Civ4 Suggestions

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by skywalker
I want, not so much a destruction of "victory", but mechanics that make such a victory virtually impossible. An ebb and flow sort of thing.

So what do you think of my idea? I think it would provide the ebb and flow that you mentionned since the player would go through probably 20 or so goals in a game. Furthermore, as players acheived their goals, the game leader would probably fluctuate a lot more than current civ games which would make the competition a lot tenser.

[Rommel2D]

I've lately decided that one thing that sort of spoils a good civ game is the notion of "[fun]."

Bah! The best thing about Civ is that it isn't SimCity. Hasn't anyone designed a SimWorld yet?

[altF18]

hmm, victories makes the game, but if you don't want to have to deal with them, there should be an option to make it Histograph only victory. but this would need improving and your score would have to take more things into account to represent how well you fostered your nation. so, to 'win' - by acheiving top score, you'd have to nourish a strong civ based on many factors, whether economically or through conquest.
having an unlimited game might grow a bit boring after awhile... and hard to calculate a score... when would the game end? at least you should be able to set your time limit perhaps - 2050, 2100, or 2250. by than, you should've established your place in the world.

now there's an idea... instead of racing for a victory or simply conducting the same measures to boost your score, there could be a similiar 'victory' to the histograph win... but a bit differant as it would have certain "objectives" for you to accomplish.
say you're not the world superpower and can't achieve any big job, what can you do to 'win'?
simply define your existance and establish yourself as a continuing nation that stands the Test of Time, regardless of its position on the power scale.
how would you do this? establish your testament civ?

well, like i said, you have to meet objectives - these could be things like:

Established Culture - you would have to build a strong national culture, with good points and no or little influence from outsiders.

Established Economy - though you might not be dominant, you don't have to be dominated. make sure you control at least 50% of your own trade, don't have too much more imports than exports. (based on my Economic model above) and a fair position on the world market (at least 20% of activity perhaps)

Established Military - you don't need garrisons all over the globe or a good lot of foriegn cities under your control. rather, make sure you have a decent enough army to protect your borders, and strong enough so you foreign military influences doesn't overlap you. you don't have to have any on outside lands, as long as none or little is felt by you.
(this is based on a new influence concept, like current cultural, but with no such effects having strong influences have effects on other civs such as attitude and such...)

Established Happiness - have more folk than folk - content folk doesn't count...

Established Peace - no civs should be at war with you as this is detrimental to your existance...

Established Factors such as Pollution - have it low. perhaps a new one, Healthcare, determined by funding, improvements as Aqueducts and hospitals, etc., lessens chance of Disease outbreaks, which kills off citizens and have chance of spreading.
have it high.
another new one could be education, seperate from science, though it influences science output. more education speeds up the science process. determined by funding (i'm thinking Budget here), improvements (would effect Edu instead of Science now) etc.
have it high too.

with this option selected, you would have to attempt to reach these standards to establish yourself as a Testament to the Test of Time. Great for high levels when survival means something. Establishing such a civ would mean your nation could potentially last forever, having coming so far and being nourished to such a way.

in fact, it might be one of the difficultist challenges for the civ player, as it emphasizes on practically All the conditions of victory. you just have to balance it all and leave out the extremes.
though, bringing in the concept of contest again, i guess the first civ to "establish" itself would win the game... (unless you could come up with otherwise...)

opinions?

[Rommel2D]

opinions?

Yeah, you shouldn't re-edit an entire post. Here I was looking forward to a rambling philosophical debate over the meaning of "fun". ;-)

I just think the victory conditions are vital to what makes Civ Civ. No need to change much (well, maybe an enhanced space race). If you want to ignore VCs and just build an empire the game is still interesting; be your own judge of what constitutes a win. However, if you want to 'win' at SimCity...

I never gave a second thought to going back to a SimCity save, but Civ games _must_ be played until the outcome is clear, even if the same game lasts months.

