If you could add one new improvement to Civ3...

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Outsider
One other thing...

Is your handle "Guynemer" because you really like the game "Blue Max", because you have an interest in WWI fighter pilots through some other route, or is it something else entirely?

Blue Max? Never heard of it.

Red Baron... now there was a WWI flight sim, young whippersnapper...

[Outsider]

Blue Max is a very quick to learn/easy to play tabletop game that was made by Game Designers Workshop before they went out of business. It was published in 1983, I think, and I've first played it probably a year or two after that.

This "Red Baron" flight sim you speak of, is it a "program" for one of those new fangled "digital computers" I keep hearing about?

[Stuie]

Blue Max was also a video game for the Atari 800.

[Guynemer]

Ooopsie.

[GRM7584]

Sum total of ideas: (many "borrowed" from SMAC, CTP, Lords o.t. Realm, Imperialism, "insert title of strategy game here")

Like the notion of "Unit type" flags so we can have unit-specific combat bonuses. Also like the carrier-based aircraft limitation notion. There ought to be torpedo bombers for carriers that are specifically anti-ship units, it would certainly stop me from my "only build battleships" tendencies. And of course I'm sick of seeing frigates and ironclads win (or even do damage) against subs and battleships, its ridiculous.

I think tech trading should be seriously altered, it unbalances the game like crazy IMHO: If I check techs every turn with every other AI civ and get the best deals with everyone, a deity game plays like a chieftain game. Ok, maybe thats a bit exaggerated. You catch the drift, though. On the flipside, if I miss out on so much as one big AI tech trading session, I'm completely screwed. It feels I'm like being punished for not ultra-micro-managing, or rewarded for getting a lucky deal. I think perhaps having the option of NOT trading techs and instead simply reducing the cost by number of other civs (you have contact with) that have or are researching the tech would make a lot more sense. Another option would be age-based constraints on techs: techs are significantly more costly to research the earlier it is from their "ideal" date (so trying to research computers in 1800 is going to be a bit harder than in 1950).

Static Militia: Each city has X number of the best available defensive units (at conscript level), where X is the city size (town, city, metropolis, not the population). So an industrial era metropolis with access to rubber would have 3 immobile conscript infantry.
You could have all sorts of modifying factors to it if you wanted (government, number of cities, etc.) but that seems a bit superfluous, assuming the idea isn't already superfluous enough. Which it is. I just cringe at the hypothetical situation of a warrior trotting into a modern day metropolis with no resistance.

Instead of just military or scientific leaders, why not have *every* trait able to make a leader?
Expansionist: Build a new city (better chances for getting one the more cities you already have when a city is built). Expansionist leader could instantly add to a citys population, or maybe be set to turn a city into a *real* settler factory by making a settler at no cost every 5 turns for the next 20 turns.
Commercial: Hard to think of how a leader could be generated, but their effects are fairly straightforward, just double the tax income or increase by 50 percent the commerce, or something along those lines.
Religious: Liked the proposal for a religious leader and the cultural leader already mentioned...maybe have a religious leader have a chance to pop every time cultural borders expand (past the first time, of course). And they could give a temporary bonus in the way of happy faces and culture (I'm thinking of it in terms of a temporary and invisible Bach's Cathedral/Hanging Gardens)
Industrious: Perhaps every time a city reaches a "benchmark" shield production (something like 15 shields in the ancient age, 30 in medieval, etc.) there's a chance one of these fellows pops up. They could, of course, increase shield production in a city, or perhaps instantly build a number of tile improvements (instant transcontinental railroad! whee!)
And for our upcoming traits:
Agricultural: When a city "grows" a level, or maybe hits a benchmark food surplus. Kind of hard to think of any historical agricultural leaders, but maybe thats just me. Anyhow, they could increase food production or maybe instantly irrigate a citys surroundings (guess thats the same as industrious leader).
Seafaring: The idea of a naval leader has already been thoroughly discussed, and this would be a great trait to implement it under.
Also, I think the instant wonder popping is a bit too powerful, and would be even more powerful if every single civ has two ways to get a leader...maybe instantly contribute half a wonders cost instead of all, but still be able to rush normal improvements (or even small wonders)? It would also be neat to see military leaders actually *make* several new units instead of just absorbing other units into one army. Perhaps make armies upgradable too; I don't think it would unbalance the game, since my armies end up dying after 2 victories anyhow.

