What is your greatest wish for Civ 4?

[AeonOfTime]

Yep. That's the spirit!

[LDiCesare]

If anything, I hope he brings his focus back to gaming, but I'm really pulling for him and others to show that direct distribution can go a long way to unlocking the publisher shackles!

Stardock has a lot of focus on gaming right now. They just released the new model of their TotalGaming network (you can buy games with coupons, pick games among their online catalog, or buy them directly). They have many games added.
Wardell also has an open beta for Galactiv Civilizations 2. Beta testing that game is not a lot of fun right now as there is a lot missing (diplomacy and more techs) but by having an open beta they managed to make sure they have a lot of different hardware running their game. I'm not sure whether Civ4 will have been tested against as many hardware configurations.

[Brutus66]

I have read through all of the suggestions/wishes on this thread, and there were some really good ideas.
A couple of the points I was going to suggest - like having the option to fight battles tactically ala Rome Total War- have already been brought up.
I like the idea of a unit workshop like SMAC, but I think it should be adapted somewhat. It would be cool to custom-make a ship of the line; decide how many guns, how much sail and draft, etc. The original Master of Orion let you do that kind of thing.
Here some things I would like that I don't think have been discussed:
O Lose the abstract nature of units. What exactly does a unit of cavalry represent? A platoon? A company? A division?
O Rework the unit system so that units can be combined and seperated again, without the disadvantages of the "army" system now being used.
O When it come to heads of state, I think that they should come and go- after all, no premier is immortal. I would like to see a succession of leaders, for example the English might start with Arthur, and next might be Edward I, then maybe Henry VIII, and so on. Their portraits should age in the diplomacy screen. And it doesn't have to flashy and lifelike, just functional will do.
This concept doesn't necessarily have to follow any kind of chronologically historic order either- random would probably be best. The aggressiveness, military and political stance of the country would be determined by its current leader. If you saw Hirohito come into office for Japan, you might expect Japan's attitude to become expansionist.
O Rather than being the leader of your country, you would be more of a guiding spirit of the nation, making the best of each premier that comes along.
O Each country should have a unique unit for every era. This would balance gameplay. Rome and Greece get a nice advantage by getting theirs early in Civ III.

I also have some reservations about the cartoony look of the graphics that I have seen in the preview screenies. It looks a little childlike.

I have to agree wholeheartedly with those who have expressed the wish to see something revolutionary and new. Honestly, though, if that is going to happen, it's going to have to be a different game from a different designer. The Civ series has stagnated, and I see a lot of the same old stuff in the previews. I wish the project could go to a group like MadDoc- they really did an excellent job in their sequel of Stainless Steel's Empire Earth.

I also have to include an "amen" to those who would like to see pollution scaled down or eliminated. And better AI is a must. Make the game smarter rather than letting the AI cheat to make up for lack of ability.

The "furious" attitudes of the other rulers that develops late-game for no good reason has gotta go.

Finally, and this is probably the one thing I feel most strongly about, it sure would be nice if the game did not adopt some asinine copy-protection scheme like a cd-check or worse; Starforce. I absolutely HATE that crap. Hunting for the cd when I want to play is a pain in the butt, and I simply won't buy a product that uses Starforce protection.
If a company is going to fight piracy by taking it out on me- the legitimate consumer- then count me out.

[Proteus_MST]

After playing Civ 3 I found another thing which IMHO is a logic flaw in Vanilla Civ 3 (and which, as I hope, willl be fixed in Civ IV):

After discovering "Nationalism" you are able to build Riflemen, which, contrary to their Predecessors don´t need Saltpeder as a prerequisite, as, according to the Civilipedia, at this time Saltpeter is available in abundance (maybe at this time it can be synthezised).
But despite being able to build Riflemen without Saltpeter, you are not able to build Cavalries or Frigates unless you are connected to a Source of Saltpeter (especially strange in case of Cavalries, as they just field a modified Version of the Rifles which the foot troops use ).

Something which happened in my last Game. Despite being able to field Riflemen, I wasn´t able to build Frigates, Cannons or Cavalries and therefore had to attack with Catapults and Knights (which was desastrous for them as the defenses of my enemy consisted of Riflemen and Musketmen)

Maybe in CViv IV upon reaching a technology which make some resource obsolete, all of the units which needed this resource should be (at once) be replaced by new versions of this unit, which don´t need this resource.

[spartak]

Originally posted by Dr Zoidberg


SMAC was never boring IIRC.

[Alexander D]

A quick question: Are multiple queue lines possible on each city? I read that still only one item at the time can be produced, and with even more penalties for switching types.

What about overproduction? Say, one megacity with 80 shields per turn can produce two 40 shield units in one turn?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Alexander D
A quick question: Are multiple queue lines possible on each city? I read that still only one item at the time can be produced, and with even more penalties for switching types.

What about overproduction? Say, one megacity with 80 shields per turn can produce two 40 shield units in one turn?

I don´t know about overproduction and multiple queues,
but the penalties for switching types were lessened IMHO.

According to an Article it will be a new System:
If you switch from an (half finished) Item A to the production of an Item B the shields already produced for Item A are saved so that, if you finish the production of Item B (which you have to start from zero) you can resume the production of Item A from the point where you switched to Item B.