Civ4: New ideas, not just an update

[keybounce]

Here are some new ideas for Civ4. Not "new" in the sense that no one else has said them, new in the sense that they are very different from the current system.

First, the board: Right now you have a square grid, which gives you all the diagonal movement problems. Either raise the cost of diagonal movement to 1.5 times normal (1.4 is a little hard to work with), or switch to a hex map.

Second, the world. Lets have a real globe option. You know, at +- 90 degrees there is one hex/square along the world's row, at the equator there is the most number of hexes/squares, and as you move up/down you find that there may be more than one adjacent spot to you. Or, some other way of representing the globe. I'm sick of these "fake dougnuts" that don't even have the real distortion that a true doughnut world would have. (Don't even mention Pop3's "true globe" junk)

Third, the

[Atahualpa]

First, the board: Right now you have a square grid, which gives you all the diagonal movement problems. Either raise the cost of diagonal movement to 1.5 times normal (1.4 is a little hard to work with), or switch to a hex map.

Why?

Second, the world. Lets have a real globe option. You know, at +- 90 degrees there is one hex/square along the world's row, at the equator there is the most number of hexes/squares, and as you move up/down you find that there may be more than one adjacent spot to you. Or, some other way of representing the globe. I'm sick of these "fake dougnuts" that don't even have the real distortion that a true doughnut world would have. (Don't even mention Pop3's "true globe" junk)

What would that add to the game?

Third, the scale. Now, lets think about fortifications, and defensive movement a bit. Do you want defensive units to be completely stationary, dug into foxholes, unable to move at all, or do you want defensive units to move slowly, cautiously, quietly, listening, looking, alert, for, any, possible, problem? I'd say that you want slow moving defensive-ness. So, if moving defensively means slower movement, then 2 movement points needs to be the norm, and defensive movement costs double. That means eliminating "fortification" as a unit state and defense adjustment (although you could argue that fortification is actually a third state -- normal, defensive, fortified).

Not good. Makes everything too complicated. Move defensive, move not defensive,... Civilization is about macro-world playing!

4: Scale, time, the long end. Think about this -- does it make sense to say that this unit has been around for 500 years, wandering the countryside?

Well basically thats what all the military is proud of: "Defending your home since 1745"....

5. Scale, time, the short end. OK, you've got this force of barbarians moving slowly towards the city; it'll take them 40 years (one turn early on) to cross that 2 week travel time desert (one game space). Are you really going to tell me that my city can't put together some military in 40 years, just because I've only got 4 shields out of 10? Even if I hurry, and lose a full pop point to crank out a military unit, it will arrive after my barbarian opponent moves and attacks (and wipes out) the city. This makes no sense either.

You take time too seriously. Its 1 turn. Forget about the years. Time is just a bad link to the real world, but I dont mind since I dont care much for it.

6. Civil wars. Right now they don't exist in civ games. In the real world, they are the single constant truth of long term governments. Why is it that no real civilization has lasted from 4000 BC to today? Answer: civil wars.

And there was no single leader to lead a civilization from then to now. Would you like to see the messages: "you have died from cancer" after the first turn?

Civil Wars is much too difficult of a concept to make it right. In the end it will be badly implemented and only get on everyone's nerves.
Just look and see how many ppl get annoyed by culture-flipping. They and many more for sure wouldnt accept the fact that half-their empire turns against them suddenly.

No true rebellion occurs. You can always adjust sliders or production to keep people happy, or make workers to shrink cities and improve happyness, etc.

Makes me wonder what your concept then is good for if it has no real effect. Wouldnt that be boring: move the slider and yay no problems anymore.

7. Trading. Seriously.

In real life, trading means disease. Here?

In real life, ideas can be spread through casual travelers. Here, you have complete control over every person in your empire, no one crosses that iron curtain to an adjacent enemy city even if you are both peaceful democracies. Heck, canada never gets ideas from american citizens or newspapers, right?

And you'd accept the fact that suddenly your arch-enemy got your secret technologies?
Its an iron curtain country basically because this fits most players style. You develop something to get ahead. You decide wether to give that technology away.
You'd also need to take the control of the game away from the player so that the player doesnt get the feeling that he is developing something and his people give it away.
Taking control away from the player however is not in the sense of civ!

Some crazy ideas:
The idea that you can control what people are researching in a modern democracy.

The idea that you'll only research one thing at a time.

The idea that if you change research, all prior research in that field is lost, and not retained for later.

The idea that you'll never get any of the public information published in other republics or democracies.

Civilization is a game and as such has rules and definitions. While it leans closely to the real world it is not meant to be a simulation of it.

For modders, having two tech tree could mean having one tree based on science, and one based on magic. You could study both, but you'd be slower and behind those kingdoms that only focused on one.

Magic never makes it into Civilization because magic is not part of the real world. Civilization is just a big huge abstraction of the real world. But thats only second. First it is a game!

