Why didn't Firaxis...

[Conspirator]

Expand the Civilization franchise into an greater simulation of government planning and history simulation by:

-Allow us to somehow create our own borders during negotiation after a military victory.
-Have a lot more unique resources varying from region to region.
-Perhaps expand this further and, as an example, in the Middle East there would only be 3 horse resources next to each other, and the nation that controls the Horse resource can build more of those resources in the right tiles within their territory - but if these resources were captured the other Civilization would be able to plant new Horses if you didn't stop them.
- Bring back an the Health system from Civ 4.
- Require armies to need to be fed.
- Instant creation of army (i.e. no army build time). Army linked directly to population of empire, birth rate/death rate, etc.
- Scrap Civ 5's new technology branch thing and implement a military branch where you can specialise your army, for example focus on having good spoked wheels on your chariots, steel swords in Bronze age, whatever, unique to you because there are many things you can advance your army by.
- Automatic (and gradual, depending on Civics, and other variables) military upgrade. Perhaps for lump sum payment for all army (600 gold or whatever).
- Larger maps.
- Automatic trade caravans (lines) that need to be defended.
- Bring back growing Towns.
- Make the Civilopedia interesting again. Bring a lot more learning back into the game.


What about you guys?

 

[Geddy]

Because the development team was not up to the task. Inexperience, immaturity and arrogance.

 

[bonafide11]

Just adding more stuff to the game doesn't always make it better. For one, they don't have the time to program all of that stuff in the game. They didn't have the time to properly program the stuff in the game already, how are they going to add that much more? Also, there reaches a point where just adding more and more stuff just bogs the game down and interrupts the flow of it, making it more boring.

 

[DaveGold]

They made the game simple. In theory a good game is simple to learn and difficult to master. In practice they made the game components too simple and they don't offer enough interest.

 

[OrsonM]

-Allow us to somehow create our own borders during negotiation after a military victory.

The cities and culture system is meant to do this for all past Civ games. Any other system might be too complicated, though I'm sure a few things could be worked around to give a similar feel.

-Have a lot more unique resources varying from region to region.

The game simplified resources in order to avoid explaining what each of them does to the player. Granite or Clay for example are useful resources in real life, yet it's hard to explain to players what's their purpose. If you have a resource like Iron, for example, you don't have to explain anything, Iron is for making swords would think the average player, Oil and Coal for engines and Marble and Stone for Buildings.

-Perhaps expand this further and, as an example, in the Middle East there would only be 3 horse resources next to each other, and the nation that controls the Horse resource can build more of those resources in the right tiles within their territory - but if these resources were captured the other Civilization would be able to plant new Horses if you didn't stop them.

Sounds like a complex system, particularly if we apply the same philosophy to farmable resources. In reality there are territories that are ideal for farming or breeding animals, which is not too many of them to begin with. All Civ games more or less work with that concept, you can't just breed horses in any terrain or farm from nothing. It's not that there's wild corn in that plot, it means that is ideal for farming there.

- Bring back an the Health system from Civ 4.

I might just be the one person that deeply disliked both the happiness system and the health system in Civ 4 (and Civ 3, although I miss to see the citizens actual faces).

- Require armies to need to be fed.

Complexity might not make a fun game, Rise of Nations attempted this and it was quite boring to build a slow moving well equiped armies. However it was very fun to see opposing armies dying of attrition.

- Instant creation of army (i.e. no army build time). Army linked directly to population of empire, birth rate/death rate, etc.

I'm not sure that would be... the sort of thing to go for in Civ games, after all it's not really meant to be a full blown war game. War is just a part of it.

- Scrap Civ 5's new technology branch thing and implement a military branch where you can specialise your army, for example focus on having good spoked wheels on your chariots, steel swords in Bronze age, whatever, unique to you because there are many things you can advance your army by.

Boy you sure like your armies.

- Automatic (and gradual, depending on Civics, and other variables) military upgrade. Perhaps for lump sum payment for all army (600 gold or whatever).

Not that there's a pattern here, but I have the slight feeling you'd be more comfortable with Benito Mussolini's Civilization.

- Larger maps.

Less is more in design.

- Automatic trade caravans (lines) that need to be defended.

There's a lot from Rise of Nations in your sugestions. Bryan Reynolds is that you?

- Bring back growing Towns.

Perhaps, I'd support a newer system that could bring something new to the table.

- Make the Civilopedia interesting again. Bring a lot more learning back into the game.

Back in the day I thought Age of Empires 2 encyclopedia was truly magnificent. It was a joy to go through it. Age 3 had a terrible one and Civ 4's had no love. It could be nice if they included some designing sketches on each concept and maybe a few words from the game designers on why they choose that Civilization or that Unique Unit. The civilopedia needs more love, you made a good point here my friend.

