Civ 4 - The List of BAD Ideas.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by keybounce
(Ok, I know this topic is really long, and this is only page two).
Infinite movement along railroads is NOT a problem. I repeat, NOT a problem.
One turn is supposed to be a long time, right?
How long does it take to travel from Los Angeles to New York by rail? 5 days? 10 days?
How long is a turn? 2 years?

Oh yes, its a problem...
From a realism standpoint, infinite railroads is believable. But taking your logic to its conclusion, a mechanicalized unit traveling on a road can span the globe in much less than a year too. Airplanes should have the ability to fly anywhere and hit any target within a turn (especially with the realistic ability to refuel while flying). Ships certainly can sail around the world in less than a year...

You have to take gameplay issues into account - and this is where having infinite rails fails miserably. It's basically a crutch to make the AI look better than it really is. And I could live with that crutch except for the following - For a game that is supposed to promote strategic thinking, infinite movement actually dumbs down the strategic thinking considerations of the player. Infinite movement means instant defense. Your forces will never be out of position. And with the commerce bonus for rails, they end up blighting the map, making it virtually impossible to cut the lines.

So I agree with your statement that rail movement should be set up as 1/N, so at least players can have the freedom to modify it.

[yellowdaddy]

It's a spreadsheet game. Therefore, it sucks.

i think most strategy games are to an extent - even Civ.

but I think that'll change in Clash - more visuals (like graphs and icons) less text.
but once that's been fixed, then it'll have just as much of the non-spreadsheet aspects that Civ has.

in fact the battles may be more action-based - not poxy unit lands on unit with a bit of anmation, but an actual zoomed in battlemap (albeit like a radar) where you can do tactics...

I believe the next demo is due in 3 months. (meaning August!)
--------------------------

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by yellowdaddy
in fact the battles may be more action-based - not poxy unit lands on unit with a bit of anmation, but an actual zoomed in battlemap (albeit like a radar) where you can do tactics...

interesting. I'm not a fan of this in a civ-like game, but it might work.

Originally posted by yellowdaddy
I believe the next demo is due in 3 months. (meaning August!)

you mean april?

[MrBaggins]

Thats in "alt civ" months... not those pesky real months

[Plotinus]

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
Plotinus
correct me if im wrong, but i thought Freedom of speach was a basic fundimental of democracy
or is it simply they more often or not fall hand in hand ?

It's just that they tend to go together these days. After all, why should freedom of speech be a basic fundamental of democracy? Democracy means the rule of the people, and there's no a priori reason why the people shouldn't decide that they don't want freedom of speech. There might be some things that, by popular consent, are wrong or unacceptable to say. That's the situation, to some extent, with us in Britain: you're not allowed to stand up in public and deliver a racist speech, for example. We don't have absolute freedom of speech, and it's easy to imagine a situation where you have a democracy but even further restrictions on what people are allowed to say.

Like I said, classical Athens was, arguably, more democratic than modern "democracies" like the United States - literally everyone turned up at the Forum and voted. It was like everyone was their own MP (apart from women, foreigners, slaves, etc...). But they certainly didn't have freedom of speech, which is why Socrates got executed for saying things that people didn't like - for, supposedly, rejecting the traditional gods and "corrupting the youth". That's why Plato later argued that democracy wasn't a very good idea, because it essentially led to mob rule, where the loudest voice wins, not necessarily the correct voice. And, of course, he was quite right.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by yellowdaddy


i think most strategy games are to an extent - even Civ.

C3 has FOUR things you can modify on the empire-level - sci and lux sliders, government, and mobilization

[yellowdaddy]

i think there are a significant number of people who would like a bit more depth than Civ and even less strategy-esque games have. myself, i'd like a nation simulator. not excessive depth, but more than Civ offers.

[keybounce]

Quote:
Oh yes, its a problem...
From a realism standpoint, infinite railroads is believable. But taking your logic to its conclusion, a mechanicalized unit traveling on a road can span the globe in much less than a year too. Airplanes should have the ability to fly anywhere and hit any target within a turn (especially with the realistic ability to refuel while flying). Ships certainly can sail around the world in less than a year...
End:

What you are complaining about here is the lack of ability to respond to enemy moves -- the turn length is too long.

But to make the turn length shorter, you have tons and tons of turns, and the game lasts too long; you also must slow down new development of new techs, so you'll have these units longer, and you'll wind up with much more units (how many tank units are in an army?)

Oh, refueling in the air is a pretty recent addition to modern tech.

Civ's scale system is totally out of whack. At the scales of time that Civ represents, you really *MUST* have abstracted combat to have realistic combat. See board games Civilization and Advanced Civilization (avalon hill). The time scale per turn is actually larger in that game than in this; the focus is from (roughly) 4000 BC to 500 BC; the focus area is strictly the mesopotamia (africa to egypt; babylon to thrace; itally and crete. If I had the board around, I could give you more specifics.)

Civ's strength is that it --- ALMOST --- can be redone for anything. You can make a WW2 battle quite well. You'd have a hard time making a WW1 battle; from what I understand, those were primarily attrition wars where the real question was how well supplies and reinforcements could be resupplied to the front line. (Civ has no concept of supplies, no concept of a city's production going to resupply existing units other than just making replacement units.)

