Would you import any features from other Civ games into Civ IV?

[Ita Bear]

Hello folks,

Curious to hear what features, if any, you would like to import from other Civilization games into Civ IV. Whereas later Civ games come with more mechanics, I find many of them to be gimmicky and ultimately not too much fun to engage with (see: city governors in Civ VI, City States in general). That said, there are one or two things I'd enjoy being added.

Firstly, I think the idealogy mechanic from Civ V is a wonderful way to inject some energy into the mid-late game. It has the interesting effect of turning friends into enemies and vice-versa and allows greater customisation of your nation. Civ IV very lightly touches on this what with civics and each leader having their own 'favourite,' but the idealogical face-off is something that I really find cool in Civ V.

In regards to VI, there's really not much I can think of. Perhaps a purely aesthetic addition - I love how rivers, mountains, deserts etc are given dynamic names based on nearby civilisations. Really adds some life to the map. Other than that, many of Civ VI's mechanics belong in the dust bin.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[6K Man]

The throne room and advisor movies from Civ2
Leonardo's Workshop (the LoR mod includes this )

 

[Lennier]

The advisors in Civ 2 were dope.

 

[SittinDown]

I always really liked the palace building in Civ1, but it seems like most people preferred the throne-room thing in civ2.

I'm not saying I'd want it back for Civ 4 - because it'd be a completely different game..... but I also really enjoyed the movement rules in 1&2. You can't move from 1 tile to another EMPTY tile if both tiles have an enemy unit next to them. The "lose-every-unit in the stack" when the top defender dies on open ground made fortifications important, and made over-land unit maneuvering an important part of the game. It's really not much of a factor in Civ-4. ....I thought the movement in 1&2 was more interesting than the 1 unit-per-tile in 5&6, and were designed for the same goals - which is to spread the armies out and make combat interesting outside of cities.

Not a old feature, but one idea I had for a mod for was "stack-heatlh". There would be a Health cap per tile, and if you have more units than the Health cap in that tile, you start taking collateral damage to all your units in the tile, which gets progressively worse the more units you have over the cap. ....and some tiles have higher health caps than others - so like deserts are low, swamps and jungles are really low, but like a river/grass/corn tile would be high..... and as you unlock techs it adds to your health cap per tile, plus Medics add to you Health amount per tile. possibly also higher health cap in your territory vs enemy territory. So as the game progresses, you can move around with bigger and bigger stacks of units. But it might enable interesting choices between spreading your army out over a few tiles vs risking disease-damage, and also the risks of traversing bad terrain with your army. ...I never did anything with the idea though - ideas are cheap.

 

[ZeekLTK]

I've only played a little bit of Civ 6 (started a few, but never finished any games), but here is what stood out to me as improvements, or at least good ideas that might have been nice to have in 4.

-Civic/Culture tree (can't even remember what it was called, the purple one lol)

-Natural wonders

-Picking which bonuses your type of government gives you (so even if we both have Hereditary Rule, maybe mine works different than yours)

-Using the merchant to build roads, instead of workers - I think? I dunno, one of the biggest things I like about 4 over 3 is that in 3 it felt like you needed to spam roads everywhere (because they generated commerce), which made the map look very unrealistic. 4 it feels like you usually need to be a little more mindful of where you put them (since they are only used for transportation), but at some point you do run out of things to build and wind up spamming roads just because there is nothing else to do. So I kind of like that it seems like the merchant will ensure that there are specifically defined roads and they aren't just on every tile just because you can put them there. But again, I never really got to the late game, so I don't know if that still happens in 6 or not.

 

[pi-r8]

Can I count Alpha Centauri as a "civ game"? It had all sorts of interesting mechanics. Admittedly, pretty imbalanced, but still interesting.

One in particular I'd like to see in civ 4 was the advanced terraforming system it had. There were all sorts of late game ways to change terrain and make it better. You could even settle cities in the ocean, and turn ocean tiles into productive tiles (much better than in any civ game). Or just harvest the raw resources from them, and ship them back to another city. I've always thought that would make civ 4 better- you wouldn't be so limited by getting stuck with bad/limited land early on.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I always really liked the palace building in Civ1, but it seems like most people preferred the throne-room thing in civ2.