 

[Roto-Router]

I like some of Conspirator's suggestions, because I like granular control, but at this point I'd prefer the devs to focus on fixing the rough edges and broken functionality in the base game. Goofy diplomacy and the numerous balance issues, mostly.

Some ideas, like supply for armies, would not be too difficult to design rules for (though implementing is another thing; I can't claim modding skill). Since the design team built everything around a war focus, supply really belongs in the game. That could be as simple as tracking control of a land hex based on which side's army passed through the hex last. If your unit can draw a line from itself, through controlled hexes and back to your territory, then it is in supply. If it goes out of supply it would suffer some kind of progressive penalty. Since all this could be tracked by the game engine, the player would only be informed when the unit goes out of supply, so it wouldn't add to player workload.

 

[Don Senglar]

The cities and culture system is meant to do this for all past Civ games. Any other system might be too complicated, though I'm sure a few things could be worked around to give a similar feel.

The game simplified resources in order to avoid explaining what each of them does to the player. Granite or Clay for example are useful resources in real life, yet it's hard to explain to players what's their purpose. If you have a resource like Iron, for example, you don't have to explain anything, Iron is for making swords would think the average player, Oil and Coal for engines and Marble and Stone for Buildings.

Stone as resource is absent in Civilization V. The game designers couldn't explain to players it's purpose. Or most probably they don't know "Stone" at all.

 

[catfish99]

I agree on the supply lines. It should not be hard to modify the combat calculation so that there is a deduction if there is an enemy unit in your rear. The game already has a trade route subroutine, and it could be used to determine if a unit has a clean supply line. Check for trade routes, check for enemy units able to reach the trade route in 1 turn, if no route exists without interdiction then -X to combat.
It would add interesting strategy where you could help repel invasions with those old chariot archers and horsemen.

 

[Mac2411]

I agree on the supply lines. It should not be hard to modify the combat calculation so that there is a deduction if there is an enemy unit in your rear. The game already has a trade route subroutine, and it could be used to determine if a unit has a clean supply line. Check for trade routes, check for enemy units able to reach the trade route in 1 turn, if no route exists without interdiction then -X to combat.
It would add interesting strategy where you could help repel invasions with those old chariot archers and horsemen.

One problem with this is that ancient/classical era armies often didn't have supply lines. Look at Hannibal's campaign in Italy. He spent about 15 years rampaging about Italy with a hefty army without any supply lines at all. Instead, his troops lived off the land and plundered.

 

[Giga34]

Play Europa Universalis, it pretty much covers everything you suggested

 

[Conspirator]

i'll check it out thanks mate.

I'm not so much a war person as a build person, I like to have a large empire with loads of mega cities loads of wonders etc. I know Civ isn't a war game but I still think that the implementation of war is a major part of the game and it definitely needs expanding on because the old civ 1/2 forumula that they have continued to use is just too aged now - a new system maybe not exactly as I have described but you get the gist, something more realistic and deep.

To be honest I'm sick of people saying that simple is better. Of course simple is better but it's not the concept that needs to be simple it's the implementation of it - how the player controls it that matters.

For example you guys are saying that more resources would make the game more complex. I don't understand this at all, I think more resources would make the game more interesting. Marble and Granite for example could do the same thing but Granite would be a quicker build time or some other variable. It might seem complex now, just like Civ 4 was complex when we first started playing it, over a very small amount of time (a few hours) these concepts would be easily graspable.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that they need to more Civ into the more realistic territory of empire management rather than this weird philosophy of gameplay first and realism after (or not at all). Realism should come into play first, things should be complicated, and then these concepts should be tweaked so they are fun. For example how resources like sheep and corn spread around the world in reality (i.e. through seeds etc.) is a lot more interesting and fun than the way it is done in Civ. Yes it would be more complicated, but so what? Civ is a complicated game and that's the fun of it - how deep it is. If I wanted to play a simple game then I'd play all the other crap that's constantly released.

They need to expand Civ into the modern era and take advantage of the technology we have nowadays to make it even more realistic empire management game. And yes improving the war system is a major part of that because war was a major part of real empires in history, just like food for the army was, supply lines, spreading of crops, the economy, etc. They tried to change the war system in Civ 5 but it just didn't work. In my opinion armies should be linked directly to your population and quality of barracks and civics and other variables that you control.

 

[Lheim]

There was another 4X game that attempted to expand the complexity of it's predecessor into a more accurate simulation of empire management.

That game's name is Moo3. More is sometimes less. Whatever issues I have with Civ 5, I just think it coulda been simplified in a more graceful, complexity-retaining way.