Hopes and Dreams for future editor patches

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Guys,
Though I confess that the new editor patch is excellent, I still feel that there are things missing which leaves it just short of perfection. Though many of these ideas have been touted before, I thought it would be good to reiterate them now that we know whats in the patch! I also accept that, with my limited knowledge of programming, some of these ideas may not be practicable, but I will include them anyway!

1) Events editor: A simple, Civ2 style events editor which gives the power to simply say things like: if x=a, then y and z!

2) The ability to edit and add terrain improvements: This could be done by simply adding a drop-box containing all existing terrain improvements. Clicking on an improvement will bring up the icon, with all the effects in editing boxes-eg friendly movement bonus, enemy movement bonus, production bonus, commerce bonus and food bonus.

3) The ability to make minor modifications to existing editor flags via a drop-box system. eg. you have a wonder which doubles happiness in every city. You should be able to click on double, and get, say 1.5x, 3x or even 4x. Click on happiness and get a choice of commerce, culture, science or production. Click on every city, and you should get a choice between one city, every city and every city on continent. So you could change the wonder effect to 3x commerce in every city on continent, just with a few mouse clicks. I hope you understand what I'm getting at!

4) More flexibility in unit prerequisites, so that you can choose an improvement or wonder instead of a strategic resource as a unit requirement. On a similar theme, there should be a government specific flag and an anti-air flag for units!

5) Some new editor flags, like a flag for increasing # of optimal cities, would also be a nice addition!!

Anyway, that's what I hope for, I just hope it happens, preferably BEFORE PtW comes out!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[InquisitorSteel]

I agree with the points you have listed. Whilst I understand it may be a bit complicated to implement, Firaxis should make an attempt at providing at least a simple event system.

I have already suggested putting "objectives" into the editor so at least if we cant tell the game what to do when something happens we can make it bum-rush to a specific city

Id hate to sound like a broken record (especially in one day) but I will add my wish list items in this thread just in case Firaxis stumble across it.

1.Flat maps
2. City objectives
3. Disable destroy cities on conquer

[Coracle]

Killing Culture Flipping would be nice. But I'll settle for just making it sensible instead of absurd and illogical.

Slowing down AI settler expansion.

Finding a way to let subs and privateers damage enemy trade on his trade routes at sea.

Adding a Civ 2 style Cheat Mode so we can control accelerated startups, and switch sides in scenarios.

Allowing roads to be used by invaders unless previously pillaged.

Increasing bomber range beyond a ridiculously low '8', and that includes Stealth.

No more Capital Hoping. If you take the enemy capital their civ goes into Anarchy for several turns and only then gets a new palace.

Other thnigs, but that's enough for now.

[NeoStar]

Re: Hopes and Dreams for future editor patches

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker

4) More flexibility in unit prerequisites, so that you can choose an improvement or wonder instead of a strategic resource as a unit requirement. On a similar theme, there should be a government specific flag and an anti-air flag for units!

That would be good - I mean, how can you build a bomber without an airport?

As for the lack of 'anti air flag', it sounds good (and in civ2 it WAS good, an AEGIS was a real AEGIS) but the fact is aircraft are minor players, that would just make them even worse off.

[Kramsib]

I also have heard about that it is not possible to establish the diplomatic relations before playing, that means that it is impossible to establish an alliance between England and France in a World War scenario, it has to be signed during the play, and if the AI Wants, obviously.

is it true?

Thank you.

[NeoStar]

Yes it is unfortunately

I suppose if you were England you could declare war and give yourself alot of money to sign the alliance-note the AI can almost always be bought.

Not the same though. Wait for PTW.

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Coracle
Killing Culture Flipping would be nice. But I'll settle for just making it sensible instead of absurd and illogical.

Oh do shut up. I'm beginning to see why people block you.

Slowing down AI settler expansion.

You can do this yourself by upping citizen cost to 3 and making them wheeled. Not to mention making some terrain un-settle-able.

Finding a way to let subs and privateers damage enemy trade on his trade routes at sea.

Definitely a good idea One of the primary strategies of naval warfare was to blockade trade routes. I'd actually like to see trade routes visible ala CTP2, so units could pirate them. But it'd need to be a unit flag, or it'd be too powerful.

Adding a Civ 2 style Cheat Mode so we can control accelerated startups, and switch sides in scenarios.

Isn't there an option for accelerated start at game setup now?

Allowing roads to be used by invaders unless previously pillaged.

Definitely not! : One of Rome's strategies was to lure the enemy inside roman borders so as to better deal with them on their own terms. That's what the owner-only road bonus represents.

Increasing bomber range beyond a ridiculously low '8', and that includes Stealth.

I agree with you on this one, although it'll be less of an issue with worker-built airfields in PTW.

No more Capital Hoping. If you take the enemy capital their civ goes into Anarchy for several turns and only then gets a new palace.

Now that's a good idea. Taking the enemy's capital should be a military objective. And the enemy certainly shouldn't get a free palace after all your hard work in capturing the capital in the first place.

See, Coracle, you do have some good ideas but you never provide any alternatives. Simple criticism isn't enough; it needs to be constructive.

As for some ideas of my own:

More Diplomacy Pacts - esp. for the modern age, I'd like to see civ more in step with global issues, such as nuclear disarmament, global warming, etc. Right now, it's too 'every man for himself'.

