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

[LzPrst]

wow. serious threadjacking going on... what happened to our discussion about civ5?

[wodan11]

There was a difference of opinion between that of an experienced MP player and that of a game designer.

Wodan

[Lancer]

What's a threadjacking? It's a good thing! If there are several discussions going on about different stuff, people jumping back and forth among them, topics seperating and intertwing, that's a strong thread. I love it when my threads get jacked. It's cool.

[PohlSE]

As a long time Civ player (first time poster) I'd like to jump back to the original topic long enough to say that Civilization 4 is so well done and set the bar so high, that 5 will, likely, never live up to the expectations. So I voted "worse."

I do love the idea of visible trading routes that affect each city they pass through (spreading religions, increasing population growth, etc). It would also be interesting if those same trade routes could spread plague (or computer viruses later in the game) to damage the city in some way.

I prefer the single game so I'd also love an improved AI with more varied reactions based on the leader and civ.

Someone mentioned earlier an improved diplomacy system with more options and adding 'great diplomats' to the mix, I agree. Diplomacy needs improvement.

Finally (and this was also mentioned earlier in this thread but I loved the concept); I'd love to see more economic options/control/detail including an economic victory option, and more emphasis on resources and how to acquire and, if necessary, defend them.

[Krill]

Originally posted by PohlSE
As a long time Civ player (first time poster) I'd like to jump back to the original topic long enough to say that Civilization 4 is so well done and set the bar so high, that 5 will, likely, never live up to the expectations. So I voted "worse."

I do love the idea of visible trading routes that affect each city they pass through (spreading religions, increasing population growth, etc). It would also be interesting if those same trade routes could spread plague (or computer viruses later in the game) to damage the city in some way.

I prefer the single game so I'd also love an improved AI with more varied reactions based on the leader and civ.

Someone mentioned earlier an improved diplomacy system with more options and adding 'great diplomats' to the mix, I agree. Diplomacy needs improvement.

Finally (and this was also mentioned earlier in this thread but I loved the concept); I'd love to see more economic options/control/detail including an economic victory option, and more emphasis on resources and how to acquire and, if necessary, defend them.

Yor first paragrph is spot on CIV when it went gold was a brilliant game. I was working with Firaxis then, and the mood everyone is was jubliant to say the least. But it took gamebreakers who showed what is unbalanced to help balance the game afterwards. They also said that the degs were n00bs etc and they were right. The devs were bloody good, but they still made mistakes.

Visable traderoutes were going to be in BTS, but what it basically boiled down to was yet another road network to be pillaged and broken. I think Alex decided to get an easily functioning system up, which he has done, and to make this aim get into CiV. I hope he will. I just hope he does it by using a method that allows warfare to **** it up basicaly.

The rest of your post has been aimed straight at the devs. The part about the economic victory...the only problem that I see with is is that the game sees that you can produce so many units and hence will likely win the game before gving a civ that is aiming at SS a chance to win y playing the game out. This is only really obvious in CIV, but unless CiV plays somewhat dfferently the roblem will still be ther.

[Krill]

Sorry for the drunken post.

[PohlSE]

About the economic victory; perhaps once you become an economic power house (able to double or triple out produce your opponents, or what have you) the game could give a ten or twenty turn warning to the other players that you are on the verge of claiming an economic victory so they can have a chance to destabilize you before you win.

That may be too complex.

I got to thinking last night that it might also be nice to push the end point back by 100 years or so and add some late game techs and units. The Next War mod did this to some degree but it seems more focused on military applications.

Some of the terrain improvements from Call to Power might be nice to have in Civ 5, too. The listening post in particular was very useful.

[Heraclitus]

Why are people linking economic victories to production? Why not commerce?

[Dale]

I'd love to have a go at making CiV.

[Heraclitus]

Religions should have traits!

My concept for religions getting during game play, traits would be similar to a RPG leveling system. Certain actions would give the religions experience. Priests could add small amounts of exp per turn, succeeding or even, to a lesser extent, failing (since we learn from our mistakes) to spread a religion would also give the religion experience. Civs that have adopted that religion, building religious wonders would also give the religion experience (this might need a better name )..

New religions would start with the average exp of all the older religions and should get a 100% boost to experience until they (if they ever) reach 15%. The “promotions” would be enabled by techs, so if the religions would tend to get real world characteristics, that wouldn’t be firaxis fault now would it.

[Krill]

Originally posted by Dale
I'd love to have a go at making CiV.

But that's because you will be helping to make mods for CiV...or is this just advertisement and you want Firaxis to hire you proper

[Lucan]

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

Originally posted by Lancer
What could they possibly do to improve upon this game that the modders can't do now?

Also, Civ III wasn't so good, and Civ IV is excellent. Civ V won't be making such a leap, and now players may have very high expectations.

Could be a tough job with a difficult act to follow.

I liked Civ 3. The addition of culture really did it for me. Then it was like ruling a country, rather than a bunch of cities. Also, I liked the way nukes were taken very very seriously indeed.

But what made me fall in love with Civ 3 was when a rather beautiful diplomatic announcement appeared on the screen - a big picture of Uncle Sam and a caption informing me that the American government had switched to Communism. I almost widdled myself laughing at that one. I'd give anything for a screenshot of it.

[Lancer]

The thing is, the American government couldn't switch to communism without a horrific event to force a freedom minded, well armed people to accept a totalitarian government. The US isn't Russia.

Of course the America in the game might be different, but the leaders are the same. Would Lincoln choose communism?

[Solomwi]

Sorry. DP.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
There's not much left to improve (except of the lack of reforesting ), fully expanded Civ4 is awesome as it is. So I voted "not better, just different".

OTOH, Soren's gone. Now is your time to shine, alexman!

Concur all around. I voted the same as Sir Ralph, but knowing some of the people who would most likely be working on Civ V, I'm almost certain they'd put something together to surprise me, pleasantly of course.