Civ 4

[The Mad Monk]

One tiny change:

More than 511 cities allowed -- if you're playing all thirty-one flavors, that makes for a buch of pocket-sized civs that cannot do justice to the maximum world size (362 square).

There should be capacity for 1023, or better, 2047 -- just so people can at least make the attempt.

[The Mad Monk]

You could make spies more expensive -- or drastically reduce the circumstances under which they could, say, buy units -- no naval or aircraft takeovers (though meeting an encroaching fleet with nothing but a spy in a transport was a lot of fun in Civ2), Units have to be isolated - no adjacent units, instead of just not in a stack, etc.

[Xorbon]

Spies

I like the idea of an abstract spy system. Having said that, the way it's implemented in Civ3, I hardly use it. I can't put my finger on it, but spying seems to be too expensive, or the failure rate's too high, or something. I mainly use spies to see what units the opponent has. I rarely use the other functions.

For Civ 4, I would like to see espionage improved greatly, but still kept abstract.

[sabrewolf]

full move and production logging

another important thing and the best way to eliminate cheating would be to log all moves, production switches, etc. this of course only works, if everything is not completely random, but dependent of the state (like currently)...

if so, you can check if someone uses (forbidden) exploits or cheats otherwise.

it still won't help against reloaders, but that SP... in MP reloading isn't an option.

[Cyberon]

only thing i like to see in civ4 is a different approach towards difficulty levels. The way it is in Civ3 is totally unfair and very boring in my opinion. No more extra units for the Ai !!! Let the Ai play dumber at lower levels and smarter at the higher. No shield bonusses, no super-start money, no nothing extra, i just hat that concept (as i never play Deity, aldo i could survive i think it's way too single-sided. Stay alive and maybe, maybe you see the year 1000 AD).

Also all that tech-handicap at higher levels (if not all levels) is a pain in the ass. Who ever made that up, should be shot


Starting positions and rules should be the same for all, take a lesson from Age of Empires ! I can live with the fact the Ai has eyes in his back (or better: borg-spotter).
But the fact that the Ai gets tons of stuff ahead of you is simply unacceptable. On higher lvls gives this two options: gambit or defence (catching up) for a long time.

Also it should not be possible to break a ROP, we all know how to use it. A spoiler. futhermore it would be better if a oppponent offers peace, our advicer should make note if a another agreement is going to be violated so that we have a fair option to accept or not accept. I can't remember how long my other treaty with a "friend" lasted and the Ai knows it always; they won't accept, period. So it's only fair to keep the player informed instead of wondering why the heck they all went bananas after a while and won't trust you anymore...

[Plotinus]

[Cyberon] Now we're in an ideal world! It would be great if the AI could be scaled so that it's clever at high levels and less good at the lower ones, but do you really think they could program an AI so brilliant it could consistently beat human players at the top levels without any material advantages? You may think it artificial to give the AI such advantages at high levels now, but it would be just as artificial to have an AI make stupid mistakes (sending troops the wrong way, settling in daft terrain, etc - because that is what it would come down to) at the lower levels. It would feel as cheap to win a war because the AI sent its troops to defend an irrelevant jungle as it is to lose one because the AI had a big building advantage.

I'd like to see something done with guerillas. As it stands, these things are useless except as something to upgrade Medieval Infantry to, or as Poor Man's Infantry when you don't have rubber. They cost the *same* as Infantry, for heaven's sake! Now what do Guerillas do in the real world? They defend their home territory, but they do it not by digging in but by attacking any invading forces. Therefore, to be useful and interesting, they should change the Guerilla so it has some kind of attacking advantage if it is within its own territorial borders. The best and most fun way would be if it is *invisible* as long as it remains in its borders. Then the invaders would never know where the next attack would be coming from, just like in real life. And they would never know if advancing to the next square might trigger a battle or not.

Failing this, the Guerilla could just receive an attacking bonus in its home territory - perhaps it would attack as strongly as a Marine, but be reduced to its "default" stats if it strays away from home.

This way, the Guerilla would have an actual point, and represent an interestingly different way of defending against attack.

[sabrewolf]

Cyberon,
als plotinus said, an AI that doesn't need bonuses won't be possible to build. civ is not like chess where you can let the computer just calculate more and more moves.
however, a learning AI should be possible. that's one big weakness of the civ3 AI... you can pick off one civ after the other.

Plotinus,
the guerilla has been improved for conquests. it now upgrades to TOW infantry, the "poor peoples" MI.
of course, you could say it's too late when coming with rocketry... but better than nothing.
also, i quite liked the idea of dead-end unit pathes. swordsmen for example are the strongest regular attack units in the ancient time. knights in the medieval time, cavalry in the most of the industrial time, tanks end of industrial and beginning of modern time. then modern armour. imagine you could upgrade all the whole way through time... you wouldn't hardly need to build units anymore, just upgrade them
however, the AI should learn to disband useless units sometimes... specially as shields for unproductive cities...

