Desires For Future Civ3 Patches

[Quokka]

Fast Movers and Retreat

I think that the Retreat ability is too strong in this game. If you don't have any fast movers of your own it is damn near impossible to kill any units. They should only be able to Retreat on either offense if they are Offensive Units or defense if they are Defensive Units but not both.
A better option I would like to see would be to give Fast Movers another attack option called Harrass or Skirmish. This means that they attack until they lose two hitpoints and then they retreat. They could alternatively launch a full scale attack but would not be able to retreat.
Cavalry and Knights were never the meat of armies, they were always relegated to some sort of support or shock troop role. They were too few and expensive to be the only elements involved. This better represents their role in warfare than the present incarnation in Civ3.
More(totally?) unlikely but would be cool: Units in squares next to cities and connected by roads, should have a chance of retreating into the city. Ideally this would only be an option for Veteran and Elite units and have something like a 1/16 and 1/8 chance respectively. In general I think Elite units should get more bonus than 1hp. If you already have and are saving a GL then that is all the bonus is, and seeing how easy it is to lose Elite (death, upgrade),IMO it should mean more than it does while you have it.

[Willem]

Re: Fast Movers and Retreat

Originally posted by Quokka
I think that the Retreat ability is too strong in this game. If you don't have any fast movers of your own it is damn near impossible to kill any units. They should only be able to Retreat on either offense if they are Offensive Units or defense if they are Defensive Units but not both.

A simpler solution would be to allow a Retreat only onto open terrain squares, like Grassland etc. If the Knight is in the middle of a Forest, he's SOL. Of course, he might be forced to Retreat right into the path someone's musket, but hey, that's happened in countless battles in history. Ambush is what that's called.

[Grrr]

What I think is important

Nobody wants to reply to my thread! To bad!

On one hand Firaxis can ignore my fellow Apolytonians and I, and simply patch the bugs, and in about a years time release an add-on and expect us to pay money for it. This however won't sell, as all those who are really likely to buy it are so disillusioned with Civ3. Thus this would be a flop.
OR
They can give us what we want, and we will go on saying Civ3 was released Beta, blaming Infogrammes, but also start leaving Civ2, and actually multiplaying and scenario creating. The company keeps it's reputation, and can possibly sell more units of Civ3 to all those people we have scared off buying here at Apolyton. Furthermore, if Firaxis gives us a decent Scenario Editor and a decent multiplay feature spectrum, it will have given us what we wanted. I for one have already noticed that large factors of "THE LIST" were included in the final released game, the only failures being Customization and Multiplayer. If Firaxis does give us these options, it has the ability to create large scale add-on packs at a later date, which are likely to be bought, and which are likely to be succesful.
So if Firaxis has some half completed features lying around, if it is wise, it will get them up to scratch, give us what we want, and eventually possibly earn money. It will definately get rid of the negative publicity we are creating!

Having read most of the threads of the last few weeks I found the key issues that need resolution are:
-Corruption
-AI
-Editor
-Multiplayer
-Difficulty Levels

-Minor Issues
-Fix for bugs in this thread

CORRUPTION
Because "World Domination" and "Military Victory" are two of only six possible ways to win a game, they should be plausible, even on a 255x255 map, where currently, any city on the other side of the world you take will be 99% corrupt. Tell me, is Hawaii this corrupt because it is so far from Washington, NO! Also the whole way that corruption works is fundamentaly WRONG, as according to any historic dictionary, corruption is the theft of taxes by dishonest taxmen. Therefore, it should not affect anything but taxes, I mean, nobody steals from their luxuries, seriously! This type of corruption is reflected in gameplay by the distance to capitol modifier, which is theoritically correct, however it is to extreme, and affects too many things. The distance to capitol modifier should be based on turns, either by the newest ship accross the ocean, and/or the fastest land unit accross the fastest route. Rail should always be counted as one turn. For instance, the distance from Hawaii to Washington would be 4 turns on a steamship, and 1 turn by rail to Washington. That is 5 turns away, not as in Civ3 terms about 40, leading to total corruption. A modifier such as this would reduce the corruption problem over time. Governments should each have maximum distances and caps on their corruption levels, with Democracy being above 90% efficient.
Local corruption should be caused by unhappy and resisting citizens, it can be in any form, shields, gold, taxes food, whatever. It should be solved by the military police modifiers and by courthouses/police stations. It should never exceed 10% except under Anarchy.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
As Civ3 is currently only a single player game, AI needs to be up to scratch. The way that the AI spreads to conquer the entire earth is a real improvement over Civ2, but there are one or two issues which need fixing.
-Firstly, the AI should not build cities on Tundra, Desert or Jungle unless resourses are nearby, or there is not other territory available. The AI needs to be less expansionistic, and a little more perfectionistic, as currently even the capitol is often lucky to have a library by the year 1000AD.
-The AI needs to be more respectful of Peace Treaties, for at the current moment, it simply ignores them if it can see an isolated, easy to take city.
-The AI needs to have better trade ideas, I mean, it should always trade Spice for Ivory and Fur. It should also be a little easier in trading cities.
-The AI needs to build fortresses and fortify it's units, rather than aimlessly walking back and forth, it will reduce tedium too.
-The AI needs to be able to switch it's tile production so that it can produce shields if city growth is halted.
-The AI needs to upgrade it's units more, it might be an idea to give the AI free upgrades.
-Lastly, this is an idea for ALL games, but I think it is necessary. Tech should seep out civilizations gradually, say that techs move accross land by 1 movement point every two turns after you recieve a tec, from your capitol, this means that if you have a 10 tile mountain range between your capitol and your neighbour's, the tech will cross it in 60 turns. Later with railroads etc the tech will move almost instantly, giving a nil lead in tech, making the game extremely difficult. This happens in reality all the time, I mean, didn't Japan buy a US plane, pull it apart, put it back together, and design their own.

