The Little Things in Civ 4

[Brent]

Worker Automation

Be able to tell workers to concentrate in your closest territory to a particular rival, or in the deepest part of your own territory.

Pieces of Earth

Have small pieces of the real world that the game can place in otherwise random maps, like Florida, Scandinavia, or Iberia. Maybe be able to orient them four or even eight ways. Possibly be able to enlarge them by turning one square into four.

City Names

Have the game store words or pieces of names that can be combined to form sensical city names.

[Fosse]

Blind research
As an option.

Negotiation Slider
If I offer 10 gold they won't take it, so let me nudge the slider to 15 instead of clicking on the gold to remove it from the list, then clicking on gold from my offer panel, then typing 15, then realizing THAT doesn't work, then.......

Customize Difficulty Level
Perhaps I'd like to play a game where the AI gets no bonus units at startup, but gigantic production bonuses. Let me do this from the startup screens, instead of having to break out the editor (which many people will never touch).

I want to be able to select aggression levels, AI trade bonus, AI production bonuses, starting units, and etc.

City Radius View
Remember that from Civ 2 and SMAC?

[civman2000]

THe only eye-candy type thing I would want would be a special view of the map in which you can name regions and geographical features of the world...maybe even if you used names from a real-world set the AI would name their cities to try to match it!

[Brent]

Trading Maps

Be able to trade maps in named pieces, namely the portions of individual named landmasses.

To Animate or Not to Animate

When you choose for your units to not be animated, let there be sufficient pause to see what's going on, like in Civ2.

City Names

Have city names tagged for era. For civs that didn't exist in ancient times, start with the very most important cities and use recycling techniques such as New for a while before using less important cities.

[Plotinus]

Originally posted by civman2000
THe only eye-candy type thing I would want would be a special view of the map in which you can name regions and geographical features of the world...maybe even if you used names from a real-world set the AI would name their cities to try to match it!

Love it. In fact, I would like a full-screen map screen, just like there was in Civ1.

Civs' governments

It would be nice to have more of a sense of what government other civs have. In the original game, the background against which foreign leaders were viewed during negotiations reflected their government. Here, it could be reflected in their speech, which could vary according to their and your government. So if you're both Communist, they address you as "Comrade"; if they're Republic and you're Fascist they address you as "Axis of Evil Dictator" etc... I know that respective governments do affect foreign relations, but if it's not visible you'd never notice it!

[hexagonian]

When you autopath a unit from one end of your empire to the other end, I would like to see the path show up if that unit is selected a few turns after you gave the command.

[Maquiladora]

When you autopath a unit from one end of your empire to the other end, I would like to see the path show up if that unit is selected a few turns after you gave the command.

Thats not in civ3? Its in CtP2

[Fosse]

It was in SMAC, too. Civ 3 liked to leave out tried and true features of other games. Call it a quirk.

I agree that showing paths is too obviously needed to be left out again.

[Brent]

City Names

Assign to each city name the ten other city names that are nearest it in the real world. More useful on larger maps.

[Fosse]

Happy or Sad Citizens?
Ever notice how tough it can be to see who's happy and who's sad on your F1 screen? Ever notice how easy it was in Civ 2 or SMAC, when CLEAR graphic differences were there?