Civ 4 - the list of ideas for Firaxis

[Fosse]

I think that the combat should be stacks. The one unit at a time system is too tedious and outmoded, especially as we can expect bigger maps, more civs, more cities (at least, we'd BETTER get that ).

CtP style fighting and movement (maybe we should call it something else, so Firaxis might consider it. ) is the better way to go.

Besides, Civilization is, and should be, a STRATEGY game. Not a tactical one.

Leave tactics to the generals, and I'll take care of the generals.


edited for typo

[Fosse]

Re: food resources

Originally posted by Jon Miller
next make it so that there can be a choice when you are building (like hurry) but is emphasize production

what this chioce would do is steal 1 production from all cities connected by a rail road to that city and give it to that city for the duration of the contruction (you would also need to make it so that there is a penalty, like 30% of the shields gotten this way are lost)

Jon, this might be the first thing I agree with you on!

I like this as a way to build wonders. I'd like to see it such that it's really the only good way to build wonders, so that if you're really going to build the pyramids then you have to really commit to building those pyramids.

Perhaps this could be the only way to "hurry" anything though, and there could be a gold cost associated with each shield moved. Instead of having those purchased shields simply appear out of nowhere.

Anyhow, it's a damn sight better than the caravan flash build!

[Brent]

Trade

Possibly have more than one type of trade. I miss the Caravans from Civ2, I like Col trade, and I like Civ3 trade.

Great Leaders

I like the Continental Congress (or whatever Col called it). Maybe it would be redundant to have this along with Wonders, but maybe not.

Truly Single Player

Make it more interesting to play with no AI or human opponents. Let the game end better when you don't have them. Allow appropriate victory conditions, such as culture, land domination, and space, and make them still be challenging. You could play either only Barbarian opponents, or not even them.

Goodies

Be able to set which Goody results you can get, and how frequently.

Difficulty Levels

Have ten levels of difficulty. Be able to set different categories of difficulty: My build price multiplier, Enemy build price modifier, Barbarian level, Enemy aggression, Goody results, Terrain, Unit strength multipliers, Enemy intelligence. Have ten levels for each.

Setup

Be able to specify in varying levels of precision the terrain. Be able to give percentages of specific terrain types. Be able to not know how many opponents you have until you meet them. Let the minimap begin covering a small area that grows as you explore so if you don't want to you won't know how big the world is. Make sure you can still play with whatever combination of civs you want. Be able to limit the random selection of civs. Be able to specify some civs to choose from and some not to allow.

Maps

Let maps and scenarios work more like in Civ2. Be able to mix and match rules sets with maps. Keep the ability to specify custom rules, civs and city names on a random map. Include premade maps of The Americas, North America, South America, MesoAmerica, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, The Old World, and the whole world. Offer the whole world in five sizes. Include Chiron, both with SMAC terrains and earth terrains.

Terrain- Specific Civs

Let some Civs be more suited to specific terrain types, such as mountains, arctic, desert, forest, and islands.

Civ 1

Include Civ 1 with the game, in a form that can easily be run by modern computers.

Wonders

Keep the two kinds of wonders like in Civ3. When a city wants to build a wonder, it should automatically ask you which one it wants, maybe in a big window reminding you of the effects of each.

Terrain Improvements

Be able to build Walls, such as The Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall, which have an effect without the involvement of units. Be able to build Canals.

Zones of Control

Return to Civ2. At least notify you when a rival unit enters your territory.

Cheating

Allow cheating like in Civ2, but do not put cheated games in the hall of fame.

Hall of Fame

Have separate halls of fame for some scenarios.

The list of Ideas for Firaxis

Why do we have to start with all wishlist topics in the same thread?

[Trifna]

BORDERS

This is crucial and perhaps easy to implement:
A distinction between CULTURAL border and PHYSICAL border. It's not the same thing and while happiness can go down when a city is more attached to another culture, it doesn't mean it can't be countered, nor is the physical border itself dependant on culture.


MISCELLANEOUS/OTHER

It may just be useful to many humans on this planet: some anti-addiction mecanism you can toggle on/off. The best I know: you put a timer that can't be changed once toggled on (except by going out of the game and back), and it only lets you finish your turn once the time's off.

[MrFun]

I'm curious -- has anyone else ever argued for migration concepts similar to what I proposed??

[Trifna]

MrFun: I never heard of your concept... Would you be kind enough to make a new thread about it? To me, it should simply be in function of where there are new jobs, thus city growth (industry...). It should all be done automatically.

