Civ4 Suggestions

[Spiffor]

An idea that has just occured to me, and I didn't weighted the pros and cons, so it might turn out being a bad idea.

For information, I am in favor of reducing the Roads' and railroads' usefeulness, to avoid the map being cluttered by road/railroad improvements. IMO, Road/railroads should be used for transportation and trade network. The following idea is influenced by this opnion.

So, I have thought about other Public Works that actually connect cities to each other : telegraph/telephone lines, and fiber optics lines. These are not upgrades from the railroad, but are spearated PW that can be done on tiles that already have roads/railroads.
Fiber optics are the upgrade of the telegraph line, exactly like Railroad is the upgrade to Road.
Telegraph/Telephone lines would reduce corruption drastically, and increase money significantly in cities that are connected with it to the capital. Fiber optics lines would also boost research and entertainment in these cities.

If cities are connected to foreign cities with telegraph/telephon or fiber optics, it makes spying between those cities less costly. Also, the calculation behind culture flipping changes :
It doesn't take into account the foreign squares into the city radius anymore (only the amount of foreign pop, the overall culture rating and the proximity to the capitol are taken into account), but all cities, including within your borders, could turn to your opponent. The good news is that it works both ways, so that a player cannot afford to only give culture to border cities.

Telegraph/Telephone lines and fiber optics should be able to be built on shore/sea/ocean tiles. I don't know if there should be a unit specifically designed to make sea improvements, or if a worker in a boat would do the trick (if there are other sea improvements, a specific unit would be good).

It is very possible this idea is bad. What do you think ?

[Stefu]

I still continue to advocate the religion model that was defined and refined in The List's religion thread. I've pondered about this quite a bit and added to it somewhat.

In the model, religion would be a whole game concept in itself, and an important one at that. Religions would be independent from civilizations - they'd spread independently, and while civilizations can interact with them in many ways, they can still behave unexpectedly.

Basically, each religion would constitute mainly of it's adherents. These adherents are normal citizens in your and AI's empires - each citizen in a city would have a faith. In the beginning of the game all of them would be Pagans or something, then later on religions would begin to appear.

They'd start with a Prophet. A Prophet is a special unit (the Religion thread's final summary had him as a citizen, but I've thought about this and having a physical unit somehow seems nicer). He's computer-controlled. He just pops up at some city at some point of the game, then starts converting the populace. He's a fast converter, converting one person in one turn, and continuing this process until a half or so of the people are converted, then moving to the biggest city nearby (His movement rate is 2 - if there are no big cities nearby he can walk to, he can use a boat with a movement rate of 4.) and converting the people there.

Each religion would have specific attributes (a point of much debate in The List thread, and I opposed the attributes too, but the national attributes didn't work out too badly and it'd be nice to have religions that are different from each other than by name.) These attributes would be based on the religion's doctrines, for instance having Dietary Regulations could decrease the amount of food city produces while improving it's health. How much effect the religion has in city's production or trade or so on would be based on what percentage of the people in the city are members of that particular religion.

Now, the prophet disappears after 20 turns or so. After that, the religion has whatever people he has converted. The religion will soon convert more. Conversions are basically like battles between citizens -each adherent of a religion has an Evangelism rating and a Conviction rating, which are like Attack and Defense ratings, and victories in battles result to new people being converted. People in nearby cities and cities connected to other cities with trade routes (presuming those are brought back) will also figure in these battles. There's a detailed explanation in The List, which can be downloaded here.

From early on, the you can take different approaches to the religion. When the prophet appears, you basically have four ways to treat him. You can kill him, which has a 50% chance of him just dying without much harm done (other than few believers which can easily be snuffed out) and 50% chance of martyring him, which means that largish numbers of people throughout the empire are instantly converted and you have a huge problem in your hand. You can banish him, which has a smaller chance of martyrdom and results to the prophet being banished to the nearest nation to you (of course the religion can spread from there to your nation and will have a negative outlook towards you from the beginning.) You can tolerate him, which means he'll go on pretty much as described. And you can accept his message right away, which makes the religion your State Religion (more of that later on), converts a number of people throughout your empire to the religion, and gives prophet some extra conversion boost when converting your people.

You can have control over how you treat that religion after that initial event, too. There are five attitudes between which you choose. Toleration is the basic attitude, which means everything goes pretty much as described. More positive attitudes are "Promotion", which means that while the religion's not officially your state religion, it's clear you favor it. The religion spreads faster and it likes you better, but you can only promote one religion and other religions might not like this. Even more drastic is declaring the religion your State Religion, which means that that's the official religion, now. It spreads really fast, but other religions become even more PO'd. More negative attitudes are Intoleration, which means that the religion's allowed to live, but it's members have to pay special taxes and can't spread it openly, which leads to the religion not spreading as fast. And then there's good old Persecution, which means, basically, conversion to something else or the sword. The religion just won't spread at all and other religions trying to convert that religion's members get a bonus. If you have a State Religion, the Intoleration's the best option other religions can get - if you Promote a religion, then Toleration's the best the rest get. (I realize many European countries have state religions now and can accept other religions much like, but what I have in mind is closer to Taliban in Afghanistan than present-day Britain.)

