In the next patch, it would be nice if...

[Willem]

With Firaxis working on the next patch, I thought it might be a good idea if we passed along some minor changes they could throw in that might improve our game. So here's my contribution:

- There was a Worker automation option that had them removing all Jungle from city areas. Having Jungle gives a serious health hit to a city, but it's a pain to clear it all out manually.

- The animation options were seperated so that I could turn off the ones on the terrain but keep those for my unit. With a computer towards the low end, I'd like to be able to conserve some resources, but I don't like having units stare each other to death. Not to mention that my Gunships disappear.

- Musketman were actually worth building. With Grenadiers and Rifleman both one tech away, more or less, I may as well just wait until they come along. In my own game, I put both of these units into Rifling and placed Chemistry in between in order to give Musketmen a bit longer "shelf life".

Oh yeah.

- I'd like to see the grid replaced with a simple 2D overlay instead of the game replacing all the tiles. When my game starts bogging down near the Industrial Era, I really notice it when I select the grid, and it's been known to crash my system turning it on.

[Hauptman]

- Musketman were actually worth building. With Grenadiers and Rifleman both one tech away, more or less, I may as well just wait until they come along. In my own game, I put both of these units into Rifling and placed Chemistry in between in order to give Musketmen a bit longer "shelf life".

Musketmen ARE worth building, IF you happen to be at war when you get gunpowder. If I'm at peace then yes, I too will wait. historicly "Musketmen" also had a very short lifespan. Beeing replaced by more modern troops like Napoleon's "grenadiers" rather quickly.

[Jaybe]

Muskets are best against all those units that have promotions against archer & melee units.

- What I want most of all is when the new production window comes up, that the "mini" city specs info (lower left corner of map) also appears. As it is I almost always have to enter the city management screen before selecting production.

[Shaka II]

Player gold displayed along with score in lower right hand screen overlay. I think it used to be that way. Got to know when to sell my tech.

I think V1.52 improved the switching of city screens that happens when you're selecting the next item to build. The problem occurred when you entered the city view to get a detailed look at the city, and when you left the city screen, it changed to another city, instead of going back to the previous menu. It's much improved now, but still happens once in a while.

[tijuanacowboy]

The only minor problem I've run into is when I get a free tech (from liberalism or the oracle) unlike the normal "Select a tech to research" you can only choose to select a tech, you cannot view the tech tree. So yeah, you should be able to view the tech tree from the "Choose a Free Tech" window.

[Bkeela]

I would like to see the clock changed. Whenever I need to know the time, the year is on display. Likewise, when I want to know the year, the time is in display. I'm constantly having to wait the ten seconds or so it takes for the alternation. A small quibble, but it would be nice to have a permanent clock to the far left of the year.

[AoA]

When you pick a free tech, all the turn-costs are ZERO. If I'm not bee-lining, I would like to pick the most expensive, but I don't think there's an easy way to know which one that is. How about letting us know what the cost would be? Similar thing with periods of anarchy...I know I won't be in anarchy for the 3000 turns that it would take to research something, so let me know what it would be once I get my new civics.

[Gibsie]

One thing I'd like is when opening the load file box, just typing in the first part of the name of the file should be enough for the game to work out to load the file, not having to add ".civ4savedgamewhatever" on the end! Most minor peeve ever? Possibly.

[Willem]

Originally posted by AoA
When you pick a free tech, all the turn-costs are ZERO. If I'm not bee-lining, I would like to pick the most expensive, but I don't think there's an easy way to know which one that is. How about letting us know what the cost would be?

Roll over them with the mouse and it will show you the beaker costs.

[player1]

The point about musketmen is that they are always just ONE tech awaty from granadires.
So there is no good reason to use them, exempt if you really like avoiding Chemistry.

[player1]

For next patch, it would be nice is some of the city info, like health and happiness stats could be available at Build Next popup.

So I don't need to zoom to city every time to check will I need health/happiness buildings in city soon.

[Willem]

Originally posted by player1
The point about musketmen is that they are always just ONE tech awaty from granadires.
So there is no good reason to use them, exempt if you really like avoiding Chemistry.

Exactly. It makes them rather useless IMO, especially with upgrade costs being so high. You might as well just wait awhile.

[Martinus]

Riflemen are not one tech away from Musketmen - in order to get to Rifling you need not only Gunpowder, but also Replacable Parts, which may be several techs away, especially if you took the Education route, rather the the Guilds route to Gunpowder (which usually is a better thing to do, as Education also leads to Liberalism).

And upgrading them to Grenadier may be a bad idea, since this would preclude later upgrading them to Riflemen, who are overall much better units.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Martinus
Riflemen are not one tech away from Musketmen - in order to get to Rifling you need not only Gunpowder, but also Replacable Parts, which may be several techs away, especially if you took the Education route, rather the the Guilds route to Gunpowder (which usually is a better thing to do, as Education also leads to Liberalism).

And upgrading them to Grenadier may be a bad idea, since this would preclude later upgrading them to Riflemen, who are overall much better units.

Even still, the fact that you can start building Grenadiers soon after puts a damper on the idea of even building them. I think maybe they should add a tech like Standing Army to include Grenadiers, and put it at least a couple of techs away from Musketmen to make it worthwhile having them. Having Grenadiers available with Chemistry is too soon IMO.

[Unimatrix11]

Two technical issues i have: The mouse-over help needs to work at ALL times and sometimes i have trouble reassigning speacialists - they just wont turn to citizen when i hit the minus-button next to the, say, engineer (and its not a free specialist given by some wonder or civic - and even if it was...)
And one less realistic one: I want the old map-like civ1/cololnization-style graphics back (a bit enhanced in resolution and color of course) - i loved them and they dont take a mighty graphics adapter - if that would be implementet as an option i'd be very delighted !