{The List} General Ideas

[Brent]

In pregame setup, be able to specify that each culture group start on its own landmass, or group them by hemisphere. Maybe be able to give each civ its own landmass. Be more precise with culturally linked starting locations. Maybe have an optional small cookie cutter starting region for each civ that could be inserted into random maps, but on large maps make sure most of thje map is random and disallow cookie cutter starting regions on small maps.

[Brent]

Maybe the standard plugin starting region is only for human players. The regions for the Middle East and the Mediterranean interlock such that they all together can be plugged into an otherwise random map. Each plugin starting region could use special versions of the standard terrains, maybe some unique resources. If the start region is a peninsula coming from the north in the real world, it probably would have to be that way in the game. A real world peninsula could be in the game as an island. Islands in the real world would always be islands.

Rome's start region could be either the entire Italian peninsula or just a city radius of grassland with some hills.I think the Greek peninsula should always be treated as a peninsula. The Japanese would get their entire country. The Aztecs would get a lake and valley surrounded by landlocked mountains. The Iroquois would get a landlocked region including the great lakes. Egypt would be desert with a river and delta and would always be connected to more land to the south. Babylon would be landlocked surrounded by two rivers. France would be a lump of land connected to two isthmuses. The English would get the British Isles as a whole.

The Arabs would get a desert peninsula, or possibly just a desert city radius. The Incas would get mountains with more land to the east and an ocean to the west and mayne a lake somewhere. The Mayans would get a jungle city radius. Scandinavia would get a large mountainous peninsula connected to the east plus a smaller peninsula connected to the south with water between the two. The Spanish would get the Iberian peninsula.

The other Civ3 civs wouldn't have standard plugin regions.

[Heffalump]

@Heffalump: I think settlers should deplete their food bar every turn even if they're on a galleon. For a long time, people on open sea had big problems with scorbic. Since galleons are faster then settlers on land, this alone is an improvement.

Yes but my point with the galleons is that it would better simulate how humans expanded and colonised.

Let's say that in general a settler has a food bar that does not allow him to move more than 5 or 6 turns beyond his borders. This would help simulate gradual expansion.

On the other hand once we reach the age of seafaring we now have ships that transport setters all over the world. So we allow a settler's food bar to remain constant while on the ship.

When he gets off of the ship it will immediately begin to deplete again. This will force settler's to colonize the coasts of foreign lands first and gradually move inland -- just like it worked through history.

[Max Sinister]

There once was a colony in America (Roanoke) which was founded by some Brits, but they all starved. But I guess if that was included in Civ4, many people would scream "unfair!"

[StefanJ]

PLAGUES AND FAMINE

The original Civ had these. I'd like to see them come back, in a more rigorous way. Plagues should spread along trade routes and linger, depressing commerce and construction and occasionally killing off a population point. Medicine, Chemistry, and Sanitation would all help combat plagues.

In addition to people-plagues, there should be blights and hordes of locusts and rats that strike at grain-stores. Pottery would help reduce these. Construction would help more. Electricity (refrigeration) would help a whole lot.

[Brent]

How about an exchange of diseases when you encounter civs from another landmass?

[StefanJ]

You could probably get away with having plagues start most often in ports and jungle cities.

[BigFurryMonster]

Limited contacts with Civs

I'd like to see contacts with certain other civs being limited to a certain amount of time. It would simply run out after a certain time, and you would have to establish or buy the contact again.
This may be affected by:

• Distance between my capital and the other civ's capital - the further we're apart, the shorter the contact period will be.
• Trade - if we're trading resources, contact should remain stable.
• Borders - if we have a common border, contact should remain stable.
• Embassies - if we have established an embassy, contact should remain stable.
• Technology - if we have certain (communication-type) techs, contact should remain stable.
• Units present (?)
• Alliance (?)

This will make contacts with your immediate neighbours more valueable, since you need them to (re)gain contact with their neighbours.
Also, it will encourage trade.
And - it may become profitable to establish a colony (city) far away to keep in touch with other civs.

This may also influence your World Map -- some detailed information will simple go away after some time.

[Brent]

After actually reading the details of that idea, I like it.

[StefanJ]

"And - it may become profitable to establish a colony (city) far away to keep in touch with other civs."

If you really push the lost-contact idea, you may also have trouble keeping in touch with that colony!

"Master of Orion" had a similar feature. If one of your colonies was in communication range of one of theirs, you could talk. Sometimes a colony would be lost, severing the connection.

[BigFurryMonster]

Nice idea, too, StefanJ. Would it be practical, I wonder?

[StefanJ]

Contact and supply would go together.

I figure each civilization would have a supply / contact radius, determined by transportation and food technologies. Rivers and coastlines would be natural channels of supply and communication.

Outside of this, units would have to forage (slow movement, susceptible to disease and disaster) and communication would be spotty. A unit that stumbles on another civ would get only a brief traveller's tale sort of report.

I think this is being discussed in other threads, so I'll leave it at that.

[DarkCloud]

finally updated this

[BigFurryMonster]

Which other threads? I'm interested...

[DarkCloud]

you mean threadmastering helping out? perchance?