I wouldn't want the job of making Civ V, Civ IV is too good

[Lancer]

I agree, that's a really good idea. As good a Civ idea as I've ever heard.

For some of us this is the first post on the page so I'll put johnmcd's idea here...

"If resource usage worked in a way a bit like corruption it could keep some of the simplicity whilst making multiple strategic resources attractive.

One city and one iron could give a 50% production boost to swordsmen. Two cities one iron could give a 40% boost to both (regardless of whether they are actually using iron or not at the time). By the time you have twenty cities and a single iron it wouldn't be doing much but enabling the production of the unit. As more resource comes into play, so the productivity could step up - until you conquer more towns.

I'm not sure how you do something that impacts the happy/ health resources, unless you implemented them along the lines of representation (+3 happy in three largest cities or whatever it is). First gold adds happiness to three largest towns plus producer, next gold does a happiness for the whole empire.

It shouldn't turn into a micro management nightmare of watching populations and working out scenarios and priorities between equally sized towns and what have you. Nor should it require the map to be so flooded with resources that they seem to lose meaning."

-johnmcd

[Unimatrix11]

I second the ressource-corruption idea - it simply sounds brilliant. I adds quantity to ressources in a sufficient manner, but avoids a player´s stock, and thus many numbers that would have to be kept track of.

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by jdjbuffalo


Along these lines, I would love to see Civ V go well beyond 2050 and "Future Tech". While I love history and the Civ Experience, I'm also a SciFi fan and would love to go out to say 4000 A.D. with all the SciFi tech. I think it would be great if we expanded out beyond Earth and were able to do things on a grander scale similar to Masters of Orion II. I'm not sure exactly how it would be done or if it would even be possible to keep it within the confines of Civ but if they could pull it off that would be great.

If they don't go that route then I like a lot of the ideas that have been proposed by everyone else as I'm sure I'll get Civ V regardless.

Likewise, I'd love to see the prehistoric section (say 4000bc to 1000bc) played out on a micro scale. When you win the prehistoric game and become the regional power you graduate to the planet map against a whole load of other regional powers. The turn after you win Civ 4 as we know, the aliens could invade, catapulting you into a game of solar power amongst solar powers.

How you had played the previous 'game' could determine something of your traits for the next 'game' and determine your starting point relative to the other powers.

Perhaps on a space win you invade the aliens!

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
Well yes, but I'm certain that it hasn't played a mjor role since WW2, I was thinkin more along the lines of generic "attrition" since that way we wouldn't have to change the system with the modern era, and you could have terrain effect factored in too.

Well, I wonder if that's because there hasn't been an all-out great powers war since WWII. If there was one, with supply lines cut, soldiers not getting enough food or proper medical supplies, and bogged down lines of soldiers, it could still happen.

[=DrJambo=]

Civ should stay away from going tactical in my opinion! I like the boardgame feel to it and how it focuses on strategy. Introducing a tactical component would require a entirely separate AI to be developed, not an easy task in any shape or form! The total war games are good examples of this type of hybrid experience and the pitfalls that are associated with it. TW games often struggle due to meet the high demands that are now expected by fans of the series. The complexity of having to create a separate and challenging AI for both strategic and tactical elements of the game is taking its toll.

IMHO it's preferable to have one excellent AI, rather than two that are half-finished or half-assed.

[Theben]

Originally posted by johnmcd

Likewise, I'd love to see the prehistoric section (say 4000bc to 1000bc) played out on a micro scale. When you win the prehistoric game and become the regional power you graduate to the planet map against a whole load of other regional powers. The turn after you win Civ 4 as we know, the aliens could invade, catapulting you into a game of solar power amongst solar powers.

How you had played the previous 'game' could determine something of your traits for the next 'game' and determine your starting point relative to the other powers.

I've thought about this in the past. What I did was played civ, then SMAC, then MOO2.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by johnmcd
If resource usage worked in a way a bit like corruption it could keep some of the simplicity whilst making multiple strategic resources attractive.

One city and one iron could give a 50% production boost to swordsmen. Two cities one iron could give a 40% boost to both (regardless of whether they are actually using iron or not at the time). By the time you have twenty cities and a single iron it wouldn't be doing much but enabling the production of the unit. As more resource comes into play, so the productivity could step up - until you conquer more towns.