EDITOR
This function speaks for itself really, but the following is a list of desires, some we can do ourselves with dodgy third party add-ons, but a legitimate add-on would be nice.
-Ability to name Civ Start Locations to a specific Civ.
-Ability to place cities, terrain imps, units, on the map and edit them.
-Ability to load *.SAV files.
-An in game "CHEAT MENU" to test Scenarios.
-Ability to add "Anything to Anything" for instance, the effect of the pyramids on a tech Crop Rotation. All effects need to be able to be used with each other. Another example, when Nationalism is researched all musketmen are upgraded by the tech.
-Ability to have a totally seperate Tech tree for each Civ, with totally different units.
-Ability to overide *.flc files with a simple *.pcx file with a tile for each direction.
-Event trigger system.
-Ability to overide ANY rule in Civ3
-A minor - Fix the hardcoding of the culture until next level in the city view, if this is changed, the display still shows of 10, of 100 or whatever.

MULTIPLAYER
Really important!
-Games should use only ONE set of rules, not necessarily the one on the computer it is being played on.
-Hotseat and PBEM are probably the easiest to make, and the most important multiplayer functions, this would allow us to play at least. I believe that realtime LAN and Internet games for Civ3 are idiotic, because the game takes too long, so these are regarded as lower priority.
-Games should be saved and emailed by the program itself, preventing someone from saving the game and loading it in the editor to cheat. A little like the Save restricted to end feature of SMAC.

DIFFICULTY LEVELS
-At the current time, the game does not actualy get more fun on higher difficulty levels, it simply gets silly with all the AI cheating. I believe that the tech seepage which I mentioned under the AI section of this post is a good solution, and the speed should be edited for each difficulty level. This will prevent the concentration on technology to get a lead and then crushing the AI with superior weapons.
-AI cheating should be reduced to an acceptable level.

MINOR ISSUES
-Warrior vs Stealth Fighter situations. Not only should the warrior be unable to win, it should not exist in the first place. I mean, we don't see warriors at the current time fighting wars. A solution is above, give the AI free upgrades, and allow tech seep. This will make the situation highly unlikely. Also upgrades should occur automatically if a unit is stationed in a city with barracks for 5 turns. Another nuisance with upgrades is the fact that if the upgrade all function is used all fortified units are woken, this should not be the case.

-Workers: Automation preferences like in SMAC would be nice, and a priority system via this, ie clean up all pollution, then irrigate, then build roads, or whatever the user wants. Automated workers should stack properly. Automated workers should have the option of not being animated. Impossiblize the size six strategy which uses the fact that a city at size seven's foodbox is twice as big as that of a size six. With this, if a granery is present, a city can regrow immediately after producing a worker at size 7, which in ideal conditions allows a worker to be created every turn. Workers should have free upkeep in a democracy. When ordering one worker to destroy a mine, the next should not ask again.