I'm not saying I'd want it back for Civ 4 - because it'd be a completely different game..... but I also really enjoyed the movement rules in 1&2. You can't move from 1 tile to another EMPTY tile if both tiles have an enemy unit next to them. The "lose-every-unit in the stack" when the top defender dies on open ground made fortifications important, and made over-land unit maneuvering an important part of the game. It's really not much of a factor in Civ-4. ....I thought the movement in 1&2 was more interesting than the 1 unit-per-tile in 5&6, and were designed for the same goals - which is to spread the armies out and make combat interesting outside of cities.

Not a old feature, but one idea I had for a mod for was "stack-heatlh". There would be a Health cap per tile, and if you have more units than the Health cap in that tile, you start taking collateral damage to all your units in the tile, which gets progressively worse the more units you have over the cap. ....and some tiles have higher health caps than others - so like deserts are low, swamps and jungles are really low, but like a river/grass/corn tile would be high..... and as you unlock techs it adds to your health cap per tile, plus Medics add to you Health amount per tile. possibly also higher health cap in your territory vs enemy territory. So as the game progresses, you can move around with bigger and bigger stacks of units. But it might enable interesting choices between spreading your army out over a few tiles vs risking disease-damage, and also the risks of traversing bad terrain with your army. ...I never did anything with the idea though - ideas are cheap.

Ya I’ve wanted all of the above for Civ4 for a long time

 

[cdcuase]

One thing I wished IV kept from III was the change of the leaders' appearance wit each passing era. You would get hilarious visuals like Caeser in a suit and tie or Abraham Lincoln in cave man clothes.

It would also be great if IV adopted V's feature where land units could travel over water without the need for loading into transports. This would make amphibious landings an actual threat and make me reconsider leaving my coastal cities undefended. Right now IV's AI, even on deity, is horribly incompetent at launching a naval invasion.

 

[migalhone]

To me, Civ4 could really benefit from a supply/attrition system: makes no sense that a stack with dozens and dozens of troops passes through desert without consequences, as if it was lush terrain. Historically, geography has had a huge impact on empires, and it should show on a game such as Civ.

Also, the advisors from Civ2, it would be great to have them back, they were hilarious

 

[vorlon_mi]

Civ2 had some good terraforming options also; one had to use settlers to do them, because workers didn't exist. I was disappointed that both Civ3 and Civ4 had fewer options.

One aspect I missed in both Civ4 and Civ5 was the ability to cross mountains! We've learned how to fuse atoms, build a space elevator, and we still can't build a road through the mountains? Civ3 had mountains that were both navigable and improvable. More than a few times, I built forts/fortresses on mountains to guard a choke point.

 

[Chalybion]

I always really liked the palace building in Civ1, but it seems like most people preferred the throne-room thing in civ2.

I'm not saying I'd want it back for Civ 4 - because it'd be a completely different game..... but I also really enjoyed the movement rules in 1&2. You can't move from 1 tile to another EMPTY tile if both tiles have an enemy unit next to them. The "lose-every-unit in the stack" when the top defender dies on open ground made fortifications important, and made over-land unit maneuvering an important part of the game. It's really not much of a factor in Civ-4. ....I thought the movement in 1&2 was more interesting than the 1 unit-per-tile in 5&6, and were designed for the same goals - which is to spread the armies out and make combat interesting outside of cities.

Not a old feature, but one idea I had for a mod for was "stack-heatlh". There would be a Health cap per tile, and if you have more units than the Health cap in that tile, you start taking collateral damage to all your units in the tile, which gets progressively worse the more units you have over the cap. ....and some tiles have higher health caps than others - so like deserts are low, swamps and jungles are really low, but like a river/grass/corn tile would be high..... and as you unlock techs it adds to your health cap per tile, plus Medics add to you Health amount per tile. possibly also higher health cap in your territory vs enemy territory. So as the game progresses, you can move around with bigger and bigger stacks of units. But it might enable interesting choices between spreading your army out over a few tiles vs risking disease-damage, and also the risks of traversing bad terrain with your army. ...I never did anything with the idea though - ideas are cheap.

