Civ4 Suggestions

[Fosse]

I don't think just saying it adds complexity is enough to reject the idea. I'm willing to wager that most of us here WANT more complexity in the game, so that more strategic and politcal options open up. What we don't want is more micromanagment and junk in the interface.


A very simple system could be put in place that would make the modern age infinitly more fun, and the game's complexity (which shouldn't go up) wouldn't change, but the potential geo-political complexity (which should skyrocket) would.

altF18's proposal would suit just fine... come the industrial and modern ages you get a new readout on your domestic screen... Nation's Energy supply. The supply is fed by the number of power plants you've built and the number of raw materials you can process in those plants.

Energy is required as upkeep for industrial and modern improvments, without enough energy to meet your civ's needs, certain improvments that require it would mothball until you meet the demand.

Energy could be traded when enabling tech's allow it (so you could sell energy to a connected neighbor), or the raw materials (oil, coal, uranium) could be sold as is currently allowed.

Complexity? In the modern age you collect resources JUST LIKE YOU CURRENTLY DO, and build power plants JUST LIKE YOU CURRENTLY DO. The only addition is that those two functions are slightly different, and you get a display telling you how much energy you have and how much you need to run your modern country.


Historical accurate, adds depth, requires only macromanagment, negligible effect on game's complexity, AI could handle it easily enough.

I support the addition of energy 100%

[Spiffor]

Fosse :

At first, I was hostile to the energy idea, but after reading your post, I have changed my mind. The rationale behind it is :
- resource are a fun mechanics
- it is sad the mechanics is quite dumbed down. You only need one resource for your whole empire, making the strive for resources not as big as it should be, and not as fun as it should be .
The "energy" could smart up the resource system, making resource acquirement an essential part of the game, even when you have a big empire. Hence, more resourcehunger fun

I have thought of a mechanics that makes "energy" even simpler, interface-wise as your ideas.
The core idea is that resources are limited. For example, when you connect an Coal source to your road network, you get 10 Coal Per Turn (CPT). You can get a better output if you improve the terrain with a mine or a mine mk2 (if such a thing will ever exist).

For example, in the following screens, the Civ's first coal source has just been connected to the trade network. The trade advisor could look like this :

and your city screen like this :


Congrats, you have you ten CPT. It is now time to use them. 'energy' is one of the uses of this coal. For example, a "Coal Plant" would only be functional if you pay an upkeep of one CPT. This upkeep could look like this :


The existence of this coal plant brings you back to 9 CPT.

If I may add, I think that productions that require a resource to be built (like ironclads demand coal) should demand one CPT during their production too.

Essentially, such a mechanics won't force the player to build anything in order to make the modern era playable (unlike the forceful construction of "refineries" or such, as per altF18's original idea IIRC). But it'll make resources even more critical to the game, since the player will have to find a way to feed its huge industry and army, much like the same way it does with money.

But, for the mechanics to be fun, it will require a good automation of trade. If I'm peaceful, and if I acquire most of my coal through trade, I don't want to wade through tons of diplomacy screens every turn. There must be some simple interface to do these trades regularily.

For example, let's say I want to buy some coal from the Greeks out of their 20 CPT. A simple interface could look so. After you click on the coal from Greece in the Trade screen, you get this :

If you click the arrows, you raise the amount of coal you want to buy from Greece. You can also write directly in the field. The amount of gold per turn you are offering is calculated automatically by the game : it is the lowest amount at which Alexander will sell this coal. That means, whenever you add one coal to your cart, the price changes automatically. However, you can modify the price if you want to give extra money to Alex. For more complex deals involving techs, treaties etc., you'd have to go to the diplo screen.

What do you think ?

[Kuciwalker]

I like it! This is a lot different from previous energy suggestions.

