Your Worst Fear for Civ 4 (The Negativity Post)

[Solver]

Gee, I meant that culture flips were fixed in Civ3 - and yeah I meant the reworked formulas for it, and the ability to turn them off.

[Nikolai]

In Civ4, there won't be any culture flips as we know them. According to what we know, a city that is envying another civ, will become more and more discontent, less and less effective, more and more expensive, untill the civ that owns it get so much trouble and so little gain from it that it trades it away.

[Mace]

my worst fear: ICS is still the best strategy

[Senethro]

ICS isn't just spamming up the map with cities for the fun of it. Its the best way of generating resources and turn advantage. Due to zone-of-control rules in some games its also very defensible.

While the dominating tactic in Civ4 may not necessarily be ICS, the same people that made ICS will get out their spreadsheets and calculate what the best method of terraforming is. There will be an equivalent that you'll come to hate just as much.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Sandman
That the relaunched combat system proves to be a dull scissors-stone-paper arrangement.

Second would be a radius system which rewards uniform city placement (one city every four squares). But I've little doubt that this is in the game.

to uniform city placement.

Look at how cities are arranged in actual society. Are they uniformly arranged? Hell no. Most are arranged according to water sources and geographical features.

[Xorbon]

Another fear: that the game is dumbed-down so that the drooling, pimply-faced kids with ADD will be able to play.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Ah, now there you have it Dis. One of the key things, IMO, which will help to reduce City Spamming (ICS) is the strong link between:
Fresh Water--->Health--->Population Growth.
The second thing is that almost every bonus, luxury and strategic resource will have its own specialised tile improvement, thus meaning that not all cities will be 'created equal' (i.e. the choice is no longer between 'lots of farms' and 'lots of mines'). Hate to be positive in the negativity thread, but it does seem to me as though ICS has been given the 'Smack Down' on at least three fronts-city health, resource/improvement diversity and city maintainance costs.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Dis]

As an Aussie you should know that. At least if you are familiar with the deserts. Cities do not normally grow without water.

Granted I live in the desert. And most landscapes aren't desert in civ3, but bear with me. But speaking of desert environs, my city orginally was sustained through springs. No town in the west could survive without a spring or river. But a small spring can only do so much, we needed the Colorado river to really become large.

What I was thinking of, is limites to irrigation. This may be overly complicated and more micromanagement, but it's something to think about.

Is it reasonable that you can irrigate next to a river, and take that irrigation many, many tiles away? Perhaps limit irrigation to 1 tile away from the river. Though there will have to be more rivers in the game. As there are too few in civ3 (I had non in my last game- until I conquered a neighbor's city so I could build Hoover dam with a scientific great leader).

Other than that, I don't have any other ideas. But I would like to see population growth, and access to water more closely tied. Perhaps completely redoing the population growth model.

Even cities back east tend to be along rivers. Despite ample rainfall and being classified as grasslands on the civ3 model. Philadelphia, New York, Washington. I'm not sure about chicago, but they have a massive fresh water lake. St. Louis, Memphis, Kansas City. Denver may be an exception. I'm not sure where Denver gets it's water. I'm not that familiar with the city. But I'm sure they have some small rivers from smowmelt from the rockies.

We could of course, allow irrigation after electricity as civ3 normally does, however. As this allows for pumping of underground aquifers. But perhaps that might even be restricted.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Well, if it helps Dis, we do know that the population growth model has been reworked for Civ4. Though the details are still vague, there does seem to be a direct connection between Health and population growth. Though quantity andvariety of food plays a role in city health, it is no longer the sole determinant of population growth. Fresh water access-within your city radius-also apparently boosts city health. What I think this will mean is that picking sites close to fresh water and/or abundant food sources (bonus resources) will be a key to future city growth-especially before aqueducts. This would seem to put paid to the tactic of 'City Spamming', especially when combined with city maintainance costs. i.e. If you want a city to be self-sufficient, in the long term, then you will need to ensure that its population will grow large enough to work the surrounding tiles (which are now the direct source of income). The only way to get cities to grow will be to site them close to food and/or fresh water-thus severely restricting the 'cities, cities everywhere' approach.
Oops , now I am being much too positive for this negativity thread.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Xorbon]

Dis: I read that access to fresh water (which I assume includes rivers and lakes) increases the health of a city in Civ 4. And health affects city growth. So, this should encourage players to build their cities next to rivers just like in real life! (Hopefully anyway...)

Edit: Aussie was replying at the same time as me, though with a longer-winded response. Aussie: Good point! We need to be more negative for this thread!

[Dis]

that's cool. maybe civ4 will be a great game. Again, too positive. .
I've never really been accused of that.

They might not get it perfectly right in civ4. But I do think they are taking steps to improve things.

As long as the franchise is heading in the right direction, I will be happy. As for how many sequals this game can spawn, who really knows.

[Senethro]

Point of information: When ICSing I site bases beside resources and rivers first, then go and fill in the gaps later when the terraforming technology improves.

[M. le Comte]

What I fear most is the inability of civilization developers to figure and implement the difference between strategic and tactic elements.
Think about all those inconsistencies:
- in fifty years, at the begining, your unit of warriors cannot walk farther than one tile. I understand they are primitives, but its still a nonsense.
- in one year, using roads, your armors cannot reach the other end of the continent.
- in one year, your motorised battleships cannot cross the Atlantic ocean (ten days of sailing for a middle-class ferryboat).
...
- the representation, on your strategic maps, of specialized unites, such as "marines" or "parachutists", although these units stand for whole armies (having a warrior on your map does not mean you have one warrior, but a group of)

Just before Civ3 was released, there where talks on this site to fix these inconsistencies:
- while not changing anything in the game: implementation of the concept of "logistic support" to figure the progress of "troops projection" through the ages, or adding special abilities to standards troops (for example, after the discovery of "amphibian warfare", the possibility to buy this special hability for existing armies"...
- with some changes on the game, setting up two levels of game, the strategic one would be the standard civ game, while the tactic one would be the possibility for the player to command operations, on the theatre, when he wants to.

I know some will answer that civ is just a game. But the reason why it has been my favourite strategy game for 13 years is that it is realistic.

Long life Civ !

[Solver]

Civ is realistic only to a degree. It is not, however, a wargame. There are plenty of wargames out there that have more realistic war than Civ does, complete with supplies, logistics, etc. I absolutely do not see how supplies can work in a Civ game, and the inconsistencies in tile distances, etc., are something I am simply very much used to.

[Russian_King]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker


You're kidding right??? I hope that Micromanagement is a complete waste of time-as I felt that was always a major failing of past games: that the difference between winning and losing came down to how prepared you were to MM, rather than deal with big picture issues.

NO!! ure just like my firend, hes an aussie too :P well not really but hes got some blood in him.
anyway micromanagement has to still be strong in any Civ game thats a CIV!! FOREVER!
no micromanagement means that u can just win the game just by moving units! thats ridiculous! the one thing i enjoyed in civ the most is determining which building i should build next if not a unit!