Civ4 Suggestions

[altF18]

yes, i get it know fosse. should of got it from your first post...
hmm, now that idea i do like better than Stefu's (no offense Stefu, but you make too much of religion for a civ game - esp. with the messiah unit conversions)
in fact, its a very good idea - but for me, it abstracts religion a bit much - all 'religious' nations would have the same effect, so there would be no difference or division between them. i kinda liked the idea of religions having unique social and cultural effects.
and in practicular, the crusades and the rise of Islam and how it is today. but perhaps the "Fundamentalist" government could cover that - it would encourage military spread in the name of the State Religion.
Actually, it sounds like a good idea!
though, it would leave out the function of coverting and spreading your own religion to others for the advantages of cultural influence and diplomacy, the whole jihad/crusade missionary thing. i kinda liked that also.
but, whichever would work out better and appeal more.
lets keep the ideas flowing!

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I think that, with Fosse's idea of Religion as a "Social Engineering" tool, there could be a way of easily introducing religious aspects into the game as a whole. If we assume that, how religious a Civ is is dependant on both a combo of SE decisions (like SMAC), and the number of religious improvements which exist in the game, then it might also be possible to make certain "religious" units available to Civs, but only if they have both appropriate improvements and traits. "Missionaries" or "Prophets", for example, could be built if the Civ has both the appropriate tech, and correct improvements. These could then be used to create the equivalent of "Foreign Nationals" in the cities of other Civs! e.g. if your French, your French missionaries could travel to foreign Cities and Prosetylize to the people there, potentially creating "French" citizens within the city (they aren't REALLY French, they are just converts to your Civs religion!) With the Civ3 notion of "Culture Flip" it could be possible that, with enough converts, the city could come over to you completely! The chance of creating converts should, of course, be dependant on the SE choices of both your Civ and the civ whose citizens you're trying to convert! (e.g., the more religious your Civ is, the better your base chance of Conversion, with that being reduced or increased by the happiness of the citizens you're trying to convert, their cultural relationship to your Civ, and how Secular/Religious they are!) The presence of religious improvements and effects of appropriate religious Small/Great Wonders would also effect the chance of conversion!
Anyway, I hope that adds something useful to the idea Pool!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[altF18]

Religion refined, a bit... and cultural influence

ok, Fosses idea IMO is the best. Distinct religion as I suggested still emphasizes too much on the issue, and it isn't that important to the civ game. Stefu’s makes far too much out of it.
My suggestions to his Idea.
Strict State Religion – generates full amount of tithes, allows missionaries, extra bonuses to religious improvements, extra civ culture – discourages immigration. (due to persecution of non-conformists)
Tolerant State Religion – less tithes income since the faith is shared, less bonuses to RI, increases immigration, allows missionaries, extra influential culture.
Secular (or other name) – no tithes as church is separate from state, less effects from RI since they are independent, extra civ culture, increases immigration most, no missionaries, immune to missionaries
Anti-Religion (or other name) – no tithes, zero effects from RI, zero cultural increase, neutral immigration,
All sound bad? - well, such an oppressive act ought to have negative results. But there’s upsides. Like secualr, no missionaries, immune, and also, since they’re not allowed to pursue happier means through spirituality or whatever, citizens are more content under usually bad conditions, and have a lesser chance of falling into discontent as they don’t have an idea of escape of whatever religion offers.
This could work in the reverse also, realistically, but this policy needs its advantages. So you’ll be allowed to run a Stalinist empire. The final stance is
Neutral – or no policy. (though, isn’t that secular?) all civs start like this – Religious Improvement’s are normal, no tithes are generated, and there are no cultural bonuses or elsewise. Religion exists on a subconscious level in your empire.
To acquire the stances on religion, you must discover certain techs. Perhaps Religion for strict, Theology for Tolerant, etc.

As for Government attitudes towards religion,
Despotism could choose any save Secular perhaps,
Monarchy could choose any
Republic could choose any
Democracy may choose any save Anti or Strict, the constitution prevents this
Communism may only be neutral or anti. Religious institutions working freely doesn’t work under this system.
Fundamentalism may only be strict. It gives bonuses of its own, and also has low regard for other governments.