I've talked about religions not liking you. Well, fair's fair - you can choose your attitude towards a religion, so they can choose their attitude towards you. These range from Holy through Pious, Lukewarm, Impious to Damned - and they effect the happiness of that religion's adherents. If the religion considers you Holy, then the people are very happy - if it considers you Damned, then they are very unhappy. Effects of actions like persecution and promotion are pretty guessable.

So the religions can make your people happy or unhappy. That's not all! Each religion, of course, has a leader who will pester you much like AI empires. The religion might ask for contributions, for example - those, and the tithes it collects from believers, form the religion's main source of income (it uses this income mainly to build Clerics, which it sends to far-away cities to help in their conversion, and in various shrines, temples and churches which it uses to make the people it's converted stay converted!) If the religion likes you, it can loan you money, bless your troops or citizens for a period of time (which offers benefits) or give you other nice perks. On the other hand, it can also require you to attack other nations - the ones which persecute the members of that religion, for example - or make peace with your enemies that are members of same religion. If the religion doesn't like you, it can use it's weight to get other nations to not like you, either.

This forms the basic religion model I currently have in mind. For more, you can read the Religion summary in The List - while there are many components that I've pre-empted in my newer design or which have been made obsolete or impossible in Civ3, there's still much more good stuff. I also have some more ideas concerning the religion model, but I'll post this first and sort the other ideas later.

One more thing. One topic of discussion was whether real religions (like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism) so on should be used. Naturally this is a touchy subject, especially with special attributes, but I do believe this can be pulled off. Of course, the player should be allowed the choice between real religions and random religions (Long live prophet Turywenzo and the faith of Turywenzoism!) with random attributes.

[Spiffor]

AltF18 :

I am all for the "acts and bills" idea, because it would allow to take drastic decisions with high bonuses without the need to build big or small wonders, notably for Universal Suffrage and such. But these acts would have to be difficult ot be agreed on, and they should have high drawbacks.

Wonders give huge bonuses because they have a huge drawback, that is their terrible cost. Acts should have drawbacks according to the bonuses they give too.


However, I am against you idea of energy, refining etc. Sure, it adds more stuff to the game. But does it add more depht ? More fun ? More interest ?
I think it does only add some clutter and no fun, but I may have missed the point.

[epics]

AltF18: Yes for "acts and bills".
We should have also the techs/wonders/improvments providing some negative effect. The people are happy of something but this thing also brings some negative stuff (not talking only about pullution)

NO for this energy stuff.
But this thing with selling resources is good (I mentioned it on some thread about 3 months ago). Should be able to sell to cities: oil and coal.

Spiffor:those telegraph stuff is waaaay too complicated

Stefu: I don't think this unit, Prophet, is needed. The religion just occure. We can tolerate it more or less (see how the religion thing was solved in EU). Nations with different religion could hate each other ie. catolic and islam and those countires would hate each other too.

[Stefu]

For some reason, I like the idea of the prophet unit, travelling from city to city. It can symbolize the early spread of the religion. Also, one of my ideas is that after the religion's gained a foothold, there could be minor prophets, who behave much like the big guy but often try to convert heathens in lands outside of the religion's original land. They would also be units.

[altF18]

Religion
i agree this should be implemented, but not how you suggest. instead, how about it be a like a government- you choose your State Religion and this adds some bonuses, has drawbacks and increases certain Improvements effects (i.e temple)
Religions should be named and set, not free, though this might bother some people.
the religions should be Paganism, the earliest one, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity.
Each has their own unique attributes (islam is better for militaries and control over despotic states, buddhism is good for contentment among large and not so rich ppls, christianity makes more ppl happy and generates good gold etc. etc. )
Civs of the same Religion have better attitudes towards eachother.