EXCEPT SIGHT RANGE

Civ hardcodes sight range at one space. Nothing lets you modify that. That requires you to have movement speed around 1 or at most 2; THAT causes roads and railroads to be out of whack.

That's why 100% sight inside your borders is a good thing.
That is what makes outposts a must on the battlelines, but outposts are too expensive -- a full unit of population just to man some binoculars?

Quote:
You have to take gameplay issues into account - and this is where having infinite rails fails miserably. It's basically a crutch to make the AI look better than it really is. And I could live with that crutch except for the following - For a game that is supposed to promote strategic thinking, infinite movement actually dumbs down the strategic thinking considerations of the player. Infinite movement means instant defense. Your forces will never be out of position. And with the commerce bonus for rails, they end up blighting the map, making it virtually impossible to cut the lines.

End quote:

First: Neither roads NOR railroads should give a commerce bonus. If you are trying to specify that internal roads for a city make it more productive, maybe; I still think that that's a broken correlation.

(Other than Los Angeles type areas, where do you get full highways in the US? The rest of the world is even less. Saying "We expect roads EVERYWHERE around a city" is silly -- it doesn't happen normally.)

Second: The problem of "Instant defense": No ZOCs. If you have gastly long turn times, it makes sense that you'd be able to keep patrols on nearby areas.

Again: What is Civ supposed to represent? What is a unit, a battle, a turn? That's off topic for a bad idea list -- that really needs to be a seperate thread.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by keybounce
What you are complaining about here is the lack of ability to respond to enemy moves...the turn length is too long

I am not complaining about a lack of ability to respond - if anything, I want to have limits on movement so I have to THINK about deployment. If your troops are out of position, that's too bad, but its a problem that happens all the time in warfare - and it's reasonable and challenging to have it part of civ.

I actually enjoy the early/medieval portion of civ3 because I do have to pay attention to troop deployment. Once rails come into play, the game boils down to whoever has the biggest stack, because (defensive) movement is not an issue anymore.

Issues such as turn length and sight lines do not justify the need to have infinite rails, either from a gameplay or programming standpoint. If you are talking about turn length in terms of the number of units you need to manage during a specific turn, then the use of stacked combat would be a great deal more effective than retaining infinite movement in reducing turn length in a game. Allowing single units to be grouped as a larger unit (armies) as the norm cuts down on the actual number of units - and combat that resolves the fate of multiple units with a single push of a button will also reduce the number of units.

Originally posted by keybounce
First: Neither roads NOR railroads should give a commerce bonus. If you are trying to specify that internal roads for a city make it more productive, maybe; I still think that that's a broken correlation.

...Agreed that commerce bonuses are flawed concepts (I'm in favor of removing the commerce bonus for roads and rails and limiting them to movement only (and as has been suggested, even having an upkeep cost for them), and adding multiple levels of mines, farms and even commerce increasing TI like Trading Posts/Shopping Centers), but the simple fact is since a player gains that bonus, it is economic suicide for him not to take advantage of it. The end result is that every tile is coated with roads and rails, and strategic movement considerations end up, by default, downplayed with roads and are no longer needed once rails are built.

[lajzar]

Definitely, avoid anything that moves civ into the real time spectrum. Theres certainly room in the market for a moddable real time wargame warcraft style, but that is not Civ, nor should it be.

[Enigma_Nova]

It's amazing to see how many of these ideas acutally made it into the game.

[Russian_King]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I don't want to get rid of all tactical play by having CTP style stacked combat

Jon Miller

actually CTP stacks are what made combat a lot more interesting to watch and build, and also a LOT quicker and less tedious

[Russian_King]

Originally posted by Jon Miller


my problem is that you don't control any of those units

all there is is a battle of armies that oyu watch (and yu can order a retreat)

civ has had the joys of different tactics to make sure that you win

Jon Miller

you don't have to control them, they do exactly what u want them to. and if u wana read up on my other post about tactics, its on the last page (6 or 7) of the "Stacked vs Single unit combat" poll

[Russian_King]

Originally posted by MattH
I see nothing wrong with underwater cities... in fact, I was just about to mention them in the wish list...

I don't want CIV IV to be a lonesome single player game- I'm tired of playing 1-v-all.

i go for underwater cities as well! and i want water combat and resources to be almost as detailed as land overall!! CTP1 ruled it mare REALLY good use of water!

as for lonesome games, ure in for some luck buddy. in civ4 i found that AI treats u as an equal and if u make one or 2 good allies at the start (have the same religion is a good start) you will have pretty permanent nonback stabbing buddies!

[Russian_King]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
no

civ has way more than 4 types of units

it has defender infantry
it has offender infantry
it has bombard
and it has calvary

there is also an additinoal infantry type (the archer - TOW)

besides specials (paratrooper/marine/whatever)

as well as air support

and that is ignoring modern times

Jon Miller

lol yeh but offender, cavalry and artillery are all the same (except for civ3)
i found civ 3 to be more tactical than civ 4