Let's preemptively guess bad suggestions for Civ4!

[lorddread]

Re: Cool New Game

Originally posted by Changmai Beagle
Actually I kind of like some of the suggestions........... I could really get into a game of mixed CTP, Colonization, MOM and EU - and perhaps even finish it this year. (Anyone remember the huge and detailed board game War in the Pacific?)

I am a big fan of Colonization, CTP and the other Civ 3 (2.5?)

If you think War in the Pacific was big, you should have playe Operation Barbarossa. It was the biggest wargame ever created. Of course it depicted 5 million people fighting..... That could have had something to do with it.

I like the ideas for Civ4, and would like to throw a couple extra in.

1. Random Leader Abilities and more importantly Disabilities.
2. Leaders should not only be able to advance the building of a wonder, but also advancing a tech or 2.
3. Since America is already in CIV3 and Canada is simply the 51 state there is no need to include it!
4. Nations should have pluses and minus's for playing them. I was playing a game where the Zulu's sucked fighting but where more advanced than I was. I liked the original Civ where this was taken care of.
5. If you drop a nuke, all countries should immediately sue for peace.
6. Once the UN is created, it should be able to call up troops from your country to fight in another. ie Peacekeeping.
7. Trading of food to starving cities should be allowed.
8. If you have a nuke, other countries without them should not be allowed to attack you. This only makes sense
9. Along with the shopping mall idea, we can take that one step further creating a new wonder called Disney Land or the such. This draws people from other nations to yours, increasing that city's wealth.
10. Immigration. Workers from nations that are oppressive, or weak should be able to immigrate.
11. Spies need to be rethought. You should be able to have more than 1 in each country. They are currently used as a 1 shot thing. Just because one got caught doesn't mean that another is currently working.

Well thats it for now. Let me know what you think

Lord Dread

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Stefu
Civ 4 shouldn't have cities! All squares just have populations and so on!
Civ 4 shouldn't have units! Armies should have real sizes!
Civ 4 should track every citizen's ethnic origin, so we can deal with 60% Zulus-30% Americans-10%Romans!
Civ 4 should have realistic leaders and dynasties, except for that part where leader realisitcally dies after 2 turns!

those were ideas from the Civ3 list

Jon Miller

[Dienstag]

bad suggestions:

* fix the overly-complicated combat system; remove hitpoints, and merge the attack and defend values into a single combat factor value.

* don't waste time trying to program a good AI. Everyone knows it's impossible. I think the laws of physics clearly show that an AI can only be good if it's traveling faster than the speed of light, so don't bother. Instead, focus on wicked cool battle animations!

* since the AI will be understandably bad, make sure that the game does not require more than, say, 10 decisions per civ per game. That will keep things balanced. Make sure this also applies to multiplayer games, in case one of the humans quits and the AI has to take over.

* to avoid problems like "It took 500 years to walk across my country!", you should entirely eliminate all references to years, and only display the turn number.

* more frequent reminders about building aquaducts/hospitals.

* I want more respectable advisors, like Pauly Shore, Jar Jar Binks, and a Chia Pet.

[notyoueither]

We need a Brewery Improvement for cities. Increases Happiness and decreases War Weariness. Increases Corruption (more waste).

The Budweiser Great Wonder. All cities belonging to other civs that build Brewery send some Gold each turn to the Bud civ. Licensing rights for local marketing the *King of Beers.*

All obsolete units should automatically upgrade to a similarly weak unit in the newer age. Warriors and Spearmen built in the Ancient age end up as 2-2-1 Militia units in the Industrial Era. Oh wait. You said bad ideas, right? Sorry. My bad.

[Miznia]

(I do see that some of these have already been posted, but...)

“If Civ4 is to Civ3, as Civ3 is to Civ2...”

Tech tree replaced with tech “line.” Techs are researched in the same order, and are granted to all civs simultaneously (tedious “trade” system circumvented).

AI’s ICS strategy is gone. All land is now divvied up right at the beginning, like in “Risk.”

Controversial Hit Point system is gone. Attack/Defense discrepancies between units have also been removed.

To collect taxes you need a Copper resource square.

Now, great leaders can also be converted into a tile improvement, added to a city as population, or catapulted as a bombardment attack.

Ships and Tanks now use abstracted mission systems just like Air units. But note that tanks cannot take cities, and ships cannot carry units.

17 Victory types (conquest, domination, diplomatic, cultural, religious, economic, tourism, nuclear, space race, evolution, transcendence, pacifist, architectural, health, legal, agricultural, tournament).