-The problem of the computer recognising quantity of units over quality, I mean, the computer thinks an "army" of 200 workers and 50 Warriors is a lot more powerful than and army of 100 modern armor. A modifier system for each era of unit would solve this problem, that is all non-combat units recieve a Quantity x 0 modification, all ancient units a Quantity x 1 modification, all medieval units a Quantity x 2 modification, all industrial age units a Quantity x 4 modification, and all modern units a Quantity x 8 modification. Therefore, for the computer to think that my modern civ and an ancient civ to be equal, they must have 8 times as many combat units as me. This will also stop the AI from getting false ideas about my power.

-Razing cities. This should be possible, but should not be essential and easy as it currently is. A fix to the corruption problem will do wonders, as it will make it worthwhile to keep the cities, and a reduction in idiotically placed cities will also help. To further reduce the chance of it occuring, one should have to "battle" each citizen as they gather up arms to defend their city, which will make them into a unit of one age older than the current unit that civ has, so if they had mustketmen, you must battle all the citizens as Conscript Pikemen. It should be possible to raze a city at a later time too, not only when you capture it. It would be useful to raze cities which the enemy would otherwise have guaranteed. The action should only be available under certain governments.

-Barbarians should stay on pace with the era, getting not quite up to date weapons throughout the game. This will make them more of a challenge.

-Diplomacy screen - It would be nice to see what items are tradable here. It should be possible to see all 16 civs. It should be possible to see the reputation of ones Civ. When talking to an opponent, it should be possible to use a slider to change your attitude. If playing against humans, it should be possible to type your own messages. Ability to edit the duration of deals, not just 20 turns, and a message when a deal is about to end. When using the quick diplomacy screen, (Shift-D) it would be nice if the attitude could be shown.
-Domestic Advisor - List sortable by city name. Ability to rush buy directly from here. Total number of cities somewhere. Prefrence to stop her asking to build Aqueducts/Hospitals all the time!
-Science Advisor - Ability to see which techs other civs have, appropriate tech must be reached first, ie embassy.
-City view - Out of date units should not be included in the build options. Civiliopedia should be accesable from the build options.

-Units - Increase naval movement rates. Group movement. Armies should not be unloadable, but should be upgradable.
-Coastall Fortress - Increase power or give a new better option.
-When a Capitol is conquered, civil war should be an option, as in Civ II, also palaces should not be rebuilt for free.
-Deforestation should increase global warming. Option for no pollution.
-Presion Bombing should have a choosable target.

[Grrr]

COMPRESSION and CIV3

One point I noticed about slowness. For all of us who have up-to-date computers, it wuold be nice if Firaxis were to release a new install program that decodes MP3s and PCXs into WAVs and BMPs, along with any other files that may be compressed. It would take up a lot of hard disk space, but I've got that anyway, and would reduce a lot tedium throughout the game. The program should be made compatible. This will also allow for very easy editing.
It would also be useful if a system was to be developed to compress SAV files, so they can be easily distributed across the net and for PBEM games.

[Grrr]

Civil War

Remember the following message in Civ2:

As the dust settles on Berlin, what remains of the German empire has split into the loyal German factor and the rebel French factor.

I loved spliting civ's like this. Sadly this feature is missing in Civ3. I would like it reimplemented, but slightly differently...

A civil war should only break out if the civ is one of the top 25% most powerful. The civ should not split neatly like in Civ2, but be a mess. Cities close to a civ whose culture of which they are in awe, should culturally deflect.
Of the other cities, the citizens should be loyal in a ratio of the culture of that city to twice the culture of the average city of that empire, ie, the city with average culture has equal amounts of both nationalities. If a city has more loyal citizens, it remains a German city. If it has more rebel cities, it becomes a French (or whatever) city.

For instance the German empire had 7 cities:

Berlin which I captured, and trigered the Civil War
Leipzig which has a cultural value of 28
Hamburg which has a cultural value of 22
Konigsberg which has a cultural value of 16
Frankfurt which has a cultural value of 4 and is near my border
Munich which has a cultural value of 10
Heidelburg which has a cultural value of 0

Frankfurt becomes mine due to the fact that it is near my border, and they are in awe of my culture.
The average of 28,22,16,10,0 is roughly 15.
Therefore
For every 30 citizens in Leipzig, 28 will be loyal Germans, 2 will be rebel French. The city will remain German.
For every 30 citizens in Hamburg, 22 will be loyal Germans, 8 will be rebel French. The city will remain German.
For every 30 citizens in Konigsberg, 16 will be loyal Germans, 14 will be rebel French. The city will become French.
For every 30 citizens in Munich, 10 will be loyal Germans, 20 will be rebel French. The city will become French.
For every 30 citizens in Heidelberg, none will be loyal Germans, 30 will be rebel French. The city will become French.