Missionaries are like espionage, you send them to foreign cities through your foreign minister.
But before I explain them, I must address something.
I’m all for getting rid of Cultural takeover.
Instead, I suggest cultural influence have a different effect on foreign cities. Instead of them joining you, which is lame gamewise and inaccurate realistically, your influence would make them friendlier to you, plus perhaps give a bonus to your trade with the influenced city. Also, if your influence is high enough, it would encourage immigration from that city, and if higher throughout the nation, than it could entice the people, impressed and admirers of your culture, to want to immitate it. Not join you, but change to suit your interests – by adhering and changing to your economic system (if that is accepted, as proposed by me in a few posts above) and/or your government.
How about that?

If not, then missionaries would still work.

Whereas cultural influence only effects cities near your borders, sending missionaries to cities abroad would create cultural influence in them.
Propaganda takes this place for the non-religions.

How about it? Once again I look forward to opinions and input.

[Spiffor]

Here's an idea regarding Food and Shield trading. I have posted it elsewhere, but this thread is the Civ4's suggestion thread, so I'd better put it here.

The basic principle is this : you take some food from a connected city, so that it gets pooled, and you give this pooled food to another city. No caravan units, no bilateral logic. The logic is not "City A sends food to City B". The logic is 'City A gives food to the nation's pool ; City B takes food from the nation's pool".

More precisely, it could like like this. Here is City A :

Notice the +and - buttons left of the bar. By clicking the - button, you take food from the city to give it to the pool.

Once you have taken 2 food, the trade advisor could look like this :


There is now food City B can use.

Click on the + button, and voilà ! City B will grow again.


Same mechanics with shields. Food and shields in the "pool" would be tradable with other Civs the same way as resources and luxuries.

[brianshapiro]

To all those suggesting religion be incorporated in the game:

Real cultures also would have more aspects to them, including art and philosophy; but theres very little feasible ways to represent their influence in the game properly. would you have artist units or what? and how is religion different?
people should remember that this is a strategic game and there are limitations

if social engineering, as in alpha centauri, is back thats an easy enough way to add religion. if not, i dont see another option

btw one way to handle culture and art is something i suggestede in the first post of the thread, point 2, where culture would be based in the game on the resources, by having technological advance require output of certain resources, but this would also require large changes in the game. what did you people think about the idea though?

[amra]

forgive me if this has already been suggested but i grumble everytime i play civ about this...

how about an "automate pillage" option for ground, sea, and air units? if at war with a given nation, i want to be able to send out my sea power and just have it attack everything that moves and i am at war with... no ships? then bombard the hell out of the enemies land just like they do to me... but do it automatically...

this would give me a reason to build up a decent navy... i just can't stomach the micromanagement of trying to bombard the enemy with more than a few ships or planes...

and imagine this... build up a decent attacking army (archers, knights, whatever) and just sentry them with some sort of pillage option.. then when a civ declares war with you.. have the units you sentried this way just make a made rush for the border pillaging and attacking everything in site... it would make building up an army of non-upgradables (like swordman) worth it even just as decoys...

sure you can do this all manually but i'm just not into that level of play... the bottom line is to make civ4 have to option to automate just about everything for those of us who like to micromanage as little as possible...

amra

[Agathon]

Things I'd like to see.

1) The game extend to 2400 AD and the spaceship is only available right at the end of the tech tree.

2) Future techs including the ability to build sea cities on coastal and sea tiles a la SMAC.

3) Worker ships that can construct kelp farms and tidal generators, but also earlier in the game can construct underwater sensor nets.

4) Special ops units that have a high chance of remaining invisible and which can be airdropped and move rapidy to pillage tiles and deny the enemy use of bridges.

5) A move away from square tiles to hexes.

6) Plato's Academy as an ancient wonder.

7) Civil Wars (like in the original Civ boardgame).

8) Realistic pidemics and natural disasters.

9) Great cultural figures. Each city with high culture has a chance per turn of producing a great figure. Each one adds 1 culture point per turn to that civilisation. And/or a great figure goes to the first to discover a specific tech (e.g. Newton for theory of gravity).

