possible (or not so) civ4

[Brent]

I think I'd be satisfied with basically Civ3 with the editability promised for Civ4, with no limit to number of civs, and maybe 200 total civs included, and maybe 100 new scenarios in addition to new versions of the Civ2MGE scenarios, and wonder movies, and maybe retro (Civ2) graphics. To me that would be a suitable sequel. What would be the minimum to satisfy you, and maybe summarize one or more version of how it could turn out?

[Epistax]

I'd like a no-limits civ. They can't possibly guess all the ways we want to mod it. Maybe we do need a city on every single square of land*.


* Maybe not

[frekk]

The minimum to satisfy me, I guess, wouldn't be much. Total editability. Support for all kinds of rules variants in the editor (even if they aren't in the default rules). That sort of thing.

I think the civs they have now are fine, I guess I am just looking for alot of little things and just more editable features to play with, less restriction. I'd like to be able to do things like add a worker job that allows you to build canals if I want, for instance. Stuff like that.

And I'd like to see lots of small improvements, whether the gameplay is radically changed or not. Things like not just having hills, but having forest or arctic overlays for hills beyond a mere graphics features (ie you can chop the forest in the forested hills, or arctic hills are nowhere near as good as green hills). Little things.

[Brent]

I guess what I said doesn't make perfect sense, I guess maybe I'd have to change it to use the same eight traits but have 20 points to divide among them, or maybe it would work after all to have the same pair of traits shared by several civs, or maybe the game would still be mostly like Civ3 but without any traits. One thing that I'd like along with my minimum, but that wouldn't be required as part of my minimum, would be the support for rules variants, such as rules like in Colonization. I guess I didn't give the version in my original post enough thought and I don't really want it as simple as that. Like another rules variant I'd want available would be SMACish terrain. I guess things can be very different than Civ3, but the only actual advancement I would want are what I said. But I guess some of my clarifications in this post could be covered by the editability promised for Civ4.

[Solver]

Well, CtP2 has perfect editability, but it's not enough for everyone. people want more, as it can be seen. CtP2 had the largest modification possibilities ever since its release, but many shrugged at the game. Now it's as modifiable as it can be, with many still shrugging at it.

So I'd like to see Civ4 moddable, yes, but also delivering a game that is as good as possible right away. Mainly, I want the AI to be good. It's also the hardest thing to mod, seeing how doing significant changes to the AI is hard coding, not just tweaking some rules. As is the case with Civ3, I will be happy to overlook other flaws of the game as long as the AI is challenging and somewhat realistic.

[Trifna]

- A government system that makes some sense (such as SSMAC)
- Good implementation of religion (go Firaxis!)
- Colonialism that works like... colonialism (puppet state...)
- Coherent and important commerce system within the economy (heck, it was soooo crucial to rise and falls of civs!)

[Brent]

Now I'm going to have to say I want Civ2 as the base, but with the ability to play with only one opponent, and the ability to play with any combination of those 200 civs, and maybe get rid of the distinctiveness that civs had in Civ2, and add much of what I've already said in this thread: the scenarios, the moddability.

[frekk]

There's no way there are going to be 200 civs. Currently it takes about 2 weeks to do each leader animations apparently, and I don't imagine that's something they're going to do away with.

[Brent]

Do you think there's any way we'll start with 40 or more? If so, how many do you think is the maximum we'll start with? I guess if they started about now and the game came out around the end of 2004, that would be about 25. Doesn't sound hopeful. Sounds like a waste of time. Do you think Firaxis will give us more per expansion than they did in Civ3, and do you think there's any way the expansions will bring the total to 100 or more? I know I'm not the only one who wants them to do away with the leader animations, and I'm not as sure as you seem to be that they won't. Do you think there's any way they'll do the animations for about as many as we have in civ3 and have other civs that they'll allow us to play without the animations? What if they make the animations generic enough for more than one civ to share, or use some cool technology to let the game figure out hor each leader would look with several generic preset expressions, or use one generic wireframe or something for everyone, or one male and one female?

[chequita guevara]

I'd rather they base it on SMAC than Civ II.