[Kuciwalker]

In real life, trading means disease. Here?

It does in C3C too...

[Fosse]

Wow, forget about welcoming the new guy.

keybounce, a lot of the various things you mentioned are in discussion in the various "List" threads on this board, including the map (what's wrong with a true globe?!?), movement, and trading and research.

Welcome to the boards.

I think you and I see nearly eye to eye on the research and techtrees... though I didn't quite get, and was a bit scared by, your "magic" tech tree reference. However, systems that involve research "just happening" as a result of your citizens own ingenuity (augmented by Civ style directed, of course) have met some welcome, and hostility, on these boards. You might find some of that conversation to your liking.

Regards,
Fosse

PS... skywalker, come now! The Plagues in C3C surely aren't what he's talking about! But you're right, they at least made the (belated) effort.

[Kuciwalker]

The plagues in C3C are pretty cool.

[Fosse]

Agreed. Not all they could be, but a step in the right direction.

[keybounce]

Why use a globe? As in, being able to use north pole shortcuts to reach the enemy isn't of value?

Why use a 1.5 modifier for diagonals? Right now your cities have blind spots on those diagonals. As long as you're on a square board, and some things have no extra cost for going diagonally, then going diagonally has extra distance coverable, is more favored unrealistically, etc.

Oh, my background: I'm a big fan of both SPI war games, and AH games like Advanced Civilization. I haven't played History Of The World enough to say if I'll wind up liking it or not.

My tech tree idea? Imagine, at the most extreme, a game mod where you can either do technological based advances and units, much like the current stuff, OR a different set of techs and units based on magical research. At the lowest end, they are either identical (everyone has the wheel), or have no predecessor techs. At the highest end, they are very different, but both are lethal. Lack of game time would prevent you from researching both trees. Lack of a needed resource, or availability of a resource, or just plain play style, might encourage you into one tree or the other. Trading techs might still give you both trees.

To do that currently, you'd have to have everything in one era, which would make the tech advisor screen rather complicated. To actually break it up into eras, you'd need to say "You can get out of the stone age with either Bronze Working, in which case you go into these iron-based techs, or you can get out with Storable Mana, in which case you go into potions, scrolls, and batteries of various types."

(As for the comment "Magic doesn't exist in Civ, it's supposed to represent the real world", just look at the MTG mod, the WH 4K mod, etc.)

And, some "techs", such as philosophy, mathematics, etc, might be the same on both trees. But the idea that a given tech has two different sets of prereqs -- with EITHER set being sufficient to work with -- isn't something you can do in Civ3.

Interstingly, I said you don't have any true rebellions in Civ3. You can just adjust sliders and make everyone happy. Atahualpa said "Wow, then why bother implementing these rebellions, move the sliders, YAY, you're done".

I"m saying that the CURRENT SYSTEM is "Just move the happyness slider, and people stop complaining and still make enough food to avoid starvation". The current system is no true rebellions, just make entertainers.

Civil war? How about 5 outlying cities go AI; each city might be a single city culture (and maybe these little city states might merge), or they might rebell en-mass. Hmm...as I think about it, saying that they rebel in single, and then maybe join up, works better -- you won't get a single rebelling nation over a distance wider than your own nation (rebellions on the left and right edge at the same time).

AI Controlled? Why not. You can fight, and get them back; you might be able to do diplomacy and "pay" them money to quiet it down; or, in a multiplayer online environment, that might be a way for new players to join in, or eliminated players to get back into the game. Or, a civil war city might be more likely to culture flip to a nearby nation than a non-rebelling city.

Or, just as an example, are you really going to say that the american civilization really was around from the beginning? Even if you are going to say "That represents the native americans", the reality is that around 1500-1600 AD a new culture came in, and became a new nation, that wasn't Great Britan, nor Native American. That's just one that I'm familiar with, but the truth is, you can find this almost anywhere. Civil wars, and wars for independence, are the one true constant of history, from the fall of Rome to post WW1 and 2.

As for tech spread, well, if you have an iron curtain/secret police society, then yes, you might be able to keep a lid on research spread. But you'll also have reduced efficiency -- perhaps a trade off, -50% research in exchange for zero spread, or +50% research in exchange for 85% spread (there's still _some_ black budget secret government work, right?), as the spread from Stalin-style socialist to U.S.-style democracy. Right now, however, you have +- 0% for iron curtain perfect spread-proofing. That's unrealistic.

As for the scale, well, I've seen wargames where you have defensive mode formations (reduced movement, increased defense) for your units, and the current idea of "Defensive units have no ZOC, no movement, no diagonal block == attackers just ignore you and move right past you" doesn't appeal to me at all. Defensive formation (fortify) is useless unless you want to defend that one spot, either the city, or a victory point tower. Heck, a city radius defends a road pretty well by itself.