Era-specific tile improvement graphics. This would be great. Maybe even *tile* specific tile improvement graphics. So, we can see latticeworks of irrigation in the ancient era (like what we see in the default graphics set), but in the medieval era we actually see crops, and in the industrial and modern ages we can see teeny little barns and fences and such. As for tile specific, this way we could have a square with oil, when mined, show up as having an oil derrick, or having roaded/railroaded areas in tundra and desert appear much sparser (while I can forgive and even approve of the messy tangle of transportation around my grassland cities, seeing tundra at the edge of my continent with the same thickness of railroads is disconcerting).

While I like the notion of Civil Wars, I don't like the "split in half" motif of previous civs (was it in civ 1? I swear I remember that happening once or twice. Last time I played it was when I was a wee lad, though, so who knows). Instead, take a certain number of cities, say the number of cities you need to have a forbidden palace (8 on average map, methinks) and multiply by 1.5. For every city after this that you build, you increase your chance each turn of having a "civil war" by a tiny percentage (1% per city, perhaps). So, on an average map, having 15 cities (3 over the 12 city roof) you would have a 3% chance per turn of experiencing a civil war, and perhaps this base chance could be increased for things like cities in disorder, or decrease for WLTKD. A civil war wouldn't split your empire in half, but rather, you would lose a certain number of cities that were most distant from your capital, in this example, maybe a little over or under 3 (or right on 3). You would have the option of declaring war on this new civ or just letting them have their independence; if you recapture your cities, you don't lose all the culture like you normally would if you capture an enemy city. And if an enemy captures a city that has seceded from you, well, tough luck, unless you want to declare war on them on your own. The idea here is that big empires will have to put more funds into luxuries to stave off civil wars, or risk losing cities without any battles, whereas smaller empires don't even have to worry. It makes sense, historically speaking, if you ask me.

Random events. Just regular old random events. SMAC has some basic kinds, like bumper crops or industrial boom, and MOO has some too, but even the pesky "fires destroy temple in hamburg: citizens demand aquaduct!" messages from civ1 added a little extra flavor, albeit annoying flavor.

Visible trade routes: yes, stol...er...inspired directly from CTP. While the little moving icons tended to messy up the screen, I still think it was nice to see them, and it was also nice that you could pirate them. yarr.

Unit trading, yum.
Perhaps also have mercenaries from nearby civs (as in, they use the technology and/or flavor units [in scenarios/mods] from nearby civs...I dont mean units disband from other civs and come wandering over to you) sometimes show up at your doorstep asking for employment. Mercenaries were at least fairly significant during the middle ages, although perhaps putting limitations on other eras would be wise to keep a little closer to history.

Once a city gets over 6, maybe have little hamlets pop up on nearby squares to represent the growing population. I'm thinking of a LotRealm2-type implementation, perhaps to the degree that they could be torched by invading forces (or have their own static militia!) To this same effect, it would be cool to see great wonders show up in or around the city they are built in, or even show little construction sites while they are being built! (which could, of course, be sabotaged/pillaged)

I like having a UN that acts like the planetary council from SMAC. Jolly good ideas posted in that respect.

I have always played my games with all the spaceship components at the very end of the tech tree, mostly because some of the tech assosciations seem ridiculous and a bit too early for me. How is my civ building a massive cryogenic chamber without even a rudimentary understanding of human genetics?! Doesn't make any sense. I also usually play with jungles, forests, deserts, and tundra as all being un-settleable, jungles and forests as being unclearable, and i set it so each terrain has one improvement option (mining for forests, jungles, deserts, tundra, mountains, hills; irrigation for others). I guess my point here (and its hard to see any point in all that rambling) is that it would be neat to have "official" alternate rulesets, if nothing else than to see what other ideas the developers had about the way the game should work.

For pollution: Yes, it is tedious, but something that would make it a lot less tedious is that it just reduces production (ie railroaded, mined bonus grassland produces one of everything, roaded, irrigated desert produces one of everything, mined, railroaded mountain produces 1 shield and commerce). The main idea is that whoever is working that still will stay on it, and you wont have to reset the city to work it after you've cleaned the tile up. It would also be nice to have, instead of "shift-p", an option under preferences that makes any 'free' (IE not working) worker automatically go to and clean up pollution as it pops up.

Yes, that was all one idea. Yes, I am a lurker and I made an account just to post that one idea. I apologize profusely if any of that one idea (with no credit given, that is) has already been mentioned in this thread or other threads and I somehow missed them. I apologize profusely also for the excess of information, math, asides, and unnecessary concepts. And wordiness. And tedium. All done.

