The Yin and Ven(ger) of what Civilization III should have been like

[Sandman]

If the civ series is to survive, then it needs a radical overhaul.

It's time to ditch those gawd-awful city radii. So inflexible, so unrealistic, so boring.

Resource shields are daft. A city with lots of hills and mountains is somehow better at making spaceship pieces? Come on! We're not making the ship out of stone. Better to have a system based on population, education and city improvements IMO.

A spherical world. If civ doesn't do it first, another 'young pretender' will.

Naval combat has never been much use in civ games. A new naval system must be devised.

I feel that using discrete combat 'units' which move individually is a seriously old-fashioned way of resolving combat. At the very least, units should be able to move, fight and die in stacks.

Don't be afraid to 'borrow' ideas from other games; for example, EU's stability rating was a great innovation.

Attack, defense and movement are awfully basic. Why not have initative, as suggested elsewhere in this thread? Or how about camoflage, or ability to use terrain?

Just a few radical ideas to spice up what is fast becoming a tired series.

[nato]

Barnacle Bill - Thanks for the info. You have a point, but I don't think it is really "unreasonable" to have expected stack combat. I'm not talking about Televangelists or other CTP stuff, just stack combat.

It just seemed so superior and so logical I can't believe they didn't use it. I would be surprised if that particular feature could have caused some sort of legal problem, if that is what you are getting at.

To me it is just inexplicable.

Sandman - You are so right! What is need is to think outside of the box! I agree about getting rid of city radiuses ... I would go further, I would throw out cities all together somehow. I want an empire, not a collection of semi independent cities. At a very minimum I would allow surplus food and production to be pooled and shared among cities.

I would also do away with terrain improvements, except maybe roads for unit movement only. Mines and RR and stuff are just a big headache to put in and always make maps look hideous. One of the main complaints is worker tedium - so eliminate it! Tie production increases to tech or something, like discovering "Crop Rotation" or "Strip Mining" give bonuses.

Civ is a brilliant game ... but I wish they were more willing to break away from the-way-its-always-been a little.

I know its easy to type stuff like this ... talk is cheap ...

But still stack combat is not asking for the moon!

[Barnacle Bill]

Originally posted by nato
Barnacle Bill - Thanks for the info. You have a point, but I don't think it is really "unreasonable" to have expected stack combat. I'm not talking about Televangelists or other CTP stuff, just stack combat.

It just seemed so superior and so logical I can't believe they didn't use it. I would be surprised if that particular feature could have caused some sort of legal problem, if that is what you are getting at.

To me it is just inexplicable.

But still stack combat is not asking for the moon!

All you can reasonably DEMAND from a sequel is:

1) It works on current mainstream gaming OS's & hardware.
2) It hasn't dropped or gutted any features from the previous game in the series.
3) Any new features promised by the developer/publisher (on official websites, in ad copy, in interviews with the gaming press, etc...) are in by the time patching stops.
4) All "bugs" are fixed by the time patching stops.

Actually, I guess you can "legitimately" insist that #3 & #4 be delivered in the initial release version, but that's kind of like insisting that everybody obey the speed limit even when no cop is in sight It is (obnoxiously) standard (darned near universal) industry practice to release prematurely for commercial reasons.

As to stack combat "in general" (as opposed to any particular implimentation thereof), it is a major change to the traditional Civ system (which was boosted entirely from Empire). You need some sort of realistic limitations on stacking to avoid unrealistic "killer stacks". In real life, unit density in ancient times was limited by logistics because your army had to "live off the land". In modern times, it is limited by the lethality of modern weaponry - your loses increase exponentially as you crowd your troops & equipment too close together (and since WWI , how close is too close has been constantly on the rise, but this has also dovetailed neatly since WWII with the exponential growth in the cost of military forces so you can't afford as many troops as before anyway). The US Civil War was probably about the peak (as long as you kept the army near a rail head) - railroads delivered the logistics pretty much as fast as the home front could crank 'em out, but weaponry had not quite gotten to the point that parade ground formations were a mutual suicide pact (it was close, though, which is a big part of why USCW battles were so bloody). So, your game system needs to model that, and in a "sweep of history" system like Civ it needs to model it differently in different eras. I can understand a reluctance to tackle that in a minimalist sequel like Civ3.

Now, what I'd do if I was "Sid for a day" (or a year...Civilization was not built in a day) is a different question. Explaining BBCiv (Barnacle Bill's Civilization) is a topic for another post (or 10).