[sabrewolf]

and i forgot to mention they have defensive first bombard. guerilla has a ~50% chance of weakening a cavalry by 1 HP before even starting the battle

[Cyberon]

you could scale the agressiveness of the Ai for example and the amont of effort (numbers) the Ai uses. There are more ways too mae the Ai more challeging. Simply addding numbers is the dumb way. Afcource that will take more effort from the designers, but he; isn't that what it's all about. Making the ai better then the one before. Anyways, my stumic turn at the current bruut way of "difficulty" approach. But producing units 60% faster and also get a shield-bonus + less corruption is totaly UNbalanced. If that what it takes to make a "match" for a human player the Ai is too stupid to even go after. Not my cup of tea.....

Stupid Ai mode could "forget" to pillage or whatever other trick there is to muster. So instead of silly moves, a "dumber" Ai doesn't know lots of sneaky moves for example. There are more road to Rome, dudes; C'mon.
Never say there's only "one holy way" ; later you could feel silly . . .

[Plotinus]

[sabrewolf] Good point. In fact I have not yet played a Conquests game up to that point so I didn't know about the improved Guerilla. I'm not sure about it though - as I say, it seems to me that a Guerilla should be designed to *attack*, albeit in its home territory, and harass invaders, rather than gain a *defensive* bonus, which is what the zero-range bombard is. But I agree that making things upgradeable isn't always desirable - I like the fact that the power of Cavalry is offset by their deadendedness. I think it's more interesting if you give units like Guerilla a genuinely different characteristic - just like Submarines being invisible etc. That's why I like the new Conquests UUs, like the Dromon, Man O' War or the Mayan spear chappie, which have interesting abilities rather than simple extra numbers added to their stats.

[Plotinus]

Oh, and Cyberon - do you really think that a less aggressive AI, for example, would be a less challenging opponent? It might not crush you militarily, but it might beat you in culture, science, etc. I've not tried fiddling with the adjustable aggressiveness setting that you get on the setup screen at the start, but I suspect that doing so would not necessarily make the game harder or easier - it would simply make it different.

[sabrewolf]

one important thing about good playing is learning.
if i compare my early games (pure builder, infrastructure, research, etc. and then conquer one after the other with overwhelming force and higher technology) with now, you can clearly see the influence of apolyton.

some examples:

- denser city placing with overlapping city radiuses? before: NO WAY! i'll regret it when i've got sanitation. now: that's 5000 years till then, so grab that space!
- early war? before: NO WAY, i want to grow, not waste my early moves on stupid archers. now: if i see that settler walking to the area i wanted to settle next... hey, why not? i can use these workers! maybe i can even get a city or two.
- divida et impera (share and rule). i used to just research and hardly ever trade. i thought because i'm faster, i can outpace the AIs sooner or later. works fine until monarch, but then... now: research just a 3rd of the stuff in the first half of the game. the rest is gained through good diplomacy.

oops, this looks like tips for civ3-noobs, sorry.

what i wanted to say is that most tricks to beat higher levels i learned here.
the AI however hasn't learned a lot. ok, he knows how to use new stuff and maybe even got some tweaks to use artillery more effectively. but without an improvable AI, the human will always be better.

if the game industry would have the guts to let the AI be partially manipulated, the community could help tweaking a lot of problems.

the AU mod is the best example. small changes can create killer-AIs in games that usually and toothless computer players... imagine what could be if the community's possibilities were greater?!?

[Argos65987]

If they keep they same abstract espionage system, I'd like them to change the missions available.

For example, propaganda as it is now is a joke. It's too expensive and I don't think there is any real chance of success. Plus, subverting a city to join your empire seems rather drastic. Instead it would be interesting if they changed the entire concept of propaganda. For example, you could use propaganda against another civs city and increase the unhapiness of the enemy city or war weariness of their nation rather than trying to steal an entire city.

[CiverDan]

First a General Comment. Too many times good natured suggestions are made that in reality are unfeasible due to a) speed and/or file size issues b)additionality complexity.

What I would like to see:

1. A Core game which end at the current time, as well as an expanded game with 2 additional eras, which include colonization techs for solar System colonization, etc. (even if this is done abstractly) and a Legitimate Tech Path for launching the Spaceship. Im sorry, but even Fusion Power wont get 10,000 people to another Star System. Ideally, I would like to see linked maps and such to allow Space/Moon/mars etc. to be physically utilized. I think Techs and such can be handled better than CtP though i.e. no eco-terriorists and Contraception Wonders.

2. Get a real functioning UN (like the UP in GalCiv). I Think this would Slow down later era warmongering by imposing greater penalties who do this. Other countries today are generally VERY unhappy when one tries to annex another. This needs to be represented.

3. Uses other means to slow conquest in industrial era and later: Removing the free movement on Railroad would help. I think Air power needs to be emphasized more also. I think allowing nearby fighters/bombers to Get a first Strike on nearby attacking units would also help here.

[geniemalin]

I'll add my voice to wanting to see Propaganda changed. I would like to see an 'increase unhappiness' option. I also think that causing a city to flip should only happen if that city already had a chance of flipping, and should be used to increase that chance rather than give you a chance of flipping a city nowhere near your cultural infuence borders.