Civ 4

[WarpStorm]

I think it should be 3d, but not gratuitous 3d.

There are a lot of good reasons for it to be in 3d. More realistic looking terrain for one thing (kinda ironic me saying that). Scalability for different size monitors for another. Nearly infinite levels of zoom for another. More realistic terrain (not just appearance).

Okay, a gratuitous 3d option that'd be cool - having your city with all it's buildings displayed on the world map.

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The problem I see with the scalable map is that it might limit you to single player mode (not that I mind, but some people would).

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I think it should stay turn based. Even a slow RTS like EU2, wouldn't feel like Civ.

[Kuciwalker]

I think 3D is bad - because of the terrain. It would make modding insanely difficult.

[BigFurryMonster]

Civ needs more Strategic depth.

By Strategic I mean the amount of long-term decisions you must make, combined with the fact that you can build up a certain position compared to your opponents.

In Civ3, relatively few decisions are strategic. One big one should be the placement of cities, but in the long run, it turns out to be not a very decisive factor. Putting all your resources into a certain wonder or tech should also be one, but due to the fact that a lot of wonders expire and tech is traded quite easily, this is not as important as it should be.

The existence of civ-specific UUs in Civ3 are pretty good though.

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by skywalker
I think 3D is bad - because of the terrain. It would make modding insanely difficult.

Why do you think this? The method for texturing 3D tiles is no worse than the current way of making 2D tiles. With all the FPS games out there finding people who know how to do this will be very easy.

As far as sculpting worlds, I'd love to play with an editor for that (heck, I'd love to write that).

For units it would be a lot easier than current scheme as you usually have to make a 3d model for it first anyways. You'd be cutting out the middle man.

I will bet that Civ4 will be in 3D. Considering what they are looking for on Firaxis' Help Wanted page I can even venture a guess that they'll be using the GameBryo engine for doing it.

[Master Zen]

ok, here's my 2 cents (more like 2 dollars), I'll divide it by parts:

Things that should be brought back from Civ2

1) Elvis!!

2) Events for scenarios. Make it simple like in Civ2 but trust me, they make scenarios far more interesting and complex. I dare to say that events alone have caused Civ2 to have the staying power it has. It is likely that Civ3 will be long forgotten after Civ4, but Civ2 did manage to outlive its successor (and if Civ4 doesn't have events, Civ2 might outlive it also).

Things that should be brought back from SMAC

1) Social Engineering. Then we can have stuff like "social democracy" and "lassez-faire capitalism" or "fundamentalist monarchy" and stuff like that. Get creative. I loved Oncle Boris' suggestion that civs change according to what your style is.

2) Terrain Variety. SMAC was pretty cool that you had climatic diversity: some places were more wet, others more rocky, etc. Perhaps Civ could have wetness and fertility so that certain patches of land were particulary productive (think the great plains or the ukraine).

3) Natural Disasters. Volcanoes are one thing but earthquakes and other stuff would be pretty neat.

New Changes

A whole new combat engine

Let's be serious, Civ3's combat engine is not particularly fancy. I belive it is possible to add considerable depth to it without making it exceedingly complicated, and my basis of comparison is the wonderfully simple wargame Panzer General. I have said in more than one thread that the perfect civ game would be a mix between civ and PG, of course, not withstanding the "look-and-feel" copyright suit that they'd slap on Firaxis's ass, some changes can be incorporated while maintaining the "civness"

- More HP. 5 HP allows for a lot of twisted combat results, this was a step backwards from Civ2. IMO, the average should be 10 with, for example, experience generating up to 15 HPs. Experience should also be constant not based on luck. Every successful combat should increase a unit's experience.

- Retreat, not death . Instead of combats being "to the death", there should be a retreat factor involved, i.e. a unit that starts getting beat up will retreat automatically. Perhaps this might be acompanied by a "stamina" rating. Each attack either takes away HP or stamina, after stamina has run out the unit retreats. If a unit is pinned down, it surrenders. This allows for maneouver being of vital importance so you can surround units or simply advance while denying your opponent the ability to resupply.

- Supply rules . There have never been any supply rules for civ. Terrain and transportation should dictate how much a unit resupplies, units that are cut off should not be able to resuply at all. Resupply should occur when a unit does not move, but if, say, the unit is on a road or something, then some resupply should manage to reach it even if its in combat.

- Transport . The one thing that bugs me about roads/railroads is that they give a huge advantage when in theory they should potentially serve both attacker and defender. For example, roads instead of giving a 3x movement rate universally, should be only about 1.5x for foot units and about 2x for wheeled/tracked units. Finally, railroads should be "hub-based", that is, instead of sliding through the rail system, a unit would have to load/unload at a hub in a city. Bomb a railroad, and ya can't reach the hub. Get caught in a city while still loaded, and suffer terribly. Thus, units would have to unload at the nearest city (or not-so-nearest if the enemy has air superiorty)and deploy normally to the front.