[brianshapiro]

since everyone likes graphics, here is a depiction of my idea, described in #1 in the first message in this thread

[brianshapiro]

oops

[brianshapiro]

factories and other industries would require resources, to convert to other commodities. trade networks like in civ3 would establish presences of resources and when cotton and coal or whatever is connected to cities , fabric plants will spring up by themselves. also the farms and ranches, and cotton plantations, etc will appear by themselves in appropriate areas if you have the resources to build them available.= less micromanagement. also residential squares exist to represent population spread. each residence square has several levels of development like in the game Caesar/Pharoah.

[epics]

War system
In ancient times and also in medival times nto ever battel was fought in a time of war. Countries, like Poland, Prussia, Turks and some muslem countries (just my exemple) just entered each others land and plundered thier cities, fields etc. Sure, it caused some unhappines and those countries didn't liked each other but wars strucked rarely, it were just some border battles.
In civ, until i.e. Middle ages we could attack other country without having to declere war but maybe only outside theirs borders. For exemple they have a worker building a road outside thier territory and we could attack him and seize him. I was thinking of being able to attack and plunder cities but it would be too powerfull.
Ofcorse when me or him enter a middle age attack would cause war.

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by epics
War system
In ancient times and also in medival times nto ever battel was fought in a time of war. Countries, like Poland, Prussia, Turks and some muslem countries (just my exemple) just entered each others land and plundered thier cities, fields etc. Sure, it caused some unhappines and those countries didn't liked each other but wars strucked rarely, it were just some border battles.
In civ, until i.e. Middle ages we could attack other country without having to declere war but maybe only outside theirs borders. For exemple they have a worker building a road outside thier territory and we could attack him and seize him. I was thinking of being able to attack and plunder cities but it would be too powerfull.
Ofcorse when me or him enter a middle age attack would cause war.

How about taking control of cities temporaily and then forcin the looser to buy them back one by one just like european wars?

[epics]

Usually the AI don't have money so the player is going to get nothing.
do you agree with me about those wars?

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by epics
Usually the AI don't have money so the player is going to get nothing.
do you agree with me about those wars?

Yup.

We need MORE WAYS to fight wars. And an option to have limited conflicts. The only limitation to conflicts scale in Civ3 is with or without nuclear weapons.

[epics]

Yes limited conflicts as some local wars in some 3rd world countries in Africa where they use mostyly infantry and mortars. But this would require tactical map. This could be done but we should lower number of units (maybe by increaseing thier cost) thus lowering number of battles.

[Fosse]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Fosse :

At first, I was hostile to the energy idea, but after reading your post, I have changed my mind.

I win!

Just kidding.

The rationale behind it is :
- resource are a fun mechanics
- it is sad the mechanics is quite dumbed down. You only need one resource for your whole empire, making the strive for resources not as big as it should be, and not as fun as it should be .

Agreed. 100%

I have thought of a mechanics that makes "energy" even simpler, interface-wise as your ideas.
The core idea is that resources are limited. For example, when you connect an Coal source to your road network, you get 10 Coal Per Turn (CPT).

Yes . This is exactly what I have in mind for all resources. I think it should apply to all resources, and be used as you say to limit the number of units one can build. So in the ancient age with one source of iron providing me 3 IPT, I could build no more than three at swords at a time.

I also envision that some units would require a resource per turn upkeep... so a tank might cost 1 OilPT to build, and then 1 OilPT to operate each turn. This would make cutting off an enemie's oil production as crucial in the game as in real life. What do we think?

For example, in the following screens, the Civ's first coal source has just been connected to the trade network. The trade advisor could look like this :

and your city screen like this :


Congrats, you have you ten CPT. It is now time to use them. 'energy' is one of the uses of this coal. For example, a "Coal Plant" would only be functional if you pay an upkeep of one CPT. This upkeep could look like this :


The existence of this coal plant brings you back to 9 CPT.

Agreed.

Essentially, such a mechanics won't force the player to build anything in order to make the modern era playable (unlike the forceful construction of "refineries" or such, as per altF18's original idea IIRC). But it'll make resources even more critical to the game, since the player will have to find a way to feed its huge industry and army, much like the same way it does with money.

