civics (because every civ/ethnic group would have a unique instrument and there is religion to influence the music).

You could get some very exotic sounds. Arabic prayers with Japanese taiko drums during Tokugawa's jihad, Gregorian monks singing to the tune of South-American pan flutes or Indian sitars combined with pacifist/environmental New Age sounds for Gandhi. That would be, in the immortal words of the great Alexander, 'way cool.'

 

[Crowqueen]

And some more civ-specific sounds would be nice: If you're playing as Aztec or Inca your background music should have some pan flute in it. If you're Arabia or Persia you should hear some Middle-Eastern instruments, etc etc.
Replacing one instrument with another should be no problem for a dynamic music generator. And this would also prevent that every civ sounds the same under the equal civics (because every civ/ethnic group would have a unique instrument and there is religion to influence the music).

You could get some very exotic sounds. Arabic prayers with Japanese taiko drums during Tokugawa's jihad, Gregorian monks singing to the tune of South-American pan flutes or Indian sitars combined with pacifist/environmental New Age sounds for Gandhi. That would be, in the immortal words of the great Alexander, 'way cool.'

Scroll in close to the units - as far as you can get - and you will hear the music that goes with each leaderhead in diplomacy. This works both on your own land and in foreign territory that you have a line of sight to (either through proximity to your own units or related to espionage).

BTW I recognise some of that music from earlier games like the Persian music from CivII.

And I agree with you about the dynamic sounds though I think there are
natural breaks in it when you come to a point like declaring war etc. Does anyone know how to mod in your own music? Dvorak is beginning to grate even though From The New World is one of my favourite pieces of classical music.

 

[ICNP]

I definetly would love to see more UU's. If possible they should come from different era's or be of a different type. This is harder for short period civ's like the Babylons but it would be very interesting.

And why not the powers just be based off where you start. So if you start in Tundra you get "General Winter", if you start on the coast then you will start with Fishing and be able to get Combat 1 for all your ships.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

One word: terraforming.

 

[frekk]

More advanced transportation system.

I dislike galleys travelling around the whole world, or nations being able to move every unit they have every turn.

I was really hoping there were going to be limits on how far some units (like ships) could move before having to resupply, and something to reflect the limits of communication (esp. before telegraph) and transportation infrastructure; like a limit on how many units could be moved per turn or something. As it stands, the hold of a galley can contain 1000 years worth of salted beef, and Stone Age war-chiefs seem to possess 21st century 'battlefield awareness' technology.

Also, zone of control, I really think that civ2 had it right with ZoC's. No movement from one controlled square to another, you have to fight your way through. This would have been perfect with civ4's general move away from the Stack of Doom and towards more disaggregated forces. Civ would have actually featured fronts and lines.

 

[ICNP]

Yeah ZoC would definetly help to fix the stack mentality as you could prevent the Enemy from escaping if you created 2 stacks instead of one.

 

[a4phantom]

Culture should play a role in diplomacy like in Civ3. If you go to war with an empire whose culture strongly impresses your people, your war weariness should be higher, and if you go to war with a backwater your people despise it should be lower. Units on enemy territory should be at risk of mutiny if the enemy has a superior culture.

 

[T.A JONES]

I think they should add haarp as a future wonder or weapon for post modern tech.
You need mega power to use the ionisphere(sp?) as a weapon so have it take connection to multiple nuclear plants. Mybe as a branch off idea that comes into play, have power grid lines (underground if need be) with a meter showin your readout(mybe sell/trade some extra power?) It ain't such a bad idea. Kinda like roads, haarp would need to be connected to say major sources of power all times for best success rate.

With haarp you could direct earthquakes(any disaster really) by mappin the fault lines to channel the released energy properly(like mapping the bodys blood flow which later maximized mediical effiency attackin germs/disease) .This would take nuclear subs first. They were used for this in real life aswell.
Like exploring a map, the fault lines would be random puttin different civs at risk if they happen to be near the epicenter lines

So its a cool twist. You know a weapon that takes a few stages or tasks to fully delevop (like buldin up a large reserve power output) compared to a min space race with reward only as a great weopon that can be destroyed but not so easliy. Nice lil late game twists like secretweapons makes suspence facter . Mix this in with random natural disasters and it acts like a hidden nationalty weapon. No war can be declared unless esponage can detect the harrp sites in operation (makes the secret weopon holder invest in espinoge to keep in hidden)

-auroa northern lights in broadaylight (earthquake clouds)is a calling card that the ionopshere has been penitrated so thats the graphic it would show you over the target. It would be a rainbow cloud at full power

To stop it You would need to take out all connecting grids that the civ had setup to fully activate the power haarp needs ( HAarp is in alaska, Norway and S pacific island in real life btw) Lowering the civs power a lil would weaken the effect of the weapon but not stop it

Oh and add tesla as a great scientist . Sheesh.

 

[Comrade Alex]

HAARP is equivalent to putting an immersion heater in the Yukon River.

I think that if postmodern wonders and technology are added, they should at least be original, rather than an explosion of hype over a dubious US military project.
Take a leaf from the Red Alert series, follow their example.

That Chronosphere was excellent.

 

[r_rolo1]

Yeah ZoC would definetly help to fix the stack mentality as you could prevent the Enemy from escaping if you created 2 stacks instead of one.

That remindes me what Napoleon said of what he thinked of this: pin one side while smashing the other..... And ZOC needs to be fine tuned to be useful ( not saying no to it... but I've seen alternatively too weak and too strong ZOC in civ series )

I would really like to see some kind of terraforming.... Yup, it was OP in previous civ versions, but no tree planting, besides the apple tree event? :suicide: Insert a maturing mechanism if needed , like cottages have, and the urge for chopping will be smaller...

Some more naval srtuff would be good too. The naval aspect of Civ IV is really crude and it is even more bigger stack mentality than the land combat....

And to end , how about the ability to rent a tile in other civs lands ( probably for military use ) ? It has been done for ages.....

 

[ICNP]

Or tree planting could always come with a later tech...

 

[Balderstrom]

I believe, if Tree Planting was included, people would expect to be able to plant crops for resources... and if that was included there would need to be a dynamic resource allocation system so that each crop can only provide a bonus to X-number of cities. I'm sure something could be designed that didn't require a massive amount of micromanagement, but I can't think of anything atm. It would be cool to be able to specialize Farms though, turn it into a "Tree" Farm, or Corn etc.

 

[deanej]

Planting resources would be worth it for the superbonus on the tile alone. It would have to be restricted to 1-2 artificially planted resources per city, because otherwise people could have one on every tile and run a GP economy with every city being a GP farm.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

1) Better vassal/colony control. E.g. Controlling their foriegn policy, civics, etc. Interesting ways for colonies to break away (e.g. the different routes of independance for America compared to Canada or Australia).

2) Better bombardment/ranged attacks.

3) Better UU's. I think all UU's should be in the OP department, or at least comparable to Rome's. The backbone of a civs army should probably be their UU, or so I feel.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

If allowed to plant trees (like a forestry block), sweet, they'll give you the bonus of a normal forest square during their lifetime, but if you remove them you don't get the hammer spam. You only get hammers if you chop a virgin forest down; not a planted managed tree farm.

Even better, just don't have any hammer bonus for chopping!?

 

[r_rolo1]

^^ Some time ago someone ( don't recall who... sorry ) proposed a mechanism for maturing forests, where a non-worked forests could evolve to more hammer ( and maybe coin ) atractive feature, very look alike to the cottage mechanism we already have. In fact some mods already have that....