[Fake Boris]

*Short* Wish list:

1. Order phase + Resolution Phase
A system à la board game Diplomacy, in which everyone issues orders simultaneously, which are then compared and resolved. This would allow for combined forces, and some interesting strategy twists: for example, someone who has achieved superiority in military doctrines could be allowed to change his orders during the resolution phase, thus simulating his superior maneuvrability and tactics. I'm thinking about Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Rommel, and the likes.
This would also makle MP much more enjoyable.

2. Give some use to naval power
Instead of useless and agonizingly slow ships who take centuries to circumnavigate the world, you build navies that are docked in. Each turn, you can assign them a mission, such as escorting merchant ships, conducting an amphibious invasion, blockading an enemy port, or exploring (the list is obviously not restrictive).

3. Social engineering!!!
What was a brilliant innovation in AC has been forgotten in Civ3. They could even create a "social simulation", in which, instead of having the leader choose for his people, your nation evolves with your decisions. If you're a warmonger, your people is going to like war; if you build universities, they'll tend to want a democracy; if you don't, they are more likely to support a fundamentalist state. If your country is rich, with banks and stock exchanges, citizens will support a free market economy; and so on.
Instead of being an absolute thing, happiness would be calculated by comparing your people's desires with your own politics.

4. Fix culture!
Culture is a brilliant idea, but it was flawed in its implementation. Instead of being an absolute number, it should be a yearly production that compares with other countries. The basis number would be 0; if you are above average, your value will be more than 0, while if you are under average your cultural worth will be negative.
This way, we can avoid successful nations in the ancient age dominating for the rest of the game.
I mean, hieroglyphs were nice in the third millenium BC, Greek was neat at the time of Plato, French was à la mode and refined in the 19th century; but it took at most 75 years for English to overcome French as the most widespread international language. No culture has ever achieved the kind of perpetual supremacy that is possible in Civ3.
Wonders and cathedrals should produce lots of culture when they are built, and their influence should gradually decrease with time, not increase.

With a system like this, we could also link social engineering and culture. At any given time, values and morales supported by the most influential culture would slowly affect the views of other nations. This cultural intoxication would increase with the discovery of cinema, radio, TV, and computers. Dictatorships could also impose a cultural embargo against any nation... From now on, though, I'm leaving the rest to the game designers. The possibilities are endless.

5. Trade!
Trade is another feature that was improved in AC but went backwards in Civ3. It should naturally increase with bordering nations with whom you are at peace. If you invest in a navy and build docks, it should also increase with other maritime nations. It should also benefit from railroad and road connections, and from some technologies: currency, trade, navigation, economics, the corporation, market globalization, etc.
Again, trade would come into play with culture: nations who trade together gradually share their culture and their values.
Custom fees, embargos, free trade agreements would be part of diplomacy.

6. Science
Civ3 introduced a great idea with scientific research: the more nations know about something, the easier it is to research it. This concept sould be further expanded. Research is conducted automatically, and again based on social engineering. Warmongering nations give priority to military techs, peaceful ones give priority to civil ones.
Free-thinking nations research faster.
The government could conduct research itself on some high-profile projects, such as a space program, nuclear weapons, dreadnoughts (like in WW1), stealth aircraft.
Countries who trade together also exchange techs.

7. Politics, diplomacy, spying and others
Spying needs a huge rehaul. The importance of the Secret Services to stage coups in minor nations or create evidence in order to get population support should not be underestimated. Uprisings should be frequent. Keeping your throne is a challenge!
Governments should be different in their inner functions. Dictatorships can use the ressources of the nation as they see fit, without care for the people (as long as the soldiers are well paid!), but at the expense of trade, free-thinking, and efficiency. Democracies produce more ressources, but they can't be directly allocated by the leader.

Democracy does NOT bring wealth; wealth brings the need for greater social justice, and thus, unions and human rights. As Ford understood, it is in everyone's interest that the workers can afford to buy what they produce.

I can also imagine a new kind of victory: the Perfect Government. Either a perfect, unbreakable Big Brother-esque dictatorship, in which everyone has to share the same morals, or a perfect, unbreakable cyber-democracy defended by Robocops that force everyone to share the same morals. Either could be similar to the "material perfection state" described by Marx.

Ok, I've told enough. Whaddya think of my ideas?

[Fosse]

Oncle:

1 - Order/resolution phases. I'm a big fan of this one, though I don't see the need for player/Ai intervention to simulate great generals. Just combat bonuses.

2 - YES to more necessary navy. I don't know if I like your way of doing it, but your heart is sure in the right place! I'd like to control of the seas in your trading waters be a prerequisite for sea trade. If you or your allies/trading partners have a strong enough prescence in the region your trade goes through, all is well. If not, expect piracy. If the enemy does, kiss those merchant marines goodbye.

