Civ4 should be more like Civ2 than Civ3

[JimMac]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Trip
I always find it humorous to hear people say how great certain changes making the game more like CTP/2 would be, and yet very few people bought or play it.

Actually, IIRC I read reliable figures quoted here on Apolyton confirming that CTP1 outsold SMAC, hence CTP2

[Jon Shafer]

Yeah, but nobody cares about SMAC.

[joncnunn]

Re: Civ4 should be more like Civ2 than Civ3

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
I never really migrated to civ3. Many attempts but I always found civ2 the superior game.

Major beefs with civ 3:

The AI

No matter what you do some AI civs always seem to be ahead of you in techs etc.

Either play at a lower level or else build more cities / more roaded tiles / more libaries / trade more. Can also be excessive use of the luxay slider.

Diplomacy

The AI civs are impossible to persuade to make certain trades, even where it would make sense for both civs.

Could be a case where either the AI is already running a trading deficit, in which case, they'll never sign a GPT deal or you are running a trade deifict when you contact them [same result], or else what your offering isn't a good enough deal for the AI.

Bribery and espionage

It is way too expensive. Also techs and maps don't fall into your hands through conquest. This makes the game unbalanced.

Actually if fixes it being unbalanced in the hands of a human with too much cash on hand.

Armies and generals

Also far too expensive and hard to obtain - hey, its a game, this is supposed to be fun. Military academies take too long to build and aren't worth the effort. All combat should be based on building armies in civ 4. You already have the model to do that. Generals could be a force multiplier but they should also be easily obtainable. Maybe this was a play balance issue? I notice the AI hardly ever builds armies. Maybe have a new category of general called "heroe" which you gain trhough combat exploits?

More intelgent use of troops can greatly increase the ease of getting a Military Leader. [Never upgrade an Elite unit until it produces a user, only use Elites in battle against sure things so they aren't killed, and use regulars and vets as cannon foder]

Military Academy should be built in the most productive city.

In Conquests, armies are significantly better.

Yes, the AI doesn't know how to use armies properly even when it does get one.

Grouping troops and firing

I think the grouping feature is good but could be better if armies were more readily available and flexible. I really tire of firing 30 cannon individually and then moving them laboriously around the map - even with grouping the micro moving kills fun in the endgame.

There is move all of the same type in Conquests.

Culture and borders

I turn it off. I can't see why when I have garrisoned a city it could possibly turn back to the other side and take my troops with it during a freakin invasion. That is plain silly. I have lost large forces, like 10 units, that way during invasions. The cultre concept is good but it badly needs finetuning in the interests of better gameplay.

The city with 10 units fliping is unpatched Vanilla.
Units have been much more effective blocking flips for ages.
Plus there is the option of stationing a stacj of units one tile away from the city. Who cares if it flips, reconquer it.
Much more cultural builds so that your empire has more culture helps. Another tactic is the purposely strave the captured city down to a small population, optinally with rushing of settlers / workers.

Economic model and adviser screens not intuitive

When building your civ, it isn't clear in civ 3 that certain actions have certain effects. In civ 2 and 3, if you built certain items or tweaked the luxury rate you could immediately see the effect. This tweaking of settings and builds was one of the most fun parts of the game. In civ 3, its a very frustrating part. The adviser screens are practically useless and not intuitive - please improve this. If I change a setting or build something I want to see it's effect immediately. Also, bring back the global state screens for your civ, they were very useful.

If you acquire a new luxary, just play with either slider to see the new affect easier.

Governments

Unlike civ1 and 2, civ3 governments do not seem to have clear enough differences or some are duds. feudalism and monarchy for example, why would you choose feudalism? I've never worked that out. Communism and fascism should be very different. Are they? I'm still not too sure. Republic and Democracy, not much difference. All the governments should be clearly different and have clear costs and benefits. Please fix this - and please, please, bring back fundy!!!!!!!

Fedaulism & Monarchy are actually inverses of each other in terms of unit support.

Monarchy (2, 4, 6) works best with every city size 7+.
Fedualsism (5, 2, 1) [tripple over the limit] works best with every city size 6-.

Communism & Fascism are also inverses of each other in what kind of empire they are best at.

