Features Still Lacking in Civ4

[Alexander I]

Aside from the new stuff announced for BtS, what new features are still lacking in Civ4 that you would like to see in the future, maybe XP3?

Here's some of my ideas:
SMAC-style UN!
Alliances other than Def. Pact and Perm. All.
Colossal Map Size
Revolutions/Civil Wars
"Caveman" Start, Prehistoric Era
Civ. Construction Set
Better, Easier Scenario Making - an Editor?
Tech Diffusion
Cold War
Non-Aggression Pact

[Jaybe]

Revolutions, Civil War, "Caveman" Start (10,000 BCE): Already available in mods (Hephmod at CFC)

Civ4 - Creation & Customization > Civ4 - Modpacks > HephMod: a mod combo-pack emphasizing balance, realism, and historical flavor

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Revolutions, Civil War, "Caveman" Start (10,000 BCE): Already available in mods (Hephmod at CFC)

Civ4 - Creation & Customization > Civ4 - Modpacks > HephMod: a mod combo-pack emphasizing balance, realism, and historical flavor

What's CFC?

[Thedrin]

It's a bit too early to ask what's missing from BtS. We don't know if we have the complete list of new features and we don't know how the new features will be implemented.

These could well be in BtS going by what we know about it:

SMAC-style UN!
Alliances other than Def. Pact and Perm. All.
"Caveman" Start, Prehistoric Era
Tech Diffusion
Cold War
Non-Aggression Pact

Larger maps are fairly easy to implement. My own offers maps 5.5 times bigger than huge. There was a modified Terra map (these are bigger, aren't they?) posted at CFC recently which starts civs out on both continents.

What's the difference between Revolutions and Civil Wars?

Still, it doesn't look like the trade route model is going to experience much of an expansion. That would be the one thing I would want over anything else.

[Jaybe]

Alexander, anyone interested in mods knows that CFC is 5-10 times better than Poly in the mod department.

OTOH, their mod forums (e.g., Better AI, the Hephmod thread) are usually the only places at CFC that I have any use for.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Alexander, anyone interested in mods knows that CFC is 5-10 times better than Poly in the mod department.

OTOH, their mod forums (e.g., Better AI, the Hephmod thread) are usually the only places at CFC that I have any use for.

Yes, I know. (Indicates sarcasm of previous post)

But I'm thinking of features for official inclusion into the game. I play several mods, as do many of us here on the online communities, but how many people who actually buy the game will go and download mods at one of our sites?

[Dis]

bigger than huge? my computer cries at the thought of playing large maps.

[Bkeela]

The UN does seem a tacked on addition to Civ IV, and being Planetary Governor in SMAC was FAR superior in every way. Most options are to change everyone's civics which is greatly BORING. I always avoid building the UN because it will be a cold day in hell before other nations will vote me as the global leader - and there is a very real risk a rival could be voted in instead and lose me the game or change my civics against my will.

Along with the UN, the most glaring deficiency is the end game summary.

At this point I would like to link to a video of the schmup game, DoDonPachi. The end of stage summary highlights some of the things that I think would be satisfying for Civ IV. The score is counted with bells and whistles, and bonus points are awarded if certain goals are met. It much more aesthetically pleasing than just having your score presented and being ranked with great or poor leaders.

In relation - the scoring system is RETARDED. It rewards warmongering, huge populations and land area - all things a moron can achieve with ease. It is a lot harder to steer a peaceful builder nation to a cultural victory, yet you are punished with a pathetic score. THIS IS NOT RIGHT FIRAXIS! DO YOU HEAR ME - IT IS STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Score should reflect the skill the player has used throughout the game. Perhaps bonus points could be awarded for risky ventures - something only the human player can achieve.

The hall of fame becomes a meaningless mess when you've played a significant number of games. I have to keep track of statistics that interest me myself to retain a certain degree of continuity. For example, I like to keep track of how many games I win in a row. I wish I had kept such statistics from the beginning, so I could know my percentages of wins vs losses.

I wish Civ IV kept track of such information, and then awarded me an overall rating. So people who started games and then abandoned them because they were unfavourable were PUNISHED and players who try to fare come what may by their skill were REWARDED. Any fool can beat deity given enough time and attempts, and especially using saved games - the true measure of skill is your consistency throughout every game you have played.

So because I go through a lot of games - as soon as one game ends, I am excited to begin the next - I want a greater reward. Victory movies soon become passe, the score presentation is utterly boring, and the Hall of Fame is really a Hall of Shame. I want a satisfying goal to string all my games together.

[Dis]

Here's some of my ideas:
SMAC-style UN!

here, here. I welcome addition

Alliances other than Def. Pact and Perm. All.

we could use more diplomatic options for sure.

Colossal Map Size

not a big deal for me as I can't run them

Revolutions/Civil Wars

I'm not real big on this because I don't think there is a fair way to implement this. I'm open to ideas, however.

"Caveman" Start, Prehistoric Era

could be interesting. not sure if it works on a large scale game such as civ though

Civ. Construction Set

sure, why not.
Better, Easier Scenario Making - an Editor?

would be nice if possible

Tech Diffusion

not sure what you mean by this

Cold War

not sure how to properly implement this

Non-Aggression Pact

I would love this.

And you guys already know my ideas in case I haven't mentioned them enough. .

Paratroopers, cruise missiles. AEGIS cruisers, and nuclear submarines. Perhaps a modern artillery unit as well.

bump up the strengths of modern units to make them more overpowering over older units (necessary to make my modern artillery unit useful).

planes can sink ships (if you use enough of them)

[Will9]

I would love to see a Civ 3 style map editor. I loved being able to load it up with all ocean without loading up the game and then you could chose to make the entire map one terrain or make a random map. You could even change unit strength and tech costs.