[Panag]

Re: If you could add one new improvement to Civ3...

Originally posted by Sn00py
What would it be and why?

I am not talking just about city improvements, I am talking about any aspect of the game.

Just one!

hi ,

unit trading , with or without the tech as an option

the second thing would be the trading of maps with the choice of not giving your own map or the one of your allies of that moment , ......

more units like a C-130 or an attack helicopter

have a nice day

[playshogi]

A more involved espionage system.
1) spy insertion shouldn't cause a war!
1a) even successfully capturing a spy that actually did damage should not necessarily lead to war.
2) more kinds of spy results, like instead of getting a whole tech, just get x beakers for a tech.
3) a spy that slows down an opponents tech research.
4) a spy that increases corruption or increases the chance for a pollution square to appear.
5) a spy that assasinates a great leader when the opponent attempts to use that GL to build a wonder, army or whatever.
6) a spy that can destroy completed spaceship parts
7) a spy that can commit sabotage or tech theft and manage to frame another empire.
8) a spy that can increase the chance for a cultural flip
9) a spy that can cause a town to surrender without firing a shot (less chance of success in modern age).
10) spies introduced earlier in the game, perhaps with establishment of embassy
11) a spy that decreases the effectiveness of the opponent's military units

[Boris Godunov]

Eliminate workers entirely and replace them with a system similar to CTP of automated tile improvements. Moving workers around the map is tedious and ruins the game.

[SSBLoveU]

My use of workers help me greatly to build a civilization and protect it..

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Eliminate workers entirely and replace them with a system similar to CTP of automated tile improvements. Moving workers around the map is tedious and ruins the game.

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Eliminate workers entirely and replace them with a system similar to CTP of automated tile improvements. Moving workers around the map is tedious and ruins the game.

That is the one and only thing that I'd bring over from CTP. A brilliant idea.

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Guynemer



That is the one and only thing that I'd bring over from CTP. A brilliant idea.

Actually I like the worker unit in Civ III. More tangible - you can interfere with another country's work force, trade workers, free maintenance captured foreign workers, etc.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hmmm, I think that BOTH methods have their merits and flaws! Ideally I'd like to see a system which either incorporates elements of both, or where you could choose between them at the start of a game!

What I would LOVE to see, though, is a maintainance cost for Tile Improvements-to prevent that ugly RR and mining Sprawl that players and AI alike seem so fond of!!

Oh, and how about a new worker-type unit, called a prospector (Engineer), which can only build mines and colonies, but has a greater chance of detecting a resource in whatever tile it is working (even perhaps having a chance of certain resources-such as iron, coal or uranium-appearing 'magically', even if they wouldn't ordinarily be there!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by GRM7584
Another option would be age-based constraints on techs: techs are significantly more costly to research the earlier it is from their "ideal" date (so trying to research computers in 1800 is going to be a bit harder than in 1950).

IMHO this is a great idea that I've never heard mentioned before. Since the main argument for not including futuristic techs in Civ3 is that they didn't want to mimic SMAC, I don't see any reason why this idea shouldn't be implemented.

Originally posted by GRM7584
Static Militia: Each city has X number of the best available defensive units (at conscript level), where X is the city size (town, city, metropolis, not the population). So an industrial era metropolis with access to rubber would have 3 immobile conscript infantry.

Nah, not sure I like this idea. The draft option places the onus on the player to ensure defense of the city in states of emergencies. I feel like your idea would bail people out of nasty situations.

Originally posted by GRM7584
Instead of just military or scientific leaders, why not have *every* trait able to make a leader?

Agreed.

Originally posted by GRM7584
Era-specific tile improvement graphics.

Kind of a cosmetic feature, but I do like the idea.

Originally posted by GRM7584
While I like the notion of Civil Wars, I don't like the "split in half" motif of previous civs (was it in civ 1? I swear I remember that happening once or twice.

I also like the notion of Civil Wars, but I don't agree with your alternative solution. Adjusting the likelihood of CWs based on # of cities is shady IMO. The size of a Civ is not so much a factor of CWs as is the happiness/unhappiness of the people. This is mostly affected by govt. type, war weariness (namely in a domestic war), the fall of the capital, etc. America is a big country, but there is slim to no chance of another CW breaking out.

Originally posted by GRM7584
Random events. Just regular old random events. SMAC has some basic kinds, like bumper crops or industrial boom, and MOO has some too, but even the pesky "fires destroy temple in hamburg: citizens demand aquaduct!" messages from civ1 added a little extra flavor, albeit annoying flavor.