[brianshapiro]

STEPS TO A BETTER CIVILIZATION

add your suggestions as new numbers or addenda to this, otherwise comment on the ideas, etc. im trying to start the ideas anew in a more organized manner, maybe a new thread is needed?

1. new independent civilizations should be able to come about through revolt; when this happens, there are either revolts that damage units in cities, or massacres, which lowers the population. when no units are there to defend, the city forms a new civilization. if other cities that revolt are connected by cultural influence they join that civilization; otherwise the other cities under revolt form their own civilization.

1.1. this revolt/massacre system should be generalized to include the standard cultural reversion that exists in civilization games today.

2. corruption, and thus happiness, is completely connected to cultural cohesion. the more your civilization spreads, without cultural reinforcement, the more cultural influence will be disconnected, the more corruption. the more corruption, the less ability to generate culture and build happiness. the more unhappiness the more likely revolts will happen. this will of course depend on economics also, if resources are necessary to build improvements. wars will become more important and realistic. say germany takes a major cultural center on the border of france, cities on the border have no other connection to france, and it remains within germany for a period of years. after time, the french border will gradually revolt and form an independent civ, say the flemish. the flemish are weak and if germany is strong enough it declares war against flanders to retain cultural integrity, elsewise france tries to recapture lost cities. in order to prevent this from happening, france needs either major cultural buildup along the border, or needs to resecure the lost city. in order for this to work theres a downside--cost in corruption per lack of influence must be more steep than it currently is.

3. introduce a commodity based economy, like in colonization. because prices fluctuate, trade blocks may be opted. (also this moves it from the silly rare trade deal per 20 turns to standard trade existing in the game). if a civilization is blocked from certain resources, war may become the necessary step!

3.1. to prevent this from becoming too complicated: trade exists naturally when roads are connected. there is the diplomatic option "Trading Block" and you can also ask allies to block trade.

4. to make the last suggestion more viable, move to a city display like i suggested in a previous thread, where cities appear on the map much like they do in Railroad Tycoon. Industries develop themselves inside the city radius, to cater to the environment of the area, and can be covered by enemy troops during war, to prevent production. The development of industries by themselves, however, depend on commodities, which depend on trade networks. The previously suggested public/private development idea i suggested i don't think would work so i won't mention that again. But the player would still be there to build the 'public' improvements that exist in civilization today.

5. technology development to be closely tied to commodities, so geographic regions will guide the development of the culture, and cultures can be specialized as militaristic/mystic/expansionist/etc depending on their origins. This should be somehow deterimined by the game so when you meet with a civilization with mystic/militaristic traits you know it because it shows their top technologies

6. more diplomacy options, including to ask other nations to stop their wars on another, third civilization. unit trading as a possibility.

7. map changes: more realistic landmass generation, to appear more like an Earth rather than one or two pangeas; rivers that can be navigated by units like galleys; three dimensional terrain

[Fosse]

Currently, Civ 3 would become quickly boring without the artificial victory conditions we have. But I think a future Civ game could easily be engrossing enough to keep the player involved without them.

Remember, it's not the idea of victory per se that I find distasteful, it's the absurd player behavior for the sake of victory... nuking every AI city the turn before they launch a shuttle, despite long term (even short term with the way the game handles fallout) consequences, declaring war on nation number two and signing the restof the world up in alliances to "win" the diplomatic victory in the UN. Even if someone's going for histographic victory.... "I'll just conquer lots of land in the last fifty years... sure I anger ther rest of the world, but since everything is over at 2050 it doesn't matter!"

maybe it's certain victories that I find unpalatable... Why do I win for launching the spaceship? I realize that it was designed to be a captstone moment, but it really barely cuts it. I could lose every city but my capital, have enemy MA 1 turn away from killing my last conscripted infantry, and hit the launch button and WIN, despite the absurdidty. Also... a whole game of warring, intrigue, and nation building comes down to a race to build ten things... kind of an anticlimax.

