Civ 4 - The List of BAD Ideas.

[Jon Miller]

teh atomoshpere is what I like about civ\

Jon Miller

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Fosse
I don't want to see caravans or supply crawler-type units for storing shields.

Maybe caravans are a good way to deal with trade, but there should be no "flash build" units.

but the camel, pwerful as it was, was not quite as overpowered as the SMAC crawlers - I mean the camels are of no production use till you deliver them - unlike the crawlers.

[Sandman]

Modability uber alles. I'll probably get flamed for this, but I couldn't care less about a complex scenario editor. I'd much rather have a fully furnished game out of the box than an editable, but half-finished game.

Humour. Get rid of it.

Bad graphics. Don't listen to those that aren't interested in graphics; make civ world beautiful.

[rah]

I would like to see civII be the starting point instead of civIII. Hopefully they would do it better this time.

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by Sandman
Modability uber alles. I'll probably get flamed for this, but I couldn't care less about a complex scenario editor. I'd much rather have a fully furnished game out of the box than an editable, but half-finished game.

I agree I would make the same choice. Rather than give us a buffet-style "balance your own game" experience with a million tunable settings, give us a full meal of a game that we can sit down and enjoy without having to make the thing ourselves...

[Solver]

Come on Rah, I think that you will also agree that Civ 3 has some things that deserve to be carried over to Civ 4.

[Shogun Gunner]

Civ is a strategic game, the way we must utilize military units has the flavor of a tactical game.

Let's take a real world example. I'm the President of the United States and Canada just attacked.

start of silly story:

Rumsfeld: Mr. President, Canada just attacked Seattle, Helena, Pierre, ND and Minnesota. We have two tank units and five TOW units ready.

President Shogun Gunner: Send the tank unit to Seattle, because the are attacking with cavalry there. Send three TOW units to Minnesota, because that is where their tanks are....

end of stupid story...

Well, you get the idea. The real attack would be combined arms in each battle area - where you need a mix of troops.

[rah]

Originally posted by Solver
Come on Rah, I think that you will also agree that Civ 3 has some things that deserve to be carried over to Civ 4.

Stacked combat, and resources. THAT's IT. the rest sucked. (and I'd prefer a stack more like ctpII) And these two items couldn't outweigh all of it's shortcomings.

[Jon Miller]

I'm not a CTP person. I bought and played Civ 1, 2 and 3.

However, I did buy CTP 1 and played five or six games before putting it away for good. One thing that did make an impression was the improved combat handling over Civ 2.

I would like to see a carryover of this, like Trifna mentions, into the next version of Civ.

What about choosing actions for each of your units? A bombards G; D assaults G; E assaults G; F defends against H and I. B and C opportunity fire. Orders entered first, then actions carried out concurrently.

Your Troops......Enemy Troops
...B...D--------------G...J
A......E--------------H......L
...C...F--------------I...K

Actions could be:
Frontal assault (ala Kamakazi)
Assault (move, fire, move, fire)
Ranged attack (stay in position, fire)
Opportunity Fire (like cav/tanks when you pass by the position)
Defend
Fighting withdrawl (retreat, fire, retreat, fire)
Retreat
Flee (drop your sh*t and haul a55)

Different choices produce advantage and/or vulnerability. For example, choosing opportunity fire means nothing if the enemy doesn't advance on your position (out of range). Frontal assault is very costly when the enemy is in "opportunity fire mode"

Another example, counterbattery fire could be an option for artillery to artillery combat which we haven't seen at all in Civ. I love reading in the Civlopedia about Radar Artillery's ability to locate enemy artillery by tracing back the trajectory of the fire and destroying the enemy artillery. Can't really do that in Civ, can we? This new combat system may be able to incorporate those changes.

This would finally bring some "combined arms" concepts into the game, hopefully without too much micromanagement, because the additional work is the downside here.

Bottom line, adopting something like this would overcome one of my greatest objections to combat in Civ. Too much knowledge of the enemy reduces the combat into a decision tree analysis exercise of probability. What ever happend to "THE FOG OF WAR?" We all have seen the threads How come three of my Modern Armor units got destoyed attacking a Rifleman on a hill? People whine and complain a lot. Someone inevitably posts an application they compiled in C++ that will tell you when you should attack and when you should defend taking into account all bonuses of terrain, etc. Boring It's time for something new.

.

Jon Miller

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by rah
Stacked combat, and resources. THAT's IT. the rest sucked. (and I'd prefer a stack more like ctpII) And these two items couldn't outweigh all of it's shortcomings.

Don't be shy, tell us how you really feel.

I prefer the way bombardment works, borders, workers in addition to settlers, lack of pulling down mountains into grasslands (eventually), not having the tedium of caravans, etc...

But, to each their own, I suppose.

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by Father Beast
1. 3D. took resources and tended to crash the game, without adding anything.

3D???????????

[MattH]

Originally posted by bfg9000
I agree I would make the same choice. Rather than give us a buffet-style "balance your own game" experience with a million tunable settings, give us a full meal of a game that we can sit down and enjoy without having to make the thing ourselves...

You talk as if we can have only one and not both...

[Kuciwalker]

Stacked combat. There are enormous problems with this, but I'd like to detail a few:

1. Limit to the number of units on a square

This is bad. Really really really bad. It is a HARDCODED limit, even, and can be incredibly annoying. If I want the best defense in a city, no units can enter it. Moreover, it limits the size of my ATTACK forces. It places huge limits on the game and even really hinders scenarios. I like the "stacked" combat in Civ3 a la armies, in fact I think that that implementation is a great idea, but CtP-style stacked combat would ENSURE that I not buy Civ4.

2. Air units + bombardment

Civ3's current air unit system (which IMO is a huge improvement over Civ2) would function poorly here. Ditto for bombardment. Plus, scenario issues - Civ3's system offers infinitely more possibilities.

3. Ugliness

Combat in CtP2 (the only version I bought) was just plain UGLY. I hated it, it was tedious in a way that Civ3 combat isn't (not that Civ3 combat can't get tedious, but it does so in its own way).

[Fosse]

skywalker... I don't think that having stacked combat in automatically means a limited number of units on a tile... but as there is a discussion about this in progress I won't dwell on that.


I'd like to see a religion model left out. I know a lot of people talk about it, and it had a big list for the Civ 3 List... but I see this as something that really can't add a lot without just complicating things. This one is best left to the player's imagination, in my opinion.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by skywalker
Stacked combat. There are enormous problems with this, but I'd like to detail a few:

1. Limit to the number of units on a square

This is bad. Really really really bad. It is a HARDCODED limit, even, and can be incredibly annoying. If I want the best defense in a city, no units can enter it. Moreover, it limits the size of my ATTACK forces. It places huge limits on the game and even really hinders scenarios. I like the "stacked" combat in Civ3 a la armies, in fact I think that that implementation is a great idea, but CtP-style stacked combat would ENSURE that I not buy Civ4.

2. Air units + bombardment

Civ3's current air unit system (which IMO is a huge improvement over Civ2) would function poorly here. Ditto for bombardment. Plus, scenario issues - Civ3's system offers infinitely more possibilities.

3. Ugliness

Combat in CtP2 (the only version I bought) was just plain UGLY. I hated it, it was tedious in a way that Civ3 combat isn't (not that Civ3 combat can't get tedious, but it does so in its own way).

great points

Jon Miller