Yes, random events are pretty nifty, especially the bumber crop event.

Originally posted by GRM7584
Visible trade routes: yes, stol...er...inspired directly from CTP. While the little moving icons tended to messy up the screen, I still think it was nice to see them, and it was also nice that you could pirate them. yarr.

Very cool.

Originally posted by GRM7584
Unit trading, yum.

I'm not even going to go into this one again, but suffice it to say that it is my biggest beef with Civ3 in its current state. We NEED unit trading in some fashion.

Originally posted by GRM7584
Once a city gets over 6, maybe have little hamlets pop up on nearby squares to represent the growing population. I'm thinking of a LotRealm2-type implementation, perhaps to the degree that they could be torched by invading forces (or have their own static militia!) To this same effect, it would be cool to see great wonders show up in or around the city they are built in, or even show little construction sites while they are being built! (which could, of course, be sabotaged/pillaged)

Hrm, kind of a mixture of cosmetics and in a little bit more micromanagement. Not sure I like this, unless it's contained to a cosmetic change only.

Originally posted by GRM7584
I like having a UN that acts like the planetary council from SMAC. Jolly good ideas posted in that respect.

Yes yes yes, especially having a freaking Civ call off a war against your ally the X.

Originally posted by GRM7584
I have always played my games with all the spaceship components at the very end of the tech tree, mostly because some of the tech assosciations seem ridiculous and a bit too early for me. How is my civ building a massive cryogenic chamber without even a rudimentary understanding of human genetics?! Doesn't make any sense. I also usually play with jungles, forests, deserts, and tundra as all being un-settleable, jungles and forests as being unclearable, and i set it so each terrain has one improvement option (mining for forests, jungles, deserts, tundra, mountains, hills; irrigation for others). I guess my point here (and its hard to see any point in all that rambling) is that it would be neat to have "official" alternate rulesets, if nothing else than to see what other ideas the developers had about the way the game should work.

The Tech Tree is more or less an abstraction of real life, not an exact one-to-one mapping. I see no problems with it. As to making Jungles/tundra uninhabitable, I've never understood this. Many people have settled in bone-chilling tundras and jungles IRL. I also don't see any reason to have an alternate ruleset. It'll just be yet another ruleset that people would edit. Just let people edit the vanilla ruleset per their tastes. Plus I'd rather have the Firaxis team focus on more important matters.

Originally posted by GRM7584
It would also be nice to have, instead of "shift-p", an option under preferences that makes any 'free' (IE not working) worker automatically go to and clean up pollution as it pops up.

God yes. I HATE having to reassign workers to clean up pollution when I have already done so on the previous turn.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by playshogi
A more involved espionage system.
1) spy insertion shouldn't cause a war!
1a) even successfully capturing a spy that actually did damage should not necessarily lead to war.
2) more kinds of spy results, like instead of getting a whole tech, just get x beakers for a tech.
3) a spy that slows down an opponents tech research.
4) a spy that increases corruption or increases the chance for a pollution square to appear.
5) a spy that assasinates a great leader when the opponent attempts to use that GL to build a wonder, army or whatever.
6) a spy that can destroy completed spaceship parts
7) a spy that can commit sabotage or tech theft and manage to frame another empire.
8) a spy that can increase the chance for a cultural flip
9) a spy that can cause a town to surrender without firing a shot (less chance of success in modern age).
10) spies introduced earlier in the game, perhaps with establishment of embassy
11) a spy that decreases the effectiveness of the opponent's military units

Some pretty cool ideas in here.

1. Agreed, although you should receive a rep hit with the opposing Civ.
2. Neat.
3. Neat.
4. Nah. While not totally farfetched, it adds too much power to espionage.
5. Hrm, lemme think about this one. That would be interesting event handling at the very least.
6. Neat, even though I have never built the spaceship, not even in Civ or Civ 2.
7. Now this is a great idea. Wasn't something like this in SMAC? What a great idea.
8. Neat.
9. Umm isn't that already present with the "Incite Revolt" option? (or whatever it's called on the Espionage menu.)
10. I understand your logic behind this, given the fact that spies have existed throughout human history. Perhaps something like this could be implemented, but it'd have to be toned down a bit.
11. No way, too powerful. Plus I don't see something like this as a common occurrence IRL.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by Guynemer



That is the one and only thing that I'd bring over from CTP. A brilliant idea.

I know most people probably disagree with me on this one, but I actually like having individual workers available. Although they need a good amount of tweaking, especially WRT pollution cleanup.