[Targonis]

A revolution would be a takeover of the current government while a civil war is a part of the nation(or civilization) breaking away to form their own nation.

A real life example of a revolution would be the people who want to take over the US government and implement their own government but keep the country intact.

A real example of a civil war would be to have the midwest break away from the rest of the country so they can set their own laws banning all abortions and saying that the bible is 100 percent accurate and true and anyone who disagrees should be killed.

In most cases, if a part of a country tries to break away, there will be a war since most nations are greedy and want to have as much land as possible under their control/authority.

Originally posted by Thedrin
It's a bit too early to ask what's missing from BtS. We don't know if we have the complete list of new features and we don't know how the new features will be implemented.

These could well be in BtS going by what we know about it:



Larger maps are fairly easy to implement. My own offers maps 5.5 times bigger than huge. There was a modified Terra map (these are bigger, aren't they?) posted at CFC recently which starts civs out on both continents.

What's the difference between Revolutions and Civil Wars?

Still, it doesn't look like the trade route model is going to experience much of an expansion. That would be the one thing I would want over anything else.

[Bkeela]

I liked the idea of civil war in the original civ, whereby invading a rival nation's capital initiated the split. If this was implemented in a current Civ series, it would make aiming for the capital a priority, and make defending or relocating your own capital an interest.

However, it would be terrible if you say invaded the Aztec capital, and the split nation became Germany or some other ludicrous nation. The rival faction would have to be closely related.

Also, if a civil war was just some random thing that happened, it would make the game unplayable. I am unlucky as it is in battles and such - all I need is to be overextended invading another nation and have my poorly garrisoned home cities revolt on me. Please, if you have a need for masochism, take out on yourself or at least make it a non-default option.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Bkeela
In relation - the scoring system is RETARDED. It rewards warmongering, huge populations and land area - all things a moron can achieve with ease. It is a lot harder to steer a peaceful builder nation to a cultural victory, yet you are punished with a pathetic score. THIS IS NOT RIGHT FIRAXIS! DO YOU HEAR ME - IT IS STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I completely agree. It feels stupid when you work your a** off to get a peaceful victory and you get a lousy score at the bottom on the hall of fame, while with little effort you can easily get a great score by warmongering.

The score should be based on which victory you win, not by how large your nation is when you win

Here's a quick unfinished idea on how the score should be:

Cultural victory:
Score should be based on the average culture per city (having small less cultured cities will hurt your score)
Each wonder also gives you extra score
You will also get a score bonus if you are the first civ to invent certain culture techs (like music)

Space race victory:
Score should be based on how technology advanced you are and where. Each time a civ gets to a new age ( --> industrial --> modern) that civ gets a bonus score based on how fast he got to that age compared to the other ages (like if he is the first he gets a huge bonus score, while if he is last he doesn't get any extra points. This should be compared to how many civs there are in the game at that time: Being #4 out of 5 gives you a lousy bonus, while being #4 out of 18 gives you a great bonus

Diplomacy victory:
Here you need friends to get a good score. For each % of the competition who are friendly towards you gives you a huge score, cautious gives you a smaller score while them being angry at you gives you no extra points. And here it is the same way as with the space race: If 2 out of 4 are friendly with you, that will give you a higher score than if 2 out of 18 are friendly with you
You get negative score if you have any vassals or if you took the last city of an enemy (by force)

Conquest victory:
Here your score will be based on your history: The more civs you completely destroyed (by taking the last enemy city by force), the higher your score. Having vassals also gives you an extra score (not as much if you had destroyed them completely though)

You still get a small bonus by having a large civ, etc (you know, the things that all score is based on at the moment), but not even near as much as you currently get.
The extra score you get from how fast you win also depends on which victory you get. Since it's much easier to win a conquest victory by 1500 A.D. than winning a space race victory by that date, the extra time score for conquest should be much lower than the one for space race






/me wonders why he actually write this, it's not like anybody reads it anyway

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Bkeela
I liked the idea of civil war in the original civ, whereby invading a rival nation's capital initiated the split. If this was implemented in a current Civ series, it would make aiming for the capital a priority, and make defending or relocating your own capital an interest.

However, it would be terrible if you say invaded the Aztec capital, and the split nation became Germany or some other ludicrous nation. The rival faction would have to be closely related.

I would like it that if you invade some capital the other civ gets a lot of angry people in the cities. This civ now has a "timer" to make it all good again, which could be done by either taking the capital back or (if you have monarchy) by filling your cities with units (to make them happy again). If the timer runs out (which is when the ex-capital has stopped rioting) the nation splits
When the nation splits it doesn't just become a random civ, but instead it splits in north/south or east/west, which means the civ that splits becomes North-Aztec or South-Aztec (when it splits north/south). The leadername for one of the civs changes, but to make it simple the leaderhead still stays the same

[Thedrin]

What's the difference between Revolutions and Civil Wars?

Fixed version:

What's the in-game-difference between Revolutions and Civil Wars?

Revolutions are already in the game under the term anarchy. A more detailed question would be 'how do you add revolutions to the game without affecting the civics system and keeping them different from civl wars?'.

A revolution would be a takeover of the current government while a civil war is a part of the nation(or civilization) breaking away to form their own nation.

A real life example of a revolution would be the people who want to take over the US government and implement their own government but keep the country intact.

A real example of a civil war would be to have the midwest break away from the rest of the country so they can set their own laws banning all abortions and saying that the bible is 100 percent accurate and true and anyone who disagrees should be killed.

In most cases, if a part of a country tries to break away, there will be a war since most nations are greedy and want to have as much land as possible under their control/authority.

There is no clear distinction. A revolution can easily ecome a civil war. Plenty of civil wars feature opponents who wish to keep the country united.