Favoured Governments - this should be more developed. In SMAC, factions would go to war with you if they didn't like your police state, or whatever. This should be added to civ3.

Diplomatic Tone of Voice - in CTP2 you could select a tone of voice in which to convey a message. Tone of voice does exist in civ3, but you have no control of it. I'd also like the ability to send messages to sour or sweeten diplomatic relationships, like in Imperium Galactica 2.

When CivIII came out last year, my main issue with it was the under-developed diplomacy model. And that has never been fixed, or even addressed or acknowledged, by Firaxis - despite 4 patches and an up-coming XP. Please, Firaxis?

[zulu9812]

Anyone else have any suggestions?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Actually, Zulu, though I don't agree that enemy roads should give a full MP bonus to units as they did in civ2, I do believe that they should negate any terrain based MP penalties, as I have mentioned before-i.e. travel on an enemy road will ALWAYS cost 1MP, regardless of underlying terrain! One of the reasons that I want to be able to edit terrain improvements, though, is so that I can modify the movement point costs of things like roads and rail to my own liking. For instance, I'd like to be able to edit roads so that they give 4 MP's, and rail so that they give 8 MP's (and 1 MP for both enemy road and rail). I'd also like to be able to add terrain improvements like "Supply Dumps" which give you 2MP on enemy roads, to indicate the shortening of your supply lines and, therefore, more rapid movement!

Anyway, those are my thoughts!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker

[Dom Pedro II]

EVENTS EDITOR! PLEASE! For the love of God!!

Triggers

• If Unit Killed
• If City Production (units, improvements, etc.)
• If Unit Victorious
• If Unit Enters Tile
• If Civ Has Resource (*Including how many of a certain kind)
• If Civ Has Technology
• If Game Starts
• If Space Ship Launched
• If Tile Improvement Built (and where)
• If City Built
• If City Captured
• If City "Flipped"
• If City Destroyed
• If Turn Equals
• If Random Turn
• If Turn Interval

And for the Actions...

Actions

• Then Set Unit Attribute (i.e. current HP, attack, defense, bombard values, etc.)
• Then Change Government
• Then Change Owner (units, cities, colonies, etc.)
• Then Kill Civilization
• Then Build Improvement
• Then Task Unit (including Workers to assign jobs at specific points)
• Then Give Tech
• Then Modify Reputation
• Then Set Diplomatic Stance
• Then Set Attitude
• Then Make Aggression
• Then Rename Civ
• Then Rename Unit
• Then Rename City
• Then Make Text Window (oh, and I want that with button options as well!)
• Then Change Treasury
• Then Change Terrain

I'm sure there are more but I can't think of them right now...

Oh, and I'd also like the editor to have the ability to make the game entirely as I want it to be including changing hard coded things and making graphics for me without me having to learn any kind of computer programming...

[phunny_pharmer]

Other triggers that I would like to see

• If unit enters area... (box shaped)
• If wonder started (by whom)
• If wonder completed (by whom)
• If specific unit victorious (so that we can avoid that nasty Civ2 problem of having only one trigger unit- if each unit gets its own ID, then we could have some more fun)
• If civ declares war
• If civ descends into anarchy
• If civ changes governments
• If civ is in ____ government
• If civ makes contact with ____
• If civ has ____ number of ____ improvements (like the current wonder flag)
• If all hell breaks loose (>10% of units killed on single turn)
• If civ launches nuke
• If civ is attacked by nuke
• If ____ battles occur (on square, on city, on total map, in area)
• If ____ battles occur (with specific unit, against specific civ, against specific unit, against specific unit from specific civ...)

And other actions

• Then change random seed
• Then edit city (with all the goodies...)
• Then nuke (square, unit, or city)
• Then force government
• Then change war weariness
• Then build improvement (instantaneous, not necessarily the one in production)
• Then kill ____% of civ's units (using the random number generator)
• Then set as objective (city, unit, square) (useful if ____ battles occur here)
• Then set as major objective (city, unit, square)
• Then win scenario
• Then lose scenario
• Then set last leader contact (with whom) (useful if you don't want leaders to talk if a unit has been killed in the last few turns...)
• Then create resource on tile
• Then set culture (of city, of empire)
• Then open text file and display on screen (if you overrun the text displayed in the actual game)

as well as copy and paste in the script editor...
as well as having multiple conditions for one trigger...

Do I really expect any of this...

Wow, that would be fun. Back to real life now!

[Dom Pedro II]

I think it's possible that these events ideas be included... Most strategy games these days (the ones with scenario/modding capabilities anyway) have some sort of events language or scripting. Age of Kings, Empire Earth, Civilization II/TOT, even Call to Power II did. I think that Firaxis will realize that this will go a long way... and if they don't, I doubt a decent Civ3 scenario will ever be produced.

I think that all of these suggestions could make it in there since I think that once the language is actually designed, adding new features is not quite as daunting a task... I'm not a programmer, so if I'm totally off base, by all means, pick that statement apart...

Anyway, I remember when the good posters here at Apolyton were trying to give input waaay back when Civ3 was still on the drawing board, Captain Nemo, designer of the Red Front and Second Front scenarios, made an appeal for a Civilization III that would be the modder and scenario-makers' dream. I think that many of us creative scenario-designers assumed that that would include an events language that would put even Civ2's to shame. Even CtP II's scripting language by comparison gives the designer a very flexible system for creating events.

I'm still hoping.....