3) Yes to social engeineering, though the name would have to chagne. Your idea of the people having an ideal setup is interesting. What about political parties like in GalCiv? Even in nonrepresentative governments you could have the miliatry, the church, the academics, etc with their ideal way to run things, and they could have various influeces. Clash of Civlizations, anyone?

4) You're spot on about culture. I like this approach.

5) AC trade was good for being realistic and easy, bad for being something so easily ignored. I'm a supporter of that system though, just with more player input (tarriffs, deals, piracy, etc). And with a seperat system for Civ 3 type trades of resources, units, and the like.

6) I don't know how I feel about that.

7) Espionage certainly needs a revamp.

I agree 100% that different government types should have bigger differences "under the hood." As it is now, different goverments are just filters for where your gold goes and how it gets there.

I'm not a big fan of th perfect government win... it depends too much on fantasy future tech and not enough on anything concrete.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Fosse
Oncle:

2 - YES to more necessary navy. I don't know if I like your way of doing it, but your heart is sure in the right place! I'd like to control of the seas in your trading waters be a prerequisite for sea trade. If you or your allies/trading partners have a strong enough prescence in the region your trade goes through, all is well. If not, expect piracy. If the enemy does, kiss those merchant marines goodbye.

How do you propose it is done though?

Personally I got this idea from playing Avalon Hill Wargames, in which fleets have an (almost) unlimited range, and usually it works well. I just HATE wargames (and games) where ships are "land units with a few more movement points".
Solving the fleet problem would be great to the civ experience.

[Brent]

Improvements

Be able to build more than one of the same type of building in the same city. Let improvements look different for different culture groups, or allow a choice, for such as temples.

Trade

I never payed much attention to trade in SMAC, I think I like it better in Civ2, Civ3 and Col

Feats of Wonder

Like I heard about in CtP2. Different degrees. Circumnavigation of landmasses and the world. Exploring entire landmasses, water bodies, and the world. Building a terrain improvement wall a certain length.

Borders

Let borders be affected by the terrain.

Countryside

Let people live where there aren't cities. Maybe say there are small towns there but don't show them or anything.

Science

Let civs take widely different directions. Let civs focus on agriculture at the expense of industry.

Seasons

In scenarios with turns covering less than a year, let snow spread and shrink. Let vegetation thrive some of the time and not other times. Let squares increase and decrease in moisture and temperature.

SMAC

Have some of the same random events as in SMAC. Have random tidal waves, either with no goody box or let there be goody ships in the waters. Have heat waves and such.

Governments

Fix fundamentalism and bring it back. Have more options.

Automation

Make all units automatable as in SMAC. Let units look for new cities built by others when they've explored everything.

Governors

Let governors be more precise. Have more pages of Governor options. Have a list of wonders you want and don't want, and want more and want less. Be able to specify Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often, and Exclusively. Be able to specify options to apply to a particular border, a certain number of cities closest to your capital, on coasts, on all islands.

Complexity

Make the game more complex than SMAC.

Political Parties

Have various government officials who come in and out of power. Be able to appoint government officials from several choices.

[Skanky Burns]

Population points in your cities are of a certain nationality and can be assimilated.
This would be similar to colonization or MoO2 or indeeed Civ 3, where each population point would identify with a certain nation. Over time they would be assimilated by whoever controls the city they live in. Unlike Civ 3 though, these people once assimilated would be of your nation, not Japanese-American or Russian-American but just plain American (for example).

People on borders between civilizations would be influenced by the foreign culture, if enough of the population identifies with another nation then there is a chance for culture flipping. This could be combatted by military garrison, the higher number of foreign civilians, the higher number of military required to prevent any chance of culture flipping.

[Solver]

Originally posted by Brent
Complexity

Make the game more complex than SMAC.

Complexity is an excellet thing. But, being the best thing about SMAC, it also was the worst thing about it - the game was so complex that the AI had no chance of keeping up. If Civ 4 is to be more complex than SMAC, then I fear the AI will be back to pre-Civ3 standards.

[Solver]

Flexible Movement Rates

Movement rates should change depending on map size. Suppose, in Civ 3 on standard map, your ships can reach the enemy in 3 turns. Makes sense, more or less. But, on a huge water map, it might take you 8 turns just for the invasion force to reach the enemy landmass, which is ridicilous.

Same applies for aircraft - a Bomber with the range of 8 is simply non-serious for Huge maps.

Solution: add a map size factor to Civ 4 when getting the movement points of aircraft/naval units.

[Colonel E]

What about something like the Ethos system from (the old design of) MOO3?

For workers, how about simply getting "work points" which you can distribute around to get work done instead of having actual units?

[Solver]

For workers, how about simply getting "work points" which you can distribute around to get work done instead of having actual units?

That's exactly like CtP Public Works .