French citizens in Germany will be unhappy or resisting, and German citizens in France will be unhappy or resisting, in the same way as when one captures a city.

[Trifna]

People tht are manifesting or unhappy aren't necessarily manifesting in some way that the city can't do nothing!

This is true for war weariness for exemple. VietNam manifesting sure had consequences, but did ever Washington stoped? No but it had great consequences... (public opinion) Of course, in certain cases, it should cause serious problems. So there should be something before stopping all your cities.



Also, maybe you could considerate (to make corruption more realistic and normal) adding propaganda on your own people. But not sure it can be added in a patch...

[bloodysmurf]

"Random Events"

GENERAL and EDITOR IDEA:


I don't think this has made it into the list yet. I've seen numerous requests in a smattering of threads for the institution of "Random" events to spice up the game (especially during the mid-game lull). I put "Random" in quotes, because this would be a far more satisfying improvement if the events had triggers (or if they were randomly selected, but only possible if certain conditions were met). This would really enhance the excitement of the game, and civ-specific events would add much-needed flavor to the different civilizations. Of course, this option is a must for the creation of interesting scenarios with the editor.

OLLIE

[Quokka]

General Idea:
Reintroduce Spies in some form. Either as direct use units or they give a big break on the cost of espionage actions. Espionage has been watered down too far and what is left is ridiculously expensive. The only option I ever use is Investigate City, the others are all way to much and useless to boot. 30,000+ to Initiate Propoganda and it fails or is not allowed because the target is a democracy. Right now even with the Intelligence Agency espionage is limited to snooping. Spies could be garrisoned in cities as counterespionage.
One option I would really love to see is Kidnapping. Be able to Kidnap GL's from other Civs. Very likely to start a war if not already in one against the offended Civ. A captive GL would double wonder production in the city they were held, could force peace talks or be available to Ransom. What would you pay to get your GL back? Of course they could be rescued or swapped as in a Prisoner(GL) exchange. I don't want espionage to be easy just useable in some form other than snooping in cities.

[Aqualung]

I like the Tech "seepage" idea. But it would take quite a long time, and you'd have to be far behind in order to benefit.

What about a Small Wonder: The Smithsonian, or Oxford, or Harvard, or some great (but not that great) center of learning. It's a minor Great Library, and it works when ALL other civs have the tech. Makes the GL obsolete on Tiny maps, not so useful on Small, but it could make a difference on Huge. And being Small Wonder, everyone gets it. So (on Earth) the Japanese aren't struggling for Engineering when everyone else is up to Nationalism.

One thing left out on Editor suggestions which should be the HIGHEST priority: World view! Is there a way to see the whole map? If there is, I haven't found it. It should be permanent, just like it is on the game screen. Doesn't have to be any bigger.

[Admiral PJ]

I would like it so I don't have to watch my computer for 10 minutes while it makes its moves and works out my civilisations updating, I would like the computer to do its diplomacy first - looking through each country for diplo etc (i won't be able to see what its going to do this turn so maybe ask after their moves) and then it works out everything that will happen not showing any moves and then somehow (replaying from memory) show me all the other civs moves and ask me about units built etc, after i've clicked continue on a turn finished window.
This wait over/finished window will appear after 1 minute or so and let me go and look at something else rather than watch a frozen map.

I think for cultural city conversion, not all the units should go to the other side, one random defence unit should stay be given to them with damage (in the fight) the others can escape just outside the citys border with heavy damage or be destroyed. Would be nice to see the battle animation on the surviving unit and it getting roughed up a little - it deserves it for betraying your nation.

I'd really find it a lot better if there was some status bar that told you the chance your city will defect from culture..
Not knowing how much troops or culture you need to keep your city safe is really crap.. the only problem i have with this game in fact.
Still .. the 1st patch did make it harder for cities to defect I think.

Anyone else have trouble making culture? maybe i should build some more wonders.

Maybe you could get leaders from culture.. after your total civ has 10000 culture points you get a great artist like Michelangelo or Monet, then the next comes at 100000?

I think it should be harder to get a Golden age millitarily, your unit should have to be Elite first at the very least and then winning its battle with trigger a GA BUT ONLY IF YOU WANT TO- make an option box that asks the player.

[Admiral PJ]

Maybe the reason firaxis are 'quiet' is because they are doing a lot of work on a great new patch and a proper scenario editor.