I'm not sure how you do something that impacts the happy/ health resources, unless you implemented them along the lines of representation (+3 happy in three largest cities or whatever it is). First gold adds happiness to three largest towns plus producer, next gold does a happiness for the whole empire.

It shouldn't turn into a micro management nightmare of watching populations and working out scenarios and priorities between equally sized towns and what have you. Nor should it require the map to be so flooded with resources that they seem to lose meaning.

The difficulty is balancing them with 'fun', because we already have the case where not having iron is a huge negative; as it is, if you have two irons and I have none, i'm severely disadvantaged and will have a difficult time coming into parity with you. Adding a bonus to your cities producing iron units, and i'm even worse off...

More than likely one solution is to provide more irons on the table, so it's unlikely someone won't have iron; say:
2 copper/player
2 iron/player
2 horse/player
1.5 coal/player
1.5 oil/player
1 alum/player
1 uranium/player
1 stone/player
1 marble/player
etc., so that the more vital resources are generally available at least minimally to all players.

Corporations give some benefit of this sort, of course, but most MP games don't get that far, and the AI isn't very good at using corps so they can't be as powerful as they ought to be ...

[frenzyfol]

Then maybe some form of early corporation/trade network to give the player an option when there is little copper/iron/horse around?

Maybe freelance/blackmarket traders

i.e. You can choose to pay a higher premium for copper from a non political source.

[wodan11]

What's the point of resources if we make it so everybody always has it?

Ultimately, the problem is simply one of preserving game balance. Later in the game, it's not such a big deal. It's only early in the game where one player beelines BW or AH and finds they don't have the resource. They are at a HUGE disadvantage vs their neighbor who "lucked out" and got it.

Probably the best way to fix this is simply to give all players access to a cheap unit that doesn't have a tech requirement. Maybe this unit gets a big bonus if fighting within your cultural borders or something like that.

I firmly believe that preventing early rushes would be good for the game. It would allow all players to get established and into the middle game before they are seriously at risk. That would ensure at least a modicrum of fun and somewhat of a more level playing field and opportunity for success.

Wodan

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by wodan11
What's the point of resources if we make it so everybody always has it?

Ultimately, the problem is simply one of preserving game balance. Later in the game, it's not such a big deal. It's only early in the game where one player beelines BW or AH and finds they don't have the resource. They are at a HUGE disadvantage vs their neighbor who "lucked out" and got it.

Probably the best way to fix this is simply to give all players access to a cheap unit that doesn't have a tech requirement. Maybe this unit gets a big bonus if fighting within your cultural borders or something like that.

I firmly believe that preventing early rushes would be good for the game. It would allow all players to get established and into the middle game before they are seriously at risk. That would ensure at least a modicrum of fun and somewhat of a more level playing field and opportunity for success.

Wodan

The problem is game balance, balanced itself with giving an incentive to war (resources). Just giving a defensive unit isn't enough; we HAVE that already, it's called a longbow. You need offensive units also, and those are harder to come by excepting siege (and cannons require iron...)

Giving most everyone ONE of a unit, but giving an incentive to having two or three of them, keeps that incentive to acquire resources, while not making the game prohibitively unfun. A 50% lower ability to produce Swordsman (the case, say, of a 1 iron vs a 3 iron) is not nearly as bad as a 0% ability to produce them (or axemen, or chariots, or spearmen). It's still bad - you still need to try and acquire more to do well - but it's a lot better than no chance due to no strategic resources. In SP it's as easy as hitting 'restart' of course, but this is not the case in MP...

[snoopy369]

Preventing early rushes is an ... interesting question. Many less-hardcore MP players would very much like this; allowing that startup time without worrying about being rushed would be very nice indeed. In an advanced start game, this is the case in fact, so it's possible to include it in the game or in a mod. (You could have everyone start with a 30 turn peace treaty, for example.)

What the hardcore MP players (ladder types) would think would be a different question. I'd have to ask a few, maybe Krill will stop by or someone else... A lot of them like the early rush, it's quite fun to pull off, and in a crowded map often quite necessary to do in order to clear out a bit of space.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by snoopy369
The difficulty is balancing them with 'fun', because we already have the case where not having iron is a huge negative; as it is, if you have two irons and I have none, i'm severely disadvantaged and will have a difficult time coming into parity with you. Adding a bonus to your cities producing iron units, and i'm even worse off...