10) The ability for fighter aircraft to interdict tiles to prevent (A) forces moving into them, or (B) forces leaving them (basically how it worked in the old "Red Storm Rising" boardgame.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I've mentioned this before, but I think that, if you can have great Military leaders, then why not have the ability to have "Great Artists", "Great Scientists" "Great religious Leaders", Great Explorers, Great Diplomats-or even "Great Industrialists" .

"Great Artists" could be produced in a city if that city has a culture/turn at least 2-3x greater than any other city in your civ. That Artist could be "Sacrificed" to either rush a cultural improvement (or wonder) anywhere in your civ, or he could give an empire wide Culture bonus for X turns after he/she appears.

"Great Scientists" could appear in a city whose science rate is at least 2-3x greater than any other city in your empire. This scientist could be "Sacrificed" to instantly get any advance you are currently working on or, you get a bonus to your science rate (empire wide) for X turns. Obviously higher chance of appearing in Scientific Civs.

Pretty much the same deal for other "Great Leaders", with religious leaders increasing happiness effects of all religious improvements (or rush building one), Great explorers could allow you to reveal any hidden location on the map (about 5x5 squares worth, maybe?), or be sacrificed to produce a new city-free. Great diplomats might allow you to increase the value of all current trade agreements for X turns, or allow you to get one new deal that is much better than normal (one which might normally get rejected!). Great industrialists would allow you to either rush a production improvement, or give a bonus to Civ-Wide production rates for X turns. All Great Leaders would have names which are culturally linked (like Bach for Germany, Captain Cook for England or Carnegie for the Americans!)
Anyway, what do you think??

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[altF18]

@brian
regarding Religious representation, there really needn't be any. the way i put it, using Fosses idea, it would only be a complimentary to Culture, and the varying stances would have their advantages or dis thereof, adding a small extra way to tweak with your culture and use it in other ways. having missionaries being able to spread influence to distant cities should be representation enough. and also, in this idea, religion is abstract as you only choose your stance on it - there being no specific religions. so you could either use whatever religion it is for your own purposes, to keep the people happy, or to spread your Cultural Influence to far off cities.
(the Cultural Influence I'm talking about is not like in Civ 3, but a whole new concept in which there is no Cultural Take-over of cities, and influence on foreign cities only have other effects - the higher the influence, the higher the effects)

as for Great Leaders, i never really di take to them. they added more of an EE feel to the game, and seem out of place in the civ world. so i'm all for getting rid of them altogether, let alone adding in a whole bunch.
like i said, certain things should remain abstracted, and i don't think its a good idea having a great leader representing a whole bunch of individual aspects in the game.

but these are my opinions.

[Fosse]

F18... you and I are thinking on almost the exact same lines. The only thing I'd like different than your post is the idea that some government types couldn't choose some religion modes. I just don't like having that restriction.

I envision that certain types would go hand in hand, of course. So that a theocratic state would have its bonuses enchanced by a "strict state" religion, and almost canceled out by a secular one.

I know only a very poor player would choose two choices that cancel each other out (except possibly in extreme circumstances), but I don't like when the game tells me I can't do something like that.

Otherwise, I love your post.

Spiffor... an elegantly simple food trading system I'd love to see in a future Civ game.

yes to civil wars, yes to peaceful leaders. But Aussie, the one thing I don't like about your idea is that it might encourage players to hold back the culture or science in several cities, so that their top city would have a higher chance to produce a peaceful leader. I think that MoO3's "leader" system is actually really cool... every now and then you get notified that someone great would like to work for you, and they bring an empire wide bonus to you.

What I'd like to see different than that though, is that in Civ 4 when a leader becomes available (1 in 100 chance every turn maybe), you see what kind he or she is, and then appoint them to a particular job.


Military leaders could bring bonuses to an army, cultural leaders could reside in a city and increse its cultural output, science leaders could do the same.