- Stack damage . Units bombed or attacked in a same stack should suffer some damage, whether it be HP or stamina. Perhaps bombardment would cause damage to some units besides the target, while direct attacks would reduce a stack's stamina enough that the inertia of a strong attack would cause the stack as a whole to retreat even if some of the units are still intact.

- Tactical/Strategic air power. Fighters suck at bombing in Civ3. There should be a big separation between tactical bombers and strategic ones, the latter should be able to cause major damage to cities and infrastructure, while doing less damage to units themselves, while the former should be used mostly as airborne artillery.

Finally, units and attack/defense should be separated into classes. For units we could have foot, mounted, tracked (tank). This would affect transport and defensive characteristics. Naval units could be wood, armored or submarine. Air units could be prop or jet.

For attack/defense, you would have attacks against other types of units, say, a pikeman is obviously much more formidable against a mounted unit than a foot soldier. So, a pike would have a higher attack/defense rating against a mounted unit than against any other. Same with infantry having a higher attack against infantry than against tanks, so you would be a fool to attack a city with tanks, you'd soften it up with arty then send in the assault troops (similarly you would not defend a city with tanks)


That's all I can think of ATM, I have more suggestions for the economic and expansion elements but I'll post 'em later.

-MZ


Finally, one biggie: FOR ALL THAT IS SACRED AND HOLY PLEASE MAKE IT A HEX-BASED MAP, REGARDLESS OF IT BEING 2-D or 3-D... HEX HEX HEX!!!!

[BigFurryMonster]

Hex? And make special hex numpads on keyboards, too?

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by BigFurryMonster
Hex? And make special hex numpads on keyboards, too?

ask the entire wargamer community if they find hexes an obstacle at all.

plus, since due to the mini-map you already know your position in the world, why not add a keyboard shortcut to show you the map coordinates of any hex?

Thus instead of "move Warrior 3-4-1-7" like us demo gamers are used to, "move Warrior to 45,51"

[WarpStorm]

I disagree, MZ, on a few of things you like

Why limit yourself to hexes if you have 3D? I've played many hex-based games over the years and they aren't that much better than square tiles. If you give 1.5 multiplier on the diagonal moves it is nearly fair on movement.

Stack combat - Why should something happening far away affect you? A tile is huge amount of real estate. Stack damage probably should be reserved for an operational scale game, not a strategic one like civ.

Transport - Enemy roads go real slow till you've had enough time to make them yours. "The easy way is always mined" is a military axiom.

[Asmodean]

Re: Scale-able Maps

Originally posted by JesseSmith
The idea of having the map scale to the Era could be a lot of fun. IE: During the Ancient Era the entire map is actually just a small piece of the eventual game world. When entering the Middle Ages/Industrial/Modern the map expands to encompass a larger portion of the world. By the late Industrial Age (Flight to Satellites) with the growth of technology the entire world (game map) is available. To use the Conquest maps as examples, it would be like going from Mesopotamia to Middle Ages to Epic Game.

By expanding the map for each Era the game world is suddenly dynamic and mysterious. As with RL, as technology advances Distances quickly becomes smaller and smaller. I'd love to see the expression on a time warped Ancient Era humans face as they flew across a continent on a 747. More so I'd love to be on a ship traveling faster than the speed of light across our galaxy!!

Not to mention the possibilities this would allow for modders. IE: After battling for dominance of the post-apocalyptic caverns you emerge with the desire to rebuild humanity with your vision! Multiple scenarios/ mission based Conquests all on the same Map File! The possibilities are truly endless...

LOL...be careful what you post, Jesse. Now everybody will be dissapointed if scalable maps are NOT in Civ 4, for whatever reason

Asmodean

[Dis]

I disagree about supply

this isn't supposed to be a wargame after all.

I want diplomacy, diplomacy, and more diplomacy. Although much of that diplomacy should be relegated to the late game of course.

But what I really want for christmas is a more intelligent ai. Not just with regards to wars- but with regards to diplomacy and basic winning strategies.

[Dis]

the other thread reminded me.

Pollution should not kick your city workers off of a square. The square should still be able to be worked but at reduced capacity.

To tell the truth, I never caredf for pollution and global warming all that much, but I realize there must be a balance to high production.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Dissident
But what I really want for christmas is a more intelligent ai. Not just with regards to wars- but with regards to diplomacy and basic winning strategies.

I think that's a #1 priority on most of our wish-lists too.

@Warpstorm

Yes, perhaps if a 1.5 was applied to the diagonals it would work out good (by this I mean in practice, not only in corruption calculations).

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Master Zen


Thus instead of "move Warrior 3-4-1-7" like us demo gamers are used to, "move Warrior to 45,51"

This I could go for.

[vmxa1]

I don't 3D, because I can't think of any that I ever liked. Not to mention that many give me motion sickness.

[Kuciwalker]

wrt AI, they should take a GalCiv-like approach.