YourCiv

[Whoha]

Okay so I seriously wrote that long-ass post that was probably the longest post in Apolyton history not made by curtis whatever his name was... and no comments or discussion? Not even Elok?

the cultural stuff is interesting, Sword of the Stars does something similar. A Human player has to know enough about Tarka language/how they think before Tarka civs can live on Human Imperial controlled worlds. Likewise knowledge into how they think increases the chances of reverse engineering their technology.

For my part I see plenty of 4x games with plenty of good traits, I don't have anything new to add to the mix but would like to see some more stuff combined(multimap,much better production que handling,engineer + public works improvement system,etc).

[Provost Harrison]

I'd design my CivVI, which would be poorly received both critically and by the community and then depart Firaxis on "mutually agreeable terms", all the while knowing I've been booted out on my arse for being utterly sh*t and breaking the franchise

[Dinner]

I'd basically make it Civ4 but with the hex grid and the slow expansion of each city's cultural sphere (and having the option to buy tiles). 1UPT would be gone, transports would be back so embarkation would be a thing of the past, but most importantly of all I'd design the game from the ground up to be MP and EVERYTHING in the game would center around being fast & good in MP.

[Provost Harrison]

So you want to make a game that you can't win?

[GePap]

Lets see:

get rid of the tech system and institute one in which you "research" certain branches. Before the industrial period and the coming of more organized research, the fastest way to increase your science rate would be to interact with other civs.

More of an emphasis on population - hexes could be worked by multiple population points, with limits on production as the number of workers increased, tyields based on technology. Population would grow or decline based onreal world formulas on population growth and disease - population would grow slowly until late in the game due to high mortality from disease and limits on food production.

Implement a "tactical" system of warfare, with the number of units and armies limited by your empire size (population). By this I mean that on the map you would see armies, each army made up of a certain number of units. A player could chose to have the computer figure out the outcome of battles, or could chose to fight battles when armies meet themselves (this is a system taken from Master of Orion 2 and otehr games). I think this would make the combat system far more interesting and realistic at the same time, without some vast increase in difficulty - though perhaps an increase in computing popwer necessary.

Implement a social system closer to that in the paradox games, with sliders for a variety of social and value systems.

Increae the importance of internal cohesion by creating a revolt and revolution system. I think Civ 4 for example is a much better game if you play all the Revolution Mods. Makes the game far more intersting without it becoming vastly harder.

[Dinner]

So you want to make a game that you can't win?

Fire up Civ4 and I'll be happy to whip your butt.

[Asher]

Okay so I seriously wrote that long-ass post that was probably the longest post in Apolyton history not made by curtis whatever his name was... and no comments or discussion? Not even Elok?

I thought it was pretty racist.

[Arrian]

I think the idea of conciously developing your empire's "traits" has some merit, but then you kinda get that with CIV5s social policies.

I'm anti-1UPT, but I'd put a cap on # units per tile, scaled to map size. 1UPT is an overreaction.

I think less control over research might be more realistic (obviously), but might suck for gameplay. It's a strategy game, not a simulation. I think I'd stick with picking techs.

I think a hybrid of CivIV's method of slowing expansion (cost for horizontal expansion, health/happy for vertical) and CIV5's might be good. Empire-wide happiness probably should play a role in things. Revolt/civil war should be a threat.

Economics... typically in Civ, bigger is better. CivIV (and 5, I think, though I haven't played that way yet) tried to counter this with the culture victory. I dunno. Having a lot of big cities usually means your empire rocks. There is very little downside, at least once you've built the necessary happiness structures and/or acquired enough luxuries (which dovetails nicely with being big). Yet IRL, having a ****ton of people is not necessarily a good thing. Like, for instance, if they're mostly horrifically poor. Not sure how to address this in the game, though. Limiting lux resources (1 source of pearls keeps X citizens happy) might be one way. Another would be to have happiness requirements scale up in a non-linear way.

I came to like CivIV's cottages, because they represented a long-term investment in economic growth (not that they were realistic, but that there was a near-term price (a fairly weak tile to begin with unless you are FIN and it's a river tile). I'd like to see something like that return.

Terrain improvement is one of my favorite parts of the game. I like moving my workers around and choosing how to develop the land. I'd like more variety than +1F if you farm, +1R if you mine, +1 commerce if you build a trading post. I also think there should be more change over time.

Food: as tech advances, food should be increasingly shareable empire-wide. Early on, a food-rich site might be a great metropolis (for the age) but in the late game, the mega cities shouldn't be those surrounded by food specials. I'm not sure how to work this, but I will say: NOT with some sort of manual delivery method (caravans).

-Arrian

[Elok]

Food: as tech advances, food should be increasingly shareable empire-wide. Early on, a food-rich site might be a great metropolis (for the age) but in the late game, the mega cities shouldn't be those surrounded by food specials. I'm not sure how to work this, but I will say: NOT with some sort of manual delivery method (caravans).

There's probably some way you could work food into the "trade network" system, have some cities be breadbaskets that reroute to others who use their mass of surrounding workshops and watermills to crank out industry. The thing is, Civ's present growth model is centered around food as the mechanism of population growth. I don't know how you'd change that to compensate.