Cultural? Sorry, at least the spacerace can be exciting sometimes.

Diplomatic? This victory involves almost no diplomacy whatsoever.

Histographic? Not that cool in a game that doesn't have the ebb and flow of great empires... as soon as you get even one point bigger than the top guy, this one's in the bag.

Domination? I think lots of people have always recognized this as an "unofficial" victory... once it becomes obvious you could just trample the world, consider it won and restart to have an exciting anceient age game again.

Conquering the world is a real victory. You rule every inch of it, you kill everyone else. Everyone was your enemy, and they all lost.

The globalization idea discussed on this thread seems like it's a real victory... it stems from a logical path your nation could take, and leads to a real domination of the planet. I would tinker with the ratios needed to trigger the win, but it's a really good idea.



A game that creates the kind of internal strife a nation faces, so that you can never perfect your holdings, always have room for internal improvment, and that sort of thing, would be able to keep the player realistically interested in the world far longer than meeting a certain victory condition would. I would hope that by the time another Civ game came out we would see an engine capable of this.

[bobbo008]

hey, to go along with privateers and what other hidden nationality units you may have, how about terrorism in a future version? state-sponsored terrorism, no? sorta like sabotaging, in way, or... well, you can take it however you want...

[brianshapiro]

bobo, terrorism is a lot like piracy , i originally suggested that there be a hidden nationality partisan unit gained with the same advance as fascism

[Senor Llera]

Civ 4 wishlist

I just read the "wish list" for Civ 3 that was made a while back and those guys had a lot of brilliant ideas. The religion and diplomatic ideas were particularly well thought out. Anyway, here's my list of improvements for a possible Civ 4 (I hope that at least some of the better ideas listed by people here could be made in a Civ 3 expansion so we don't have to wait for who knows how long.... )

OK, im gonna start this one off with one I have not seen anywhere in here and one that I am very passionate about.

0. HAVING THE OPTION, I REPEAT OPTION, OF PLAYING AN ENTIRE GAME IN ONE TIME PERIOD - In other words, playing in an industrial era world and not advancing to the modern one. I feel this will be especially useful for the ancient and perhaps medieval periods where your spending most of your time exploring, waiting for new units and building cities and not really having enough time to develop your civ to fully enjoy the era. I would personally love to play an Ancient Era game as the Greeks or Romans and march around a 30 legion army to expand my empire.

Obviously, there would have to be something to replace the science rate in this scenarios. Perhaps these can be unique for each time period. Off the top of my head, I came up with a Tribute System for the Army in the Ancient Era. The more you pay them, the happier they are, the faster they recover, more likely to be promoted into veterans or elites, etc. The less you pay them, , well then over a time, they take out their anger by plundering one of your cities, going over to one of your neighbors that have a higher tribute rate, or if that is not an option, revolting against your authority and fight against you, (in effect , become barbarians.) This would happen unit by unit over a lenghty period of time.


1. MORE INTERNAL FEATURES - Civ 3 is great, but sometimes it makes you feel like your only a General and a City Mayor than an actual head of state. Civ 4 should really make an effort so your country has its own unique feel. National economy, religion, ideology, ethnicity, internal immigration, immigration to/from other countries etc. There needs to be more politics, and more influence on your decisions from powerful sections of society. And there should always be SOME kind of influence on your decisions no matter what kind of government you have, except maybe Despotism. For example, Nobles influence the King in a monarchy, Party Officials influence the leader in Communism, the Army has influence in a Fascist government, Clerics in a Theocracy........ etc.

Also include a level of tolerance for certain dynamics such as civil liberties, level of openness, a free or censored press, education, healthcare, state religion, preferred ethnicity, and so on. So when your people riot, they can give you a better reason besides "its too crowded"

I would like to encourage everyone to check out Clash of Civs website. Even if you don't play their game, they have some excellent ideas about transforming the civ genre for the better.