[altF18]

So, i see no one liked my Energy idea? is it because this is a whole new concept, and thus skeptical?
or does it seem like just an addon extra clutter?
i think it'll add more depth, yes, as you'll now have a new thing to worry about - making sure to keep up with Energy demands in order to stay Modernized. Sure, its like a new food bar, but that gives something to fight/trade and build for.
I myseld scraped the refining process to a level -
its like this, for your incoming oil to be counted as energy, you'll need a refinery. once you built it, oil automatically starts adding to energy.
same with coal, uranium, etc.
when more than needed is coming in, your city will have those resources to either trade or, another new concept, manufacture.
Oil is no longer needed just to support the Military, you need it for your Civ as a whole.
Take Japan - no army, but they still import oil for energy.
And it doesn't have to be used up one per pop. unit - maybe instead Energy would be for, yes, the Military, instead of raw oil, the Factory could require 2 energy units per workers there. (so a fatory of three workers would use up 6 energy) and certain improvements would use the rest. For instance, Mass Media could take 1 energy per 3 pop. units. Mass Transportation would guzzle up quite a bit. Thus, Energy would be the backbone for the Modern Infrastructure, the Military, and the Industrial empire of your civ.
I like the extra clutter it adds, imo, giving more depth and meaning to the use of resources, and something differant in the modern ages.
As for Manufacturing,
this too adds a bit more depth tp the Commerce and Trade aspects of the game, makes for a more Economic alternative rather than basically warfare.
it works like this, Maufactured Goods, or Goods for short, simply take the place of Luxuary items in Civ 3. In fact, thats all they are. Some luxuary goods remain that and cant be manufactured, like Spices, but others would need this extra process, which also generates extra cash.
Say you have a worker on Cotton - sent to the city, this would generate only a small bit of gold.
Now you could go into the Industry section in the city screen, see you have 1 cotton Raw Material. You could convert this into Textiles, using up 1 production unit to make 1 textile unit. this gets automatically sold to the city for, now, more gold than raw cotton.
or you could trade it to a foreign city in demand of textile and get even more gold.
Where does manufacturing production coem from?
well, you 'hire' a pop. unit into the Industry screen, (thus preventing him from working an outside tile) and he provides you the ability to manufacture 1 good per turn. hire another and you could manufature 2 of the same good (keep one, trade the other) or 1 of two differant kinds. 3 workers, 3 production.
with the Factory improvement, Workers would now be supply 3 units of production instead of one, expanding your ability to Mass Produce goods and become richer than before.
And you needn't micromanage any of this.
Your governor could choose how much pop. works resoucres and how much works Industry.
The Industry could be automated to build how much of each product it chooeses, and what products it choose. this cannot be changed by you in Democracies, or capitalist states, you could butt in and make changes any (or all) the time in Socialist states like Communisms or Despotisms.
Goods generate more commerce than raw materials, and also happiness among your citizens. (or some could increase production, like Machinery, or Biotechnology could increase science etc. Automobiles would require oil and steel to build, and would be high in demand, generating great commerce)
You need not micromanage it, but you would have to work your Civ usually in order to allow the process going. You still have to go out and open up resoucres for your taking and find markets amongst foreign civs.
If you played Simcity2000, its like that screen for Industry actually means something.
though this adds a bit of complexity and i guess, clutter, i think its managable and i for one, woudl enjoy managing these sorts of economic aspects of my civ.
like i said, it adds to the economic and commercial aspects of the game, and quite possibly allows a new sort of Economic Victory. After hearing your input on this, (which would probably be mostly negative, the way it looks ) i'll think about specualting on that.
i look forward to your opinions and thank you for bareing through my rant.

[altF18]

acts & bills

I'm glad the acts & bill responses are positive.
and i agree, with the drastic changes they make, they need some sort of drawbacks.
Emancipation Act has a good enough cost already - preventing you the use of slaves and thus maybe damaging your economic strength.
as for the others, we'll need to come up with both effects and costs for them.
so far, here's a few acts & bills i could come up with:
Constitution
Universal Suffrage
Patriot Act this would be a bill that would increase National Security by allowing you more power over the your citizens, making your agencies free to infringe on certain rights and liberties in the name of security. Thus, it'll be harder for spies to be planted in your cities (i'll elaborate on this just now) easier for you to detect them, harder for enemies and 'terrorists' to commit acts in your cities, and, it even cuts down on crime. The drawbacks of course would be major unhappiness due to lack of liberty and freedom, and the constant infringements on privacy, and perhaps some other things. I like this bill, but it'll also be very hard to pull pass the Senate - though naturally this'll ease down if something horrible happened recently, or if crime was soaring nationwide, or some enemy civ was really messing up domestic affairs via spies or otherwise, like if that wonder suddenly blew up......