I would prefer that leaders don't get to automatically build wonders. It's just... weird.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Fosse,

Sorry, I forgot to clarify the point about peaceful leaders. My idea is that your chance of getting a peaceful leader in any of the areas will, in part be based on your Civs OVERALL performance in a given area. That is, Civs who devote greater resources to science, Civ-Wide, will have a better chance of getting a Great Scientist than one that focuses entirely on military conquest. It's just that the city which recieves that Great Leader will be the one whose Science rate is significantly greater than all other cities (so you need both pre-requisites to get the GL). The chance of getting these GL's would also be dependant on Civ traits.
eg. Scientific Civs would have a higher than normal chance of getting Great Scientists, Expansionist Civs would have a better chance of getting a Great Explorer etc!
Hope that clears things up a bit .

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Fosse]

Got it. Sorry for the confusion, Aussie.

[altF18]

New Concepts... Energy and Economic Model....

Energy

I have already suggested this before, but it seems the idea is not popular. i will attempt one more time to propose the concept.
Energy would only come in with the Industrial Age. this would actually implement a concept seperating the ancient ages with the modern ones, or should i say, making the modern ages have something to be modern
about. right now, nothing changes. so the first point of energy would be a little more cohesiveness and depth.
What is Energy? The fundamental for maintaining a modern nation. It could be iconized as either barrels or lightning rods.
Certain Industrial and post-Industrial City Improvements would require Energy for their maintennance - e.g Factories, Manufacturing Plant, Mass Transit System, etc. This would also represent the energy consumed by the general population from their own homes. e.g, Mass Media would cost energy for supplying electrical communications to the populace.
These would be deducted immediately from your energy supply.
i can't think of a way citizens could directly consume energy, like food, as what would the benefits or overall effect be? so Energy would be the backbone the infrastructure of the modern nation, and also the heart Mass Production, which could either be simply the Shield output of a city, or, as i would like it, the Manufacturing and thus Corporate power of a Civilization - thus allowing Economic Prowess. It is an important factor in Real life, and though we're not working on that course directly, i think it is an important factor for Civilizations.
Where does it Energy come from and how would it work?
Once you're in the Industrial age and discouver Coal, you could begin to mine this
(another system of mine is that Terrain Improvements be more specific and less abstract - i.e, mines would be for collecting a resource such as iron and coal, instead of being universal production boosters)
and so your city would start collecting coal.
with a Coal Plant, that coal would be automatically turned into energy, which is needed for factories in this era.
(of course, you could still trade coal from your city, though this would deduct from your energy income)
later, when you discouver the importance of Oil, you would need to build Oil Wells on the newly appearing
oil resources. they would give your city oil, which automatically turns to Energy once you have built a Refinery. Like coal, you could trade oil with other cities still.
(trade how i'm thinking would be kindof like CtP - through your minister, you choose the Commodity you want to trade from your city and put it on the market for other civs to buy. there would need to be network connections for the transaction to be possible - on the ocean, trade routes would be visable as broken lines)
extra energy not covering Improvements or units would be stockpiled, and could be distributed nationally via the Spiffor system

So now, Oil and such strategic resources would not only be essential for your Military, but for your Civilization itself.
You would need them to support a modern Economy, which is an important pillar of your nation. In fact, the Economy is as important as the military, its what you right for - resoucres, goods, capital, and land for your citizens.

This, with my New Economic Model (which includes Manufacturing) would make for another level in gameplay, in how you play, possibly, and what you fight for. instead of waging war to enable you to wage even more war, you could be waging for for the benefit of your secured nation.
of, they could draw away from the War Mongering aspect of the game, incorporating a new and in-depth Economic aspect, one in which resources would really matter, as would goods, and the Demand of them from the people would be more important than is. You see, to gain an Economic victory, or simply build a Trade Empire for your profit, you could concentate on gaining control of the worlds resources by either conquering a colonial empire abroad, or, with Globalization, investing in them while respecting other nations sovereignity (except over the resources, of course )
The concept of Manufacturing adds to the Industrial aspect of the game, while also implementing a wider market and trade sphere, the one with higher demands and more value - and profit. certain goods could also
Globalized investment, and everything else.

But i'd like to hear everyones opinions of this so far...

[epics]

But why do we need this energy for?? IMO just one thing which would complicate the game.
You say that population would need oil and coal, I would do this another way: citizens buy coal and oil thus will give us some profit.

[Kuciwalker]

Energy adds far too much complexity.