These are great ideas! CIV's terrain system gives the game lots of replayability - it is really satisfying to take a poor starting position and develop it into a competitive position, or develop a good starting position into absolute dominance. Extending the terrain system to military tactics using your health cap idea could give the game even more depth. I would also take Civ II's top defender mechanic, and tweak it to use CIV's collateral damage mechanic. If the top defender loses, then non-fortified units suffer collateral damage. Collateral damage could be capped, but decrease using the same 5 turn timer as the fortification strength bonus. This could be combined with the terrain health cap idea, where forts/mountains/hills/forests have lower collateral damage caps. Protective civilizations could get a buff by fortifying quicker, and workers build forts quicker.

This could add more of a rock-paper-scissors element to the unit types:
- Melee/Gunpowder: Receive collateral damage; can fortify
- Archery: Receive collateral damage; cannot fortify; increased collateral when attacking (Like baby Chokos )
- Cavalry/Tanks: No collateral damage; no fortification bonuses
- Siege: Bonuses vs. cities/forts, but less of on open-field role

Yep, this would be a different game from CIV (Civ 7?), but one can dream, right? My wishlist would also include an AI that can use terrain to fight effective wars and develop strong cities.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I am surprised nobody mentioned the SMAC unit designer.

 

[ThreeBlackSevens]

I’d have to agree with everyone saying the advisors from civ 2, I love them!
I think it would be cool if it had some of the religion features from 5 and 6, they’re cool in civ 4 but from what I understand they really expanded on them a lot in future games.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Welcome @Chalybion and @ThreeBlackSevens !

Enjoy your time on the forums.

 

[pi-r8]

I am surprised nobody mentioned the SMAC unit designer.

the unit designer was cool, but I feel like it was more trouble than it was worth. In the late game, it gave me brain overload trying to think through all the combinations of special abilities you could have (there were LOTS of them). And most of them weren't worth the extra cost, but you could make a few that were game breaking, so I think it would totally wreck the balance of most civ games.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

the unit designer was cool, but I feel like it was more trouble than it was worth. In the late game, it gave me brain overload trying to think through all the combinations of special abilities you could have (there were LOTS of them). And most of them weren't worth the extra cost, but you could make a few that were game breaking, so I think it would totally wreck the balance of most civ games.

I like that sort of thing in games. Ideally, what you want is a bunch of situational combinations that are somewhat gamebreaking for those particular situations. And than the strategy becomes how to get your self into that situation to exploit them. Sort of like what FFH and its submods do. I much prefer that sort of thing to the bland balance by equality of modern games or indeed vanilla CIV4.

 

[Anba02]

I miss the old respawning!! considering that several civiizations have several leaders civil unrest ought to lead to the return of killed civs. But foremost!!! Bring back the civ splitting! it would be awsome to be attacked by a stronger AI and responding by grabbing its capitol and gaing two new vassals.

And i would also woud like the game to have some kind of imigration mecaniism. I honestly don't get why there would be an civilian specalist for any outher reason than gaining imigration points

 

[topsecret]

I miss the old respawning!! considering that several civiizations have several leaders civil unrest ought to lead to the return of killed civs. But foremost!!! Bring back the civ splitting! it would be awsome to be attacked by a stronger AI and responding by grabbing its capitol and gaing two new vassals.

And i would also woud like the game to have some kind of imigration mecaniism. I honestly don't get why there would be an civilian specalist for any outher reason than gaining imigration points

Check out mods like Legends of Revolution and RFC/DOC

 

[Slaughter]

The way Alpha Centauri does terrain and climate in general is something totally unique and never seen before nor after in any 4X game.
Its actually way more realistic, dynamic and correct than the boring static tiles of Civ games.

Its also cool in that there's no such thing as "mountain/hill terrain". Rather, land has Elevation.

I think a Civilization game could benefit marvelously from such a system with more advancement, because it would enable depicting climate shifts through the ages. The end of the Ice Ages, the cold climate event of the 500s, the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, all sorts of climatic shifts, etc.