There MUST be a cheat system like in Civ2, letting you swap control of civs, so you can actually make proper historical and such-like scenarios. You should be able to edit the units etc, and then be able to load the game into the editor (maybe here you should have more features for civ editing from a save game)
YOU MUST be able to reveal the whole map too.. it will be good seeing what other civs wars are like, as well as helping for scenarios.

At least we could have manual city placement.. in the editor you place each city with its size.. like the way roads etc are done.

[Fitz]

Comment on:

10-7-76***) Only one pop-up per turn is needed for telling what Civ is at war with another Civ, if two Civs have come to peace, or if numerous amounts of Civs decide they want to build a wonder,; basically just include all of the changes in that one single pop-up. An example of this is, if France declares war on Germany, Russia declares war on China, and England and India come to peace with each other, all in the same turn, just show all that information in one single pop-up.

I can't say for sure, but I bet this would slow the time between turns down drastically. Here's how I imagine it works now:
1) Each civ takes it's turn in the background. As a negotiation/event occurs, you recieve a pop-up immediately (call function, no temporary data storage just retrieval).

You are suggesting the change it to:
2) Each civ takes it's turn in the background. As a negotiation/event takes place, call function to store info on event (ie write it to a storage location). At the end of all the turns, call function to compile info and you recieve a pop-up (data retireval & compilation).

Each time you perform that writing function, you'll slow the program down some. I won't bank that it will be a huge or noticable effect, but look at how badly trade route calculations can slow things down.

Just my $.02, and I realize that hitting enter several times will slow some folks down more, but I think it is a bad request to make.

[TechWins]

Sorry, for not updating the list in a while, but I'll try to catch up on it this weekend. It's rather difficult keeping interest in updating the list when you have no idea at all if Firaxis is listening to you or not, plus when you lose a lot of interest and faith in the development of Civ3. However, Korn's Blitz mod does rekindle my interest to play Civ3 whenever he makes an update to his mod, but eventually the points of Civ3 that I don't like (excessive AI expansion, lag time, unit moving and switching) overcome all the great changes that are done to Civ3 by the mod. Ok, enough of the Civ3 bashing and Blitz mod boasting.

Before I make any more commments I must say this, almost all of the ideas in the list have not been thougt up by myself. However, all of the ideas have been slightly revised to my liking (gameplay concerns with idea, wording of idea...).

Fitz, I think doing idea number 76 will be saving speed from two changes that will occur. First, only one pop-up will have to appear instead of mulitple pop-ups. This will save time by not having to call for pop-up graphics many times. Now, this is worth having to do temporary data storage for not having to wait far longer for the pop-up window to appear. Also, the user will have to spend less time doing mindless clicking. I understand the advantage of having several pop-up windows instead of a single pop-up, but I think only having a single pop-up has far more advantages, so I'm going to keep this idea in the list with hopes that it will be implemented.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ

I think for cultural city conversion, not all the units should go to the other side, one random defence unit should stay be given to them with damage (in the fight) the others can escape just outside the citys border with heavy damage or be destroyed. Would be nice to see the battle animation on the surviving unit and it getting roughed up a little - it deserves it for betraying your nation.

I'd really find it a lot better if there was some status bar that told you the chance your city will defect from culture..
Not knowing how much troops or culture you need to keep your city safe is really crap.. the only problem i have with this game in fact.
Still .. the 1st patch did make it harder for cities to defect I think.

One thing that could easilly be done is base the chances of a unit defecting to their combat status. An Elite unit would never defect to the conversion but would either battle the insurgents or find itself on the city borders. A conscript would always join the Rebels. The two in between would have some sort of probablity factor thrown in as to whether or not to join with the defectors, or the Elite units.

[Grrr]

Originally posted by Aqualung
I like the Tech "seepage" idea. But it would take quite a long time, and you'd have to be far behind in order to benefit.

What about a Small Wonder: The Smithsonian, or Oxford, or Harvard, or some great (but not that great) center of learning. It's a minor Great Library, and it works when ALL other civs have the tech. Makes the GL obsolete on Tiny maps, not so useful on Small, but it could make a difference on Huge. And being Small Wonder, everyone gets it. So (on Earth) the Japanese aren't struggling for Engineering when everyone else is up to Nationalism.

One thing left out on Editor suggestions which should be the HIGHEST priority: World view! Is there a way to see the whole map? If there is, I haven't found it. It should be permanent, just like it is on the game screen. Doesn't have to be any bigger.

As for tech seepage, the main point is that it goes faster or slower depending on map size as well as difficulty level. I don't like the ideas of small wonders as the AI never builds them!