Communism has a flat unit support + communial corruption (all cities equally corupt.)

Fascism has the normal corruption pattern, with huge unit support for Metros.

If you have a large geographic empire with few metros and are planning to be at war to win, Communism if the choice.

If you have a realitvely small geographic empire that has lots of Metros and are planning on being at war to win, Fasicsm is the choice.

Many ways to win

It should not be the case in civ 4 that only one set of economic and government setting leads to victory. There should be many paths to glory. Again imo, civ1 and 2 did this much better than civ 3.

There's several more paths to victory in civ 3 than civ 2.
Civ 2 has exactly two victory modes :
1. Spaceship
2. Conquer every single city on the plante.

Civ 3 has those plus:
1. Domination [basically removes the last few turns]
2. Culture (empire wide and single city)
3. UN victory

Accelerating endgame means accelerating fun

In both civ1 and 2, the endgame seemed to accelerate to an exciting finale. In civ3 the end game is an anti-climax and a morass of micro management. Back to the drawing board guys! We need to get that sense of excitement and gathering speed back into civ4. Also civ1 and 2 could be won in a few turns at the end, either by war or spaceship, even if you were behind right till the end. Is that possible in civ 3? I think not. I suggest in developing civ 4 you go back and play civ 1 and 2 to see what I mean.

This is primarly because of two features:
1. Every single AI unit on a rail insists on moving along every such tile in freindly / netural terraign to explore every turn.
2. 4 turns minimum to research anything rule.

And BTW, it is possible to be several techs behind and win at the end. A 2 Multiplayer game + several AIs just ended with the person behind storing up shields for the UNs, and switching to it upon him reaching it and beating out the leading human who had half the space ship parts complete, and was actually also building the UN. (He would have filibustered)

The Strat Map

This must scroll in civ 4!!!! It is incredibly irrititating that it is a static map. Even civ1 had a strat map which recentred when you moved. This is very important not just military and exploration planning - but for map lovers like me exploring the world means moving the map around. If the strat map is the way it is because of the link in the adviser screens to unit location, then please break the link. Also the zoom feature is hopeless - only 2 settings? Puhlease!!!! Civ1 and 2 had multiple zoom settings and the whole screens could be moved around and resized - great!

In Civ 2 I just set the level of zoom on the main map approative to my screen resolution once and was done.

But Civ 4 is planning on allowing lots of zoom levels.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Trip
I always find it humorous to hear people say how great certain changes making the game more like CTP/2 would be, and yet very few people bought or play it.

And its funny how so many civ loyalists parrot comments about CTP without actually never played it - or are totally blind in their bias to many of the gameplay issues that CTP has done well - (maybe not perfectly, but a whole lot better than what is in place in civ.)

I hear a lot of that...

[Jon Shafer]

If you're referring to me, I can take a picture of my CTP2 disc...

[hexagonian]

You would be part of the group that falls into the second part of my post ...the 'totally blind in their bias' part

[alva]

Diplomacy

The AI civs are impossible to persuade to make certain trades, even where it would make sense for both civs.


Could be a case where either the AI is already running a trading deficit, in which case, they'll never sign a GPT deal or you are running a trade deifict when you contact them [same result], or else what your offering isn't a good enough deal for the AI.

Or you have broken a deal earlier, they relly don't like that.

[Alex]

Originally posted by Trip
Yeah, but nobody cares about SMAC.

Dude!!!

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Trip
Yeah, but nobody cares about SMAC.

SMAC's a master piece.

[Max Sinister]

Originally posted by Trip
Yeah, but nobody cares about SMAC.

If compared to the big three (Civs, I mean), then yes. If compared to other games, then no.

[alva]

The only thing I liked ( not in CIV3) was the way tech research was done, IE where you had no certainty about wich one you would discover.

[Jon Shafer]

Man, people here don't have enough OT troll experience...

[frekk]

Ugh .... I hated SMAC ... it had its good points but the unit customization was really too much, MM-wise.

[Nikolai]

This ain't OT.

[Ang]

No dude, Civ 4 should not be more like Civ 2. Becasue it would really just be Civ2 with all new graphics. That's filling new wine into an old bottle.

Sure throw in some old elements, but make sure almost everything is new and original.