Well, not really. You would have start out by making iron units have a higher "base" price, to balance it out. That way, it won't at all affect the guy who dosn't have iron (since he can't make them anyway); it makes the iron units more expensive then they are now for a guy with a lot of cities and not much iron, but perhaps a little cheaper then they are now for someone who has a high iron/city ratio. I think that would be pretty neat, and it wouldn't really unbalance it in any way; the really important thing would still be to get at least one iron, but getting extra units of iron would also have at least some value to you.

It would make trading a lot more interesting, because it's no longer "give away something useless to you to get something useful", it's "trade away something with a marginal value to you but a greater value to someone else, in exchange for something with a marginal value to them but a greater value to you. It would also encourage trying to acquire as many resources as possible, without giving an unfair advantage to a huge empire. I really like the idea, actually; a big part of what I like about corperations is that it can give "extra" resources some value, but I would still prefer them having some value earlier in the game as well; I think it would improve gameplay and realism at the same time, and just basically make choices more interesting.

[Fleme]

What about an arrangement like the Silk Road used to be? It's an ancient way for trading all sorts of goods across the continent and the traders were not necessarily in the service of any certain nation but goods changed ownership nonetheless. Mostly luxury goods but I suppose you could extend that arrangement into metals too? Perhaps in a limited quantity (eg. you can train 10 units of Sworsmen with the metal you gain from the "Silk Road" traders").

Silk road could be a World Wonder available at Currency and upon completion a road would appear that crossed the continent, connecting everyone in it's path and giving the builder some bonus (naturally every resource connected along the route within someone's cultural borders would then be available in limited quantities to other nations along the way, randomly).

Just a thought and would naturally need some work to make it worth while but I think it would somewhat help alleviate the problem of not having any reasonable way to gain a certain strategic resource (or a luxury resource, for that matter)

[wodan11]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Just giving a defensive unit isn't enough; we HAVE that already, it's called a longbow.

Disagree. As I said, "Later in the game, it's not such a big deal. It's only early in the game where one player beelines BW or AH and finds they don't have the resource."

Giving most everyone ONE of a unit, but giving an incentive to having two or three of them, keeps that incentive to acquire resources, while not making the game prohibitively unfun. A 50% lower ability to produce Swordsman (the case, say, of a 1 iron vs a 3 iron) is not nearly as bad as a 0% ability to produce them (or axemen, or chariots, or spearmen). It's still bad - you still need to try and acquire more to do well - but it's a lot better than no chance due to no strategic resources. In SP it's as easy as hitting 'restart' of course, but this is not the case in MP...

If you're referring to the suggestion (or some variance) of the idea that no units are restricted but are discounted if you have the resource, then I tend to agree, but not totally so.

As an example of where I would disagree: if you rush me with HAs, me being able to make spears at x2 the cost isn't going to save my bacon. It'll prolong the agony, that's all. Heck, it's probably a better tactical decision to simply make archers at normal cost, than to make spears at x2 (or whatever). I can get three archers for the same hammer (70 vs 75), and their effective combat power against HAs is probably better than 1 spear.

Originally posted by snoopy369
Preventing early rushes is an ... interesting question.

What the hardcore MP players (ladder types) would think would be a different question. I'd have to ask a few, maybe Krill will stop by or someone else... A lot of them like the early rush, it's quite fun to pull off, and in a crowded map often quite necessary to do in order to clear out a bit of space.

Liking something doesn't mean they wouldn't like the alternative. And, just because a few miscreants like something doesn't mean it's good for the game. Who's to say how many people might join the MP community if it wasn't so cut-throat?

Anyway, actually, I would suggest that a game option would be the other way around. Whatever the implementation is... we've talked about, what, 3 different things?
-- Basic defensive unit available at game start
-- Defensive bonus within culture border
-- 30 turn treaty at game start

Anyway, whatever it is, I would say that should be the game default. Then, a game option would be to turn this off. MP players who wanted a "rush" game could then do this.

Wodan

[wodan11]

All this said, I kind of like the idea of multiple resources giving more of a discount.

It just needs to be balanced.

The problem is... if it's balanced, what's the point?

One solution might be... resources would mandate your game strategy. If you have 5 horses, then you would effectively be forced into a HA strategy. Meanwhile, your opponent, who has a mix of resources, could do balanced arms. And, a third player, who has a bunch of iron, could do a Swordsman strategy.

It would be good gameplay, but I think it would detract from player strategic choices. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Wodan