2. MORE DIPLOMATIC FEATURES - Since Ideology and an economic type will be included, there should be relationships that are based on economies, ideologies, common religions, common enemies, "small country" pacts to stop total conquest by larger ones, expand unit transfer features for allies. Ahh, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few good ones.......but you get the idea.

3. MORE GOVERNMENTS and MORE CIVS- Fascism and Theocracy are a must and I truly can't understand why more gov's weren't included in Civ 3.

And why not more Civs? More civs should be included in the game and they should also allow more civs to choose from. Once again, can't understand why this can't be done the first time. And if they dare try to get us with another "Civ 4 Play the World" nonsense I'll personally start a boycott of Firaxis.........
I mean, CTP did have a lot of bad things and I understand they are not exactly an example to be aspired to, but they did have plenty of really creative gov's and dozens of civs.

4. A REAL UN- I have not played SMAC so I can't talk about that, but there should be, sometime in the modern era, a UN type structure that can condemn, embargo, call for peace, or request foreign aid for poor countries. Also, with the new features in Civ 4, UN members can put pressure on Civs that are repressive societies. Of course it will rarely create a major change in anything, which is not so far from reality, but it will add a more realistic dimension and fun in the game. And I personally feel it would be very entertaining to watch other countries vote along ideological/religious lines. And it will also add another diplomatic dimension, ie, "15 gold per turn for yes vote in foreign aid to Egypt"


3. NATIONAL ECONOMIES- Alluded to this one earlier. A country will have its own economic trend: Free- market Capitalism, Welfare State, 'Stalinist" state- controlled economy, etc. The Senate, Nobles, Party Officials etc.. will have an influence on this decision.

4. MORE MODIFICATION - I think we all are unanimous on this one. No game will be perfect for everyone's tastes, soooo there needs to be plenty of modifying options for people to tinker with the game to make it "just right" for them or as close as they can get to it.

5. RELIGION - My first experience with religion was with CTP and honestly I was against that idea ever since then. However, since reading the "religion" section on the old wish list for Civ 3, the innovation of it all impressed me and I now think it would be a fascinating see prophets coming, try to convert your people, decide whether you will support, tolerate, or repress this new religion. How states with common religions would be naturally more friendly with each other, less likely to go to war, etc.

Note - There have been some debate over whether to use actual religions or made-up religions. Being something of a realist, I would personally love to see real religions used in the game. And some people ought not to take a silly game so seriously... Anyway here are 2 ways that I believe these problems can be averted. 1. - Instead of Firaxis computer-geeks deciding the variables of each religion, get a Professor with a PH D who's been studying world religions for 20, 30 years to make out the variables as he sees fit. Therefore, Firaxis can always say they took the advice of one of the most respected authorities...... yada yada yada OR
2. Have the player do the modifications for each religion himself! With the superb modification system that will be in Civ 4, everything will be open to adjustment, and the variables for religion would be left blank for the player to add in.

OTHER - These are things that are not terribly important but that I still would like to see anyway. Yes, Yes, bring back the wonder movies the council and all that stuff. People really seem to miss that. Also bring back the general reputation stat, zoom feature.

Rework the Map system - I am tired of either playing the island game where everyone is on different islands which is to me very boring and unrealistic. Or you can play a continental map with nothing to explore. There should be an "exploration" map genre where there is an entire unoccupied continent that needs to be explored and developed which lots of barbarians and resources.

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE - Don't you hate it when you've settled your own little corner of the world.....except for this ONE little mountain strip that is just outside your borders when all of a sudden.... a British ship comes in with a settler and builds a new city right smack in your territory? Well, I do. I mean, take the early US for example, can you imagine a British explorer coming over to unsettled Kansas and claiming that land for England?