[altF18]

on Religion again, there would also be Atheism, which would have no effect on temples and such (save minusing their natural ones) but it would generally increase Production, in a way, and people would also be easier to remain content in some conditions instead of looking for better happier lives. (so you could run a good Stalinist, or was it Leninist? Russia-type Empire )

as for spies, or I should put it, a new form of Espionage,
it would be like this: instead of just doing it like in Cic 3, you would now go into the Intelligence screen, but now you would need to "Commission Spy"
you could only do this to nations you have an Embassy in, unless you have built the Natinal Wonder - Intelligence Agency. now you could do it to any civ.
after commisioning spy and choosing civ you commisioned it to, you must choose which City the spy goes to. After this, you leave the spy ther, and he gathers "Intelligence", 1 per turn, 2 in the capital.
with 1 intell, he could attempt a mission, but will only have a 10% chance of sucess. let him sit and gather for 4 turns, its 40%, 10 turns (or 5 in the capital) and chances are he'll most likely succeed with the mission you assigned him, whether it be for Critical Information or saboutage. after a mission, all or up to 10 intell. is used up, but the spy may stay (he could even pull two missions if he sat there a good 20 turns!)
or he might get caught and captured, or escape.
escape and though the civ would be weary, you wouldnt be compromised, if hes captured, well, International Incident .
chances of capture are greater from the capital.
So, that's my Spy/Espionage idea, along with everything else. Look forward to your opinions/suggestions/criticisms of them, and for your own ones too!

[altF18]

one last thing concerning Religion - you would start out with your own called Cultural (meaning whatever your people made up to follow) which would have no effects on anything and no converting ability. there would also be None, or Freedom of Worship, or whatever name you could call it. I'm sure there's a name for it.

[epics]

yaa, in the beggining would be "Everybody Worship You". I like that

If you want that thing with manufacture etc. play Colonization.

About spy: so if he is in another city than capitol can he steal techs??

Tommorow I will think about those acts&bills thing.

Stefu: maybe you're right, a unit would be nice.

[Stefu]

instead, how about it be a like a government- you choose your State Religion and this adds some bonuses, has drawbacks and increases certain Improvements effects (i.e temple)

See, I don't like this. It doesn't really add that much to the game - it would just be another Social Engineering option. The wonderful part about religions being independent from players is that it adds a whole new dimension to the game a player has to take care about.

[epics]

Originally posted by Stefu


See, I don't like this. It doesn't really add that much to the game - it would just be another Social Engineering option. The wonderful part about religions being independent from players is that it adds a whole new dimension to the game a player has to take care about.

But if we choose our state religion our citizens wouldn't have to have the same religion. It would creat some problems maybe lower income if city's religion is different than the state religion, but it would be also complicated.
Religion, the way you want it to be, is too complicated for civ, maybe in the future the hole game concept would be changed so allowing to implement the religion, but this is a job for the Firaxis guys

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Spiffor

For information, I am in favor of reducing the Roads' and railroads' usefeulness, to avoid the map being cluttered by road/railroad improvements. IMO, Road/railroads should be used for transportation and trade network. The following idea is influenced by this opnion.

So, I have thought about other Public Works that actually connect cities to each other : telegraph/telephone lines, and fiber optics lines. These are not upgrades from the railroad, but are spearated PW that can be done on tiles that already have roads/railroads.
Fiber optics are the upgrade of the telegraph line, exactly like Railroad is the upgrade to Road.
Telegraph/Telephone lines would reduce corruption drastically, and increase money significantly in cities that are connected with it to the capital. Fiber optics lines would also boost research and entertainment in these cities.

Not sure if the additional types of PW is a good idea or not - and I'm thinking out loud as well - but from a strategic standpoint fewer roads would be very interesting. With fewer roadways connecting each city, and fewer means to move units quickly, protecting them becomes that much more important. And would in turn make pillaging a far more powerful and useful tool, in particular bombardment of railroads. That said, as bombardment is not the most accurate means of destruction in the first place, I don't think this would make it too over-powered.

I'm not a big fan of the clutter on the map either. So, another thought adding to yours:

While telegraph/telephone/fiber optic lines would probably be a complex addition, you may be able to bundle those ideas into type of roads, or road upgrades. Meaning, roads start out as dirt, then can be upgraded to cobblestone, then railroad, then asphault, then freeways, superhighways, etc.

[Fosse]

The problem with only reducing the usefullness of roads and railroads is that a human or AI with the worker force needed will still put roads everywhere eventually. I think that a maintnence fee is needed to help keep road building balanced.

The AI should be given very good rules of where and when to build roads, to prevent it from crippleing its economy by employing traditional AI improvment "strategies."


As for telephone/fibre obtics... I'm all for giving the industrial and modern ages something to distinguish them from the ancient/medeival besides different units. I'm a fan of changing the way you play the game as time goes on... so by the end commerce is more important than production, we have to worry about the energy needs of our civ, and we have global diplomacy.

If telephon/fiberoptics were implemented in a non-micromanaging way, I'd support them as big corruption reducers. This would actually be nice because corruption is viable in ancient and mideival times, but not so much after industrialization.

Perhaps just paying a fee on your F1 screen to hookup individual cities to your capital... no worker managment.