Here's where I start to think differently. If that coal plant we just build doesn't multiply the number of shields our city produces (which is kind of silly... a factory wihtout a power plant doesn't produce 50% of what one with a power plant does... it doesn't produce anything), but instead it provides an energy output from the coal it receives, say 10 Energy per turn for the 1 coal per turn spent, then we can spend that energy in other places:

2 Energy per turn for each factory. 2 for each manufacturing plant. 1 energy per turn for each late industrial and modern age improvment.

The energy per turn, in order to keep things simple enough to stay fun, would just go into a national pool where any city could draw from it.

Thus, a modern economy needs energy, because stock exchanges, factories and commercial docks need it to operate... so if you're energy poor you'll be cash poor... like real life, and have an incentive to GET THE ENERGY!


I imagine that oil would be much more productive than coal, and uranium would be incredibly productive.

But, for the mechanics to be fun, it will require a good automation of trade. If I'm peaceful, and if I acquire most of my coal through trade, I don't want to wade through tons of diplomacy screens every turn. There must be some simple interface to do these trades regularily.

YES! The whole trading/diplomacy thing needs an overhaul anyway.

What do you think ?

I like the way you think!

[Fosse]

Brian... I think I like you're idea... but I'm a bit unclear on some of it. Particularly I don't know when you want the player to be building things, and when you want them to be seeding them and letting the AI take over.


I agree that the declaration of war should be sperate from military action... not just in the ancient age, but for the whole game.

There would be a high correlation, of course... if I attack your city without declaring then you get a box choosing whether to go to war or not... and most of the time you'll probably say yes... but every now and then (city not worth it, I'm WAY bigger and badder than you, you have other plans), you might just send a stern warning, or pretend not to notice.

I like this for a few reasons... It's cool to be able to say [bugsbunnyvoice] This means WAR! [/bugsbunnyvoice] when you are crossed.

Creates an ability to have little "unofficial" battles... like settler bopping during the landgrab, cleaning unwanted units out of your territory... all with the threat of real war, of course.

UN could condem military actions without declaration of war, when the modern era roles around... something you've done for thousands of years is now frowned upon... and in the modern era you have to go through the international red tape.

[altF18]

Re: Energy

Thumbs up Fosse!!!
You finally got Spiffor and (around) everyone else to agree with Energy! I guess I just didn't find the right concept, , but i'm glad you introduced an appealing one that gets energy in the game!
and i like your concept over mine too. thanks for refining it, energy is a must.

Spiffor, glad you agree at last on Energy! glad Fosse could straighten things out. i like your proposal of the CPT, and thus all Resources per turn (something civ fans have been suggesting since we got civ 3)
definetly adds more flavor to the game.
and also, i agree we need a trade screen in the game, seperate it from Diplomacy.
Something like in CtP would work - our trade minister would actually have a use. so now, extra resources per turn we accumilate and do not need, we could sell on the market. set a price and await offers to buy.
or buy AI goods that we need. an advanced trade system.
on the collection of resources, since we're talking civ 4 and not an expansion for civ 3, i'm sure you agree road connecting to goods ought to be done away with. let's go back to placing workers on them for the city screen.
now roads would be only for movement and trade routes - which are set up via the trade screen.

back to Energy, however, i must agree with Fosse.
once you build a coal, oil, nuclear, hydro, etc. plant, they allocate Energy in a national pool. something like 10 Energy from coal, 10 from hydro, 20 from oil, and 30 from nuclear. this is pooled from all generating cities to Energy Production, from which all cities draw their energy from. so a city producing 10 energy but consuming 16 won't fall deficit (as long as it adds up in the national pool)
post industrial improvements would require energy and draw from the pool. if there isn't enough, some improvements, quote Fosse, would mothball.

this keeps in place the 'forceful' building of power plants, but is that really so bad? there wouldn't be any other way to accumilate energy and you would need it build an economically strong empire.
(otherwise, you might end up like China or Russia)

what does everyone think?

[Panag]

hi ,


, powerplants a'la c&c

have a nice day