As soon you’ve met a victory condition, Civ4 suddenly closes.

Leaders are hideous claymation people (think “Gumby”), except that they’re all hot babes.

Population is now supported by gold instead of food: no more worries about whether such-and-such city can support how much population.

ZOC is still gone, and now you can “leap over” enemy units, too.

When units get promoted (to “veteran,” etc.), instead of getting another HP, they get another movement point.

Modern Era has 10 new techs, and 7 new spaceship components.

Units can’t cross rivers until Engineering is invented (no bridges; this is realistic).

Under Democracy, as war weariness increases, cities will flip to random AI civs instead of rioting.

Captured cities revert even when razed.


Miznia

[Dr Strangelove]

I say forget about it. Bad programming has killed the TBS genre. Evidently this less popular form of game attracts the incompetents in the design field. Let's just hope that there never will be a Civ 4.

[Jawa Jocky]

bad idea #6

Warp technology is part of the ancient era tech tree. With captain Kirk Great Leader you can win the space race before 1AD.

#7 The dominoes victory - a type-o lets you win by stacking dominoes and knocking one over so that all of them fall on your enemies

#8 Cultural victory is changed to Bacterial Cultural so that the civ with the moldest cheese wins

[Felch]

Originally posted by Miznia
STUDENT PROTESTS. Universities have a side-effect in that now and then, rioting students will put the city into civil disorder for a turn or two. Effect doubled for city with Newton’s College.

Newton's College should be renamed "UW - Madison."

[loinburger]

A new city improvement, "The Vomitorium," can be built around the same time as the Colisseum becomes available. The Vomitorium is a cultural improvement that also wastes food resources. It also allows you to develop a new weapon, "Projectile Vomit," that allows you to purchase +12 alcohol on odd numbered decades. If both you and an enemy have researched "Projectile Vomit" then you can forego the alcohol bonus for three turns and challenge one another to a duel "To the sick," in which the opponent who comes up with the dirtiest limerick within a 47-second time limit wins; the cities of the loser do not increase in population for the next 20 years, since all male citizens have been sterilized in the combat. They may also riot due to lack of alcohol.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by Miznia
Now, great leaders can also be converted into a tile improvement, added to a city as population, or catapulted as a bombardment attack.

LOL! I think to increase player connection with the game, your GREAT suggestion needs to be amplified upon. In addition when you take the bombard GL option you should be able to see a video of the complete action, including splat-down. You could expand it so that when you capture an enemy GL, you could bombard an empty square with them, just to see the video.

Congrats on a very amusing thread, getting better as it goes.

[alva]

Alot of people here need to work on
their sarcasm skils!

good tread though

“If Civ4 is to Civ3, as Civ3 is to Civ2...”

Miznia
Tech tree replaced with tech “line.” Techs are researched in the same order, and are granted to all civs simultaneously (tedious “trade” system circumvented).

[Sandman]

The units should say amusing things like "erectus" when you click on them.

Oh, and if you don't give them orders they start snoring.

And if you fall asleep during negotiations, the computer player can knock on their side of the screen to wake you up.

Combat should be resolved by clicking the mouse button as fast as possible, forget about all that numbers nonsense.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by loinburger
A new city improvement, "The Vomitorium," can be built around the same time as the Colisseum becomes available. The Vomitorium is a cultural improvement that also wastes food resources. It also allows you to develop a new weapon, "Projectile Vomit," . . .

A city improvement could also include Roman-style public toilets where men and women squeeze in next to each other to relieve themselves and then clean off with the public sponge-on-a-stick in the big buckets.

It could foster a feeling of togetherness worth one Happy face.

[lorddread]

roman toilets and the such

Take it from someone who has had to use an unisex toilet, it doesn't foster 1 smiley face. just the oposite. picture your wife, girlfriend, or mother yelling at you about putting the toilet seat down. now picture a total stranger doing the same thing.

[star mouse]

NEW TERRAIN

VOLCANO

* Produces 2 shields
* Cannot be mined
* The 8 Neighbouring land squares get +1 Food or +1 Production as appropriate
* Each turn, the Volcano has a 1% chance of erupting. Eruptions affect the volcano square and some 4 to 10 nearby squares. On affected squares, the volcano destroys terrain improvements, has a 50% chance of killing the labourer on the square, and has a 50% chance of polluting the square. If the affected square is a city, up to 1/4 of the city population dies and some structures may be destroyed.

DESERT HILL

Like a normal hill but produces no food. Used instead of standard hills in deserts and plains.

KELP BED

Found in coastal seas. Adds +1 food production, but takes 2 movement points to move through.