Some novelty ideas

[johnmcd]

No real value add here, just a few more ways to make the idea of an alternative reality a little more real.

- make the native villages latitudinally accurate; maybe igloos way north, teepees in plains and so on. Would be fun.

- Have different barbarian animals on different landmasses; perhaps the continent you are on never had big cats and giant terror birds still rule! It would certainly spice up the initial exploration.

- Make some of the luxuries vary; perhaps in one game it's war mammoths and elephants don't exist (were hunted to extinction before the game began).

Must be tons of cool stuff that could be done.

[Blaupanzer]

Could use different fonts or lettering styles for the names of the cities.

I like the luxuries difference by continent. The same could be done for foodstuffs, like tomatoes instead of rice on one continent or potatoes instead of corn on another. Would make for some interesting trading possibilities. (Granaries could be limited to a set of three out of how many ever actually result).

[johnmcd]

At the end on Marathon, when turns are every six months, it would be cool if the hills became snow covered and the trees lost their leaves too. Would be pretty.

I like the lettering styles, that would be cool.

[jnh140]

while i like the map change thought, kind of an a la total war type of thing, civ 4 is a behemoth of a memory hog. My computer hangs for quite a while simply when trading world maps in the middlegame.

My inability to run large maps is what spurred me to pimp out my comp, not something you expect from a turn based strategy game!

However, *all* of the above notes are things I would like to see in a Civ5.

Additionally, do you ever end up with a "bored workers" syndrome? I mean, once you have a nice continent, i find myself simply making them railroad *everything*. I had the same behavior in civ 2, my continents and islands would be totally megaspammed with farm\road improvementso n every tile, and then workers would only be used for following invading armies and cleaning pollution after nuking them into the stone ages to prevent a global catastrophe. I'd like to give workers something to DO.

Wonders in civ 4 are not the absolute essentials like the were in civ 2 (except maybe 3 gorges?) I'd like to see things like the great wall come back with a vengence, where it requires some participation from several cities and many turns of workers toiling away on the hilltops to actually get the things put together, making workers more than just a terrain improver, make them even more integral for the long term function of an empire.

[johnmcd]

[SIZE=1] ...and many turns of workers toiling away on the hilltops to actually get the things put together

That could lead to all kinds of cool things.

You could put your unecessary workers on an 'improve' task. Depending on how many of them, and how many turns you committed them to and the base terrain and techs you could get some really sweet little bonus terrain features.

In the early game perhaps they'd turn out some giant Nazca style lines, in the modern age they'd hew a rock face into a Mount Rushmore.

Just random massive earth movements. Maybe it could generate a culture and a gold a turn or something, not worthwhile of itself but just to make it more than fun!

It would make the map that much more interesting to see some fun stuff like that.

Obviously, nobody ever did truly massive earth movements purely for giggles, which is mostly what this would be, but it would make those redundant workers feel like less of a waste.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by johnmcd
Obviously, nobody ever did truly massive earth movements purely for giggles, which is mostly what this would be, but it would make those redundant workers feel like less of a waste.

Much of what was built in the name of now dead or mordant religions turns out to have been for "giggles." At least, it seems that way from our perspective. The "put idle workers on a monument" option with 1 gold, 1 culture option on completion could lead to some interesting map features, especially among the AI, which way overbuild workers. Good thought!

[jnh140]

I keep wondering why we can't build canals, canals can only function in cities.

Workers should be able to build a canal.

I also find fortresses completely useless except in extremely rare scenarios thanks to the dissolution of zone of control.

When I first played civ 4, i played assuming zone of control was in action. I played several games before realizing the enemy could bypass my ZoC. Shouldn't a fortress give a ZoC?

[jnh140]

gah double post


response to NEXT post:

Ahhh! So you CAN build canals. Can you create a long overland path of fortress canals if you feel so inclined?

[Theben]

Fortresses can be used as canals.

[ybrevo]

I have had the same problem with too many workers and really nothing sensible to do around mid-game. So if you have an excess of workers, there should be an option to promote some of them to soldiers, scouts or explorers. Why not? That is what´s happening in real life when a war is around the corner

ybrevo

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by jnh140
gah double post


response to NEXT post:

Ahhh! So you CAN build canals. Can you create a long overland path of fortress canals if you feel so inclined?

Only if you have cities and lakes interspersed.

i.e. Coast-Fort-City-Fort-Lake-Fort-City

Cannot have Coast-City-Fort-Fort-Fort-City-Coast.
IIRC, you can't have > 2 connected forts.

[Lord Avalon]

I thought every city & fort needed to be coastal, i.e., if a city is initially landlocked, then ships can never enter it.

[Solomwi]

Lord Avalon's got it. You can have a canal 100 tiles long, as long as each city or fort along it has water along one side.

Coast-Fort-City-Fort-Coast wouldn't work, unless there was a coastal tile bordering the city somewhere (corners count).

[Blaupanzer]

Can't put two cities that close to one another anyway. If you inland city is one tile in AND on a lake then a fort on the coast will allow ships to reach that city (and lake). However it will not make that city a port where you can build lighthouses, harbors, and such.

[Boracks]

Actually, you don't need a city involved. I've built two forts across a two space wide isthmus and it works quite well as a canal. Each fort was adjacent to the coast (one each side, of course) so that met the requirement.