My Solution? A sphere of influence zone 1-2 UNCLAIMED tiles off your border, obviously if two borders are touching its null and void. Another civ CAN build a city on your sphere of influence but there will be a warning when you try to do so that although you may build a city there, it can be a legitimate reason for that nation to go war with you. I think this is both fair and realistic.

If two countries have the same sphere of influence, then both are entitled to settle in that area. A free for all. Once again fair and realistic, in my mind.

ONE LAST IDEA - Finally, instead of just only having civ-specific units, how about making the same army units look different depending on the characteristics of each civ and government? For example, military units in a Western Democracy would closely resemble that of the US/West Europe, in a Western Communism would look like Soviet troops, Western Fascism like German (Nazi Era) troops. Hope I explained that right....in other words, the same infantry unit, would have the same variables, but just look different depending on the civ and gov. American Indigenous and Latin civs would look like Mexican/Cuban/Chilean troops depending on the gov. Korean/Chinese/Japanese for Asian...........well you get the idea. This would be especially useful in the modern time period, perhaps with the discovery of Nationalism???

[altF18]

Originally posted by Rommel2D

Yeah, you shouldn't re-edit an entire post. Here I was looking forward to a rambling philosophical debate over the meaning of "fun". ;-)

shucks, you noticed!!
well, i didn't understand your post at the time, and thought you were confounding fun... you know, having not read the previous posts, and not realizing you were quoting someone, and what you were saying...

just got up that morning.
i was just saying we need fun in civ, but not comical advisors, goofy units, playish design fun....

as for Victory conditions, i agree with Fosse...
they're needed yes,
but the current new ones aren't to pleasing, and its not hard to stay a superpower.
with some ideas suggested implemented, it might make for a more challenging game in maintaining just your
own empire, let alone a World one.
My Test of Time victory isn't based on score, but on nuturing your civ to meet the standards of an Immortal Civilization that doesn't neccessarily have to rule the world, or any part of the Global scale such as its Economy (globalization idea) but is sure to last as a strong nation in itself, a Testament to the Test of Time.
that would make for a self-centered empire building mentallity rather than a rule the world one.
the differance is, your world empire wont have to have low pollution, super high happiness and other high standards, whereas your Self Civ would need to have all that plus economic and military security.
see above.

keep up the discussions!~

[Panag]

hi ,

, we should have the option to close an embassy , ..... lets say for three times the amount it costed to open it , .....

the other civ could re-open it but at the double price of before , ......

have a nice day

[TheArsenal]

Some great, well thought out suggestions.

Time for one less so:

I want my military advisor to speak in variable terms much as the "History of the World" report does: "Compared to these guys our military is pathetic, weak, average, strong, massive, overwhelming, Godzilla-like, etc.

And if I have to have a cultural advisor. Make her less than worthless.

[Panag]

Originally posted by TheArsenal
Some great, well thought out suggestions.

Time for one less so:

I want my military advisor to speak in variable terms much as the "History of the World" report does: "Compared to these guys our military is pathetic, weak, average, strong, massive, overwhelming, Godzilla-like, etc.

And if I have to have a cultural advisor. Make her less than worthless.

hi ,

yep indeed , the cultural advisor should be saying something like ; " if you dont build in city so and so a cathedral or get some lux goods or so that city is going into revolt in ten turns " , .....

Soren , ......

have a nice day

[TheArsenal]

D'oh! I mean "Make her more than worthless".

"Make her more than worthless" + "She is less than worthless" - proof reading = "less than worthless".

[Rommel2D]

I want my military advisor to speak in variable terms much as the "History of the World" report does: "Compared to these guys our military is pathetic, weak, average, strong, massive, overwhelming, Godzilla-like, etc.

Seconded. :-)

And if I have to have a cultural advisor. Make her less than worthless.

How about being able to swap the 'cabinet' members around a little? Maybe put the military guy in charge of culture:

"Sir, we _must_ build a temple in Tours- those heathens are getting out of line!"

or the trade advisor in charge of the military:

"Kill more enemies. "